Chapter 9
Hannalinde
In the parlor of a rented townhouse that bordered the plaza, Cléa lifted the dress from its plain linen wrappings.
Hannalinde felt faint. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Ivory silk that must have cost a fortune fell in a waterfall to the floor.
Cut close through the bodice, the skirt had enough volume to disguise her swelling stomach.
The neckline and long, trailing sleeves were edged with the same gold she’d chosen for her veil. It was perfect.
“I told you, gargoyle dressmakers are the best.”
She peered closely at it, admiring the nearly invisible weave and significant weight. It could have been a puddle of cream where it pooled on the floor. “You were right. I had no idea they had access to such fine fabrics.”
“Fae-woven, I think. They are the best at this sort of thing,” Cléa mused, holding it up to the lantern.
It glowed like the moon. She gave an approving nod and draped the dress over the changing screen.
“No human will think you undeserving and no gargoyle will question Rikard’s choice if you have that on. ”
“Thank you so much, for everything. I could never have imagined anything so beautiful.”
“It pales in comparison to you,” Cléa said fondly. “I can’t wait for my son to see you in it.”
Tears pricked her eyes. She’d been emotional all day as she waited for dusk, pacing the floor until the gargoyles woke.
It was such a reversal, looking forward to the night.
She couldn’t look forward to her husband’s admiration, but it was this life she was marrying, this warmth and beauty and safety, and she looked forward to it very much.
“Don’t cry on your dress,” Carlijn said, already in her jade-green gown with her curls pinned up under a ridiculous hat, if it could be called that. “The silk will spot!”
“You’re right, you’re right.” Hannalinde dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, settling her emotions before she stepped behind the screen to dress for her wedding, careful not to muss her artfully arranged hair as she shimmied into layers of undergarments and then the glorious dress itself.
When she was decent, Carlijn came around the screen to lace up the back and fuss with the fall of the train. Cléa took the time to decorate her horns with ornately worked wire wrappings. When she’d finished, she brought a flat, wooden jewelry box to Hanna.
“This was once my mother’s mating jewelry,” she said, opening it to reveal a gold circlet with inset rose-quartz stones. “I had it reworked into a human shape. I think it will suit you very well.”
A family heirloom, remade for her. If Cléa knew it wasn’t a love match, she wouldn’t have done it. Overwhelmed, Hanna pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, it’s so beautiful!”
She didn’t deserve such a beautiful gift, did she? She ought to refuse it. But her future mother-in-law seemed so pleased by her reaction. And she did intend to fulfill all aspects of her agreement with Rikard. She would be a good mate to him, in every way she could.
So she didn’t object when Carlijn lifted it from its velvet rest and settled it on her head so the gold band crossed her forehead, the gentle point at the center facing down.
“It’s upside down,” Cléa said, frowning slightly. “It should sit higher on her head, and the crest should point to the sky.”
“It’s too large to sit any higher,” Carlijn explained, adjusting the gold band with delicate, practiced fingers. “Plus, if I flipped it, she’ll look like she’s wearing a crown.”
“Is that so terrible?”
“For a woman whose father was executed for treason? Yes.” Carlijn led Hannalinde to the large copper mirror that decorated the rented parlor. “You look stunning.”
She did. She could see it, even in the imperfect surface of the copper. The silk transformed her. It hid her shameful fall, her years of poverty, the abuse she’d suffered, and the illegitimate gargoyle child growing inside her. She looked every bit the lady she was born to be.
It was the biggest lie she’d ever told, and she didn’t have to say a word.
“I’ll check the courtyard to see if they’re ready for you,” Cléa announced, and disappeared in a bustle of silk and wings.
“Nervous?” Carlijn asked once she was gone.
“Terrified.”
Carlijn gave her hand a sympathetic pat. “I’ll be in the front row. If you feel faint, look at me. I’ll make a rude face, and you’ll be forced to smile.”
Just the suggestion made her smile. Carlijn always knew how to lighten a mood.
Cléa returned a short minute later with even more energy than when she’d left.
“Everyone is assembled,” she said breathlessly.
“They only wait for the human king and queen to take their places. Then the bells will ring, and all will watch you walk to the platform. Come now,” she added to Carlijn. “We must join the others.”
After a final round of fussing over Hannalinde’s appearance, they departed arm-in-arm, and she was left alone.
Without their concerned chatter, she could better hear the crowd outside: the dull murmur of human voices from the ground level, the scrape and rustle of gargoyles perched on the balustrade that circled the second floor. Doubtless there were even more on the roof.
She adjusted the veil and checked the mirror one final time, admiring the skill of the seamstress more than her own figure.
The bodice’s neckline was cut wide to reveal the scars of her mating bite, and the embroidered sleeves draped over her hands almost gave the impression of gold-tipped wings.
Despite her human face, she looked every bit like a high-tier gargoyle’s mate.
Voices filtered from above, deeper than human speech and rough-textured, not bothering to lower their volume.
“—can’t believe he agreed to this farce. A ground ceremony. Like he’s a human himself.”
“What choice does he have? You’ve seen his wings. Might as well cut them off. I’d never be able to show my face in Solvantis with those things hanging off my back. Can you imagine climbing to your eyrie like a keeper? The seventh tier is wasted on him.”
Laughter came, low and cruel. The sound gutted her.
“The whole thing is disturbing, if you ask me. The Nadir takes a human mate, and we’re all supposed to pretend it’s normal? The moths say he has a perversion for them. But even so, he has to hire harlots to do the job. Nobody wants him, not even a dirtcrawler.”
“So what’s wrong with her? She must be a monster if she agreed to mate with him.”
More laughter. Hannalinde’s fingers curled at her sides, nails biting into her palms.
“I heard she’s beautiful as humans go. But my watchmate said she’s the traitor’s daughter.”
“Ah, that explains it. She’s the only creature who can stomach standing next to him in public, and he’s the only one who will stoop low enough to take her on. They deserve each other. Still, can you imagine fucking him? I couldn’t.”
Hannalinde stood very still. How could they speak of Rikard that way, when he was a hero?
His wings weren’t disgusting. They were evidence of all he’d endured during the war, all he’d sacrificed for Solvantis.
It wasn’t shameful that he had to climb to his eyrie, either.
It showed his determination, his humility.
No wonder he’d take a human wife, if this was how gargoyles thought.
Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, pale and exquisite in ivory silk, and suddenly she hated it. She hated how perfect it was. How pristine, as though she hadn’t crawled through nine years of mud and blood to get here. She was as shredded as he was.
She barely knew Rikard. Their relationship was a contract, cold and transactional, built on mutual need, not mutual affection. But she would not walk out there and stand beside him like a porcelain figurine next to a cracked pot while the whole Tower smirked at the contrast.
She rummaged through the drawers of every side table in the parlor until she found the lady of the house’s sewing kit. As she’d hoped, it contained a pair of sharp, steel embroidery scissors.
The silk of her left sleeve parted with a soft, sighing sound, the slashed edges falling in ribbons around her wrists. Without remorse, she cut the right sleeve to match, the uneven strips hanging like tattered pennants on the battlefield.
The skirt was next. She knelt and sheared through the pooling fabric until the hem was as rent as Rikard’s wings, the edges raw and fluttering. Golden embroidery threads caught the light where their perfect pattern was severed.
Lastly, the veil. She held the gossamer fabric between her hands and tore it with her fingers, ripping along the grain until it hung in long, frayed ribbons down her back.
She stood and faced the mirror as the bells began to ring. The woman looking back was not a lady. She was something else, something ruined but still beautiful, like Rikard. They matched.
Heartbeat slow and sure, she tucked the shears back into the drawer, adjusted the circlet on her brow, and walked out.
She felt every eye track her as she crossed the cobblestones, following the lantern-lit path to the platform in the center of the courtyard. The moonlight caught the gold thread in the remnants of her veil that drifted behind her in the faint breeze.
There were gasps in the human contingent, and a murmur rippled through the gargoyle perches above. She didn’t look up. She looked ahead, at the platform and the gargoyle who stood on it, waiting for her.
Rikard was motionless as he watched her approach.
He wore ceremonial armor, burnished steel with gold inlay, and his horns were decorated with gold rings.
His wings were unbound for the occasion and stirred in the same breeze that moved her veil.
As she drew closer, she could see his eyes travel from her face to her sleeves, to the ragged hem, to the ruined veil.
Something moved behind his expression, tectonic and monumental.
He understood why she’d done it. They matched. They matched.
She climbed the platform steps and took her place beside him, facing the assembled crowd.
Cléa, perched alongside Roul, with the Zenith and his mate on her other side, had her wide mouth open in astonishment.
Hannalinde couldn’t tell if she was horrified or happy.
Carlijn, seated in the human front row with her parents, had both hands pressed to her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks.
And the rest of the crowd was fixated on their forms, too.
Her entrance had drawn everyone’s attention.
The officiant was a senior keeper, a small, gray-haired man.
He spoke the opening words of the mating ceremony as they’d designed it, his voice carrying across the hushed courtyard with clarity.
Hannalinde heard them as though from a great distance, her awareness narrowed to the gargoyle beside her and the faint, rhythmic sound of his breathing and hers.
When it came time to say her vows, she realized with shock that she would mean them. She’d written them herself with Cléa’s help, blending the human tradition with what a gargoyle audience would expect, but she hadn’t designed them to be true.
“I take you as my partner in life,” she said, voice quavering with the realization as she turned to face Rikard.
“In all the hours of the day and all the hours of the night. I pledge to guard what is yours as you guard what is mine. To build what we can from what we have. To shelter you from the storms you cannot face alone. To be your comfort and your companion in all things.”
She’d expected the words to feel like another layer of deception, more silk draped over lies. But as she spoke them, the words found purchase in her heart. She would guard what was his. She would build a life with him. He would have her loyalty, always.
Rikard spoke his vows in the Old Tongue first, the gargoyle language harsh and percussive, each syllable striking the air like a chisel on stone. Then he repeated them in Common, his voice low enough that she had to lean closer to hear.
“I take you as my own. Your safety is my charge. Your burdens are mine to share. When you are cold, I will be your warmth. When you are hunted, I will be your shield. This I swear in the tongues of moths and men, until the fallen gods return.”
She recognized fragments of the heartstone vow in his words, the guardian’s oath repurposed for a personal promise, and the weight of it pressed against her chest. He was swearing to protect her with the same language his kind used to protect all of humanity. He was making her safety his duty.
The moon cast his scarred features in shadow, and the shredded membranes of his wings were silhouetted like stained glass, every tear and hole illuminated. He held out his hand, palm up. It was enormous. Her whole hand would disappear inside it.
She placed her fingers in his palm. His skin was warm and rough, and his claws curled gently over her knuckles without pricking her skin.
The keeper pronounced them mated for life, and the courtyard erupted in a sound she’d never heard before: gargoyle voices raised in a guttural, resonant call that vibrated in her chest, layered over human applause.
She stood in the center of it, her hand in his, a gargoyle’s wife.