Chapter 23: The Valley Wedding

They were married the next evening in the grain hall, under four hundred paper lanterns and the roof beams hung with dried persimmons.

Sora stood up first.

He wore his white and gold coat, brushed clean, with no sword at his hip.

He held a cup of rice wine in both hands.

He looked at the two women standing together in front of the elders, and his voice wobbled on the first word.

"I was going to give a speech," he said.

"Please don't," said Kaede.

"I wrote it down."

"Sora."

"I'm going to read it."

"Two years ago I lost you."

"Then I broke up with the most stubborn woman I've ever met, by text, which was the stupidest thing I've ever done."

A ripple of laughter ran through the hall.

Rin pressed her lips together.

"I'm told I'm not allowed to say I'm sorry again."

He looked at Rin.

"So I'll say thank you instead."

"You found my sister."

"You gave her a reason to put down the sword."

He turned to Kaede.

"I want you both to know that you have my blessing."

"And Mom's, if she could hear it."

"I think she'd say you picked someone smarter than I was."

"She would," Kaede said, smiling through tears.

Sora raised his cup.

"To my sister, and to my ex-girlfriend, who are now officially my family twice over. Thank God for paperwork."

The whole hall roared.

Ume wiped her eyes on her shawl and took the red cord from the altar.

She wound it once around Rin's right wrist and once around Kaede's left.

She tied it in a knot that she swore had held the valley's marriages together for eleven generations.

"Together," she said. "Until the cord rots."

"That's forever," Rin whispered.

"I know," said Ume. "That's the idea."

They kissed.

The hall shook with cheering.

Later, when the lanterns had burned low and the last of the rice wine was gone, they were walked in procession to the farmhouse.

The door was shut behind them.

The red cord still joined their wrists.

The bedroom was warm.

Someone had lit the stove, laid out the good quilts and scattered dried persimmon leaves across the pillows.

Rin stood in the middle of the floor in the layered white wedding robes the weavers had made her.

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