Tris and Kiara moved down the center aisle on a wide blue carpet that marked the way to the dais at the front. The dais was banked in candles over reflecting basins of water. Large vases filled with fresh flowers made a semi circle within the banks of candles. Out-of-season blooms were the handiwork of a land mage. Their sweet smell filled the room.
"I've been to a lot of Isencroft weddings, and they didn't look like this," Cam said to Carina.
"It's a ritual wedding. Most of the weddings you've seen are closer to what Jonmarc talked about. They're a handfasting. It's all most people bother with. A ritual wedding joins soul as well as heart," Carina replied. Jonmarc took her hand and met her eyes so intently that she blushed and looked down, giving his hand a squeeze.
TRIS AND KIARA reached the dais. They knelt facing each other. Tris heard it rumored that a ritual wedding bound the soul. Now, as a Sum-moner, he was sure of it, just as he was equally sure it was the commitment he wanted to make.
Sister Landis spread her hands in blessing as they knelt, and made the sign of the Lady above their heads. She began to chant and walked a protective circle around the wedding couple. Tris could feel the warding she set in place. Within the circle of power, Landis took a heavy chalice from a small altar. Landis raised the chalice four times, one to each corner of the room. Then from a flagon on the altar, Landis poured red wine into the chalice.
"Blessed be the elements. Wine from the soil. Fire from the sun." A tongue of flame flickered briefly over the chalice. "Waters of the oceans," she said, magicking a stream of water from her cupped palm into the chalice, "and the winds of the sky." She made a swirling motion with her free hand, palm down, over the cup, so that its contents made a vortex.
"Do you consent to be bound in life and in death, in body and soul?"
Tris and Kiara answered as one. "We do."
Landis took Tris's left hand and turned it palm up. From a sheath at her belt, she withdrew a ceremonial dagger. Landis drew the tip of the blade across his palm, opening a thin red cut in one half of the Lady's symbol. She flicked droplets of the blood into the chalice, repeating the same action with Kiara. Then Landis took the mantle from around her shoulders. She pressed Tris and Kiara's hands together so that their palms touched, wrapped her mantle around their wrists, and folded it over their hands. "Drink."
Landis held the cup first for Tris and then for Kiara. All around him, Tris could feel the aura of old, strong magic. His palm burned where the fresh cut mingled their blood. He remembered what it had felt like during the final battle with the Obsidian King, when he had entwined Kiara's soul with his own. And while he spoke no words of power himself, he felt something shift in his own soul, a sense of her presence. Landis held the cup for Kiara, and on the Plains of Spirit, Tris could feel the nearness of Kiara's spirit as the wine made its bond. Landis lifted the chalice toward the sky," and a wave of fire swept across the banks of candles.