Chapter One Ameirah
I brushed my bare fingertips over the fragrant violets on my dressing table, watching numbly as the life shrivelled from each petal.
Dry, they fell onto the table amongst the pots of makeup and the copper brushes Xiu had used to abuse my hair into a silken waterfall of dark purple waves.
The brushes were never iron, of course. Iron was poison to a fae.
The flowers looked how I felt—like I had all the life sucked out of me. Forced marriage will do that to a woman.
I stared at my reflection, not entirely sure who stared back at me.
My skin had been lotioned, waxed, and polished until it shone gold, my eyes ringed with kohl in the style of Morysen, the capital.
It made me look dangerous, and drew attention to my strange, unnatural eyes—one brown, one violet.
As if my hair and features didn’t make me stand out enough, those eyes were like an accusation.
I would never be truly Ithanysian, never wholly belong among my family.
No doubt that was why my father was so eager to marry me off.
That or he needed the money he’d get in exchange.
Despite the lavish banquets he continued to arrange and the jewels on his wife’s fingers, we were close to being poor.
Several thousand mak coins emblazoned with the king’s face would go a long way to digging him out of that ditch.
So would the prestige of marrying me into the royal family.
He’d be drowning in gold by the time I was entombed in my husband’s bed chamber.
My husband… This wasn’t just a beneficial arrangement for my father, the gentry of Strava—a sand-blasted town of golden buildings and winding brick roads in the middle of the desert.
No, by walling me into marriage with the king’s second son, it would take care of the regis’s unfortunate little problem: his six-foot-three, thirty-something son who until two months ago had been a warrior and hero in the hearts of every Ithanysian.
Varidian was terrifying for the serpent inked on his throat, for the cut across his neck from a failed assassination attempt, and for his prowess atop the third-most powerful wyvern in living history, Makrukh.
He’d been the kingdom’s most eligible bachelor, desired by mothers across the land for their daughters. A veritable dream of a son-in-law, in spite of his illegitimacy as the son of Bakshi Saber, our honourable regis, and an unknown mistress.
I snorted, thinking of the bold black headlines I saw on every newspaper since that first issue leaked the truth. “Dream of a son-in-law my ass,” I muttered because no one was here to hear me swear or reprimand me.
The days leading to my wedding were supposed to be special, but instead of massages and giggles and henna, my handmaiden Xiu showed up an insulting two hours before the ceremony with three of her most spiteful friends in tow.
They delighted in yanking out my hair, flaying dead skin cells from my body, and when they’d dragged my white takchita over my head and left, snickering amongst themselves, no designs adorned my hands.
I suspected they came for the fun of terrorising me more than anything else.
If Nalia was here, my favourite cousin and closest friend would never have abandoned me on the morning of my marriage celebration. A tight pain cut through my chest at the thought of her.
“I wish you were here to sneer at Xiu and her nightmare retinue with me,” I whispered. My only friend, the only person who loved me, had died two years ago. I’d been alone since.
Naila would have loved this dress. It was the finest thing I’d ever worn, the long fall of ivory fabric embroidered with the most elaborate and beautiful details.
I knew by the purple wolf of House Saber sewn into the silk, it certainly hadn’t come from my father, his wife, or my spiteful handmaiden.
“Fuck them all.” It wasn’t a proper marriage anyway. If I didn’t get my ass out of the villa and into the litter waiting to carry me past the gathered guests and to my husband in the garden, my father made it very clear what would happen.
I don’t give a shit how horrible or cruel Varidian Saber is. You’re marrying that man next week, or I’ll let Beni give you the beating he’s been itching to do since you killed Shahzia. He can dump your body on the Hydaran Wall for the tigers to devour you.
My father was a truly delightful man.
The Wall of Hydaran he threatened to abandon me to cut across the whole continent, separating our kingdom—Ithanys—from our enemies, the tiger-riding fae of Kalder.
It was abhorrent to leave someone defenceless there, a death so severe it was unspeakable.
Unless you were my heartless dick of a father, that was.
It wasn’t an empty threat. And since I didn’t want to be knocked out and abandoned to the merciless teeth and claws of the tigers, here I was. Dressed for marriage.
The bastard didn’t even allow me to be present when the marriage document was signed. Varidian wasn’t there either; both our parents signed as a proxy.
“Like that wasn’t illegal,” I muttered, pushing a lock of wavy violet hair from my face, staring at my eerie eyes, the ring of dangerous black around them more appealing with every glance.
Hopefully my husband would take one look at them and run away screaming, giving me the command of his impressive fortress-city in the south.
I hadn’t seen his kasbah in person, but I could imagine.
I’d read about them in adventure books, where guards prowled the tops of the walls, thieves snuck in under the cover of darkness, and a dashing, sword-wielding heroine always saved the day.
“It’d be nice to have a sword-wielding heroine save me today,” I muttered, dragging my glare from my reflection and getting to my feet. I didn’t want to admire the flow and fall of the beautiful fabric, but I couldn’t help it. I felt less like an adventurer than a princess.
“Oh, god, I am a princess. Princess Ameirah Jaouhari.” I groaned, pushing the chair beneath the dressing table, because I was angry and defeatist but not a total heathen. “Princess Ameirah Saber,” I corrected.
I would take my husband’s name. Become a whole new person with a brand new name.
I might be less bitter about that if my husband wasn’t a total psychopath.
Losing my father’s name wasn’t devastating, but it was all I’d known.
Even being obviously different because of my mother’s heritage—whoever she was—I had a name and a family and a place here.
“It’s one big adventure,” I lied to myself, feeling the aching emptiness in the room.
There should have been an army of relatives around me, and instead I was alone.
They’d be out in the gardens, waiting to see me and my husband, but no one was here where it mattered.
No one squeezed my hand and offered words of reassurance I badly needed.
I scrounged up my own words. “I can just kill him if he displeases me.”
It wouldn’t be the first life I’d taken. I pulled on the long, white gloves left for me and flexed my hands. Killer’s hands.
“The least you could have done was dye henna designs on my gloves,” I muttered and reached for the door just as a heavy fist pounded on the wood.
I opened the door with hands that felt embarrassingly bare despite the gloves. Everyone would see the lack of henna and know it was an insult to me. I should have preempted this, should have created my own designs. I should have got into the litter gloveless and terrified the wedding party.
“I’m ready,” I said when I opened the door, speaking before my father had a chance to.
He glanced over my shoulder, his mouth pinching. “Where’s Khadija?”
How should I know? She’s your wife.
“With Xiu,” I replied, like that was any explanation. “We shouldn’t keep the royal family waiting.”
Faking a courage I didn’t possess, I breezed past him, my heart hammering a warning against my ribs. But however disgraced Varidian was, however deadly his magic, at least marrying him would get me out of this household.
“This should be covered,” my father muttered, pinching a lock of hair and pulling until pain flashed across my scalp.
“Xiu advised me not to wear a scarf,” I said evenly. I’d had years of practice to hide little pains like these. He never used his fists or thrown an outright hit, but he was well-versed in finding subtle ways to hurt me. His favourite weapon was language, an art he and Xiu shared.
She didn’t advise me not to wear a headscarf. She cut me straight to the bone with two sentences.
If you think wearing a hijab will make you one of them, you’re deluded. You will always be your mother’s daughter.
I didn’t show how much the words hurt, or how the reminder that my mother abandoned me still stung even when I was twenty-five. I didn’t know her name, didn’t know what city she came from, didn’t know why she sailed thirty days to end up here in Ithanys.
“Xiu doesn’t know her own wisdom,” my father muttered. It was one of his favourite phrases, delivered with scorn. “Hurry up, you’re holding the ceremony up.”
I could point out that weddings always waited for the bride, or let out my anger at not even meeting my husband before the celebration day, but what was the point? He’d probably ignore me. It was his favourite pastime, after all.
It should have been my signature on the document, beside Varidian’s.
I wondered if my husband was as maddened by that as I was.
What would he be like? Rumour had called him fierce and scowling for as long as I’d known of his existence, and when he joined the legions flying on the border, stories abounded of his bravery and miraculous luck.
Varidian Cheats Death, one headline had proclaimed, about five months before his reputation was blackened.
My husband had a knack for surviving skirmishes that should kill him.
Stubbornness, I thought, or skill. Now, everyone knew the truth. Hence, damage control in the form of a bride. Look, he’s not so scary, he’s a married man with a shiny new wife; see, see!
I flattened the smile from my face as I followed my father down the golden hallways of our home, wending to the back of the villa where the gardens were decked out in elaborate opulence.
I’d sneaked a look at the garden at dawn on my way to prayer.
Rows upon rows of chairs sat on either side of an aisle I would be carried down, the seats elaborately carved like the arabesques adorning our home.
Lanterns hung from tree tops and would cast the garden in shades of butter and gold when the sun began to set.
As befitting a royal, jewels and gold and silk had been shoehorned in everywhere possible, and the whole garden smelled of honey and orange blossom.
It was far prettier than any celebration I’d imagined having. If I hadn’t been marrying a king’s son, no doubt the celebration would take part in a closet.
My father’s voice cut through the tense silence as we walked, low but as honed as any blade. “Do I have to remind you what will happen if you embarrass me today?”
“No, baba,” I demurred.
Kidnap, mutilation, and murder at the claws and teeth of Kalder’s armoured tigers. A lovely thought for a woman’s wedding celebration.
“Good,” he said firmly. It wasn’t just embarrassment he was trying to save—it was the money, the power, and the higher gentry position he’d bought by handing me over. He probably thought the king would take back the hefty case of gold he’d already sent if I did something disastrous today.
Part of me wanted to wreck the day on purpose. But then I’d never get out of this house and never stop hearing my little sister’s screams.
Varidian Saber wasn’t the only one looking to leave the ghosts of his past behind.
I was distracted by thoughts of my husband, and didn’t notice the halls we’d passed through until my father murmured, “Make me proud.”
I lifted my eyes and, lo and behold, there were people within hearing distance. Make me proud was Falael Jaouhari speak for don’t fuck this up or you’ll be tiger food.
Understood, father, loud and clear.
“I will,” I said, the low, scything tone emerging as something like a threat.
His eyes widened in surprise, but there were witnesses and he’d never do anything untoward while we were watched.
Normally, there’d be consequences in private later, but I would marry the king’s son and go straight to his home in Red Manniston.
Which meant there were no consequences. No thoughts I couldn’t voice.
It was a heady kind of power. A freedom that made my lips curve into a smile. Try bruising me when I’m Varidian Saber’s wife.
“It’s been a delight living under your roof,” I said. Translation: it’s been a living nightmare, and I hope you rot here.
“We’re ready for you, a-lalla,” a well-dressed man with deep skin and bright amber eyes said, inclining his head in respect.
Oh, this was new. I didn’t even try to dim my smile.
The word princess tangled my stomach in knots, but it was immensely satisfying to watch a vein throb in my father’s forehead.
Yes, darling father, don’t forget that while you’re getting an upgrade in rank to high gentry, I will be higher. I hope that truth tasted like sour lemons. I hope he choked on the taste.
I kept my head high as I followed the polite man towards the luxuriously decorated litter where I would sit and be carried through the wedding guests, where I would see my husband in person for the first time.
I sent up a selfish prayer as I delicately climbed into the litter. If he’s going to be dangerous and brutish, at least let him be good looking.