Every minute of your life has prepared you for this moment.
He is an uncertain silhouette through gauzy veils, but you have seen his face twice and you have spoken with him once; he is younger than you'd imagined, charming where you'd expected he would only be cold. You are not afraid, although it wouldn't have mattered if you were: your price was negotiated days ago, coin enough to reel the stumbling fortunes of your House back from the edge of utter disaster. They sealed the agreement with three glasses of wine - your father and this man who has fairly purchased his bride - and this morning your mother spent hours on the intricacy of your okruchivanie braids; this morning she wove the silver kopecks and tiny blades into your hair with her own worn hands, a keen-edged warning to any who might think to steal away your virtue before your husband could claim what he'd bought.
You are a commodity and you are not unwilling. The prospect of a girl-child - another mouth at the table, hands only good for embroidery and women's things - had brought them only tears, but you'd grown into a face fair enough to promise some worth, and the matchmaker had promised good fortunes soon enough. You have counted away the years, and sometimes even the days, impatient for the moment in which you would blossom into valuable womanhood, and - this is years too soon, they had said; even your mother had admitted as much. Years too soon, and it's a wonder he would even accept a girl half-grown. But the need of your House was urgent, and your father's hand was sure, and when you were sequestered away to begin a week's work upon your dowry, you knew that the exchange was suddenly imminent, and your heart was nothing but light.
He is an indistinct shape through gauze and heirloom lace, but the tremble of your hands is not echoed in your heart. Your skin was cleansed three times in the devishnik that was the previous night, and with your giggling friends you played the games that your brides played. How false your tears, as you lamented the loss of your freedom; how you'd struggled to contain your laughter as you swore that you'd hid krasota, your youthful beauty, in some corner or other of the room and that it might be theirs if they were only quick to find it. My fate, you'd cried, my fate is to be a woman wed, old and cold and worn, and what need have I of loveliness now? You'd pressed pretty ribbons into their hands, after; colourful as promises, precious as the parting touch of girlish fingertips, and it was the end of all the childish things you'd tired of years before.
His hands are reverant upon the pokryvalo that is your gauzy shroud. His lips are light like feathers when they touch to yours, in the ritual kiss that has the men stomping their feet in sturdy approval. When he ushes you away from your House you do not spare a backwards glance for what you were glad to leave, and deep into the night you discover that his gentleness is enduring; when you wake in his arms the morning next, it is not with the pain you'd known to expect but a smile that feels unfamiliar upon your lips.
You are Ariane of House Carnath-Emory. You are twelve years old. It is the beginning of a life which is to surpass all your childhood's dreams.