The heavy gates of the Suiseiryu Shrine slammed shut with a finality that echoed
across the mountaintop, leaving Jasmine and Jee-shahn in a silence so thick it felt
like being underwater. Jasmine's grip on Jee-shahn's arm slowly loosened as the
weight of her own words finally crashed down on her. She had just told the High
Priest of Aurex—the man who held the keys to the southern tides—that she was in
love with a child-like traveler she had met in the woods an hour ago.
"Tomorrow..." Jasmine whispered, her knees shaking so hard her mismatched striped
stocking seemed to vibrate. "He said the marriage is tomorrow."
Jee-shahn, who had spent the last five minutes mourning a roasted bird, finally
looked up. His silver-tinted hair caught the fading sunlight, and his azure eyes
scanned Jasmine's panicked face with a look of extreme annoyance.
"I heard 'marriage,' 'royal meeting,' and 'tomorrow,'" Jee-shahn noted, his voice a lazy,
bored drawl. "But I didn't hear a single word about a bufet. Is this a dry wedding?
Because if there's no wine and no meat, I'm rescinding my consent. Not that I gave it
in the first place."
"You don't understand!" Jasmine shrieked, grabbing his fur-lined collar and shaking
him back and forth. "My father is a master of the Suiseiryu lineage! If we tell him it
was a lie now, he won't just lock me up—he'll probably feed us both to the Draco
ancestors in the deep trench!".
Jee-shahn sighed, his body perfectly limp as he let her shake him. He looked like a
bored plush toy in expensive robes. "So, let me get this straight," he said, yawning as
soon as she stopped. "To avoid marrying a random royal, you decided to 'marry' the
person who was having a perfectly good vacation in a tree. You've replaced a small
headache with a cosmic migraine, running lady."
He tucked his hands back into his sleeves, looking at the shrine doors with a hint of
his true, terrifying nature flickering in his eyes. "But I suppose a palace must have a
better chef than you. If this 'Royal Meeting' has decent snacks, I might play along for a
day. But I'm warning you—if the cake is dry, I'm snapping my fingers, and your
father's 'magnificent' shrine is going to become the world's most expensive
basement."
Jasmine gulped, remembering the Grey Hawk that had been turned into a pancake
with a single sound. She realized she hadn't just found a fake husband; she had
invited a walking natural disaster into the heart of the South's most sacred
foundation.
"Just... just don't kill anyone until after the ceremony," she pleaded.
"No promises," Jee-shahn replied, already walking toward the guest quarters. "Now,
show me to the kitchen. The 'noise' of my hunger is getting louder than your crying.