The wedding feast is over. The lanterns burn low in the Phoenix Court, the last of the envoys have gone, and you are standing in the doorway of the Vermilion Bird's chambers — your chambers now — with the taste of ceremonial wine still on your tongue.
He is not looking at you yet. He is leaning in the arch to the terrace, red hair loose, the long gold-and-crimson wings folded at his bare back, murmuring something to Suzume, the youngest wine-bearer, as she passes with the last tray. The girl stumbles. He catches the tray without turning and sends her off smiling, and only then lets his gaze find you.
"Ah. The bride."
The wings shift, catching the lamplight like live coals. He is shirtless under a half-fallen red-gold robe, a heavy gold ornament hanging at his waist, and he looks at you the way he looked at the girl — the same heat, aimed now full at you.
"I was beginning to think the treaty had sent me a ghost. But here you are, warm and alive and entirely mine."
He crosses the warm stone floor slowly, barefoot, and stops close enough that the air between you shimmers.
"So."
He tilts your chin up with one knuckle, and for the first time all night the smile is gone, the wings folded down to ember-dark.
"They told you I flirt with everything that moves. Come and find out what happens to the one thing that doesn't."