Daphne
has imagined her wedding often, for as long as she can remember. Her imaginings started off as skeletal daydreams, growing more solid once she attended a few weddings herself and taking on shading and color the more she learned about Friv and its customs. She imagined her wedding dress, how it changed with each season’s trends. She imagined a ceremony under the stars, an audience of strangers, and a prince waiting for her at the end of a long aisle. The prince’s face changed over the years too, an unrecognizable and unimportant blur that took on Prince Cillian’s features once they began exchanging portraits.
As much as she thought about her wedding, though, she spent just as much time dwelling on all the things that would come after. Her mother’s plans. Her orders. Her eventual return to Bessemia, triumphant and proven worthy of being the next Empress of Vesteria. ran over every facet of her future, not only the wedding, but as she stands here now, at the top of the aisle in the castle chapel with the stars shining down through the glass roof, she feels wholly unprepared.
Her gown is nothing like the frothy Bessemian gowns she ogled at the dressmakers’ and in fashion plates—the spring-green velvet is unadorned and simple, except for a gray ermine trim at the hem and sleeves, and it hugs her figure without the usual layers of petticoats and cages. The audience is not made up of strangers, either, at least not entirely. She sees King Bartholomew and Cliona’s father beside him. Cliona herself sits a row behind, Haimish beside her, though she is studiously ignoring him. There’s Rufus, Bairre’s friend, as well, seated with his five siblings. There are other courtiers too, ones she recognizes now. Ones she’s even come to like.
And then there’s Bairre, waiting for her at the end of the aisle, not a featureless face and certainly not Cillian. When his eyes find hers, he smiles slightly and she smiles back, clutching the bouquet of lilies and daisies she carries even tighter as she takes one step closer, then another.
She only glances away from Bairre for an instant, to look at Cliona again, but the other girl gives nothing away, which makes ’s stomach twist.
In all of her imaginings of this night, she always knew exactly what would happen. She would walk down the aisle. The empyrea would say a few words. She and her prince would exchange vows. And then it would be done.
But knows that Cliona and the rebels have something waiting. She knows she will not leave this chapel married. She only hopes she will leave it at all.
Oh, the less you know about that the better, Princess, Cliona said when asked about the rebels’ plans for the wedding, and as annoying as it is to be kept ignorant, she knows Cliona is right. and Bairre have to be above suspicion, should anything happen.
And something will happen.
Won’t it?
reaches Bairre and he takes her hand in his, but she barely feels it. Her mind is spinning and she’s dimly aware of Fergal, the Frivian empyrea, beginning to talk about the stars and their blessings. Any minute now, something will happen. Rebels will charge into the chapel. Star-summoned lightning will strike. Someone will start a fire. Any minute now.
But as Fergal drones on, nothing happens, and some small corner of ’s heart stutters.
What if there is nothing? What if the rebels have changed their aims and no longer wish to prevent this wedding? What if they’ve realized that ’s letters about King Bartholomew and Empress Margaraux seeking to unite Friv and Bessemia through and Bairre were forgeries? What if—
Bairre yanks her toward him so hard that she feels like her arm leaves its socket and she crashes into him, toppling them both to the stone floor just as an explosion tears through the chapel, making her ears ring and raining down shrapnel over both of them. Something hard smacks the back of her head and pain erupts across her skull as her vision fractures.
“!” Bairre yells, and though she is sprawled over his chest, his mouth a breath from her ear, he still sounds miles away.
“I’m fine,” she says, trying to shake off the pain in her head so that she can take an inventory of the rest of her body—her shoulder is bleeding and her ears are still ringing, but nothing feels broken, at least. She pushes up to look at his face. Some bit of shrapnel cut his temple, but apart from that he appears unharmed, though there could be all manner of injuries that can’t be seen. “Are you?”
“Fine,” he says, though he winces when he says it.
rolls off him, the pain in her head throbbing, but she forces herself to ignore it and instead take in the pandemonium of the chapel—guests huddled together, clothes bloody and torn, the ceiling above shattered, shards of glass and metal strewn over the ground. Her eyes find King Bartholomew first, but he is safe, crouched down beside Rufus and his siblings, checking on the children. Cliona and Haimish appear unharmed too, though must admit they are both doing a decent job of appearing startled. Cliona’s father is as well, hurrying around the chapel to check on the injured.
lets out a breath. Everyone is safe, it was merely a stalling tactic…
Fergal’s severed hand lies inches from her face, drenched in blood and identifiable by the empyrea ring he wears on his right thumb.
The ring he wore on his right thumb, corrects herself as she forces her gaze up. She sees a leg, then an ear, and then, finally, his head.
The last thing remembers is screaming.
—
comes to with weak predawn light filtering through her window and it takes her a moment to remember what happened—her would-be wedding day, Bairre pulling her out of the way an instant before the explosion, like he knew what would happen, the pain in her head, Fergal’s body, blown to pieces.
She didn’t know Fergal, really, she certainly won’t mourn him, and yet…
Just last week, she, Bairre, and Cliona dispatched half a dozen would-be assassins and felt nothing.
But when she closes her eyes, she sees that bloodied hand right in front of her face. She sees Fergal’s disembodied head with those lifeless silver eyes—star-touched, just like hers, just like Bairre’s.
She shudders and forces herself to sit up, noticing as she does that the pain in her head is gone. All of her pain is gone. The glass ceiling shattered, pieces rained down, cutting her skin, but now there isn’t even a scrape on her.
The room is empty and it takes only a second for her to realize why that unsettles her—the last two times she’s woken up after grievous injuries, Bairre has been beside her.
Dread pools in the pit of her stomach as she reaches for the bellpull beside her bed, giving it a sharp tug. She hears the faint ring down the hall and forces herself to stay calm. Bairre was fine, he was conscious and talking. He had to be fine. He had to be—
The door to her room swings open and when Bairre steps in, feels herself sag with relief. An instant later, that relief is replaced with fury. When he closes the door behind them, ensuring they’re alone, she reaches for one of the pillows piled around her and throws it at his head.
“You knew,” she hisses, careful to keep her voice low.
Bairre catches the pillow with barely a flinch but doesn’t deny it. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It was for your own protection, the less you knew—”
“Yes, Cliona fed me that line as well,” interrupts. “But we all know what the truth of it is—you don’t trust me.”
That, she expects him to deny, but he doesn’t, and that hurts worse than expects it to. “You’re keeping secrets too, ,” he points out, and much as she hates it, she can’t deny he’s right. “Are you going to pretend you trust me?”
grits her teeth. She told him pieces of her mother’s plan, but there is plenty she’s left out, too. Plenty that she can’t tell him, that she won’t because at the end of the day her loyalty isn’t to him, it’s to her mother and to Bessemia.
“I almost died,” she says, fighting to hold on to her anger.
“You didn’t,” he said. “I made sure you didn’t.”
“Oh, am I supposed to thank you for that?” she snaps. “Fergal is dead. Any other casualties?”
“No,” Bairre says, without so much as a flash of guilt. “We were careful about placing the bomb. There were a few injuries, but the new empyrea already healed them all, including yours.”
“New empyrea? How did you find one so soon?” asks, struggling to process the information. “Wait, you wanted to kill Fergal. Why?” She doesn’t know much about Fergal, but from all of her studies of Friv and her reading through intelligence provided by spies in the Frivian court, she was under the impression that Fergal was wholly uninteresting and uncontroversial. She isn’t sure what anyone would have to gain by killing him.
Before Bairre can answer, the door opens again and Bairre’s mother, Aurelia, sweeps into the room, Fergal’s empyrea ring on her right thumb and a cheerful smile on her face.
“It’s good to see you up, Princess. I must say, it feels like I am making a habit of healing you.”
looks to Bairre again, and now she sees a hint of guilt in his gaze. realizes what, exactly, the rebels accomplished: not only the wedding postponed again but the royal empyrea killed and one of their own stepping into his place at the king’s right hand. A king Aurelia already has quite a history with.