Chapter 15
STAR
Dawn breaks like cymbals.
“Up, honey,” Mama sings, throwing the curtains wide so Akura can stick its head in and gawk.
The whole sky is a parade—hover-shuttles cutting silver arcs, orchestras riding levitation discs toward the sky courtyard, banners unfurling in colors that belong to old promises.
From somewhere above the east towers, brass warms up in a bright, brassy argument with the gulls.
The city has put on perfume; even the river smells expensive.
“I’m awake,” I lie, sitting up into a cloud of attendants. Steam breathes from the bath like a tame dragon; rosewater floats in it, sweet and too much. Hands shepherd me—washcloths, combs, murmurs.
“Deep breaths,” one of the bath attendants says, Irene, the gentle one. “In. Out. Again.”
“‘Out’ is my favorite part,” I mutter, slipping into hot water that licks the bruises I’m pretending I don’t wear. Heat crawls up my throat. The room is lemon-polished and quietly frantic.
CynJyn leans in the doorway like she owns the building, robe crooked, eyes wicked. “So… last chance to abscond with the pastry chef. He’s got forearms that make religious arguments.”
“Behave,” Mama says, but she’s smiling.
“I’m a hymn,” CynJyn assures her, then crooks a finger at me. “Blink twice if you want me to cut the power during the vows.”
“I need both eyes for walking,” I tell her. “We’ll trip later.”
“You heard the bride,” Mama says, clapping once to make the room obey. “Hair—up, but not like a tower. Face—fresh, not carved. Jewelry—light. She isn’t a chandelier.”
“Noted,” says Elise, pins clamped at the corner of her mouth. “Tilt, my Lady.”
“I’m tilting,” I say, letting her tilt me. Fingers skim oil across my collarbones; a brush kisses powder over the split in my lip as if paint can convince it to forgive me. Someone fastens a chain at my throat; it stings cold.
Daddy pokes his head in, beard a little too neat, vest trying to pretend it isn’t losing to his belly. “Starling,” he says, voice softening on the last half of my name. “You look…” He tries for a word and ends up with a noise. “Your mother’s going to cry.”
Mama flicks him with a handkerchief without looking. “I’ll cry later. We have timelines.”
“Timelines,” I echo, letting Irene pour water over my hair. It sheets down my back, hot as a warning. My face stays serene—trained, easy. Inside, my heart is trying to claw its way out through my ribs.
Sneed materializes at the threshold like a polite hinge.
He doesn’t cross into the room, because women and steam scare him more than pirates.
“My Lady,” he says, slate tucked against his ribs.
“We are on schedule. The Feldspar matriarch arrived with minimal incident. The IHC delegation is seated. The minister would like to confirm the order of readings.”
“Tell the minister I will read mine in a language only dogs can hear,” I say.
“I will… soften that,” Sneed says, not missing a beat. His gaze flicks over my face, my shoulders, the line of the dress still in its protective shroud. Assessment—always. “You look…” He fails to supply a noun, which is how I know he’s worried.
“Alive,” I supply. “We’ll try to keep it that way.”
“An excellent plan,” he says, and vanishes.
“Okay,” CynJyn says, stepping in to steal a grape and put her forehead against mine for a second. “You are a feral miracle. Repeat after me: I am not a sacrificial goat.”
“I am not a sacrificial goat,” I say, trying not to smile.
“Baaaa,” she whispers, and I laugh, and the laughter hurts in a place that feels like it’s been held too long.
They dress me. The gown is the color of moon milk and bad ideas redeemed, silk layered until it remembers architecture.
The corset exhales when it meets me, then inhales and refuses to let me do the same.
Elise’s pins dance; the skirt sighs across the floor like a tide learning manners.
Gloves slide up my forearms, cool and tight, whispering secrets to my skin.
The veil waits on its stand like a domesticated cloud.
“Don’t you dare,” I tell the veil.
“Later,” Mama says. “We’ll see how she behaves.”
A page appears with a box. Inside, resting on dark velvet, is a tiara that once sat on my grandmother’s hair while she told an empire to sit up straight. I look at it and it looks back.
“No,” I say.
“Just for walking,” Mama negotiates.
“Fine,” I say, because I can lose small battles while choosing a larger war.
Before the processional, there’s a room with cold air and too many mirrors. The orchestra’s warm-up bleeds in from the sky courtyard—strings testing high, brasses muttering, a percussionist tapping the rim as if to ask if time is ready. Daddy takes my hands. His are warm and dry and trembling.
“Baby,” he says. “If you want to—”
“Shh,” Mama says sharply, stepping on his sentence like a snake. She looks at me, eyes bright and unswimmable. “If you faint, aim for a soft noble. Lady Mercia is mostly padding.”
“I won’t faint,” I say.
“That’s my girl,” she replies, and kisses my forehead, and the imprint of her mouth is an iron brand and a blessing both.
Kaspian’s mother glides in to scold a flower arrangement into submission and say nothing to me at all. Kaspian himself appears in the doorway long enough to meet my eyes, fail, and settle for my shoulder. “Ready?” he asks gently.
“I am a professional,” I answer.
“That you are,” he says, and there’s a kindness in it that feels like a hand hovering near a falling glass.
“Places,” Sneed intones from somewhere, and the world obediently becomes a stage.
The doors open on the sky courtyard and the light that lives there—white and gold and forgiving. The orchestra lifts their instruments and the first note blooms like a white peony opening too fast. I put my hand on Daddy’s arm and we step into the script.
Sound swells. The audience rises, a coordinated rustle of fabric and approval.
The scent of a thousand flowers stands up and shouts at my nose—jasmine, peony, citrus blossom, a hint of basil from the herb beds like someone snuck irreverence in on a tray.
The floor under my feet is glass and marble, polished until it has opinions.
Above us the sky is a shallow bowl of blue; hovering discs cradle the musicians like celestial lily pads; cameras hang at the periphery like very polite vultures.
“Left,” Daddy murmurs, guiding me around a scatter of petals too artfully placed to be accidental.
“I have eyes,” I whisper back. “Mostly.”
“You look like your mother,” he says, voice caught on something big. “You look like yourself.”
“Which is it?” I ask.
“Both,” he says, and that makes my throat tight.
The aisle is a river of faces. Nobles in their best armor of silk and smiles.
Old friends hovering close enough to murmur hope as I pass.
Foreign dignitaries pretending we’re interesting.
A little girl in the third row—hair in tight coils, dress too stiff—tips her head and grins at me like we’re in on something together.
I wink, and she almost explodes with the effort of not cheering.
“Breathe,” Daddy says out of the corner of his mouth.
“I am,” I lie.
Mama stands near the front, posture so perfect it makes the cypress look slouchy. She has a hand on Daddy’s empty sleeve in readiness for when he gives me away like anyone can own me. Her eyes find mine, sharpen, soften. She nods once, just for me. I nod back because I am not a goat.
CynJyn sits on the aisle, first row left, in a dress she swore she’d never wear and horns she decorated with tiny white flowers like a dare.
She catches my gaze and flicks her eyebrows in a code only we speak: you okay?
I tilt my head a millimeter: define okay.
She scratches the tip of one horn: I have a plan.
I inhale restrained laughter and nearly trip.
She presses her knuckles to her mouth, triumphant.
The minister waits under an arch that looks like a white wave.
He has a book and the kind of serenity that makes me want to teach him to swear.
To his right stands Kaspian, all clean lines and solemnity, a statue commissioned by a mother with very specific notes.
He is beautiful in the way a museum piece is beautiful—untouchable, well lit.
“Hey,” he murmurs when the music lets him get away with it, voice pitched for only me and Daddy. “You look like something people will write poems about.”
“I hate poems,” I say.
“Good,” he says. “Me too.”
“Aw,” CynJyn whispers from the front row, just loud enough for my ear. “They’re adorable.”
I scan the edges—the back row shadows, the balcony mouths of stairwells, the slice of corridor where the chess tree throws its leaves like confetti on the stone.
I search the hovering gallery where a journalist adjusts her lens and rolls her ankle under the weight of it.
I look to the east tower window that holds the observatory like a secret I’m tired of keeping.
I try not to look like I’m looking. I fail. My face stays serene.
“Left foot,” Daddy murmurs, like I’m five and the stairs are tall. “Good girl.”
“Don’t,” I warn, and he chuckles, and that chuckle is home.
We stop at the step because tradition knows how to draw a line and make you stand on it. The music rounds a corner and softens; the brasses tuck their elbows in; strings smile with their eyes. The veil floats; I resist the urge to swat it like a fly.
The minister opens his book. The wind lifts one page and puts it back, helpful. The crowd breathes as one organism. In the corner of my vision, a drone camera blinks a red light that means later someone will slow my face down and call it meaning.
“No Rayek,” I say under my breath, a sentence no one hears but my mouth. It falls between my teeth and disappears. The line behind my ribs pulls tight.