Alone for a moment, Cam sat down and stared into the river. He skipped a stone across the surface and marveled that the laws of nature still held on a day as magical as this.
He’d never dreamed he’d get married. Until he met her. Love had blossomed so quickly between them that it was startling to think how much Lilith didn’t know, how much Cam still needed to tell her—
Arms around his neck surprised him. Soft hands found his chest. He closed his eyes.
Lilith started singing softly, a melody he’d been hearing her hum for weeks. At last, she’d found the words to suit the tune:
“I give my arms to you
I give my eyes to you
I give my scars to you
And all my lies to you
What will you give
to me?”
“That is the most enchanting thing I’ve ever heard,” Cam said.
“It’s my wedding vow to you.” She rested her forehead on the nape of his neck. “You really like it?”
“I like wine, fine clothes, the cool kiss of this river,” Cam said. “There is no word that could ever capture how I feel about that vow.” He turned his head to nuzzle her and saw her for the first time in her handmade wedding gown. “Or about you. Or about that dress.”
“Decorum,” Dani said from behind them. “You’re not married yet.” He knelt before the lovers and unrolled a thick scroll of parchment.
“This is beautiful,” Cam said, admiring Dani’s elegant Aramaic writing and the airy paintings he’d added as a border, which depicted Cam and Lilith in a dozen embraces.
“Wait,” Lilith said as her brows knit together. “This says we will be married here, by the river.”
“What better place? This is where we fell in love.” Cam tried to keep his voice cheerful even as dread swept over him, for he knew what she was about to say.
Lilith took a deep breath, measuring her words. “You and Dani flout convention, and I like that. But we are about to be married, Cam. We will be entering a long tradition, one that I respect. I want to marry in the temple.”
The temple Cam couldn’t set foot in. And he was too ashamed to tell her why—that he was a fallen angel, and a fallen angel could not tread on consecrated ground.
He should have told her the truth from the beginning. But if he’d told her, it would have been the end of their love, for how could someone as virtuous as Lilith accept Cam as he was?
“Please, Lilith,” he said. “Try to envision a beautiful wedding by the river—”
“I told you what I want,” Lilith said. “I thought we had agreed.”
“I would never have agreed to a marriage in the temple,” Cam said, trying to keep the tone of his voice steady, not wanting to betray himself.
“Why not?” Lilith asked, bewildered. “What secret do you bear?”
Dani stepped away, giving the couple a moment alone. Even now, Cam could not bring himself to tell her that he was not human, that he was other. He loved her so much that he could not bear to fall in her esteem. And he would fall if she knew the truth.
He turned to face her, memorizing every freckle, every glint of sunlight in her hair, the kaleidoscopic blue of her eyes. “You are the most remarkable creature I have ever seen—”
“We must marry in the temple,” Lilith said emphatically. “Especially after what happened to Liat. My family and my community will not honor our union any other way.”
“I’m not of your community.”
“But I am,” Lilith said.
Her community would never honor this union if they found out the truth about Cam. He hadn’t been thinking—that was the problem. He’d been so caught up in love he hadn’t stopped to realize how many barriers stood between them.
He gazed loathingly in the direction of the temple. “I won’t set foot in there.”
Lilith was close to tears. “Then you don’t love me.”
“I love you more than I ever thought possible,” he said sharply. “But it doesn’t change a thing.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Cam—”
“It’s over,” he said, suddenly knowing what he had to do. They would go their separate ways today, each nursing a broken heart. There was no other way. “The wedding, everything.”
He spiked his words with bitterness, and when Lilith opened her mouth, he heard words angrier than the ones she spoke. This would become his side of the story: the words he needed to hear to end everything.
“You’re breaking my heart,” she said.
But what Cam heard behind her words was: You’re a bad man. I know what you are.
“Forget about me,” he said. “Find someone better.”
“Never,” she gasped. “My heart belongs to you. Damn you for not knowing that.”
But Cam knew that what she really meant was: I hope I live a thousand years and have a thousand daughters so there will always be a woman who can curse your name.
“Goodbye, Lilith,” he said coldly.