Chapter 15
JINGYI
Her morning passed without event.
After breakfast, she sat at the desk in her borrowed room and unwrapped her writing kit. The paper was blank. She needed to write to LinXin, but the words—the words wouldn’t come.
Where did she sit with her half-sister? Would her correspondence be welcomed or discarded? But she needed information, and she’d promised Alexander she would ask.
She dipped her brush and began.
Princess X?en LinXin,
I write with hope this letter finds you in good health.
This may come as a surprise. I am aware I am in no position to ask for favours, yet I must.
I am investigating a mysterious death in Blackwood-Veyrde. All signs point to chronic purple limyerite poisoning. I have brought some textbooks with me, but details are limited.
If you can access the Physicians’ Archive, I need other textbooks that contain information on the stone. You can speak to Wu Mā or Fēng in the Royal Dispensary. They will help you.
This request concerns a matter of life and death. It may yet help others who do not deserve to suffer.
Thank you for considering it.
—JingYi
She rolled the letter and set it aside for Yrenna to fasten to a Sparo—one of the swift messenger birds bred for carrying urgent news across the Nine Kingdoms.
As hours passed, JingYi kept to her room, nerves coiling tighter and tighter beneath her skin. Aliz came and went with meals, always available to assist but never lingering, and she was grateful for the solitude.
By the time the sun dipped low, she’d bathed and dressed. She prepared as tradition demanded: hair pinned neatly for the jade-and-gold headdress, body wrapped in the heavy, layered robes of an X?en bride. Her veil, embroidered with gold phoenixes for luck, turned the world to gauzy shadow.
As she finished, her fingers brushed the embroidered pouch she’d placed on the dressing table and stopped. Should she wear it?
The thought of facing the coming hours without the suppressant unlocked a cold, familiar fear.
But its presence was a relic of her old life—ill-suited for a bride, an insult to Lord Wulfbane as her husband and Alpha.
She understood the theory. A true mate could calm the turbulence that suppressants merely stifled.
A beautiful idea. A promise, even if it required walking through fire first.
A knock came.
“Sister?” Yrenna’s voice reached her. “Are you ready? We’ve come to escort you to Luneth’s temple.”
JingYi stood and adjusted the fall of her veil. “I am ready.”
She wasn’t, of course, but there was no way but forward now.
Yrenna entered the room, a warm shadow accompanied by the lighter, quicker presence of Aliz. They paused before her, two blurred forms in the dim light filtering through her veil.
“You look every bit the royal bride,” Yrenna’s voice came, soft and close.
From behind, Aliz’s voice, bright with awe, added, “The embroidery on your sleeves is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Your Highness.”
Yrenna’s hand found hers, its grip sure and gentle. “Let us go now. The women are waiting outside to escort you to the temple.”
She was guided through the empty corridor and out into the open air.
The courtyard was lined with the noble ladies—she could see only the tips of slippers and the hems of ceremonial cloaks, soft greys and dusky blues brushing the flagstones.
The rest of the world was a tapestry of muted shapes and shadows behind the veil’s dense weave.
A ripple of admiring whispers moved through the gathering, Lady Reave’s voice among them. Somewhere ahead, a brazier burned, the sharp tang of juniper needles curling in the wind. They took their places.
Then, an ominous hush settled over the courtyard. The rustle of robes stilled.
“Princess,” Yrenna muttered, her hand squeezing gently. “They’ve arrived.”
Jing Yi didn’t need to ask who. She heard them before she could see them: the swish of court silk, the chime of ornamental bells tied to embroidered sashes. Sounds from a world she was no longer part of.
LánYàn’s voice floated up, almost a sigh. “It’s going to take such a long time for her to climb up there, she might miss her own wedding.”
The other two answered with a smothered giggle. JingYi felt them as keenly as a pressure along her spine. Watching. Waiting for a slip.
“Don’t let them trouble you,” Yrenna said low enough for only JingYi to hear as they began to walk. “Alexander said they’re here as your father’s witnesses, that’s all. The moment the ceremony ends, they’ll be escorted back to the village and depart for Niewberg in the morning.”
JingYi didn’t answer, but her next step landed a little firmer on the stone.
Luneth’s temple stood not far from the keep—a small, domed structure of white stone and marble, said to be older than Parandor itself.
Climbing the path, Jing Yi focused on her gait, trying not to limp, not to lean too heavily on Yrenna’s arm.
Her injured leg burned, each upward step a negotiation between pain and balance.
She couldn’t see the altar when they entered, but the air told her where they were. Woodsmoke and beeswax, the bitter edge of blackthorn—each offering chosen from Tremore’s own land. Ahead, the low chants of Luneth’s maidens looped slow and rhythmic.
A warm, earthen bowl filled with blooms was placed in her hands—moonflowers, Luneth’s favourite.
She knew them by their fragrance. She knelt, poured oil, and the scent of juniper resin and bitter orange rose at once.
Not the perfume of a bride, but a land preparing for winter.
A maiden lit the offering. Fragrant smoke curled as petals and leaves sizzled.
The priestess’s hand, when it came, was light atop her head.
“May Luneth receive your vow and shelter your hearth,” she intoned in Isseric. “And may your bond with your Alpha be a lantern in the long dark.”
The acrid-sweet smoke stung her eyes. Salt threatened—from the sting or the terror, she couldn’t tell. Beneath the drone of prayer, her heart filled the cage of her ribs.
After her mother’s death, she’d never prayed. What was the point? The gods had watched her mother die. They had watched her limp through life. If they didn’t care to see her, would her voice even reach them?
But now, desperate, she closed her eyes and tried anyway. Let him see me. Look past the blemish and see the woman who wants to belong here.
She straightened, knees aching. Yrenna squeezed her hand as they stepped out into the fading light.
“Alexander’s waiting just ahead, in front of Solthar’s temple.”
She’d always known Luneth’s and Solthar’s temples were never more than a stone’s throw apart.
Tradition demanded it. The murmur of male voices quieted as she was guided forward, and her pulse skipped.
Yrenna’s hand left hers. Through the narrow sliver of her veil, she saw: black boots against packed earth, their leather buffed to a shine.
The edge of a crimson cloak brushing her periphery.
Spruce and steel and something faintly smoky—familiar now.
Lord Wulfbane.
His bare hand found hers—large and warm, calloused, but careful. He didn’t speak. He simply closed his fingers, steady and assured. Together, they turned toward the temple gates.
A new male voice—Solthar’s High Priest—broke the silence.
“The gods do not bind lightly,” he began. “But when they witness two paths drawn together, they mark it with a thread of shared purpose. No sword forged by man may sever what is joined in their name.”
A length of silk cord, dyed in the deep crimson of Solthar’s flame, was produced.
Her right hand was drawn forward. Lord Wulfbane’s left followed.
The cord was looped around their wrists—once, twice—knotted not tightly, but deliberately, with the practiced grace of a thousand weddings before theirs.
The priest continued, “Bound in spirit. Bound in strength. Bound in flame and in shadow. May Solthar see this thread and strike no blow between it.”
JingYi didn’t speak; neither did Lord Wulfbane.
Together, they stepped over the threshold of the temple—bound.
The guests followed them inside. Through her veil, she glimpsed stone pillars looming at the end of the temple and the golden glow of Solthar’s sacred brazier on the altar beyond.
The High Priest led them to stand beneath the vaulted ceiling and recited the ancient vows, “Do you, Alpha Lord Alexander Henrye Wulfbane, take this Omega to be your wedded wife? To love her, shield her from all harm, and honour her as your hearth’s keeper and your heart’s ally, to bind your fate to his in faith and duty, from this day until the soil calls you home? ”
She wished then—fiercely—that she could lift the veil. That she could meet his gaze as those words were spoken. Love. Honour. Duty. Such profound promises, wrapped in devotion.
“I do,” he said.
Those two words moved through her like a tremor. They held no hesitation, as though in that single utterance, he had anchored them both.
The priest turned to her. “Do you, Omega Princess X?en JingYi, take this Alpha to be your wedded husband? To love him and weave your strength with his, to honour him as your hearth’s keeper and your heart’s ally, to bind your fate to his in faith and duty, from this day until the soil calls you home? ”
Her mouth was dry, but her voice held. “I do.”
Readings followed, prayers in the old Tremesi that were beyond her learning. A mist of sanctified water felt cool against her veil, then came the ring. She felt his hand first, strong and warm, then the chill of metal and limyerite as he slid that perfect circle onto her finger.
She stared down at the ring through her veil. Such a tiny thing, yet its weight was absolute: It bound her to this man, to this land, to a future. The sheer, irrevocable permanence of it hit her, and a tremor—part fear, part awe—lodged in her chest.
The sealing of the marriage scroll was a formality, a blur of ink and wax. Then, the final words fell from the priest’s lips, “You may now lift the bride’s veil.”
Her heart stammered against her ribs. She fixed her eyes downward as his hands rose into the edge of her vision—long fingers that hesitated for a heartbeat before gathering the silk.
A soft hiss of fabric, then the world rushed in. Cool air caressed her cheeks, her brow, her lips. She blinked, the candlelight swimming between her lashes.
A deep, swallowing silence pressed against her eardrums.
She forced her gaze upward.
His breath hitched, sharp and audible. The sound was a small, dying thing.
Her own breath froze, her stomach plunging to the floor.
His eyes were no longer on hers. They were tracing the rose-coloured stain that bloomed across her left cheek—a mark she had carried forever, now seen by him for the first time.
The warmth in his expression dissolved, leaving behind a cold, blank stillness.
He hadn’t known.