Chapter 33
‘Agatha? What do you mean, Agatha?’
The smugness on the Commander’s face has adrenaline dumping into my blood.
‘I meant exactly what I said,’ he says. ‘You will marry Agatha. I agreed you could marry my daughter. I didn’t say which one. Check the contract.’
Marian gasps.
My chest heaves. ‘No.’ That can’t be. I said her name. I said Marian’s name.
Didn’t I?
But one look at Marian’s horrified face, and I know.
‘Then I forfeit.’ Somewhere in the back of my head I know the deal was bigger than a marriage, but nothing else seems to matter right now.
I can’t marry Agatha. With the connection, we’d be joined – intertwined – forever. No one has ever broken that kind of bond.
The Commander gives a hard laugh. ‘You can’t forfeit. It’s too late for that.’
‘It’s not,’ I assure him, my voice lethal. ‘I won. It’s my prize. I can do what I want with it. And I refuse the marriage.’
‘You can’t refuse,’ he says simply. ‘Nobody breaks a deal with me and walks away alive.’
He’s threatening to kill me for not accepting my winnings?
‘And, careful, you’re hurting my feelings. Not to mention the feelings of my daughter.’ He waves at Agatha, who’s a few paces away. No one has dispersed from the cliff’s edge.
Agatha stares at the ground, and something twinges in my chest at adding my name to the list of people who’ve rejected her. But not enough to concede. ‘Are you sure it’s not because you’re giving her away?’
He scoffs. ‘Agatha’s honoured to be chosen for this. But it’s you who’s publicly refusing her. Is this any way to start off our alliance? We’re to be family.’
With the gentleness of a spear to my skull, it hits me what an absolute fool I was.
How rash it was to agree to his terms. He made it so that no matter the outcome of the contest, he’d get exactly what he wants – information on Kingsland.
Even in me winning, he’ll get every detail about my homeland. He’s just going to use Agatha to do it.
He was never going to let Marian go.
To hell with this. ‘You knew exactly which daughter I asked to marry in my terms. You cheated.’
‘Cheated?’ he scoffs. ‘Cheating would be shooting your opponent while he stands only feet away. If anyone cheated in this contest, it was you.’
‘I’ve already asked Marian for her hand in marriage,’ I grind out. ‘This was merely a formality.’
‘He did.’ Marian pushes forward. ‘And I accepted. I want to marry Ryland. Right now.’
Something dark and possessive settles on the Commander’s face as he whirls on her. ‘Absolutely not!’
‘Father, please,’ she begs, moving closer and clasping his hand. ‘It would mean everything to me if you’d allow this one kindness.’
It hurts to watch. I know how much bowing before him is costing her.
Suddenly he slaps her across the face. Her head snaps to the side, eyes closing in pain.
Guards jump to restrain me as I launch myself at him. ‘Don’t touch her!’ I snarl as my arms are pinned behind my back. ‘Don’t you lay a hand on her again!’
A guard’s knife presses painfully into my back, adding to my rage.
The Commander’s face is mottled red as he stomps up to me.
‘We need to get something straight: Marian is not available to you or anyone else. She is mine. You will honour your own terms of our deal, or you will die where you stand.’ Then he grabs Agatha and shoves her at me. ‘Where is Brother Thomas?’ he shouts.
‘Here,’ responds a guard. The crowd splits and the man who almost married Marian and me hours ago is revealed.
No.
The knife in my back digs in a little further, breaking the skin. I growl, straining against the hands holding me, until the owner of the blade speaks into my ear, ‘I’m glad I didn’t kill you yet so I can have a front row seat to this.’
I rip my arm free and let loose an elbow that connects with Soren’s head, then twist and knee another guardsman. I throw an uppercut. A cross. Another elbow. But someone kicks my leg out, dropping me to my knee and more guards pile on, holding me down.
‘Your choices are death or marriage. And really,’ the Commander muses, ‘the answer is obvious. You know what you have to do. Your people in Kingsland are counting on you.’
Death or marriage – either way, I lose Marian. For how much that hurts, you’d think I’ve lost a limb. A surprising reaction to losing someone I didn’t know weeks ago.
It’s because I’ve fallen in love with her.
‘Ryland,’ Marian says, eyes desperate. Then she speaks two words that throw my world on its head. ‘It’s okay.’
I shake my head. It’s really not.
‘I can’t watch you die.’ The feverish panic is back in her face. ‘Just live. Do what you have to do. We’ll figure the rest out.’
She doesn’t get it. If I do this, I can’t stop the connection.
If I marry Agatha, this is our end.
‘Time’s up. What’s your answer?’ the Commander demands.
The only answer I want to give is to bury Soren’s knife in both his and Atlas’s lungs.
‘Start the wedding,’ the Commander says to Brother Thomas. ‘Make it quick.’
Despite Marian’s assurances, she looks devastated. Defeated.
Brother Thomas appears before me, his face filled with the deep lines of a frown. He clears his throat, slow to start. ‘A wedding is a serious lifelong commitment to one another,’ he says loudly for all to hear. ‘A vow before God and not something to be taken lightly.’
‘Yes, yes. Get on with it,’ the Commander says.
Brother Thomas’s eyes turn apologetic as he continues, skipping over his scriptures on love that he spoke in the first ceremony. Because this isn’t about love.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t come. My eyes close. That’s the thing about the connection – it unites you. Draws you together. Mind. Spirit.
Body.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
‘Agatha,’ Brother Thomas asks. ‘Do you choose to love and honour Ryland?’
My heart thunders. It’s a small mercy that he’s asking her first, but how are we at the vows already?
‘Do you choose to take him as your wedded husband for all of your days?’
‘I do,’ Agatha says, voice surprisingly strong. Her despondency is gone. Now she looks encouraged, almost eager.
You don’t understand what you’re saying yes to.
‘And do you, Ryland, choose to love and honour Agatha? Do you choose to take her as your wedded wife for all of your days?’
Choose. He changed the vows from what I spoke to Marian. Boiled them down to the bones. It’s still too specific. Cruel. No, I don’t choose this. But that’s what I’d have to do. Every day, going forward, I’d have to choose Agatha.
I hesitate. Soren’s knife disappears from my back and slides to my throat. I hiss as he cuts me, digging in.
I’m out of time. Atlas wins.
‘I … do,’ I say, speaking my vow before the Creator.