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I read that line again. They won’t lose the stall. I’ve managed that much.

Asha will open the blue shutters tomorrow. Tovi will complain about the price of flour. They’ll have the stall and each other.

They’ll still be angry with me.

I pick up the pen.

Neimura counts out the silver while I sign. The registrar stamps the bondhouse payment order, then seals the marriage contract in green wax. He gives me my copy and the bank receipt.

That’s it. I’m married.

Outside, the auctioneer calls for another bid.

We leave Tesseny the morning after the auction. By the afternoon of our third day on the road, I want to meet my husband very badly.

I’d also like to sit down somewhere dry and remove both my boots.

Rain has worked through my coat. My skirt keeps catching behind my knees, and the small bag on my shoulder gets heavier each time I shift it. Neimura offered to carry it. I refused on the first morning because it holds everything I own, and now I’m too stubborn to ask.

“Much farther?”

“We’re at the boundary.”

He points toward trees so large the road disappears between their roots. Pale lights glow beneath the branches. Beyond them, the forest is green and dark and quieter than any place I’ve ever slept.

Two guards step onto the road. Moss grows along their shoulders. The nearer guard bows to Neimura, then looks at me in surprise.

I pull my coat together.

“Stay here a moment,” Neimura says.

“I’ve been walking for three days. I’m unlikely to wander off.”

Neimura doesn’t answer. He follows the nearer guard into the trees.

The second guard remains beside the road, holding a spear taller than I am. Water drips from my hair onto my collar.

“Is there somewhere I can wait out of the rain?”

Branches creak overhead. The guard looks up as they draw together, forming a canopy above us. The rain stops reaching my face, though I can still hear it hitting the leaves.

“Oh,” I say. “Thank you.”

The guard looks back at me. “I didn’t do that.”

I stare at the new roof.

Then the trees ahead part.

My husband comes through them.

I know it’s him before the guard bows. No one who looks like that could spend his life taking orders.

Branching antlers rise from a crown of dark leaves. Layers of foliage cover his broad shoulders, and beneath them his chest and arms are ridged with green bark. He has to lower his head beneath a branch that would clear mine by several feet.

I forget how much my feet hurt.

Neimura has bark on his skin. This man looks grown from the oldest tree in the forest, with heavy ridges down his arms and black claws at the ends of broad fingers. Overlapping pointed leaves form a mask across his brow, around his eyes, and over the bridge of his nose. His green cheeks and chin show beneath its edges. His mouth is fully visible.