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Beneath the weight of his wedding cloak, beneath the eyes of his father, beneath the blood-red leaves of the weirwood tree, Finn thought he would be crushed into dust.
That was his hope, at least.
Yet, standing under the sullen light of the moon, observed by seven pairs of eyes, and ignored fully by the gods, Finn found no such solace. The weeping face carved into the tree before him sat deaf to his silent prayers. The new gods and their wretched septon spouting foolish words of love and dedication reveled in his misery. There would be no escape. Even as Finn spoke obscenities and curses in his head in hope that something would strike him down for his insolence, he was left only with the feeling of his husband-to-be’s cold, clammy palm pressing against his own.
Larys Strong, the Clubfoot — how funny their fathers must have thought they were, to marry one child with a deformed foot to the other with only half a leg — faced him. He was handsome, in a small, pathetic, mousy sort of way. He bore the same broad shoulders as his father and brother, who stood watching, but his black-and-blue silk doublet clung to his thin body as if desperate. Perhaps it was the chunky, pale golden chain about his shoulders that weighed him down. Finn, leaning against his crutch, still felt taller than the man slouching in front of him.
Are you nervous? Finn wanted to ask, swaying with the wind. Don’t pretend you have any right to be nervous, coward. You are supposed to be the man. Though I will gladly take that from you, if it is too much for you to bear.
The septon spoke the foreign words of his foreign gods and Finn repeated what he’d read on a scrap of parchment merely an hour prior. I am yours, he is mine. The voice of a stranger rumbled in his throat. I take you for my lord and husband.
“... and I take you as my lady and wife.”
Finn raked his teeth across his lip. I am not a lady. I am not a wife. The old man posing as a voice for the gods proclaimed them one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. I will throw myself from the highest tower of the Red Keep before I let myself mother a child again, he thought distantly. My father didn’t tell you that part after he dragged me back to King’s Landing by the scalp.
They pressed their lips together. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Finn closed his eyes and imagined ripping his father’s throat out with his teeth.