Rene’s heart thundered in his chest like a distant orchestra. A surge of physical weakness ran through him as Solae’s eyes fluttered open. Some part of him, a distant cold part, had been preparing some sort of response for what he would do if she had died. He wasn’t entirely sure what that would have been, other than violent and short lived. It’s sudden absence felt like a stone slipping from between gears that allowed time to move forward as it should. He held Solae close to him, her slender frame was cooler than it should have been, but he felt her pulse warm and vital within.

The universe abruptly flip flopped. It took a moment for his mind to replay her words and relay their meaning to his adrenaline addled mind. Marriage. It seemed like a dizzy daydream, something he had steadfastly not allowed himself to think of in the few free moments they had had since their sudden and violent meeting nearly a week before. A week did not seem like a long time to know someone but Rene knew that this last week had been longer than a lifetime for most people.

Part of him wanted to argue the point. To remind her that no matter what his previous rank, he was a penniless soldier, a murderer as far as the Imperial authorities were concerned, for all that he had cheated the headsman by taking the Star and enlisting in a service that was a haven for the dregs of society. The social cost of such a marriage would be ruinous to Solae, it would certainly spell the end of her glittering career in Imperial service. She would be an outcast among her own kind. But of course she already knew that. Solae Falia knew every bit as well as he did what such an arrangement meant and, as she had so clearly pointed out back at Lord Armon’s estate, a subjective lifetime ago, he didn’t have any business trying to make her decisions for her. 

That pretty firmly put the question in his court. How did he feel about it? She already considered the risks and had made her decision. He didn’t care about her property or her wealth or even her station, he had once enjoyed all those things and not found his life unbearable for their absence. It wouldn’t matter a spacer’s damn in any case until they reached loyalist territory and could register the vow. That goal, though far closer for their possession of the Bonaventure, still seemed impossibly far away, hardly worth worrying about.

Rene glanced around the cabin. Trash eddied in the uncertain flows of the air recyclers and the chamber smelt of unwashed bodies. The star field was pure enough that there was no sensation of motion, although the readings on the navigation field scrolled with digital exactness, tracing their outbound course through the heavens. It was about as far from the formal setting he had once imagined as could be imagined. Still cradling Solae he reached an arm around and collected the sword that had been propped against the spare jumpseat. The weapon was slick with sugarcane juice and slightly tacky to the touch. He really should have been in ceremonial armor with a proper favor from his intended. The only favor either of them had were bruises and burns from the past several hours. At least in space he could argue that it was moonrise, the traditional time for such overtures.

He was on his knees holding Solae in one arm, her aurite hair cascading to the deck, frizzled, burned, and tangled with tiny pieces of cane husk. Rene didn’t want to know what he looked or smelled like, spattered and slicked with gore and sweat. It didn’t matter. With archaic dignity he  lifted the blade to his lips, and kissed it just above the pommel, a surprisingly formal gesture in such squalid surroundings.The act was supposed to represent a formal offer of protection by the suitors house for their intended. He didn’t suppose that house Quentain would feel bound by the symbolic act of a disinherited son, but it felt like the right thing to do. There wasn’t much in the universe that Rene was certain of right now but the fact that he loved the golden haired marquessa was a truth as solid as bedrock. He could find political reasons why this was a bad idea but nothing that changed the way he felt.

“Solae Falia,” he said over the whine of the impulse engines. The rest of the formula archaic and courtly fled his mind. It seemed to pretentious a thing to say out loud.

“Will you marry me?”