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"Glad you think so, now get down."

She flicked her tongue at him and moved off. "She's coming, you know!" she called. "I saw Ophilia coming through the garden."

Xeda straightened. He turned toward the house and looked over in time to see her coming down the garden steps. Fire rushed in his blood at the sight of her.

She wore not just a full kelva attire like the one he remembered her wearing from the games, she also wore a pair of grivhide on each of her shoulders and along her chest. Her hair was braided back, her lips blackened with paint with a stripe going down her chin. She looked at him and smiled, showing blackened teeth. Behind her came Mawla– an older lygin female of their house, carrying a torch in one hand and a set of horns in the other, a thin piece of rope under her arm.

They approached the dais, and Ophilia stood beside him, her steel blue eyes bright with their own fire as she gazed up at him. Mawla handed the torch to Ophilia first.

They turned to face each other. Xeda placed his metal hand atop hers as they gripped the torch together. Mawla took the rope and wrapped it around their hands. They rose the torch a little higher as Xeda recited his oath.

“I will protect her, I will guide her, I will be her fire in the dark, and her shadow in the light. As by a predomis’ will, I will be hers.”

They brought their other hands up to hover above the flame. Ophilia wore a special glove so her hand wouldn’t burn. They connected their hands within the fire and held them there.

“By this flame, we are whole,” they said together.

They separated their hands, then Mawla untied them from the torch and traded it for the crown of horns, giving them to Xeda.

Xeda placed the crown on Ophilia’s head, fixing her hair, brushing a stray lock aside.

This was not exactly how the ceremony went on his home world. They did not have the representative queens to watch them or the proper attire. On his home world, the rituals were a little different. They didn’t have a way to sign in the oath, placing them in the records with other past predomis and queens or to perform the many other intricacies that went along with the special rite.

But here, there were no such rules. Here, they made their own. Everything was different. But to him, this was perfect. This was theirs.

The witnesses and onlookers congratulated them, hollering and roaring, heads tilted to the sky, but Xeda hardly saw them. He took Ophilia’s hands in his and leaned down, resting his forehead against hers.

Of all the trials he faced, it was in this moment, with Ophilia by his side, their home behind them and their family beside them, that he felt victorious.

The Blood Guard Saga End