Page 35 of Cider, Spice & Orcish Nights
“For us.” My voice cracks. Damn it. I clear my throat again, eyes darting away toward the trees, because if I look straight at her I might make a fool of myself entirely. “Wanted somethin’ that tied back to the orchard, to what brought us together. Somethin’ you could wear right over that big heart of yours so nobody forgets it’s mine.”
Her eyes go shiny, mouth trembling in a way that just about tears me in two.
I close my hand around the pendant again, holding it tight like I’m afraid it’ll vanish before I finish. “You’ll keep it, won’t you? Not just for the wedding. For always. Even when I’m old and half-crippled from splitting wood, or so grizzled the village kids run screaming. Tell me you’ll keep it—keep me.”
She laughs, but it breaks right down the middle, tears slipping free. “Stars above, Thornak, yes. I’ll keep it. I’ll keep you. There’s not a day coming where I’ll ever want anything else.”
I let out a long, shaky breath. Then I press it into her hand, closing her fingers around it, because if I try to tie it on myself my hands might betray me by trembling outright.
She steps close, rests her forehead against my chest. I curl my arms around her, hands splaying over her back like I’m trying to hold together all the cracks in both our hearts.
“You know,” she murmurs, voice muffled by my shirt, “we’re going to have to practice our vows. I can’t stand the idea of stumbling through them and leaving you with nothing but a pile of tears and half a sentence.”
I huff. “Likely I’ll be the one to muck it up. Never was good at speaking pretty.”
“Doesn’t need to be pretty. Just true.”
So under the broad, twisting arms of that oak, with its bark all scarred and mossy, we rehearse.
It’s clumsy. Maddie starts off by bursting into nervous giggles that quickly turn into hiccups. I mutter my lines half under my breath, voice rumbling low enough it spooks a jay out of the branches. But she reaches for my hands, tangles our fingers together, and suddenly it’s easier.
“I promise,” she says, eyes wide and wet, “to keep a pie cooling on the sill for you even if it means I catch the crows stealing them twice over. To be your reckless heart when you think yours has stopped beating brave. To remind you every day that you’re worth all this fuss and more.”
My throat goes so tight I can hardly get words out. “I promise to stand by you, even when my knees give out or my temper flares worse than an autumn wildfire. To build you a home stronger than any storm. And to love you so fierce it’ll scare off anything that dares to try hurting what’s ours.”
She lets out a soft, watery laugh. “That’s perfect. Rough edges and all.”
Then she pushes up on her toes to kiss me, slow and sweet, her lips tasting faintly of apple from where she must’ve sampled the orchard just before I found her. The pendant’s caught between us, warm from her skin. It feels like it’s sealing something right into my bones.
When we finally pull back, the orchard’s gone quiet again, just the faint rustle of leaves underfoot and the distant creak of branches.
She rests her cheek against my chest with a sigh. “It’s funny. I thought love would be fireworks. Big, noisy, showy. But with you, it’s like this—steady and strong and somehow… more.”
I stroke a hand over her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Good. Reckon I was never much for fireworks anyhow. But I’ll give you roots that run so deep no storm could ever tear ’em up.”
We stand there a long while, no hurry to move, the orchard around us brightening by slow degrees as the sun climbs higher. I start to think maybe this right here—her laugh against my chest, our promises still trembling in the air—might be what forever actually feels like.
CHAPTER 27
MADDIE
If someone had told me when I was fifteen, perched on a ladder in this same orchard stringing up lanterns for Harvest Hollow’s cider festival, that I’d be standing here years later—same orchard, same festival night, heart thundering because I’m about to marry the biggest, grumpiest, most wonderful orc in half the province—I would’ve fallen right off the rung laughing.
Yet here I am, trying to slow my breathing so I don’t swoon right into the baskets of spiced pears.
The lanterns are already glowing soft above me, tiny bobbing lights wreathed in little puffs of enchanted warmth to keep the night from biting too hard. Ropes of clove-studded oranges and rosemary sprigs wrap around every post. The tables are loaded up with hand pies, roasted chestnuts, tiny cider cakes—my heart practically bursts seeing it all. It’s exactly the sort of warm, rustic celebration I’d always dreamed of.
Except.
Thornak isn’t here.
I keep smoothing my skirts like it’ll magic him into view—my hands are already fussing over the lace at my shoulders for the dozenth time. Every time the breeze shifts the lanterns and sends shadows leaping across the orchard rows, I swear I see hisbroad shape moving through the trees. And then it’s gone, just another trick of light and leaves.
Beside me, Liora’s perched on a hay bale with a mug of warm cider, trying very hard to look casual. Which I know means she’s worried.
“Would you sit down, Maddie? Or at least have some cider before you wear a trench clear through the grass with all this pacing.”
“I can’t,” I whisper, voice pitched low so it won’t crack. “What if he changed his mind? What if he realized—right at the last moment—that marrying me means being tied to this tiny orchard forever, with all its nosy neighbors and my overexcited baking experiments and my absolute inability to keep from crying over little things like… like how he makes tea now without me even asking?”
