Chapter 57
57
I n Tristen’s memory, he was standing in a field of softly swaying grass. As a small band began to play, he swept his gaze across the small audience of gathered people wearing the red and black of Stormgard, who rose to their feet and turned.
There, from underneath dripping willow trees, I emerged. Walking down an aisle, escorted by an older woman?—
—a woman, I realized, with shock, was my mother. Aurora . That was her name— Aurora Vale . My mother, resplendent in a simple gold dress that shone like the sun in the soft light of sunset. Her ice blue eyes and long blonde hair matched mine. The realization would have overwhelmed me had I not been hit by the force of Tristen’s emotions as his eyes absorbed every detail of me. My eyes, the way the setting sun hit my skin, and my wedding dress. The same dress that would later be torn to shreds on my body as I awoke on a prison cell floor in Ashguard.
But here? As I walked down the aisle to him, rose petals leading the way, I saw myself from his perspective. Felt the adoration and love as he drank me in. My dress was white with a flowing train, and had an off-the-shoulder style with long lace sleeves and a lace cape draped behind me. My hair was braided and curled with flowers. Not any flower—the night-blooming roses that had been magically spelled to stay open as they dripped from my hair.
We stopped in front of the altar, Aurora throwing her arms around me as she whispered in my ear. “Go have your happy ending, Saffron. Cherish every moment.”
When she pulled away, tears were in her eyes, but she looked so vibrant and youthful, even with the soft wrinkles lining her face.
Then, I stepped up to the altar, across from Tristen as Aldric stood between us with some official-looking leather bound book. On the front of the book was the crest of Stormgard, I realized—a fist holding a lightning bolt. The same emblem that had embossed the handkerchief that I had found beside my ruined dress when I had awoken in Ashguard.
There were words being spoken by Aldric, a ceremony happening that he was officiating, but in Tristen’s mind—all of that was background noise.
He was focused on nothing but me as I stepped up on the altar beside him, my ice blue eyes shining as Aldric made some joke and the audience softly laughed with warm humor. My eyes never left Tristen’s, not even as crowns were opened from velvet boxes. Even as a crown was placed on my head—a beautiful thing made of delicate golden spirals twisting into leaves and inlaid with diamonds and pearls—I couldn’t tear my gaze from Tristen’s. The electricity between us was humming. It had always been there, I realized in that memory, but it was something I had ignored, brushed off as just my attraction to his beauty.
But now, as I felt that moment through his memory, I knew our feelings for each other ran much, much deeper than anything I could have ever imagined.
“My parents would have loved to be here,” Tristen whispered to me as Aldric made more jokes to the audience, going off-script. “I’m glad Aurora could make it.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
“These two can never really stop breaking the rules, can they?” Aldric said to the audience of our closest friends and family members, a few guards posted around the ceremony. “If you don’t care about my speeches, let’s skip to the good part, shall we?”
A ripple of laughter went through the crowd.
“By the light of a thousand stars and the blessing of every realm, do you declare your undying devotion to take Saffron Vale as your beloved Queen, now until the end?”
“I do,” Tristen said, his words uttered like a prayer. Aldric was nudging me, and I smiled at Tristen as I slipped a wedding band on his finger.
The same wedding band I had seen him wear during all of the trials.
Aldric turned to me. “As two paths become one road eternal, do you, Saffron Vale, declare your undying devotion to take Tristen Grewyood as your beloved King, now until the end?”
Tristen’s answering smile was sunlight, moonlight, and all of the light in-between. He withdrew a ring from his pocket, and my breath caught as I saw it in the light. A diamond was placed between two twin sapphires the color of my eyes, and the gold of the band was etched with lightning bolts.
He held out the ring, about to slide it on my finger. “I?—”
“Oh, how sweet,” a female voice rang out. It slithered underneath my skin, and I felt the flash of fear as Tristen pulled me behind him.
We all turned as Cassandra walked down the aisle. Tristen’s shadows were already out, unfurling as she approached.
“Get out, Cassandra,” he said, low and deadly.
“I can’t do that, Prince . Or is it Shadowfire Assassin? It’s so hard to keep track of all of your identities these days.”
Tristen snarled, and his shadows speared for her, but she blocked them with a wave of her own magic. Screams rang out as royal guards in Stormgard red and black helped the guests from the pews, evacuating them. One of them grabbed my mother, who fought against them. She was trying to get to us .
“Now, is that how you treat your guests?” Cassandra mocked.
“Aldric,” I whispered, and he looked at Tristen, who nodded. Aldric slipped away, going to get Aurora out of the outdoor wedding space—and out of harm’s way.
“What do you want, Cassandra?” I asked as our guests cleared out, our guards and trusted soldiers creeping closer to where we stood facing Cassandra on the altar.
Cassandra looked me up and down. “A secret wedding. Why, I wonder? Are you afraid Luminaria will realize that the long-empty thrones of Stormgard are about to get filled, and you might just find yourselves with some unaccounted for wedding guests?”
“Speak or die,” Tristen warned, angling his body in front of mine.
“I’m here to fulfill a blood oath,” Cassandra said, her hips swaying as she approached. “I made a certain promise to a man that he would have her—and I’m glad I caught you before you tied the knot. It would be so sad to lose a bride after she’s truly yours, would it not be?”
“We’re not losing anything,” I asserted.
Cassandra sniffed at me. “You smell powerless.” Her eyes lifted to Tristen. “You really think taking a hollow as a wife will help you stave off Luminaria’s eventual reign of your lands?”
The shadows grew longer at Tristen’s feet. “So you do admit they’re our lands?”
“Semantics.” Cassandra tilted her head back to us. “Your wards are down. I had a little help with that part.”
From the treeline behind us, a row of her hooded priestesses appeared, their hands glowing with power.
Far away, a screeching sound echoed through the darkening forest. Not of an animal, but of a monster.
“Soon, you’ll have other concerns, but I’ll get what I came for. Blood oaths demand either fulfillment or life itself—and I never break my word.”
Cassandra rammed a blast of colorful power at Tristen, and he flew backward, his shadows stretched thin as he kept them in front of me and the fleeing guests. He hit a tree with a terrible crack, blood running from his head as he struggled to his feet.
Cassandra charged up another blast of power at her hands.
“STOP!” I screamed, stepping in between Cassandra and Tristen. “You will not touch him.”
“That’s the problem, Saffron. I promised that you would be delivered without any troublesome romantic entanglements."
“Delivered to whom?” I asked, my voice cold.
“That’s not my information to share,” Cassandra said with a smirk. “But it was made clear that you are not to be with another when I am to take you. And it looks like you and the prince are quite intertwined.”
“Then let me make a deal with you,” I said.
Cassandra’s power flickered out at her hands. “Oh?”
“I’ll have him erase my memories. He’ll be as good as dead to me, which will fulfill your blood bargain. But you must promise that he lives.”
“No,” Tristen said, pulling himself up and stalking toward us. But his shadows were starting to double back upon him, and I knew he was pulling more from his power than he should as he protected all of those we loved who were fleeing.
Another roar sounded in the distance, the monsters starting to encroach upon our lands.
“I must,” I said, turning to him. “The wards are down. Everyone will die if you don’t go and stop what’s coming in. If you sacrifice yourself for me, our kingdom won’t survive it. The rebellion won’t survive it. Luminaria will win, and I’ll be as good as dead if that’s the price we have to pay.”
“I’ll pay any price,” he said, and in his memory I felt the anger rippling through him, raw and painful.
I reached for a dagger, slicing my hand. I flipped the dagger so its hilt faced Cassandra. “We have a deal, then? You let Tristen live and in exchange he’ll wipe my memories so you can fulfill your blood oath to whoever sent you.”
“Saffron, no—” Tristen said, grabbing my arm, but I didn’t look at him.
Cassandra studied us. “What do I get out of this?”
My eyes flared. “If you decline my offer, we will both die tearing you limb from limb.”
Cassandra considered, weighing her options. Then, she smiled. “One one condition: after he erases your memory—and I do mean every memory—I get to place a spell on him where he cannot remind you of your past memories… should those pesky things return if he does come across you once more. Just a simple silencing spell.”
“Deal,” I said, shifting a pleading gaze to Tristen. “It’s the only way.”
“It’s not?—”
“It is,” I said, and he paused at the pain he saw there, his own emotions rippling with a heavy intensity.
Cassandra studied me. “Fine. Let’s end this the civilized way, shall we?”
Tristen tried to yank me away but it was too late—Cassandra sliced her hand with my outstretched dagger, and we shook. Magic sparked from our blood oath, and when our hands dropped, a feline grin stretched across her face. “Make it quick. I have places to be.”
I shot a glare at Cassandra, and she sighed, walking a few paces away to give Tristen and I privacy for our goodbyes.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, his voice coiled with pain and absolute devastation.
I fought back tears that fell anyways. “Stormgard need you. Right now . If I’m being taken behind enemy lines into Luminaria—they can’t know what I know about the rebellion. Erasing my memories will protect everything that we have built from Luminaria. No mindweavyr will be able to look into my mind if it is blank.”
“I won’t stand for this—” Tristen said, and I could feel his fear cresting as he took me in, memorizing every detail of my face.
“You have to. You have to get the wards back up, secure the borders, watch after the people we love, go marry godsdamn Melisandre if you have to so you can claim the crown and rule before everything falls to pieces?—”
“Saffron—”
“You have to give us a fighting chance against Luminaria. You have to keep fighting. For me. Promise me. ”
Tristen’s voice was raw as he responded, his hands going to cradle my head. “I promise that I will find you. That I will fight to bring you home. Even if you don’t remember me, remember us—” he sucked in a breath, and I felt his heart breaking in his chest, “—I will fight for you. You will be my Queen, and we will win this war. I swear it.”
“Tristen,” I breathed, and his lips were on mine. Loving, wanting, desperate. Even as everything was slipping from our fingers, even as our home was in danger, we crashed together with an intensity that left me breathless when he pulled away. “I love you,” I said, but he was shaking his head.
“This is not goodbye, Saffron. So don’t be telling me goodbye.”
“I love you,” I echoed again.
“Gods dammit ,” Tristen seethed, clutching me to him. “I love you, too. But this is not goodbye. Swear it.”
“I swear,” I said, tilting my head up to him.
“Now or never,” Cassandra called, looking back at us.
Tristen placed his hands on either side of my head. “I love you, Saffron. I will find you again. Now, breathe for me, darling—I’m so sorry, but this will hurt.” His voice shattered like all of the pieces of my heart, and as his magic lifted to his fingertips, I began to scream as every precious memory of mine was ripped away from me.