His wife, Countess Tria, swept forth from her chambers bearing her very own wedding dress. “The Caretaker did not bless me with daughters, and I will be cursed by the black spirits before I let this beautiful thing go to waste,” she said. The menfolk looked on bemusedly as she and a gaggle of maids abducted Amira into the countess’s chambers. Dardan himself was provided with a simple suit of black linen that Count Kirth summoned from somewhere. In short order he had been marched to the town’s temple, which had been built in the same thrifty style as everything else in Tyndam. It was narrow, the altars small, and the sacred circle only perhaps three paces across. Dardan was introduced to Sendraj Tevin, a ruggedly handsome young steward with a flowing mane of golden hair. Somewhere, girls wailed that the Caretaker had chosen such a man for his servant. After an interminable wait, during which a nervous Dardan was (by custom) confined to the sacred circle, Amira appeared. The dress might be thirty years out of fashion, but it did not diminish Amira’s beauty one bit; rather it enhanced her radiance, and the flowers woven into her hair seemed as natural as if they had grown there.
