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Linh then placed the tiara on her head. It was her favourite piece of Nathair’s treasures, and something she knew he would be delighted to see her wear in the sun.Hopefully I can dazzle him into being joyous.

Lastly, a very light amount of makeup was applied to her face: just some blush, eyeliner, and a red lipstick.

May grabbed her shoulders and finally spun her towards a mirror. Linh immediately burst out laughing, which only made her sister’s gleeful expression fall.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked woefully.

“Don’t worry about it,” Linh answered, turning to her.

Because Nathair is right, this is ridiculous.She felt like an idiot wearing all this, but she also found it remarkably special at the same time.I kind of feel like a princess.The tiara didn’t help.

Her sister’s eyes flicked up to it sparkling on her head. “Where’d you even get that?” May asked, before licking at herlips with greedy brown eyes. “Can I have it once you’re done with it?”

Linh’s eyes crinkled at that, but it was her mother that answered. “For once, May, I don’t think you’ll be getting a hand-me-down.”

“I bet you stole my favourite sweater again,” Linh teased.

May lifted her gaze upwards. “It looks better on me anyway. Orange is more my colour than yours.”

Not anymore,Linh thought, knowing she was going to be gazing into the colour for the rest of her, however long, life.

After a final check of her outfit, then her mother and sister fussing over their own, they left. Her father greeted them outside, wearing a red suit that matched her dress.

The man, incapable of being stoic, gave her the largest grin he could muster. He opened his arms towards all three women standing on their doorstep.

“Look at all my beautiful women. I am the luckiest man alive,” he stated rumbustiously, waving in front of his face as if he was trying to fight back his emotions. “Linh, you look like a literal angel.”

Holding one side of her skirts out, she couldn’t help turning side to side for him. Her cheeks were warm from his compliment, despite being used to her father’s flamboyant personality.

“How’s Nathair?” Linh asked.

“He is rather surly, if I’m being honest. Does he usually hiss and snap his fangs?” He offered his elbow for Linh to take, and her mother and sister fell into a stroll behind them as they headed towards the village square. “For a moment there, I thought we would need to call the temple to bring us another antidote for his venom. He didn’t like me touching between his horns.”

A cold chill crept down her spine.That’s where my soul is.

Oh yeah, her father absolutely went poking where he shouldn’t have. Linh doubted Nathair would appreciate anyone being close to her soul, to what literally bonded them on a spiritual level, and he was likely very possessive about it. In the same way he was very possessive of her.

That unflappable obsessiveness made her stomach flutter.

All her musings disintegrated when she saw Nathair in the distance. Although he was supposed to keep his back to her, and had probably been told that, he turned the moment he scented her.

Her lips curled with humour, that she tried her best to hide, when he signed over the distance, “They put me in a fucking dress, Linh.”

Leaning closer, her father whispered, “What did he say?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered back, as her eyes crinkled with adoration towards Nathair.

A black suit shirt had been made to fit his size, but it was apparent they didn’t know where to...stop.It was long, going past the length of his humanoid torso. It didn’t help that he had no legs to put into pants. Beneath it, a white tunic stuck out from the collar, and already she could tell his ability to bend and twist had shifted it all wrong.

He looked messy, and she absolutely relished it.

By the tiny white petals all over his skull, in an eye socket, and even dotting his clothes, someone had put a flower crown on his head, which he’d ripped off. She was supposed to be wearing one as well, but she’d chosen not to in exchange for the tiara.

Her father was wearing one, as were her mother and sister, to highlight they were her immediate family.

No fanfare was made as she walked up an aisle of seated people, with many more standing off to the sides. She’d asked for silence, for Nathair’s sake, and she appreciated everyone wasgiving it. All that could be heard was a dry cough here or there, the shifting of clothing, and the grind of a chair.

Well, besides her father’s blubbering. Linh elbowed the crying man.