Chapter 26:The wedding(Karna's POV)

Time passed and the day of our marriage came. It was a large event at the banks of the Rhoyne river, our audience included not only visitors from all over but a lot of citizens from Anga. As we were not responsible for feeding guests there was no need for an invitation for participation, however, there were preferential tents closer to the event for family and invited guests. There were stalls selling food for the enormous audience behind.

The Blue cloth was a tradition in royals' marriage as blue was meant to represent Mother Rhoyne. Blue ink was produced in the Rhoyne region, especially at Sarhoy, Sar Mell, and Chroyane, using a plant called dyer's croton. I was wearing traditional blue pants and a blue shirt with an aquamarine steel sword at my back.

I came accompanied by my mother Kunti, which was wearing a red dress. From my right, came my wife who I could see in a sophisticated appearance with the traditional blue war dress. War dress was a traditional cloth that women wear on their wedding day it was meant to have the beauty and elegance of a dress, and be adapted to keep safe a weapon. Women from royal families usually have their royal dress covered in leather, forming a leather armor-like dress.

"So it came to my knowledge that Karna Mell and Lhorulu Rhoyne came in front of the holy mother to perform the sacred marriage rituals." Sar Mell's court mage, my cousin grandfather, Joss Mell said.

All Rhoynar marriages were done with a water mage or water priest as the commoners call us, this made it so that when we were at peace most of the mage's work was overseeing the marriage ceremonies.

"First, kneel in front of the Mother Rhoyne"Joss ordered and so we did.

"Together as one, we pray for Mother Rhoyne to oversee our humble marriage." I and Lhorulu prayed as one voice.

"As the second act, both must do the plead of weapons" Joss instructed

"I plead this sword, that it shall represent that I shall fight for you, my love" I said pushing the sword into the soil.

"I plead this sword, that it shall represent that I shall defend our home and children" Lhorulu said with her sweet voice.

"I, the name of mother Rhoyne, her six daughters, the wind of the west(The Old Man of the River) and the wind of the east( The Crab King), hear those vows," Joss said pausing for a second.

"Take this boat. It shall give you your first fish."

So, I and Lhorulu traveled in the river in a rowing boat and started fishing with Lhorulu's help we quickly got a big fish which we showed to Joss and the other guests. We ended up sending the fish back to the river, as both of us were not interested in eating it, I said sorry to it and Lhorulu seems to have given the fish a blessing. I tried to copy how she gave it a blessing and I was successful been able to give the little fish a small sun blessing as well.

As we reached the river's shore, I could hear the music that the contracted band from Ny Sar was playing. It was an instrumental song that filled the soul, it represented too much, the happy and cheerful life in the Rhoyne, the sadness of loss, the warmth of young love, the tenacity of old love, it was like a song of life. The music that they were playing was a traditional song adapted to a marriage. The name of the song was "Grey Waters". It was about the conflict between the hairy men and Garris the Grey, a legendary prince of Ny Sar, which expelled the hairy men away from the land, where Norvos stands today. However, at that time the Rhoynar did not linger, preferring the more temperate climes of the lower river to the dark skies and cold winds of the hills. The original song was intended to represent hope in adversities, but the musicians expanded it to make it portray basically nearly all humans' emotions.

They were playing several instruments that originated from all over the known world, but all were somehow in harmony. Legends said that all instruments in the known world could be found in Ny Sar, maybe the legends were not so misleading. After all, they even brought a piano here. They were the official band from Ny Sar. An official musician in Ny Sar has a status similar if not higher of a Knight in South Westeros. Contracting their services for a wedding is said to be as expensive as buying one thousand Unsullied. Legends stated that once an Andal king liked the official Ny Sar musicians' presentation so much that he took them as hostages and forced them to play for him. Then, Ny Sar assembled an army to take its musicians back, invaded that kingdom, took their musicians back, and drowned that kingdom's capital. Some say that this was done by Garis the Grey himself. I don't know if this story is just a self-boastful myth or if it was real because I really imagine Ny Sar going to war for its musicians. Though, musicians were important in all Rhoyne cities, as music is seen as connected to spirituality and nature, and a form of worship of Mother Rhoyne. I did not confirm these numbers, but I can tell that it was quite expensive but worth it. The strong emotions were making Lhorulu cry with happiness and even I shed a single tear.

At some point, Rhoynar music resembles traditional Indian music a lot, from what I know about it. Our music has a melody, which is a tune softening and fulfilling to the ear. It is derived from hundreds of notes, and they are the frameworks upon which artists create music. Although, our music is recorded, it is not so strict and a lot of freedom is given to the musician in how he will portray the song, putting his own creativity and distinct. The main difference is that we do not have much preference for oral songs, and we like instrumental music more. As our small ship "docked", the music changed to another more lively song, it was one named "the six daughters", it was about Mother Rhoyne's six daughters and sometimes was used at war march.

"As the first fish was caught, I and your guest congratulate the couple for their beautiful marriage and now the final event," Joss said.

Joss made a bit of the Rhoyne's water to start to fly to a rock calyx and said:

"So now, for the end, both the wife and husband shall drink from the calyx with Rhoyne's holy water to truly become one in soul and spirit."

Lhorulu took the calyx from the table where it stood and gave it to me. I drank a bit and gave it to her. She drank from it as well.

"So to seal the deal..."Joss started to say, but now I only have ear and eyes to my dear. So I kissed her and my tongue started to feel the interior of her tasty mouth. Know the last part of the ceremony came, it was the gift-giving. There were a lot of givers some were relatives, others diplomats from the neighboring cities, even father, his wife, brother Shani, Mother Rhoyne, her daughters and sons. I and Lhorulu made sure to thank them one by one, for the gifts we received. My human family gave us plenty of different fragrances, which Loruluseems to have liked a lot.

The diplomats' gifts vary a lot. The gifts included spices from the Summer Islands like cinnamon; saffron from Yi Ti, which was given by the diplomat from Sarhoy; sculpted jade from Leng; mirrors, wooden carving, and other products from Rhoyne; amber from Asshai; and linen from Shamyriana.

Amber seems to be in a low amount, as Asshai seems to have suffered a sort of catastrophe, as slaves disappeared all of a sudden together with local cult followers, then rumors that Stygai's haunted corpses, together with its twisted creatures, such as demons and dragons, invaded the city started to spread, in the panic of thousands wanting to escape. The shadow men living in the vicinity enjoyed the opportunity and started to raid the city. The Shadow Men only retreated because they have a bad feeling about the situation, later the city was really attacked by haunted corpses. The few survivors fled from the city throw the sea pass by the jade gate and were currently in Qarth. I can only guess this is the work of Karma.

Father and stepmother gave me a red-purple bow as a gift for my marriage, for which I thanked them very much. They asked me to name the bow for some reason I thought about naming it Ember Mulberry Asura Bow.

After I named it, Father said in my ear that R'hollor was inside of it, but that the god held no power over the bow. He explained that, as the bow was a Divine Astra, to use it two conditions needed to be performed. First, the bow can only be used when there was killing intent in the user, and it was necessary to light a flame in honor of Surya and Sanjna, before using the bow.

Lhorulu received a collar of pearls, that she named the Jewels of Winter, probably because of their dark blue color. By what she told me, the Great Other was sealed inside of it. We were holding hands, and we said our goodbyes to the audience. We accompanied by guards were escorted back to my manor.

Tonight would be our wedding night.