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Her big guy believed in silly superstitions—like seeing the bride in her wedding gown before the wedding was bad luck—and even though he'd only seen the train peeking out from the garment bag, he still thought it was a bad omen.
Of course, the real reason for his nervousness was his aversion to being the center of attention, and everything else was like sprinkling more pepper on an already uncomfortably spicy dish.
Dalhu offered her a half-smile, his gaze drifting to the window. "You are most welcome."
He always got overly polite when he was anticipating a difficult task.
It may have been ingrained in him during his service in the Brotherhood. Meeting his commanders and getting his despicable orders had been painful, and he had been forced to do that while bowing graciously and acting as if they were all that.
Reaching across the table, she placed a comforting hand over his. "This is our day, Dalhu, and there is no reason to dread the ceremony just because you don't like having all eyes on you."
He winced. "You know why I dread it. Not everyone is okay with me joining the clan and mating their princess."
Squeezing his hand, she leaned closer to him. "They have all accepted you, and no one is going to give you the stink eye. If anyone dares, they will have to deal with me, and no one wants that. We're celebrating our love, and everyone here is happy for us."
Dalhu nodded. "Perhaps, but I intend to look only at your mother and you and ignore the crowd."
Amanda chuckled. "You also have to look at your groomsmen."
"Right."
"And the bridesmaids."
"Fine. But that's it."
Amanda's gaze softened. "Don't forget to smile during the ceremony, my love. When our daughter sees the recording when she's older, I don't want her to think that you were not happy about marrying her mommy."
He turned to look at Evie, who lifted her eyes to him with a toothless smile with the toy still stuffed in her mouth. "Speaking of Evie," he said as he shifted his gaze back to Amanda. "Are we bringing her to the ceremony? I worry it might be too much for her and also about the practicality. You will be in your wedding dress, and I will be in my tux, and we don't want her drooling over either of us. But having her in the stroller during the ceremony would be weird."
"What if Onidu holds her?" Amanda suggested.
"That could work. He can stand behind us."
"Or even better, I can ask one of the bridesmaids to hold Evie." Amanda grinned. "That's actually perfect. Evie can be one of my bridesmaids, and I even ordered a dress for her from the same fabric and in the same style as theirs." She leaned and pressed a kiss to the top of her daughter's head. "If you were older, you could have been our ring girl, but I think being a bridesmaid in your mom and dad's wedding is special enough."
Ani
Ani did not condone Ahn's decision to allow gods to take human partners and produce offspring with them. She had supported almost everything he had wanted to change about Anumati and about the way the lesser species were treated by the gods, but there was a big difference between allowing them the same privileges that were available to the commoner gods and actually producing hybrid offspring with them.
"Are those immortals abominations?" She pinned Sofri with a stern look.
"They are not. They are precisely what you would expect a child of a god and a human to be. They heal fast but not as fast as gods, and they are immune to diseases. They can thrall and shroud in varying degrees of ability, and they possess an array of other mind talents like we do. But since there are so few of them, their talents do not run the full gamut as ours do. Aru met a seer who has occasional visions, but she is not nearly as powerful as even our weakest oracles."
"That is a relief." Ani let her shoulders relax a fraction. "El always feared that hybrids might be more powerful than us, and naturally, he could not allow that."
"It is possible that a child born to a Kra-ell and a god parent will have superior powers."
Ani let out a breath. "You never should have told the Eternal King that prophecy. He was already paranoid, but after hearing that a descendant of his would be more powerful than him and would usher in a new era of revival and prosperity to Anumati, he became much worse."
Most fathers would have loved to receive a prophecy like that, but all the king had heard was that he would be replaced and outshone by a descendant.
Tears leaked from the corners of her friend's eyes. "He asked, I have seen the future, and the prophecy just left my mouth. I am not always in control, and you know that."
"I do."
The weight of her own isolation, of the sacrifices she had made, and of the love she had lost pressed down on Ani, but she had not let them bring her down before, and she would not do so now that Sofri's prophecy might finally come true.
There was a glimmer of hope, a new purpose. Her bloodline had not ended with Ahn. There was still a part of him, a part of her, alive and breathing on Earth.
