Chapter 18
Melia
Melia had never seen such a feast. The great hall of the palace looked like a summer garden, a colorful image of opulence and splendor.
The soaring ribbed vaults reminded Melia of the branches of the ancient trees in the legendary forests of Virion, while the evening light that filtered through the tall stained glass windows bathed the hall in a jewel-like glow.
Garlands of blooming roses, fragrant lilies, and dark ivy decorated the walls, framing the tapestries depicting chivalry and romance.
Seragian imperial banners—purple, black, and gold—hung together above the dais with the golden sun on the blue field of the House of Amris.
The scent of flowers and beeswax filled the air, while candles in silver holders gave off their warm light.
Massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling shone like trapped stars, casting shimmering patterns across the polished stone floor.
Long banquet tables gleaming with silver and crystal stretched the length of the hall.
Gentle music filled the air, rising to the vaulted ceilings.
Melia felt small and insignificant and quite displeased with herself.
Her eyes followed the new couple. Amril had turned on his charm, and not a single soul could catch a glimpse of his violent moods beneath his radiant good looks.
His sapphire eyes shone with goodwill, his generous mouth was curved in a disarming smile, despite the cut and the bruise that marred it.
He held his bride’s hand, guiding her through the crowd, pausing often to whisper something in her ear.
And the Seragian carevna, the long-awaited emperor’s daughter?
As far as Melia knew, the emperor had a dozen wives and at least thirty legitimate children.
What made him and his horde of advisors choose this somber redheaded girl?
She glided through the mass without touching anyone, like a cloud of pristine white vapor, and weighed every scene before her with an ice-blue gaze.
The court had forced Melia to acutely feel her own lack of beauty.
She’d been terrified of the possibility that Amril’s wife would be some stunning, enchanting princess who’d outshine every lady-in-waiting.
In fact, Princess Aratea could hardly outshine Melia herself.
Without the glorious jewels surrounding it, her homely, freckled face had little charm.
“What do you think about the carevna?” she asked Princess Amielle, who still walked beside her as they entered the great hall.
“She doesn’t reveal much, but that’s to be expected,” the princess replied. “At least she’s not too young. I was afraid they’d send a child.”
The carevna looked about Amril’s age. Fresh enough, no doubt, but far from girlhood.
“Wouldn’t a younger girl adapt more easily?” Melia asked absentmindedly.
“Would you adapt more easily if you were younger?” the princess retorted.
It wasn’t a real question, but Melia still considered it.
How far back would she have to go to stand a chance of becoming a sleek, scheming court lady?
Before Rovin’s death? Before her mother’s?
Or perhaps she’d always been hopeless, from the moment she slid out, bloody and terrified, into this world.
The bride and groom climbed on the dais and reached the high table, where two gilded thrones with red velvet cushions awaited them.
“A kiss! A kiss!” someone shouted, and the whole crowd picked it up.
Amril waited for the call to grow into a mighty roar and then pulled his bride close and gave her a long, intense kiss.
Melia averted her eyes, sickened by Amril’s duplicity, by the self-assurance of the Seragian porcelain doll, by the senseless cheering. Who did the crowd cheer? The cruel, reckless prince kissing the enemy.
Amron materialized beside her and she looked up, hoping foolishly for some hint of affection or at least camaraderie.
But he was a hypocrite like the rest of them, righteous and untouchable in his armor of ice all through the long succession of speeches and congratulations, the prattle about the wish for peace, the union between the kingdom and the Empire, the historical deal. Lies and self-interest.
She remembered the women in the kitchen of the fort, feeding their children with stale scraps, hoping their men would return. Her stomach turned at the sight of the first course, the hake and mussel soup topped with parsley and olive oil. It felt like ridicule.
Her father was right about one thing: The court cared nothing about those living—and dying—in the borderlands.
A bleak spell of loneliness wrapped itself around her like a wet cloak.
“Amron, will you not look at me?” she asked softly.
He sat with the perfect, cold composure of a statue, every lock of his hair held in place by a gold coronet, every crease on his clothes perfectly symmetrical.
When she’d imagined him before the wedding, this cold perfection was what she’d seen in her mind.
Now it looked unnatural, as if someone had taken the real Amron and replaced him with a hostile stranger.
“Leave it, Melia,” he said.
Someone from the lower tables proposed a toast to the bride and groom at that moment, wishing them a fruitful union, and they all obediently raised their glasses and drank.
“Did I insult you somehow?” she asked.
He shook his head, refusing to answer.
“Amron.” She gathered the courage to touch his arm. “What have I done?”
He inspected his hands, refusing to look at her. “Gods know I don’t ask for much.” His voice was so quiet she barely heard it. “I don’t ask for love or respect or even obedience, but I do expect loyalty from my wife. And this is not loyalty. What your father’s been doing is the opposite of it.”
“I cannot control my father.”
“I know that. But you can control yourself. You can decide whether your loyalties lie with him or with me. And you can tell me what he’s planning to do.”
The music fell into dissonance, the lights dimmed, and Melia’s hands turned very, very cold. With the utmost care, she laid her silver spoon beside her untouched bowl of soup.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“This morning, the scene at the palace gate.”
She almost asked what scene—with all the events of the day, the short disturbance had slipped her mind. Then she remembered Amron hadn’t even been there. What was he talking about?
The soup was taken away and the next dish was brought in: a massive fish baked in salt. Melia hated fish.
“That poor mad girl who threatened your father?” Melia tried to recall the girl’s face, bruised and sprayed with blood, surrounded by wild locks, as the guards dragged her away. Was she important for some reason?
“The girl who brandished a Seragian blade,” Amron said, “and accused your father of attacking me and conspiring to destroy the peace treaty.”
A Seragian blade. Melia looked across the vast hall: Ferisa still sat beside her father. Two dark-haired people bowed over their wine glasses, chatting. They almost looked like a couple.
How many Seragian blades had there been in Abia before the carevna’s arrival? And how many of them belonged to Roderi of Elmar?
“Surely, everybody at court knows that my father is a war hero, the protector of the kingdom.” Her voice came out high-pitched like a child’s. She cleared her throat. “The king himself said so this morning. To think he would conspire with the Seragians is sheer madness.”
“Is that what I am, then? Mad?”
Melia swallowed, her fists balled, hidden among the layers of fabric in her lap.
“Why would you believe some barely coherent street urchin?” she asked.
Amron pressed his lips together, and it suddenly dawned on Melia that he knew the girl.
The wine she’d drunk rose to her throat in a sour tide, threatening to spill over her dress, the tablecloth, and his fine velvet.
She swallowed it down with effort. Was it the same girl who’d faced the attack with him?
Melia breathed through her nose, too afraid to open her mouth. Ferisa was the one who had the weapons, who was supposed to keep them in her father’s house. What were the chances that some little whore had followed Ferisa, survived the encounter, and managed to bring the blade before the king?
“Who is the girl?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter who she is, but what she said.”
“It matters to me.” The cloying smell of food, candles, and flowers made her dizzy; the alcohol sloshing in her empty stomach loosened her tongue. A lonely, unimportant, unloved wife. “Why do you care for this girl, Amron? Is she your mistress?”
“No.”
“Then what? Tell me, I want to know.” Whiny, pleading.
His mouth reduced to a pale line of anger. “What is your father scheming? What kind of evil has he brought here?”
“No greater evil than you already harbor. You’re a hypocrite and a liar, just like the rest of them.”
She must have raised her voice, because people turned to look at her. The fish on the platter stared at her with one cloudy, baked eye, mocking her uncouth jealousy, her inept qualms.
“Excuse me,” she muttered and fled.
As she pushed through the crowd of dancers and onlookers, she thumbed the little vial safely hidden at the bottom of her pocket. Surely, a sleeping draft was not an attack? It was just something to embarrass Amril, to make him look ridiculous in his bride’s eyes.
But why would she help her father do that?
She turned back to Amron, on the brink of telling him everything, but her husband was already talking to the carevna, all the anger gone from his face.
A golden head and a fiery auburn, close together; he said something that made her laugh in earnest, she laid her hand on his arm.
A rusty nail of jealousy pierced Melia’s chest as he led the carevna to dance.
On the opposite side of the high table, her father talked to the queen. Melia didn’t want to go to him, but he drew her like a magnet until she found herself hovering at the edge of the conversation.