Orbital Insertion

  Several hours later, the Aegis slid into high orbit around Kryssar 3, her brutalist form a stark contrast to the blue-and-white marble of the planet below. She joined Task Group Six Four, slotting into formation with the battlecruiser Draupnir and the destroyer Spearhead. The only ship yet to arrive was the destroyer Halberd, carrying the Draupnir's other Einherjar squad, Cobra.

  The tactical plot on Aegis’s bridge told a grim story. The wreckage of a Rilethi task force drifted in a wide arc around the planet, a silent metallic graveyard. Some of the larger hulks were already beginning to spiral downward, caught in the planet's gravity well, breaking apart into streaks of fire as they burned through the atmosphere.

  Before Wolf Squad could even begin their post-mission checks, Anastasia held up a hand. "Priority message coming in from Captain Clarke on Draupnir." Her gaze was distant for a second as she interfaced with Xerxes. "She's requesting immediate Einherjar intervention on the surface."

  A moment later, the message flickered directly into Ralaen's mind, its sharp, formal ásveldi syntax now instantly familiar. It was short, stark, and carried the weight of command.

  //RILETHI GROUND FORCES EXCEED ESTIMATED STRENGTH. INTEL SUGGESTS REGIMENTAL-LEVEL ELEMENTS. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE EINHERJAR INTERVENTION.//

  "Suit up," Anastasia's voice cut through the quiet of their ready-room. "We're going for a hot drop. The pinnace will skirt the upper atmosphere. We HALO from there. Counter-grav at the last second." She looked at each of them. "We're dropping right on top of the active engagement."

  A cold knot formed in Ralaen's stomach. She had read the manual on orbital insertions. Dropping from orbit in just a suit of armor, even a Mj?lnir, sounded completely insane.

  The Mk.4 can take it, Artemis's calm voice whispered in her mind. You will be fine.

  Ralaen exhaled slowly, the mantra Sigrun the Valkyrja had taught her at J?tunheim echoing in her thoughts. Flesh is fleeting. Iron endures. Will is the forge. She stood and moved to Garm's Maw's weapon racks. Her claws clicked softly on the deck plates as she walked. She bypassed the heavier Mk.3 plasma rifle and selected a Mk.5 plasma carbine, its design more compact and less unwieldy for close-quarters fighting. She slotted it onto the magnetic mount on her back. Next, she drew two monomolecular long blades, their edges shimmering faintly, and seated them in the thigh sheaths of her armor.

  "Ready?" Eirik's voice was a low rumble beside her. He was stowing his own pulse rifle and a matching pair of long blades.

  "Ready," she said, her voice steady even as her heart hammered against her ribs.

  "Let's move," Anastasia commanded, her tone leaving no room for argument.

  The ramp of Garm's Maw had already cycled closed. Through the deck, Ralaen felt the faint, almost imperceptible thrum as the pinnace detached from the Aegis and accelerated towards the planet. Artemis threw their insertion point up on Ralaen's HUD—a tactical overlay of a city, already tagged with threat icons. It was an Asuari colony, the architecture of low-slung, earthen-toned buildings with wide, open plazas unmistakable to her eyes. They were dropping right into the thick of it.

  Garm's Maw banked, a smooth, silent arc in the black. Ralaen followed the others toward the forward end of the drop compartment, past the weapon racks and equipment lockers bolted to the bulkheads. The deck plates here were heavier, reinforced to handle the stress of repeated launches, and the overhead was a tangle of conduit and cable runs feeding power to the systems ahead.

  The drop bay occupied the nose of the compartment. Four launch tubes stood in a row, vertical cylinders set into the deck with barely a meter between them. Yellow-and-black hazard striping framed each opening, and warning chevrons marked the deck around them. Above each tube, a status light glowed amber—standing by. Stenciled designations marked the lip of each cylinder: WOLF-1, WOLF-2, WOLF-3, WOLF-4.

  To the left of the tubes, a launch console was set into the bulkhead, its displays already cycling through pre-drop diagnostics. To the right, a rack of emergency abort handles hung behind a quick-release panel, red-painted and untouched.

  "Drop tubes," Anastasia announced. "Take your positions."

  Thomas gave Ralaen a warm, reassuring look as he stepped into his tube. The door sealed behind him. "See you dirtside, maeja."

  Eirik clapped a heavy gauntlet on her shoulder. "Be safe," he said, then moved to his own tube. The door sealed behind him.

  Ralaen approached her tube. The cylinder yawned before her, dark and waiting.

  "Relax," Anastasia said, stepping into her own position. "Just enjoy the ride down."

  "Easier said than done," Ralaen muttered. She stepped into the tube.

  The door slid shut behind her with a solid thunk. Her HUD glowed softly in the dark, her squad's status indicators showing four green icons—all in position.

  Launching in three, Xerxes announced across the squad channel. Two. One.

  The magnetic accelerators fired.

  The force slammed into her like a giant's fist, crushing her down through the tube. She shot out of Garm's Maw's belly and into the void, the pinnace already a shrinking shape above her as she tumbled into the endless fall. Adrenaline, pure and electric, surged through her, washing away her fear. Her target was a brilliant green icon on her HUD, and Artemis's calm presence guided her trajectory with minute corrections.

  As she hit the upper atmosphere, a thick, viscous gel suddenly coated her armor. The Orbital Re-Entry gel burned away in a corona of brilliant orange fire, absorbing the cataclysmic heat that would have vaporized a lesser craft. Riding down in just her suit was the single most terrifying and exhilarating experience of her life.

  She plunged through the layers of the sky, the planet resolving from a marble into a continent, then a landscape of smoke and fire. She could see the city now, a sprawling map of streets and buildings marred by plumes of black smoke. Artemis banked her body slightly, adjusting her course toward the largest concentration of fire.

  Okay, Ralaen, she told herself, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. You can do this.

  You've got this, Artemis chimed in, her voice a steady anchor in the storm.

  They screamed through the upper levels of the city, the wind a deafening roar against her armor. Then, with a gut-wrenching lurch that was entirely mental, the suit's counter-grav system kicked in. The fall slowed from a supersonic plummet to a controlled, if still bone-jarring, descent.

  Her landing point was clear now: a blasted plaza between a fortified line of Federation militia and a churning mass of Rilethi forces. She hit the ground in a crouch, the impact shattering the ferrocrete beneath her armored boots, leaving a small crater in the plaza. She rose from the three-point landing, a mythic figure in her wolf-skull helm, and unslung her plasma carbine.

  Without a moment's hesitation, she advanced at a sprint, the carbine barking in her hands. Bolts of superheated plasma stitched across the plaza, punching through Rilethi armor plating. Coilgun rounds sparked harmlessly off her chest and shoulders as Artemis highlighted threats, feeding firing solutions and movement vectors directly into her awareness.

  She was almost upon them. In one fluid motion, she stowed the carbine on her back and drew her monomolecular blades. The blades extended with a soft snikt.

  And then she was among them.

  She was a blur of bone-white battlesteel, moving through them like water through broken stone. Every motion flowed into the next—strike, pivot, kill, advance. Her blades were extensions of her will, hacking and slashing through cybernetic limbs and armored torsos. Artemis was her conductor, orchestrating the deadly symphony, her cool logic a perfect counterpoint to Ralaen's righteous fury. A Rilethi warrior lunged, its cybernetic claws screeching against her armored side. She twisted inside its guard, one blade severing its weapon arm while the other disemboweled it in a single, vicious arc. She was the thunderstorm Eirik had promised, and she had brought the storm with her.

  Kryssar 3 Militia – The Asuari Einherjar

  Corporal Joric of the Asuari Confederacy Militia slammed his last power pack into his rifle, the magnetic seal clicking home with a pathetic finality. The ferrocrete barricade in front of him was scarred and pitted, a testament to the last hour of hell. His ears were ringing from the shriek of Rilethi coilguns and the constant, percussive thud of their high-explosive rounds impacting the building behind him. The air tasted of ozone, dust, and the acrid tang of vaporized coolant from a shattered environmental unit.

  "They're coming again!" a voice screamed over the tactical net. "Left flank!"

  Joric risked a glance over the barricade. A wave of Rilethi warriors was advancing, their cybernetically augmented forms moving with a horrifying, jerky speed. Their reptilian faces were hidden behind impassive chrome visors, and the coilguns in their hands spat lethal rounds of metal. A militia member a few feet down the line cried out, a round punching through his flexible armor as if it were paper. He fell, silent and still.

  It was over. They were out of time, out of ammo, and out of luck. Joric braced himself, ready to sell his life for the city, for the Confederacy, for the few civilians still huddled in the basement behind them.

  Then, a new sound cut through the chaos. It wasn't a weapon or an explosion. It was a high-pitched, piercing shriek that grew louder by the second, coming from directly overhead.

  "Incoming!" his sergeant yelled, pointing at the sky. "Orbital insertion! Friendlies, I think!"

  Every militiaman who could spare a glance looked up. Streaks of fire, like meteors, were burning through the atmosphere, aimed directly at their position. They were impossibly fast, imprecise. It was madness. They were going to land right in the middle of the killing field.

  One of the fireballs grew larger, larger still, resolving into a single, armored figure. It wasn't a dropship. It was a person.

  The figure slammed into the plaza between them and the advancing Rilethi with a thunderous impact that cracked the ground and sent a shockwave of dust and debris washing over their barricade. For a moment, everything was silent. Both the militia and the Rilethi froze, staring at the newcomer.

  Joric's mind struggled to categorize what he was seeing. It was an Einherjar, it had to be—the size, the brutalist armor, the sheer presence. But it was… wrong. The standard human-pattern Mk.4 was a slab-sided machine of war. This was something else. The armor was subtly reshaped, the chest and hips contoured in a way that was… familiar. The legs were not human, but digitigrade, ending in armored paw-boots. And then there was the tail—a fully segmented mechanical appendage that swayed behind it with fluid, organic motion.

  A murmur of confusion rippled through the Asuari line. "What is that?" "Is that one of ours?" It was an Einherjar, built on an Asuari frame. The realization hit Joric like a physical blow. They were a myth. The ásveldi's ultimate irregulars. But an Asuari Einherjar? It was impossible. A legend from a fever dream.

  The wolf-helmed figure rose from its three-point landing, a motion of impossible grace for something so heavily armored. It unslung a compact plasma carbine from its back, and without a moment's hesitation, it charged.

  It didn't run; it flowed. A sprint that defied its mass, a blur of bone-white battlesteel. The carbine barked, a steady, authoritative thump-thump-thump. Bolts of blue plasma lanced out, striking the Rilethi line. There were no explosions, just the sickening sizzle of superheated metal and cybernetics as warriors were punched from their feet, their chests glowing cherry-red before collapsing into smoldering heaps.

  The Rilethi recovered, their discipline overriding their shock. A dozen coilguns swung to bear, opening up on the charging figure. Rounds sparked and ricocheted off its chest and shoulders in a shower of harmless sparks. It didn't even break stride.

  As it closed the distance, the figure did something that made Joric’s mind refuse to process it. In a single, fluid motion, it slung the carbine onto its back and drew two long, shimmering blades from its thighs.

  It hit the Rilethi line like a thunderclap.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  It was a whirlwind of destruction. A dervish of flowing blades and impossible speed. The Rilethi were cybernetically enhanced and deadly, but against this impossible creature, they were children. One warrior lunged, its cybernetic claws extended. The figure twisted inside its guard, one blade severing the weapon arm at the shoulder while the other disemboweled it in a single, vicious arc. It moved through the squad, a dance of death, hacking, slashing, and breaking bodies with brutal efficiency.

  The militia watched, transfixed. The pressure on their line vanished as the Rilethi squad disintegrated under the onslaught. Joric lowered his rifle, feeling utterly useless and profoundly awed. The thing they had been fighting for their lives was being torn apart in seconds.

  It was one of them. An Asuari—but transformed, elevated into a walking avatar of war. A myth given flesh and fury.

  The slaughter was not a battle; it was an execution. The Rilethi, who had been the harbingers of their death just moments before, were now simply obstacles in a path of destruction. Joric could only watch, his rifle forgotten in his hands, as the armored figure became the center of a vortex of violence.

  She moved with a liquid grace that defied the bulk of her armor. Every step, every twist, every slash was economical and lethally precise. A Rilethi warrior charged, its coilgun roaring. The armored figure sidestepped, her segmented tail whipping around to smash into the creature’s knee, buckling its leg. As it fell, she brought one blade down in a clean, vertical arc that split its helmet and skull in two. She didn't even pause, flowing into the next target.

  "By the Ancestors," a young militiaman whispered beside Joric, his voice trembling. "What is that?"

  "It has to be an Einherjar," another voice, rougher with disbelief, replied. "I've seen the vids... the ones from the front lines. They move like that."

  "No," Joric said, his eyes narrowed as he tried to reconcile the impossible sight with the blurry, chaotic footage he’d managed to download once before it was scrubbed from the net. "Einherjar in the vids are human. This… this is one of us. Look at the legs, the tail… it's built for an Asuari."

  The Rilethi, for all their cybernetic might, were thrown into chaos. They tried to form a firing line, but she was too fast. She was a blur, a ghost in bone-white armor that appeared among them, and bodies fell in her wake. One Rilethi, larger than the rest and fitted with a heavy plasma cannon, managed to get a bead on her. It fired, and a bolt of energy the size of Joric’s fist screamed through the air. The armored figure didn't dodge. She threw one of her monomolecular blade in a short, underhand throw. The spinning shard of metal intercepted the plasma bolt mid-air, the two energies annihilating each other in a blinding flash.

  "Did you see that?" the young militiaman squeaked. "The vids never showed anything like that! The Council scrubs them before we can see anything good!"

  "Maybe the Council doesn't want us to know the whole truth," the older vet muttered, but his voice was hollow, stripped of all certainty.

  Within minutes, it was over. The last of the Rilethi force was cut down in less than thirty seconds. The armored figure stood alone in the center of the plaza, a lone island of stillness in a sea of carnage. Steam hissed from severed cybernetics, and the air was thick with the smell of burnt metal and cooked flesh. She slowly rotated her head, the wolf-skull helm scanning the surroundings for more threats.

  Finding none, she turned her glowing red optics toward the militia's barricade. Joric felt a collective intake of breath. Every single one of them instinctively shrank back. The power that had just obliterated a hundred-strong enemy was now focused on them.

  She took a step toward them, then another. The sound of her armored paw-boots crunching on broken ferrocrete was unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. She stopped a dozen meters from their position, a silent, imposing sentinel. For a long moment, she just stood there, watching them, her face hidden behind the impassive, snarling visage of the helm. The mystery remained absolute.

  Ralaen stopped a few meters away from the Asuari militia line. Through her optics, she could see their faces clearly—shocked, dirty, and full of a raw, undisguised awe. Artemis highlighted their biometrics on her HUD: elevated heart rates, adrenaline spikes, but no hostile intent. Good. She smoothly stowed her monomolecular blades in their thigh sheaths, the snikt of the blades retracting barely audible over the crackling fires.

  Her gaze settled on the one with officer's markings on his tattered uniform. "You in charge, Corporal?" she asked, her voice clear through the external speakers.

  The Asuari, a male with greying muzzle fur, seemed to jolt as if struck. He stared at her wolf-skull helm for a second before managing a stuttered, "Y-yes. That's me, Einherjar."

  Ralaen gave a short, sharp nod. "This area is now secure. There's a Federation force due east, about one hundred meters. They're taking pressure. You will link up with them. They need the support." As she spoke, Artemis flicked the relevant tactical data from the Draupnir's overwatch feed directly into her mind—a map, friendly IFF tags, and the recommended rally point.

  As she turned to move away, the corporal found his voice. "Wait! Who… who are you?"

  The question stopped her in her stride. She stood silent for a moment, the red optics of her helm glowing steadily. Who am I? she thought. Not just a soldier. Not just Ralaen. She was the product of the Black Trials, the Crown Trials, the Ascension. She was what the brutal Einherjar training had forged her into. What the Allfather had chosen.

  She made her decision and spoke, her voice shifting to the crisp, formal cadence of ásveldi. "I am one of the Allfather's warriors. I am Einherjar Ralaen."

  Without waiting for a reply, she turned her back on the militia and started off due north, towards the sound of renewed fighting and the orange flash of explosions. Her quick walk soon translated into a ground-eating sprint, and within seconds, she had disappeared from their view.

  Joric was dumbstruck. The voice that had spoken… it was in ásveldi. The language of the humans, of the Imperium. But that had unmistakably been an Asuari. The form and look of the armor just screamed it; the digitigrade legs, the tail, the sheer feline grace of the movement. But the words stuck with him, echoing in his mind. Einherjar Ralaen.

  Shaking his head to clear the shock, he barked, "You heard her! Form up! We're moving east!" But even as he pushed them forward, a torrent of confused whispers rose from his men. Joric had no answers for them. He was asking himself the very same questions. He pushed his squad toward the east. There would be time for questions later, if they survived.

  Aftermath

  Ralaen was tired. It was a deep, bone-grinding weariness that permeated every fiber of her being, a feeling she hadn't known since the Crown Trials. For hours, she had been a blur of motion, a ghost of bone-white armor moving from fight to fight, street to street, block to block. She had dispatched Rilethi platoons, squads, and entire companies, her momentum an unstoppable force. She remembered charging straight through the ferrocrete wall of a municipal building, exploding into the street beyond to slam into a squad of Rilethi in the act of murdering a group of huddled civilians. She had made short, brutal work of them.

  Now, the fury had ebbed, leaving only the exhaustion.

  She sat on the lowered ramp of Garm's Maw, which had touched down in the scorched grass of a city park. The pinnace's simple VI, guided in by Anastasia's AI partner Xerxes, had performed flawlessly. Her helmet sat beside her, its snarling visage inert. In one hand, she clutched a bottle of water; in the other, an Einherjar bar—a dense, brick-like energy bar developed specifically to fuel their astronomical calorie requirements. Was it tasty? Ralaen wasn't sure she could describe it. It vaguely tasted of almonds and honey, but she was too hungry to properly taste anything. She was tearing into it, chewing mechanically, trying to replace the massive energy deficit.

  Slow down, Artemis's calm voice chuckled in her mind. I fear you are going to choke, and I would prefer not to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

  Halfway through the bar, Eirik finally appeared, walking over from the park's entrance, which was now dominated by the 40-meter-long assault pinnace. "Hey, beautiful," he called, his voice warm and familiar. He pulled his own helmet off, clipping it to his belt, and his gaze softened as he saw the blissful, almost mindless look on her face as she ate.

  He sat down beside her, grabbing one of the bars from the pile on the ramp and unwrapping it. He took a bite, his eyes drifting to the small group of Asuari civilians who had gathered at the park's gate. They kept their distance, but their eyes were fixed on them, a mixture of fear and awe in their expressions.

  "Think they're afraid to approach?" he asked, his voice low.

  "I don't know," Ralaen responded, swallowing a mouthful. "I think they may want to, but they aren't sure if they're allowed to. And I don't know what to tell them either."

  "You should talk to them," he said gently. "Even if you no longer belong to the same nation, you still belong to the same race. They might appreciate seeing a familiar face and hearing their language."

  He's right, Artemis prodded softly in her mind.

  Ralaen finished her bar with a final, decisive bite and sighed. "You're right," she said to Eirik. To Artemis, she simply thought, Yes, mother, using the same tone she had used with her own mother a million times growing up.

  A wave of pure, theatrical indignation flooded their bond, an emotion so strong and so comically out of place that Ralaen could instantly picture Artemis puffing her cheeks in protest. Young miss, I am not your mother! I am far too young to be your mother. You will call me big sister.

  The feeling, more than the words themselves, drew a snort and a laugh from Ralaen.

  She stood and walked over to the small group of Asuari that had gathered by the gate of the park, carrying her helmet under her arm as she walked.

  As she approached the gate, the group of Asuari civilians huddled together. They were a mix of those most vulnerable in any conflict: the young and the old, and mothers carrying Asuari pups too small to walk. In her Mk.4 armor, she towered over them, a white-armored giant looking down. The tallest among them was an older Asuari man leaning on a cane; he must have been at least 180 centimeters, but she still loomed over him by a good thirty centimeters.

  Holding up her free hand in a placating gesture, she asked the group in clear Asuari Standard, "What are you all doing here?"

  The old man answered, his voice steady despite the weariness etched on his face. "We saw your ship land. I recognized it from the vids. It's an ásveldi assault pinnace. I figured this would be the safest place for us to wait out the battle." He gestured vaguely to the surrounding neighborhood. "So I gathered everyone who wasn't fighting and brought them with me."

  Before Ralaen could respond, she was bombarded by a stream of questions from several of the young Asuari children. "Who are you?" "Are you one of the human god-warriors from the vids?" "Why do you look like us if you're a god-warrior?" "Why don't you look human?" The questions tumbled over one another in a chaotic, innocent barrage.

  The old man let out a hearty laugh. "Hush now, little ones! Don't overwhelm the warrior." He turned his gaze back to her, his eyes sharp and knowing. "Your name, if I may be so bold?"

  "I am Einherjar Ralaen," she said, her voice even.

  The old man's eyes widened in genuine shock. He looked at her dubiously, from her paw-boots to the helm tucked under her arm, then something seemed to click. "You were in the Asuari special forces," he stated, more than asked.

  "I was," Ralaen confirmed, a bit taken aback.

  "Then you must be one of the ones they called the 'defectors'," he concluded, the word holding a mix of official disdain and personal curiosity.

  Ralaen was stunned. How could he possibly know that? Her expression must have given her away, because he laughed again, a dry, rasping sound. "I was in the navy myself," he explained. "Retired a couple of years back, but I still have contacts. Heard the scuttlebutt about the 'defectors' who took up service with the humans. I just put two and two together when I saw you." He gestured towards the pinnace. "Is it alright if we wait here? By the ship?"

  "It's fine," Ralaen said. "But you cannot enter the pinnace."

  She walked back to the ship with the old man, the small group of civilians trailing in their wake. As they reached the ramp, Eirik had just finished his own energy bar and stood up. "What did they want?" he asked, his eyes on the civilians.

  Ralaen explained what the old man had told her. She and Eirik sat back down on the ramp, and the old man joined them, his cane resting against his knee. They talked for a while, exchanging stories—Ralaen and Eirik of the war, the old man of his time in the navy and the neighborhood he'd lived in for sixty years. The children, sensing the calm, began to play in the park under the watchful eyes of the elders and mothers. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Ralaen felt a sense of normalcy, of peace. She was just a woman talking with her mate and an elder, the sounds of battle fading into the background. The old man’s next words shattered the illusion. "How long have you two been mated?" he asked, his tone casual.

  Ralaen's tail and ears went rigid. Eirik simply raised an eyebrow at the complete non sequitur.

  The old man chuckled and tapped his nose. "Your friend there carries your smell, and you carry his. The way you look at each other tells me the rest."

  Ralaen spluttered, her face heating up under her fur. She tried to explain to Eirik what the old man meant, something about scent and bonds, but the words tangled in her mouth and failed completely. She had read up on human marriage rites; they involved rings and vows in front of an altar. They had done none of that.

  ...The old man chuckled again, clearly enjoying their discomfort, and turned to Eirik. "In Asuari culture, when a pair bonds, when they mate, they are considered married. They carry each other's scent as a sign of that bond."

  Meanwhile, Ralaen felt and looked like she desperately wanted to find a deep hole to bury herself in.

  As the old man finished his explanation, Eirik looked from the old man back to Ralaen's mortified face. He couldn't smell anything, but the old man's words struck him with unexpected force. Married. Not just bonded, not just mates in the primal sense they'd acknowledged to each other—but married. A formal union, recognized by her people, carrying the weight of law and tradition. Something she had known and hadn't told him.

  "You didn't tell me it meant this," he said, his voice quiet but tight. "That we're... married. By your people's reckoning."

  Ralaen tried to sink deeper into her armor, a futile attempt to disappear. She mumbled, "I... I thought you wouldn't understand. What it meant. How serious it was."

  Eirik's jaw tightened, hurt flickering across his features. "You were scared of what others would think," he said slowly, her earlier words echoing back. "Your parents. Asuari society." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough. "Were you ashamed of us, Ralaen? Of me?"

  At that, she shot to her feet so fast the old man beside her stumbled back in surprise. Tears welled in her eyes, hot and sudden. "No!" she yelled, her voice cracking. "I was never ashamed of you! I was scared they wouldn't accept it—wouldn't accept us." Her voice faltered, the anger dissolving into raw fear. "I didn't know how to explain it to you. I didn't know if I was worthy of what it meant... of being bound to you like that, in the eyes of my people, when I'd already left everything else behind."

  Eirik's anger didn't fade. It broke. He looked at her, tears on her face, and felt something shift in his chest that he didn't have words for.

  He'd kept his own secrets. Twenty years. A failed relationship he'd never fully explained. He wasn't any better at this than she was.

  "Ralaen," he said. His voice came out rough. He stopped, tried again. "I'm not angry. I'm—"

  He didn't finish. He didn't know how to finish.

  Instead, he went to one knee.

  The old man made a confused sound. Eirik ignored him. He took Ralaen's hand, her gauntlet in his, and looked up at her.

  "I don't have a ring," he said. "I don't have the right words. I'm not good at this part." He swallowed. "But if we're already married by your people's laws, then I want us to be married by mine too. I want it to be real in every way that matters."

  He held her gaze, and his voice dropped to something quieter, rawer.

  "Will you marry me?"

  For a moment, Ralaen didn't move. Didn't breathe.

  Say yes, you fool, Artemis sent a mental poke that felt like a sharp electric shock.

  "Yes," Ralaen breathed. Then louder, her voice cracking: "Yes."

  She pulled him up and kissed him, hard and desperate, her arms wrapped around his neck. He held her like he was afraid she'd disappear if he let go.

  The old man watched them with a bewildered expression that slowly softened into something warm. When they finally broke apart, he gave a slow nod of approval, as if this strange human ritual had passed some private test.

  The old man's approval was a gentle anchor in the sea of emotions swirling inside her. Ralaen broke the gaze with Eirik, her cheeks hot, her heart still hammering against her ribs. She looked down at her left hand, still held in his, the metal of his gauntlet cool against her fur. Mate. The word echoed in her mind, no longer a source of terror, but of a quiet, steady peace. She was his. And he was hers. For the first time, that thought didn't scare her. It felt like the hammer striking true on the anvil—a perfect, resonant note of belonging.