Chapter 24 #2
And now here she was, standing perfectly still in a dressing room that smelled of starch, warmed silk, and too many different people breathing at once, dressed for a wedding that was no longer a vague concept keeping her up at night, or a bleak theory of what her future might hold.
It was here.
She was getting married.
To a man she didn’t love. To a man she didn’t even know. Ceran hadn’t visited her, even after the announcement. He hadn’t called for her or written to her or sent her any gemstones as engagement gifts.
Rion stood nearby, also in front of a mirror—though she could actually use hers—also coming suddenly face-to-face with her future. Her family was there in a loose, shifting orbit of familiar footsteps and murmured reassurances, though they were trying to keep out of the way.
And then there was the queen.
Queen Noemi didn’t speak much, but her presence pressed firmly against the room, calm and immovable, like a hand laid flat between Eiko’s shoulder blades, always pressing her back to the mirror, back to her future.
Time had done something treacherous. It had slipped while Eiko was busy pretending it wouldn’t move, folding days in on themselves until disbelief gave way to inevitability. Two weeks ago, this had been a threat. A possibility. A thing that might still be argued with.
Before she could even prepare her statements, the arguments were over.
Eiko drew a careful breath through her nose and let it out slowly, anchoring herself in the weight of the gown, the warmth of bodies around her, the quiet, awful truth humming beneath it all.
This was actually happening.
And somewhere outside, beneath the Crown Spire, the King of All was greeting guests—smiling, beloved, benevolent, secure in the knowledge that each of his puppets had been moved exactly where he intended, prepared to perform exactly as he had specified.
“Where’s the veil?” one of the attendants whispered fretfully. “It should have been with the package from the dressmakers.”
“That’ll be me you’re waiting for,” a harried voice puffed out, stumbling through the door to their dressing room in a rush.
A familiar voice.
“Apologies, Your Grace,” an attendant said, addressing the queen. “The goldrunner insisted on delivering the package herself.”
Eiko turned in shock, drawing on her second sight until the room flooded into view.
“Kira?” Rion squeaked out in surprise, stumbling away from the mirror. “Oh my light, it’s you!”
Kira was dressed … very officially.
Her spine was straight and her shoulders tight from long hours under a pack strap. There was a faint jingle at her hip when she skidded to a stop. City seals and delivery tags.
“Kira,” Eiko breathed, halfway between disbelief and laughter. So this was Kira. Messy mahogany hair, flushed skin, freckles.
Kira grinned. “I was hoping I’d finally get to see you two before they hid you away in the castl—” Her eyes skidded past Rion and Eiko, spotting the queen sitting against the back wall of the sitting room, one delicate brow raised.
“Your Grace!” she squeaked. Her eyes widened impossibly, and she quickly dropped into a curtsy.
“The castle attendant said Your Grace was here, but I thought he was referring to … well … I suppose they aren’t princesses yet for a few— oh, darkness. I’ll shut up now.”
“So it is a Stonesigh affliction,” Queen Noemi said dryly, her gaze drifting to Eiko with a hint of amusement and disdain.
Kira looked confused.
“I’ll give you a brief moment,” the queen said, sniffing delicately and stepping from the room. It didn’t seem like she was doing it out of grace, but more because Kira’s rambling didn’t suit her sensibilities.
Well … she had quite the lovely surprise in store for her with one of her new daughters-in-law.
And Eiko wasn’t talking about Rion.
Eiko was talking about herself.
Eiko? Hymn interrupted. Is this another breakdown?
Yes, she said confidently.
Rion and Kira embraced tightly. “I’m so glad to see you!” Rion exclaimed. “But how did you—”
“The flyers were everywhere,” Kira said dryly. “Hard to miss the king announcing two royal marriages and covering the whole damn city in decorations.”
Kira passed the package folded beneath her arm into an attendant’s waiting hands before turning back to Rion. Her gaze flicked over the very intricate wedding gown.
“So,” Kira said, softer now, “this is actually real. Thought I was going crazy when I saw the flyer.”
“Yes,” Eiko replied, adding beneath her breath, “Unfortunately.”
Kira huffed a quiet laugh. “Figures. You two sure know how to test the limits of normal and expected.”
“Did she just call me weird?” Eiko asked Rion.
Rion rolled her eyes, reaching over to tap Eiko’s shoulder in reprimand.
“So you’re a goldrunner now?” Rion asked, admiring Kira’s uniform. “It suits you!”
Kira snorted. “Running and not dying. Those are my specialties, remember? Apparently, that makes me eminently employable in Goldmoor.” She hooked a thumb into the strap crossing her chest. “Civil servant, officially. Couriers, contracts, sealed packages, no questions asked. I deliver what I’m told, where I’m told, and I don’t open things that hiss. ”
Eiko grimaced. “I empathise.”
Kira blinked at her. “What?”
“Uh”—she waved a hand—“nothing, just a … recipe … I was trying. Never mind. How do you like it? The job?”
“Suits me well enough,” Kira said. “After a year, I can apply for papers that say I’m reformed enough to travel, and then I get a week off. I’m going to visit Suntide.” Then she sobered just a fraction, glancing between the two of them. “You both okay? I’ve heard some crazy rumours.”
Eiko hesitated. There were a dozen answers to that question, and none of them fit neatly into the dressing room space.
Before either of them could answer, the queen swept back into the room, eyeing them with another hitched brow, as though to ask what in the dark they were doing entertaining a goldrunner for as long as they had been.
Kira shifted her weight, seals chiming softly at her hip. “Well, I best be going. Your Grace.” She curtseyed again, quickly backing out of the room.
Rion’s family watched from the corner, barely daring to move.
They were significantly more subdued than the last time Eiko had seen them, which had been the day they arrived.
They seemed changed in many ways, all of them unsettling.
They no longer dressed like commonfolk from Stonesigh.
They were wrapped in the finery of the court, but they hadn’t simply lost their threadbare clothing; they had also lost their bashful smiles and generous gentleness.
Rion’s little brother and sister didn’t barrel into Eiko, loudly chattering about everything they had discovered in Brightfort, as Eiko had expected.
They merely gave her shy, hesitant greetings when she entered the room, before hiding behind their mother’s skirt.
Since the preparations began that morning, the entire family had mostly kept silent and out of the way, only venturing to speak when Rion implored them to give an opinion.
They didn’t seem scared of the queen, exactly, but there was a definite tension in the room that Eiko didn’t quite understand.
She desperately wanted a moment alone with them, to make sure Mei and Hayu were being treated fairly in court, but the queen didn’t leave the room again.
Perhaps all those teas in the garden had clued Rion’s parents in to her true situation, and they were beginning to feel as hopeless and powerless as Rion and Eiko.
Turning back to the mirror again, Eiko let her eyes travel across the glass. This time, actually seeing what she had been dressed in, as the attendants fretted over Rion’s recovered veil.
The dress reminded her of marble with its layered, warm, white tone, complete with stunning golden veins.
The base fabric was a heavy silk-satin, overlaid with multiple layers that softened the surface without disguising the structure beneath.
The bodice was tightly fitted, wrapping her torso with internal boning to create clean vertical lines from collarbone to waist. The neckline dipped into a sharp, sculpted V, edged with dense gold embroidery that framed her chest.
The embroidery was overwhelming in its complexity.
Gold thread had been layered upon gold thread, worked in relief so that the patterns rose visibly from the fabric.
Between the stitching of golden leaves, filigree scrolls, and elegant motifs were hundreds of tiny seed pearls, cut crystals, and polished metal beads.
There were no larger, precious gems—unfortunately—but the effect was unmistakably lush and expensive.
The waist narrowed sharply, cinching her form, and from there, the skirt exploded outward.
It was vast.
Layers of silk and tulle were stacked to create volume that began immediately at her hips, forming a soft bell that brushed the floor in a perfect circle.
Gold embroidery spread across the skirt in sweeping panels, heavier towards the hem, where the designs became almost baroque in their complexity.
As she shifted her weight, the folds of the skirt opened and closed, revealing more gold beneath—never bare fabric, always ornamented.
The patterns aligned across seams so perfectly that it was impossible to tell where one panel ended and another began.
She kept shifting her weight as though testing how to move in the dress, when in truth, she was trying to sneak glimpses of it in its entirety in the mirror.
The back of the dress appeared to be sheer lace stretched tightly across her shoulder blades, embroidered so heavily that it felt barely translucent.
Beneath it, her spine was marked by a flawless row of tiny, fabric-covered buttons, each one no larger than a grain of rice, fastened so neatly it was hard to believe human hands could have achieved it.