Chapter 5
________
KATALENA
Clear sunlight greeted me when I opened my eyes. The storm had blown itself out in the night, making way for perfect weather.
Perfect weather for a perfect wedding.
Were it to someone else, I might feel joy. As it was, I felt only sick with nerves and the remnants of pain from the tonic. It had woken me several times, sharp stabs in my stomach, proving to me I’d brewed it correctly.
Varícurled up on my chest while I was in pain, his small warm body and the purr he emitted helping soothe me back to sleep.
He was still there, little head resting near my collarbone. His color had faded to a dusky shade of violet in his sleep. I would have happily stayed in bed with him, but the door was opening, and Helena was pushing back the curtains. Soon more ladies from the court would come to observe me getting ready, per tradition.
They would help bring my wedding dress from the royal seamstress.
“Varí,” I whispered.
Big golden eyes blinked open and looked at me. He chirped softly.
“Other people will be here soon. You need to hide for a while.”
He stood and stretched, wings flaring out and tail whipping back and forth before he picked up his coin and hopped off me.
Helena stared at the dragon and then smiled. “Varí. Before you hide, I have an idea.” She patted the table, and he went, leaping up to the top with a flap of wings.
I didn’t know if he was a small dragon that would grow larger, or if he was fully grown at this size. But if people could observe dragons like this, I felt it in my bones that some of the prejudice would melt away.
Terror of what dragons could do drove people’s hearts and minds. And in the absence of any other information, they clung to it.
Digging in her box full of sewing and embroidery, Helena pulled out a black ribbon and a scrap of silver fabric and showed it to him. “I can make something to hold the coin on your back so you don’t have to carry it. Would you like that?”
He spun in a circle with a chirp and sat at the edge of the table, watching intently. We both laughed, and she sat to make him the little harness. “Good idea.”
I rose and did the preparations I was allowed to do myself, freshening as much as I could without disturbing the bridal paint and running a brush through my hair.
“There,” Helena finally spoke, holding out a small pouch with the ribbon. “You can put it in there.”
He stared at her for a long moment before dropping the coin inside. Then she went to work, fastening the tiny bag around his legs and wings so the pouch rested between them.
“Try it out. Make sure it doesn’t fall off.”
Varíleapt into the air, fluttering around the room, diving and spinning faster than I imagined possible before landing lightly on my shoulder and shaking his wings. The bag still rested tightly on his shoulders, and I swore his small face showed something like a grin.
“They’re coming,” Helena said.
“Hide,” I whispered. “Quickly.”
Dropping from my shoulder, he scuttled under the bed where the ladies of the court wouldn’t see him or step on him just as the door opened and soft conversation suddenly filled the room.
They dropped into curtsies when they saw me—even the ones holding the gown off the floor. “Good morning, Your Highness.”
“Good morning.”
They asked questions of me that I answered. The acceptable things to say to such questions were long burned into my brain. I could retreat into myself and pretend I was somewhere else, as I did now.
The wedding dress, pale blue and monstrous, was lifted over my head. More than once I’d thought it ironic this was the color they chose to represent the opposite of fire when it was so close to the color which lived in the hottest part of the flame.
At least for today, that was what I would pretend it to mean.
My shoulders were left bare, filmy sleeves wrapping around them instead of over them so my bridal marks were on full display. From my neck all the way down my wrists. Some brides painted their entire bodies as a surprise for their new husbands.
But I also thought those women were ones who chose their match and were excited by the possibilities.
“Prince Andaros is indeed handsome, Your Highness. Do you not think so?”
I smiled as well as I could. “Of course.”
“Anyone should be so lucky,” another woman said. “I heard the Prince of Ostea has the features of a river swan.”
Laughter followed. The frail, humped brown birds that lived on the river and fed off of reeds and bottom feeders were a far cry from true swans, their only similarity being their long necks. River swan was the nickname that seemed to continue no matter where you went.
They lifted my wide skirt so I could sit at the dressing table and let Helena twist my hair into something elaborate and paint my face.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of movement, barely there. So fast it could have been a trick. But the soft brush up against my leg told me it wasn’t. Varí was under my skirt, and I smothered a smile. He’d changed his color to nearly that of the floor to make his move.
Little claws pricked my leg as he climbed, nestling himself near my hip. The gown was big enough he wouldn’t be noticed beneath it, but given who I was marrying, I wasn’t sure I could keep him there.
But the idea of Andaros’s horrified face when he found a dragon beneath my skirts delighted me so much that I smiled for the first real time since I’d woken.
“There you are,” Helena said softly when she’d finished with me.
The ladies who chattered around me gave me compliments that I accepted, and Helena was an excellent lady’s maid. I did indeed look beautiful. The one piece of armor she could give me. Because it was almost time.
Oh, stars.
She met my eyes in the mirror and saw my panic. “Thank you for your attendance, ladies. Her Highness needs a moment before she is escorted to the ceremony. Please make your way there.”
Thankfully they didn’t question her order. It was tradition for the ladies to escort the bride, but this was no ordinary wedding, and they knew it.
As soon as they were gone, Helena turned to me. “I know he won’t let you keep it, but I still had them sew in the panel for you.”
Shock ran through me briefly. I felt, and it was there. A division in my dress down to the bare skin of my thigh.
“Will he harm you for wearing it?”
“I do not care. I shall take the risk.”
The harness was already in her hands, and she was the one to dive beneath the unwieldy skirt to attach it to my leg, dagger in tow.
“You have a stowaway, my lady.”
“I know. But I can’t bear to make him leave.” The little creature clinging to my side gave me a steadiness I didn’t expect. It would be hard to conceal him, but at least until I left the city, I would hide him and keep him close.
She stood, brushing away flyaway hairs from her adventure beneath my gown. “I hope you know that I’m here for whatever you need. No matter what you choose to do. Even if it means using that dagger to plunge it into his heart.”
“And if I choose to plunge it into mine?”
Helena’s smile faltered. “I pray to the Fallen you will not find it necessary, and that the Prince is not as barbaric as the tales of him. I pray that both of us will be able to find some happiness in Craisos, and that we might find ways to honor those who came before us.”
Our grandmothers.
“I hope that too.” I blinked back the tears, not wanting to ruin her work.
“There is one more thing I must give you.” She crossed to the armoire and pulled out a drawer. Lifted the bottom of it. A hidden compartment I’d never known was there.
“You’ve been keeping secrets?”
“I was sworn on my very soul to keep this until the day you wed. And I fulfill my duty by giving it to you now.”
A small pouch, not unlike the one she’d sewn for Varí, was in her hand. Taking mine in hers, she emptied it into my palm. A simple silver chain ended in a locket of a dark, shining material. Oval and smooth, it opened and closed, though there was nothing inside it. Indeed, it looked a little battered, with small chips and scratches. It felt somewhere between metal and stone. Black and glossy, though opaque. Beautiful in its own way, but it was no great beauty.
“Why keep it until now?”
“I was told it kept the women of your line safe, and it was only to be passed on now. A secret, so no one might have a chance to do anything else with it.”
I frowned. Did that mean there was something more to it? If my grandmother had wanted me to have it, then I would never take it off. But I also didn’t want to draw attention to it. “It doesn’t match.”
“Here.” Helena wound the chain around my arm, hiding the necklace and stone beneath the curving sleeve of my dress.
“Thank you.”
A sharp rap on the door to my chambers had us both looking. It was time.
I barely remembered the ladies bringing in flowers along with my dress, but Helena handed me the bouquet of them. Mostly white, with speckles of blue.
Taking one last look at myself in the mirror, memorizing who I was in this moment before I crossed an irrevocable boundary, I turned and strode out of my chambers for the last time.