“How are you feeling?” asks Ashe as she approaches me at one of the several tables filled with food and drink celebrating Uzuri and Mul’Rensi’s engagement. I look out toward all of the party goers making merry and I just feel hollow.

I swish a tankard of mead in my hand and down the entire pint in a single go. Unfortunately for me, after last night, alcohol’s sedating alure will never be felt by me again. I briefly enjoy a moment of feeling as if I’ll become inebriated, but my soul quickly detoxes my body. I must have accidentally trained my body and soul’s tolerance to alcohol after last night’s unfortunate binge. Now I don’t think I can ever get drunk again, which after what I’ve had to go through makes me wish that my soul wasn’t so good at maintaining my body and mind at peak condition.

Ashe removes the tankard from my hand and says, “I think you’ve had enough.”

“I wish that were true,” I respond, as I see Uzuri and Mul’Rensi being paraded around the underground ball room of the Western Mountain Halls on a platform suspended by four teratolion warriors. The platform is decorated in all manner of fabrics of vibrant colors that glimmer in the subtle glow of the mosses that illuminate the ballroom. Little metal bells and ornaments jingle as the warriors dance and parade the couple throughout the room. On occasion at the behest of the several party goers the warriors in unison would lift the platform almost launching Uzuri and Mul’Rensi into the air.

I grab a tankard larger than the last and chug an ale stronger than the spiced mead I had before, in hopes that its strength will counteract the speed of my soul’s ability to purge the alcohol from my system. Ashe forcefully takes my drink away from me. She looks at me in disgust and I tell her under my breath, “I can’t get drunk, at least not anymore, but I wish I could… I really wish I could right now.”

“Why did you come if you knew that seeing Uzuri engaged would do this to you?” asks Ashe as she pushes the ale to my hand again. I finish the tankard and poke at a hunk of boar meat covered in gravy and berry sauce on my plate despondently. I was taken aback by her question, as her words were shockingly familiar.

I shake my head and chuckle reminiscing on the past and respond, “Didn’t I say something similar to you the day Gareth and Lilith tied the knot. Go ahead and act all indignant, but if it wasn’t for me, one of the teratolion men in attendance that day would have taken advantage of your drunken ass.”

Ashe puts a hand on my shoulder, and I realize that she is only trying to return the favor I had done for her. We both have had to see the people we love fall into the arms of someone that wasn’t us. Ashe recently lost Lilith to Gareth and can’t confess her love to Lilith now he’s gone because of the Unadeamy’s religion seeing her love as heinous blasphemy. As for me, I’m in the thick of it right now, watching as the woman I sacrificed years of struggle, my freedom, and in a sense literally my life so that she could have the happiness of this moment. My heart bleeds knowing that perhaps in another world it would have been me up on that platform with Uzuri, but for the safety of her and her people, Skath must remain dead to her.

“To answer your question, I couldn’t not come, if that makes sense,” I say with a shrug pushing myself up to sit upright instead of with the defeated hunch my body wore before, “After the audience I had with Upendo last night, I was invited to a bachelor party for Mul’Rensi and I kind of got a little shit faced… I wasn’t doing so hot emotionally after my meeting with the king, and I somehow drank an entire barrel of Teratolion mushroom liquor… I literally gave myself alcohol poisoning, passed out, and then I woke up underground dressed in fine clothes and was forced to serve as one of Mul’Rensi’s retinue for when the formal declaration of engagement was made. I was there to witness and endure Uzuri and Mul’Rensi’s declaration of love for one another. I also was obligated to work through the paperwork of the bridewealth, while Mul’Rensi, Uzuri, Upendo, and Elurretzapo began this celebration without me. Apparently, I was made Mul’Rensi’s best man last night, and the ‘best man’ and ‘maid of honor’ are supposed to ‘haggle’ a contract for an exchange of material goods to the paternal guardian of the bride. Though, as a more lighthearted part of the haggling tradition, the best man and maid of honor can review the bride and groom’s vows and are permitted to edit them and add to them.”

“Wait, I thought you said you couldn’t get drunk?” asks Ashe raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head wondering if she hadn’t heard the detail about the barrel I downed, “Did you not just hear me? I drank a barrel of liquor. It took me chugging a barrel of strong spirits to get me not only drunk but pass out from alcohol poisoning! These small flagons can only whisper to me now. Not only that, but because my soul and body get stronger every time I face something that nearly takes me out, and because I drank so much it nearly killed me last night, I can’t drink fast enough to get drunk anymore. My soul literally gets rid of alcohol faster than I can put it down. I’d need to drink maybe two full barrels of the hardest spirit to even feel it anymore. If I wasn’t a celandil, I would have been dead, or too hung over to even be here, and I wouldn’t have had to endure seeing Uzuri make verbal love to Mul’Rensi. Martog’s Rotten Bowels!”

I take a mug of suspicious liquid and down it and nearly find myself throwing up. That wasn’t beer, it was gravy. I start hacking and trying to get my body under control, and Ashe starts to laugh at my plight.

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“I still don’t fully understand celandil, but whatever you say warlock puss,” says Ashe playfully punching my shoulder, “oh! I know that Esther is Uzuri’s maid of honor, which is why I’m here. Lilith is suffering from another terrible bout of morning sickness, so obviously I stepped up again. But I’m curious, how did a human and celandil handle a teratolion tradition. I mean did you two even know what to do.”

“Esther and I were assisted by one of Uzuri’s attendants as we attempted to go through the traditional motions of the barter, but we ended up mostly just signing off on… the original… draft… shit!” I say and quickly mumble as a dreadful realization had pounded into my skull; I had signed my name as Skath not Aeramen. I also used celandilic script to sign my name without thinking. Esther merely pricked her finger and signed her name with a bloody fingerprint, but I actually wrote my name.

“Vows! Vows! Vows!” shouts the crowd and I jump up from where I sat. My whole body was tense with horrid anticipation.

I bolted through the crowd to try to get to Uzuri and Mul’Rensi before they unfurl the scroll signed by Skath and Esther, but it was too late. Uzuri and Mul’Rensi have the scroll opened before them and begin to read the vows. I can’t listen as my heart is pounding in my chest and I wait for Uzuri and Mul’Rensi to finish reading each vow of the extremely long list. I couldn’t actually read the vows before I signed off on them, as they were in Teratolion script, but I do remember having to constantly unroll and reroll the scroll just to find the place for Esther and me to sign our approval.

Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. Mul’Rensi gets up carefully on the platform, fully unfurls the vow scroll that was long enough to unfurl from his hand to the ground that the warriors stood upon and says “these vows were reviewed and found worthy by those that we find to be highly trusted family. Their names have been signed there.”

“I know Esther’s mark because I told her she could mark the vow list with her blood, but who’s signature is that?” asks Uzuri looking to Mul’Rensi in confusion, “that’s not teratolion script.”

“Must be totalion. I had Aeramen be my man of honor, to let good ol’ Retz take a load off,” says Mul’Rensi with a shrug, “so, I guess that reads Aeramen.”

My jaw drops and I shake my head in relief. Of course, no one can read my writing, it’s celandilic script which if the celandil truly are long gone that means that what I wrote is basically just scribbles to those looking at it now.

“We can ask Aeramen right now as he’s right there! Brother, tell us what is this writing? Is it the hand of the totalion?” says Mul’Rensi pointing to me with a smile.

The people surrounding me give me a bit more space and form a little circle around me. I find myself bowing, but before I can make the gesture, I see Mul’Rensi raise an eyebrow and shake his head. I awkwardly stand tall before Mul’Rensi and Uzuri to correct my mistake.

“Mul…” I begin to say to see Mul’Rensi shake his head again and mouth the word brother to me, “Brother, you surprise me with your astuteness. That is totalion script and reads my name, Aeramen.”

“Intriguing, one day you must teach me and my rani the written tongue of your people,” says Mul’Rensi kissing Uzuri’s head with a giant smile on his face, “it looks far more elegant than teratolion script and befits the hand of royalty, no?”

Like hell I will, especially considering that if they knew Celandilic and read that list of vows again… I then see Retz run through the hall with a torch and the hordes of teratolion part letting him pass. Retz then puts the torch up to the vows and they burst into flames.

“Now our vows will be heard by our ancestors!” Shouts Mul’Rensi to the cheers of the crowd.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by this recent gesture that had silenced the beating my mind and emotions had just taken. I quietly push my way back to the secluded back table Ashe is sitting at and take a seat. I watch her hold back her snickering as her cheeks fill with air from her restrained laughing.

I sit down and rest my head on my arms. I raise my glance to Ashe to glare at her, and then hide my face from her. She slaps my back and says, “Let me guess, you signed your actual name on that list of vows, didn’t you? all this time I thought I was going to be the one who accidentally revealed your secret and you nearly up and did it yourself.”

“I’m such an idiot! My nerves have been on edge so much that I can barely think straight. I genuinely thought that I’d accidentally revealed myself at Uzuri’s engagement party. Good thing no one knows celandilic script from totalion or we could have had a war on our hands,” I say trembling, knowing fully well that I may be a brother to the teratolion princes but not their fathers.

I hear someone else sit at our table and my chest clenches as I can’t help but wonder if whoever it is had heard our conversation. As I raised my head I heard a feminine voice, a motherly voice similar to the one I knew and will never hear again, “I thought that writing looked oddly familiar. Come to my home after the celebration is over, we have a lot to discuss Skath. It’s good to see you again nephew.”

My eyes meet the eyes of my aunt Esther, who looks at me not in anger but with heartfelt relief. She places a tender hand on my back and without a word stands up and rejoins the rest of the festivities. I feel Ashe pull at my arm and I can tell that we are both done with the party. We both rise from our seats, and I turn one last time to look at Uzuri and Mul’Rensi, who are now being paraded out of the ballroom and into the tunnels that will take them to the underground city of the Western Mountain Halls. Later today, Uzuri, Mul’Rensi, and Elurretzapo will begin their journey to the Eastern Dune Empire, and I may never see Uzuri again.

I try to get a full, final glance of Uzuri as she disappears from view, but I turn my face away and walk over to one of the several columns that decorate and support the ball room. I walk around the column so that Uzuri is hidden behind it. This feels nostalgic and feels right to say this last goodbye with a barrier between Uzuri and me. I place a hand on the shimmering obsidian surface of the column and try to imagine the wall of Uzuri’s prison that had separated us for years. I used to tell her stories through a hole in that wall and imagine what my mysterious beloved looked like. Now I know, I’ve held her, kissed her, and had to let her go. I whisper under my breath almost transported to the past by this imagined vision and say an obsidian farewell to my first friend, and the woman that still holds my heart.