“Nervous?” Felton asked, adjusting my collar.

  “Nope,” I said, pushing a stray hair back into place in the mirror’s reflection. “Been a long time coming.”

  “Ah,” he said. “You’ve prepared your mind and heart. Steeled yourself, and submitted to your fate.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think you mean to say that I’m giddy with anticipation. And don’t let Felris hear you say otherwise.”

  Felton scoffed. “Please. It’s apparent to anyone how much you two adore each other.” He paused his fussing over my shirt. “Still a bit weird that you’re marrying my sister, though.”

  “I thought you approved?”

  “I do, but… it’s my sister.” He gave me a helpless shrug. “I can’t explain it.”

  I thought about Torra, and what it would feel like if Felton were marrying her. “Yeah, no, I get it,” I chuckled. “But don’t worry. I promise not to pick on my new little brother.”

  “Ugh,” Felton scowled. “It’s only a three-month difference!”

  “Whatever you say, baby bro.”

  Felton reached up and mussed my hair, eliciting a squawk of outrage from me as I slapped his hands away to fix it. He stepped over to the sideboard and picked up the cocktail he had left there, taking a sip.

  Byron tutted, stepping forward and batting my hands aside to smooth out the mess Felton made. I almost stopped him—I was an adult now, after all—but he gave me a warm, proud smile that left me feeling eleven again, so I let him have his way.

  Tomas ran into the room, drawing my attention away from my hair. “Look, Tovar!” he said, lifting his arms and spinning in a circle. “My clothes are so fancy!”

  Fellius walked in the room behind him. “It’s just formal wear,” the young teen muttered.

  “You look great, Tomas,” I said, crouching down and adjusting his lapels. “And Fellius, remember, not all of us grew up with access to formal wear.”

  “That’s right,” Rikton said from the doorway. “Think of the people of Obdorn, Fellius.”

  “I know,” Fellius said, rolling his eyes.

  I bit my tongue. Trisellia had babied the youngest child a bit too much, in my opinion, and he had grown up a bit more spoiled than Felton and Felris, but it wasn’t my place to say anything.

  “Looking good,” Rikton said, stepping up next to me.

  “Thanks,” I said with a grin. I peered around him at Hildan, who was standing a bit awkwardly at the doorway. He was in formal wear as well—I had commissioned tailoring for the whole family—with the adjustments needed for his missing arm. “You look good too, pop.”

  Hildan grunted a thanks, as awkward as ever, but I noticed how much straighter he stood and how he didn’t turn his body away to hide his missing arm, like he usually did.

  “I think the ladies are just about ready,” Rikton said.

  I took a breath. It was time. I wasn’t nervous, but I snagged Felton’s cocktail from him and tossed it back, anyway.

  “Hey,” he jokingly protested.

  “I could have made you your own, master Tovar,” Byron pointed out with a small smile.

  “Cocktails and celebrations later,” Rikton said, taking the empty glass and setting it aside, and motioning for the door. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  I never married, in my first life. The memories were hazy, now, compared to the clear memories of this life, further boosted by an ever-climbing Mind stat, but I could still remember the highlights and the emotions that underscored them.

  I had wanted to marry, when I was a young man, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after coming out of education, only to be hit with an economic recession. It took longer than expected to find work, but things recovered, eventually. After finally settling into my belated early career, I still hoped for a family of my own.

  But then the climbing cost of living started to rise even faster. It wasn’t long before most of my generation, and those that followed, were priced out of home ownership entirely. Not long after that, most of us were barely getting by, paycheck to paycheck.

  Some of my acquaintances still found partners and had children, anyway. Many of them struggled to make ends meet, and were too overworked and stressed to be the kind of parent I wanted to be. I could remember not wanting that for my own children, and ultimately delaying and putting off searching for someone to even have them with while focusing on trying to make enough money to do so.

  Then the world itself started to change even more, generations of mistakes stacking up and starting to be felt with increasing severity as tipping points boiled over. Not long after that I decided not to have kids at all, since I worried about their quality of life. I was older, and angrier, and the world seemed hostile. I still had aspirations of finding a partner, but it was harder to find someone who I related to, and could relate to me in turn. And when crops started to fail at a wide-spread enough scale that food security was truly threatened, I and many others only further pulled away from other people.

  By the time the wars began, finding a partner took a backseat to just making it through the year. There were so many people who didn’t, from war itself, starvation, or from giving in to complete desperation.

  I survived by hardening my heart, and by the time I reached the end of my life, it was so atrophied and cold that even given my surprise second chance, I couldn’t warm it back up. I needed power, not family; stats and skills, not love and companionship.

  It took years before I was able to start to open back up. Though I had tried to make it up to my family since, new blood relations alone weren’t enough for me to care. It wasn’t until people actually began to choose me, to include in their lives, that I began to thaw.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Finding a family in Somnial and Byron had been a big part of that, and even more importantly, realizing how little time I would have with them when it came time to bid Somnial goodbye. My peculiar relationship with Elsa and Dargan was another part of it; how what should have been a small, second-degree relationship could ultimately become such a key part of my life moving forward.

  Gaining a true friend in Felton had been one of the most important parts of this life, and I couldn’t even pinpoint when exactly it shifted from the facade of friendship, to avoid becoming an outcast, into a bond with a person I couldn’t imagine this life without. I had been willing to die for him early on, but that meant little to me with [Metasurvival]. Rather, it was when I became willing to live for him, and the other people in my life, that I knew my heart was working once again.

  And now that heart belonged to one person in particular.

  I stood by the front of the temple, on the large dais within the gaze of the Five Guardian statues. Next to me stood cantor Umbor. Though he was still residing in Redding, staying with his chapel and community, he had made the trip to Nialdan at my request, to perform the ceremony. I couldn’t imagine another leader of the Faith doing the job.

  Seated in the temple’s pews were my people. I had been a bit nervous to announce my wedding, since I was new to this whole lordship thing, but those who had settled in Nialdan had been ecstatic at the news and truly excited, both for me and to be invited as a part of it. Practically everyone who lived here was in attendance, as were Ramius and Pellia, sir Polas the knight, the manor’s staff, and some familiar faces from Redding who had made the journey just for this. Fortunately, we had built a large temple, and the local population was still relatively small.

  At the front of the temple, the doors opened, and a procession of five men, dressed to the nines, strode up the aisle. Hildan, Felton, Tomas, Fellius, and Byron made their way forward. They each reached the steps to the dais in turn, either bowing and moving to their seat in the front pew, or ascending to take a place before a Guardian statue.

  Five people were chosen in a Five Guardian Faith wedding, each standing in as our guardians-in-life for me and my wife-to-be; those that were sworn to protect my marriage and family. Hildan stood at one, though as my father he represented both himself and Berrel. Felton stood at a second, an obvious choice. I had chosen Byron for our third; though it wasn’t exactly a standard choice, the man was family as far as I was concerned.

  Next, five women entered. Trisellia, Felris’s mother, led them towards the dais, in an absolutely stunning dress which captured the attention of everyone in the building.

  Behind her, in their newly made dresses and just as lovely in their own rights, were Berrel, Torra, and little Tomellia, who was at an adorable age to be dressed up so. Even with Trisellia in the lead, the other ladies attracted some adoration of their own. Berrel and Torra were a bit stiff, walking up the aisle towards the front of the temple in full view of the audience, not used to this level of grandeur.

  Behind them walked Odel, who Felris had insisted be a part of the service, perhaps in response to my inclusion of Byron. The matronly woman had been a staple in Felris’s life, especially during her time in the academy, and was going to be staying in Nialdan with Gus after the wedding to continue serving their young mistress.

  Of the women, only Torra stepped up the dias, taking a position in front of her statue with a huge, goofy expression of joy. We had chosen her in part to balance out Felton’s inclusion, but also because of all my family, she was the one I was closest with. If not for Torra, I wasn’t sure how far I might have drifted from my roots in this world.

  As the five women took their positions in their seats or on the dais before a Guardian statue, my attention, and the attention of those in audience, was again drawn to the front of the temple.

  Rikton stepped forward, arm in arm with his daughter. They paused briefly at the doorway, and I sucked in a breath as I took in my bride.

  Felris was radiant. Her breath puffed in the cold air, but the low angle of the winter sun hit her hair perfectly, creating a brief, beautiful halo before the doors closed to keep the cold out.

  I drank in the sight of her. Her incredible gown outdid even Trisellia’s, which I might not have thought possible prior to that moment. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, a natural blush that highlighted her already spectacular beauty. But it was her eyes that captured me the most; usually playful and teasing, today they glimmered with her own anticipation.

  Our gazes met, and I saw her lip quirk up before she reined in her natural inclination to either smirk or beam at me, barely maintaining a more formal facade as the wife-to-be of the local marquess.

  I had no such reservations. A wide grin stretched my face as Rikton led her up the aisle.

  At the dais, he left her to cantor Umbor and me, and stepped towards his own statue, representing both himself and Felris’s mother, making up the final of the five.

  I reached forward and took her hands in mine.

  Felris raised an eyebrow at my eager expression. “My goodness, Tovar, you are so in love with me,” she whispered.

  “Eh,” I whispered back with a small shrug. “I might dive a dungeon for you. Maybe found a territory and build a city. Basic stuff, really.”

  She squeezed my hands in hers. “Absolutely smitten.”

  “I mean, I guess I’ll marry you. If you want.”

  Cantor Umbor cleared his throat, a small smile on his face. “Shall I begin?”

  “Please,” Felris said, shaking her head at me.

  “We gather within the aegis of our divine protectors,” Umbor began in a clear voice. “The Five Guardians shield us from evil. They reward us with skills and stats to face such things, be they monster or demon. But just as they fend off the darkness, they also protect the light within.

  “It is within this light, the shelter provided by the Guardians, where we find the reason to face the darkness beyond. Today we share in one of the most beautiful of such reasons. Love. Marriage. Family. The joining of two people, and the bright new future that is created in doing so.”

  While this was another world, there were a lot of things that it held in common with my first. Though I had felt out of time, perhaps, I never truly felt out of place. Certain cultural elements differed—and magic was real—but the broad strokes were similar. Weddings, as it turned out, were no exception to that.

  As Umbor undertook the familiar role of officiant, I took a moment to breathe it all in. It had taken until my second life, after giving up any hope of finding it, but I had finally found something I had always been looking for.

  “It feels like only yesterday that Lord Tovar came to my chapel, a boy seeking revelation,” Umbor said, as I refocused my attention on his speech. “Only the Guardians know the reasons behind handing out a revelation—”

  “Well, you asked,” the admin said with a grin, as I briefly flickered into the metaversal borderlands. “Congrats, by the way.”

  And then I was back, no time passed at all. I bit my tongue as to not interject.

  “But as I stand here today, in witness of their love, I can’t help but wonder if it was to bring these two people together.

  “Revelation took Lord Tovar to Ivarnel, where he met Lord Felton. His friendship with Lord Felton introduced him to Lady Felris, and in turn, to Obdorn’s dungeon, where they were challenged. They came out, scathed but successful, and from that, their bond continued to grow.

  “In Lord Tovar’s convalescence, Lady Felris championed him in turn. Though young, and subject to the whims and vagaries of fate, they each made their demands of their destiny, and bent it to their will.

  “This union is steeped in willful intention; two people who refused to be apart. Together with their companions, they defeated monsters and tamed this land, and it is here, thanks to their work, that they can now reap their rewards.”

  Umbor paused briefly, then turned his head to address me, specifically.

  “Lord Tovar. Do you take Lady Felris to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

  “I do,” I said. My voice only barely cracked, so it probably wasn’t noticeable.

  “Lady Felris, do you take Lord Tovar to be your lawfully wedded husband, to—”

  “I do!” Felris interrupted, evoking a small chuckle from those closest to us.

  Umbor smiled, rolling right along. “Then, in presence of friends and family, community and country, and the Five blessed Guardians, I declare you wed.”

  Applause rang out in the temple, but I barely heard it. All I heard was Felris’s small gasp as I pulled her into me, finally delivering the long-awaited first kiss we had both been waiting for.