Chapter 49
Ididn’t have much time to recover from the discovery that Selena and Thaan were mates. I forced it away for later like a book I didn’t want to read. Snapped it shut and shelved it, knowing I’d eventually have to take it down and peek inside. But my stomach was already in enough knots.
By the time I sat at my table, drinking pale broth for lunch, Diara and a slew of other servant women were in my rooms, fussing over my hair, my dress, my shoes, my ring, my tiara, and a host of other things I failed to care about.
My nerves held me hostage for the day, as I supposed they did for most foolish brides-to-be.
I wondered what my father was up to in Leihani. If he’d been informed that I was marrying a prince—or if he thought me dead. I couldn’t help thinking the latter was more likely.
I grew a bit heartsick when I thought of the weddings in Leihani. Simple, happy, relaxed. An undemanding crowd. Just two people, in love.
I wondered if my mother, a stranger to her environment during her own wedding, suffered anxiety over her ceremony.
And then, there was suddenly not enough time anymore to sit around worrying.
The remainder of the day whooshed by in a flash.
Stitched into my dress, I’d never seen my waist so narrow. Kohl over my eyes, rouge on my cheeks; my hair sat coiffed into an intricate labyrinth over my head, and the weight of it along with several thousand pins was like being buried at the bottom of the ocean.
The ceremony was to take place in the southwest yard outside the Laurier Palace, overlooking the Juile Sea.
I watched wedding guests for what seemed like hours from the window of the room I’d been given to wait in. The City of Towers was saturated with people: distant relatives of the royal family, nobles whose estates lay in the far reaches of the kingdom, allied kings and queens, the families of advisors and ministry professionals. They’d spent the last few weeks talking to me about my future, my duties as princess, my priorities as far as they were concerned, the wedding itself, and always, without fail, my wedding night.
Luckily, Diara stayed with me.
As Selena promised, Diara didn’t remember anything she’d said. I wondered if a hint of it was there—maybe she remembered but thought she’d dreamt it—or if it had been wiped completely from her mind. I suppose I’d never know. But I was glad to have her company.
She paced the floor, seeming almost more nervous than I was.
Almost.
Whatever she felt couldn”t possibly have matched the anxious maelstrom that had formed in my stomach. It whirred and churned, a tornado of water deep as Nahli’s volcano.
When a liveried footman popped his head in the door, I thought I might vomit. “It’s time, Lady Maren.”
My breath shallow, I slid off my seat by the window.
Diara turned to me, fixing a rogue hair over my brow, clucking under her breath. “You’ll knock him dead.”
I only smiled at her because yes—I planned to.
Musicians began playing the moment I stepped outside the door of the little side cottage we’d occupied, my feet finding the flagstones between grass. Strings and woodwinds floated to my ears, the scent of rose petals lifting from under my feet, the faint taste of salt blooming across my tongue.
An aisle stretched before me, carved by wrought iron chairs painted white and chipping, and a thousand Calderians swiveled in their seats, their eyes heavy on mine.
Breathe.
It would’ve been easier if the man waiting on the other side had been in love with me. But he wasn’t, and my breath became a moth in my lungs, flitting around so fast I couldn’t catch it.
And I wasn’t in love with him either. I wasn’t sure I even believed in love. Was it anything more than how Selena had described it? A flood of oxytocin? A drug to the brain?
My legs heavy, I stepped into the aisle, and a thousand people stood.
I wished they wouldn’t.
One step over the other, I carried myself to the end and stepped on the wooden dais that had been constructed the day before, piled high with roses of every color. The sun loomed over the water, sleepy but curious. Lanterns and candles scattered around us.
Kye and me.
Mihauna, he was beautiful.
He’d forgone the midnight-blue colors of the royal family for layers of black. I wondered if the color choice was standard in Calderian groom fashion, or if, like the other choices he’d been rumored to make, he’d opted for the brooding hue as a slight to his father. A small act of rebellion before being shipped off to war. Across from the pale color of my dress, we looked like death and bone together. His jacket was clean cut and open, the simple black shirt underneath fitted to the dips and curves of his chest and abdomen, the snug taper of his pants alluding to muscular thighs.
Dark stubble lined his jaw, his sleeves rolled up to show the tattoo of his mother”s family crest. His hair shone chocolate brown in the setting sun, mussed and moody as though it might’ve been combed and styled an hour ago but the wind had had its way with it, stroking its fingers through the strands until they’d come undone.
I wondered what his hair felt like—and instantly yanked the thought from my head, filling the void with something venomous and potent instead.
Had he always been so tall? Had his eyes always been so molten? Had he always smelled so sweet?
He didn’t look sweet.
He stared at me without the barest hint of a smile, though his gaze shifted over my face and hair as he took me in. The breadth of his shoulders drew a taut line, and the energy that pulsed from him was so thick in the seaward wind, I could almost feel it vibrating inside my core.
Masculine. Rough. Dangerous.
The space between us crackled. My dress was suddenly too tight.
The Aalton Priest began his speech, but I didn’t hear a word.
I was slowly falling, drowning inside a storm, my fingers scrabbling for purchase among the rocks.
I was aware that I likely looked like a block of wood. Something expressionless and hard. The tendons in my neck seized, and my spine ached under my rigid muscles.
I hated him.
Somewhere inside, I invited the taste of poison, letting it slither over my palate and bathe me in false confidence. My hatred had never failed me before. It had always been easy to find—always there when I reached for it.
“Do you, Lady Maren Inoa of Leihani, take Prince Nikolaos Laurier of Calder, under the witnesses of Aalto the Sun and the people gathered here today, to be your wedded husband? To comfort him when he needs comforting, tend to him when he needs tending, and protect him when he needs your protection?”
Hate.
To pluck a poisoned cane from the roots of hate and bite into its sweet nectar. To let it stir and bubble in my belly. To sink into its embrace, toxic in my veins.
“I will,” I murmured, my jaw flexing.
“And do you, Prince Nikolaos Laurier of Calder, take Lady Maren Inoa of Leihani, under the witnesses of Aalto the Sun and the people gathered here today, to be your wedded wife? To comfort her when she needs comforting, tend to her when she needs tending, and protect her when she needs your protection?”
War waged behind Kye’s eyes as he fought with himself. The Aalton Priest glanced at him, waiting. The sea thrashed against the cliffs below. Not a soul in the audience made a sound.
“I will.”
He seethed at me, and I at him, until the priest’s voice drifted through my head, and somewhere in the distance, the word kiss met my consciousness.
Kye leaned forward, an iron warning in his gaze as his scent and warmth coiled over my limbs, binding me tight. The air around me snapped, crackling silently in my ears.
His lips met mine, and time ceased to exist.
He didn”t taste like poison. He tasted cool and brisk, like icy wind whisking across my tongue.
It was a cautious kiss. Guarded. Suspicious. His mouth crushed mine in slow, soft fury, and I heard the promises that lingered, hidden under the touch of his skin.
Death.