Free A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price Page A

in his life seen anything so beautiful, or so lavish. All the stories—which he had hardly bothered to believe before the Elves had walked out of the air—warned that the Elves were dangerous friends. But it was hard to remember that when the Elves had brought them so much good.
    Windsor came through the crowd, gesturing to Per to follow him. Per looked about, collected his cousins and his parents, and followed Windsor. They pushed their way through the crowds of gaping Sterkarms and Grannams, toward the farther end of the Elf-Palace. There was the altar, with splendid shields displaying the family badges—made of more flowers! And there, waiting, was the Grannam who called himself Lord Brackenhill, with women and soldiers gathered about him. And a priest!
    Perhaps it was the sight of the priest—a rare sight in the border lands—that made Per, for the first time that day, feel alarm. Wed! Why was he getting wed?
    He calmed himself by reflecting that it was only a wedding. He and his wife might get on, even though she was a Grannam, once she was away from her family. Who knew? And if they didn’t, well, there was plenty of other company at the tower. Get a couple of sons on her, and after that he wouldn’t have to see her much.
    A girl stood before the altar. That would be his bride. His pulse quickened as he walked toward his first sight of her. Would he be bedded that night with a beauty or—?
    He stepped into his place beside her. She didn’t look up—indeed, she lowered her head still further in a properly modest way. That wasn’t promising.
    Richie Grannam nodded to him and to his parents, and the grim-faced Mistress Crosar inclined her head graciously. Both looked as if they’d bitten crab apples.
    Toorkild and Isobel took up their positions on the opposite side of the altar and left Per and his bride standing before it.
    The priest shrugged himself into a white vestment and, taking up his place, opened his Bible.
    Joan Grannam saw the floor at her feet. A floor of neat, pale, polished wooden boards, laid by the Elves. She was afraid to look at anything else.
    She had seen more floors in her life than any other thing. The wooden and stone floors at the tower, the trodden earth of paths, the grass of sheep meadows. If she raised her head and looked about, then her aunt nudged her sharply or pinched her and said, “Do no stare, like such a bold hussy!” Well-­mannered, well-bred girls, said her aunt, showed their breeding and honored their parents and families by going about quietly, by standing neatly, with feet together and folded hands, and by keeping custody of their eyes. They did not run about like hoydens, or speak loudly, or squeal aloud with laughter. Still less did they stare people in the eye.
    This evidently, Joan thought, did not apply to grown women. Her aunt, Mistress Crosar, was well-bred, but when she was giving her orders about the tower, she spoke loudly and not only looked boldly about her but scowled. True, she didn’t run like a hoyden, but she strode. Joan had never said this aloud, though. If she had, her aunt would certainly have given her several blows and reported her impertinence to her father—which would have brought more punishment.
    Joan could feel, beside her, the bulk of the Sterkarm she was to marry. She didn’t dare to look at him—nor at his parents, more Sterkarms, who stood somewhere near. She had never seen any of them before but was too terrified to be curious. Curiosity, in her experience, only shortened the time before the arrival of the bad news or the bad time.
    For weeks, ever since she’d been told about her marriage, she’d been almost overwhelmed with fear, even more afraid than usual, hardly able to eat, think, or sleep. The Elf-Man, Elf-Windsor, had been coming often to the tower and meeting with her father, but she had assumed that their business was about land or cattle. It had nothing to