23. 22
Morning light filtered through the heavy curtains, turning the silken canopy above Mabel’s bed a soft gold.
The air still held the hush of dawn, a quiet too delicate to disturb—until Ada burst through the door like a trumpet blast. “Mabel!” she chirped, her voice high with excitement. “Rise and shine, future queen!”
Mabel stirred, the linen sheets rustling around her as she blinked against the light. Her body was heavy with the ache of too little sleep and too many thoughts. The memory of the previous night still lingered on her skin.
But Ada was already flitting about the room like a songbird, pulling back curtains, then leaning against the vanity with a theatrical flourish. “The staff is waiting, the petals are ready for the procession, and the seamstress is practically vibrating in the hall—Mabel, this is it!”
Mabel sat up slowly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Morning,” she said, her voice still tangled in sleep and something softer.
Ada turned, hands clasped beneath her chin. “You’re glowing,” she said with a grin. “I mean it—you look as radiant as ever.”
Mabel gave a faint smile, one hand resting over her heart as it beat a rhythm she wasn’t ready to name. “It’s going to be a long day,” she sighed.
Ada beamed. “Then let’s make it the kind people never forget.”
Mabel stirred, the weight of the Friday morning pressing gently against her as she pushed herself upright. Ada, ever impatient, was already tugging back the covers with a grin far too bright for the hour. “No time for dreamy sighs, my lady,” she sang. “The kingdom awaits its bride!”
Mabel steadied her feet on the ground as she took a deep breath.
Ada took notice of her hesitation. “Hey.” She reached for her hand. “You can do this.”
And for the first time, Mabel believed she actually could.
Moments later, the door creaked open, and the castle staff entered with practiced grace, wheeling in a silver cart piled high with steaming bread, sugared fruit, and delicate crystal carafes of tea. The scent of honey and spice filled the room, warm and comforting.
Before Mabel could so much as reach for a cup, the door opened again.
Frey swept in with her usual softness, hands clasped in delight.
Behind her, Auor followed, eyes sharp, lips pursed in appraisal. “We have much to do,” Auor announced, her tone more decree than greeting.
Frey clasped Mabel’s hands. “You’ll be the loveliest bride to ever walk these halls.” She beamed.
And with that, the room shifted—fabrics unfolded, mirrors wheeled into place, and the hum of preparations took over.
The day had begun.
The hours passed in a flurry of motion—soft footsteps, hushed voices, the rustle of silks. Castle staff drifted in and out like clockwork, each carrying ribbons, linens, or steaming bowls of scented water.
Attendants had already prepared the washroom—steam curling from bronze basins, fragrant oils warming by the fire—before stepping back to let the moment unfold.
Frey and Auor entered together, their expressions soft with memory and purpose. It was tradition, after all, for married women of the family to prepare the bride, a passing of wisdom, of strength wrapped in ceremony.
They guided Mabel to the bronze tub, her silk robe slipping from her shoulders. Frey kneeled to pour water over her arms, while Auor, reserved yet precise, combed scented oil into her hair, working it through the long strands with care. They said little, letting the hush speak for them.
Soap and hands moved gently, scrubbing away the traces of girlhood with patient devotion.
The room smelled of crushed chamomile and bergamot, steam curling like breath from the basin as warm water was poured over Mabel’s shoulders. Her bare skin prickled at the touch, but she said nothing. She was used to silence with her mother.
Auor sat beside her, hands steady, her motions practiced. For a long while, there was only the soft splashing of water, the distant clink of buckets against bronze, the flicker of lamplight across carved stone walls.
Frey kneeled on the opposite side of the basin, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, curls dampened by steam. She glanced between mother and daughter; the silence stretched so taut it threatened to snap. She didn’t want to be the one to speak. But someone had to.
“When I married Thalen,” she began gently, her tone threaded with wry affection, “I, too, was nervous. I didn’t know how our lives would combine. Where I would fit in his life.”
Auor’s hands paused, water beading on Mabel’s shoulders.
Frey smiled faintly, dipping a cloth into the basin.
“He was older. Quiet. Always seemed to be thinking about something far away. I thought—I’ll never reach him.
I’ll be a name in his house and nothing more.
” She wrung out the cloth, her eyes distant now.
“But then one evening, he came into the kitchen and peeled oranges with his bare hands, just to make the room smell like summer because I had mentioned how much I enjoyed it. And I thought … Maybe I didn’t know everything after all. ”
Mabel blinked, her gaze flicking toward Frey, just for a moment.
“We grew toward each other, not from love, but from trying,” Frey said, her voice softening. “Trying to make something worth waking up to. Something that mattered.”
Something in Auor shifted, barely, but Mabel felt it. The silence that followed was no longer hostile. It was listening.
Then, almost too softly to catch, Auor spoke, “I remember when my mother bathed me before my wedding.” She paused, her fingers stilling on Mabel’s arm. “She braided rosemary into my hair. Told me it was for remembrance. I didn’t realize until much later what she wanted me to remember.”
Mabel turned slightly. “What was it?”
Auor smiled, but it was tired, aching, fragile. “That even the sharpest beginnings are rooted in love, once. Even when everything else feels like duty.”
For a moment, the water ceased to matter. The years between them—the walls built from choice and regret—seemed thinner.
“I always imagined you looked radiant,” Mabel said, her voice lower than before. “I wish I’d seen you that day.”
“You would’ve laughed. I cried so hard my veil stuck to my face.
” Auor let out a soft chuckle, and the sound cracked something open between them.
The laughter faded, as soft as dust settling.
Auor’s smile thinned, her gaze drifting somewhere far beyond the warm stone walls and flickering lamplight.
“I didn’t want to marry him either,” she said at last, the words barely louder than the trickle of water.
“I begged my mother. I thought if I could just be defiant enough, just loud enough, they’d see how wrong it was.
” Her fingers paused on the comb, still tangled in a strand of Mabel’s damp hair.
Mabel stilled.
“I didn’t get to choose,” Auor continued.
“But I learned how to survive it. How to carve small freedoms into a life already chosen for me. And eventually … I found strength in the stillness. In knowing who I was, even if no one else cared to ask.” She placed the comb aside, resting her hand lightly on Mabel’s shoulder.
“I see that same strength in you. You’ve had it all along, though I fear I tried to bury it beneath obedience. ”
Mabel blinked, her throat tight. The heat of the bath had nothing to do with the warmth rising behind her eyes. For the first time, she saw her mother not as a shadow cast by duty, but as a woman—a girl, once—with her own ache and rebellion.
“I didn’t know that about you,” Mabel whispered.
“There’s much we don’t know about each other,” Auor said, voice gentle.
Mabel drew her knees closer, letting the water lap gently against her skin. Auor’s words hung in the air, heavy with memories not hers, but suddenly not so foreign.
She kept her gaze fixed forward on the carved lily motif etched into the basin’s rim.
She couldn’t look at her mother—not yet.
But her voice came quieter than before, no longer braced with barbs.
“I used to think you chose all of this,” Mabel said.
“The rules. The silences. Him.” The last word trembled with something unspoken.
Auor didn’t interrupt.
“I thought you stayed because it was easier. Because you believed in it all.” Mabel drew a slow breath. “But maybe you were just surviving, too.”
It wasn’t forgiveness. Not quite empathy. But something older than both—recognition. She turned then, only slightly, enough to catch her mother’s profile lit by the gold sheen of the lantern.
“I don’t know what that makes us,” she added. “But I think I needed to know you were human.”
Auor’s breath caught, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she reached across the basin, laying a fresh cloth beside Mabel’s hands without touching her. A gesture that simply said: I hear you.
And for once, Mabel didn’t pull away.
The final rinse poured in a slow, steady stream, gliding over Mabel’s shoulders. The water no longer felt intrusive. It was warm, familiar. Cleansing in more ways than one.
Auor didn’t speak again. She moved with purpose, wringing out the cloth, brushing Mabel’s hair back from her face as if afraid to disturb the moment too much. Her touch, once rigid with expectation, now held something gentler, tentative, but real.
Mabel watched the steam rise and curl around them, softening the edges of the world.
And in the hush between their motions, a silence bloomed, no longer heavy, no longer strained.
Just … shared. When Auor reached for the linen robe and held it out, Mabel took it without hesitation.
Their hands brushed, and neither pulled away.
No declarations. No apologies.
Before they left the washroom, Auor smoothed a salve over Mabel’s face, cool and thick, fragrant with crushed florals and the hushed promise of bridal radiance.
The women filed out in silence, robes rustling. Mabel clutched hers tightly around her, the chill of the corridor brushing her collarbones as they made their way toward her room.
To where the dress waited.