The war was over. Four years of vicious fighting, of sneak attacks on human supply lines, and of pitted battles to liberate occupied cities. Of one massacred village, the horror of innocent lives deliberately ended never to be forgotten.

Four years of laughing about miserable conditions with soldiers who wouldn’t do the same tomorrow; of frantically treating a friend’s wounds, only for them to die a second later; or of bedding down, uncertain of the future or our side’s cause.

Four years of pain and violence and death, and it was over. Or so they said.

The war lived on in its survivors. I wasn’t the same person I’d once been. Neither was Arivor. Neither was Lirilith, but today, we put all of this aside, because today, we’d had a wedding.

Or the beginning of one at least.

“Are you sure about this?” I said from the corner of my mouth. “You could still change your mind. Go home.”

“To what?” Lirilith said. “My father, who refuses to let me be myself and who thinks you’re gutter trash? No, thank you.”

I’d met Alouin’s Voice once, shortly after the war’s conclusion. We’d been in the capital to receive commendations for our service, and Lirilith had taken me to meet our Empire’s benevolent ruler, the man who supposedly heard from Alouin himself.

The meeting hadn’t gone well. All he’d talked about was Arivor and how he’d saved the Empire, conveniently forgetting how integral I’d been to the mission that had won us the last battle, but I’d expected that. It had been what had happened in every town we’d visited, and I couldn’t blame my friend for it. He couldn’t help the social system that he’d been born into any more than I could.

The way Alouin’s Voice had talked about Lirilith, though…

Oo, I’d had several choice comments to throw in his face, examples of how exceptional she’d been during the war. Anything to stop the bastard from talking about his daughter like she was a commodity to be sold.

But I’d kept my mouth shut because Lirilith had asked me to and because I trusted her to handle herself.

Then, she’d told her father about us. We’d barely escaped the capital with our lives. So far as we could tell, the man’s temper had cooled since then, but even still, Lirilith would lose her inheritance if she continued down her chosen path.

Like she was about to do.

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“Life here won’t be easy,” I said. “You won’t have the comforts that you’ve grown used to.”

“But I wouldn’t have what I wanted,” Lirilith said. “I wouldn’t have the freedom to fight, whether on the battlefield or for the people who need me. I wouldn’t have you.”

I looked at her then, so beautiful in her uniform. Torch and moonlight played over her face, and I knew I couldn’t leave her side, even if she had decided to go home.

“Would you two just take the damn packages already?’

In front of us, Arivor was tapping his foot, holding a thin stick toward each of us. He looked quite dapper in his formal wear, something he’d roasted me over when I’d made a comment on it earlier, and somewhere behind me, Clariss and their toddler, Rafe, were watching the ceremony. How quickly Arivor’s family had become mine.

“Let’s get this Joining over with,” my friend snapped. “If I have to hear the same ridiculous argument from either of you one more time, I’ll scream.”

“Goodness, you’d think we’d offended you personally,” Lirilith said.

But she took what he was offering, and after a moment’s hesitation, I did too.

“Finally,” Arivor grumbled before raising his voice. “Before us, we have two stubborn people who wish to be Joined as one. Considering how much of a pain in the ass they are separately, letting them do this is probably a mistake—”

Our gathered friends laughed.

“—but we also know that their Joining was always going to happen. The two of you are so perfect for one another, it hurts, and I have trouble believing that anything but destiny brought you together. In my humble opinion, the Joining of Lirilith and Eriadren has always been written in the stars.

“So, let’s oblige them. Let’s see the two of you Joined to one another for life.”

I’d half-heard most of what my friend had said. Focusing on him had been difficult with my heartbeat loudly pounding in my ears and my hands trembling as violently as they once had after a fight. It was strange to experience that for the simple anticipation of what would come next rather than fear for my life. It was… nice.

I did, however, catch Arivor saying the words that released me to finish the ceremony. Turning to Lirilith, I watched her lift a blood-red stick, matching her movements, and together, we completed something started in a shop years before. Together, we broke what we held, it dissolved into powder, and we breathed each other in.

Lirilith’s life, its every joy and conflict, passed before my eyes. Every emotion and life-altering choice. Everything that had made her who she was and I knew her. In that moment, something shifted in me, and I became her, and she became me, and solitary ‘I’ becomes perfect ‘we’.

And we watched the one we loved grin. The world grew shadowed with them leaning closer. We felt hands on our neck, felt lips on our lips, felt hungry tongues in our mouths, felt our bodies coming together, and this bleed of need and want and fire between us was unmatched by any other. This was a storm, lightning sparking and fading only for another shock to follow. We’d never been stronger. We’d-

With a jolt, I was kissing Lirilith while our limbs were twined around one another, and I froze as she pulled away from me. The world was spinning with such diminishment of my essence taking place, but I also felt…

Lacing my fingers between hers, I smiled at Lirilith, this woman I knew as well as I did myself, and she giggled with the sound of it only a little broken.

“Congratulations,” Arivor said. “With this, you have become one.”

“We are one,” Lirilith and I said, completing the ceremony.

And the friends who’d become our family cheered.