Chapter 15 The Wedding Night
The Wedding Night
The door closes softly behind us.
Maridale exhales as though she has been holding her breath all evening. “You were radiant,” she says, reverent. “They will speak of it for years.”
I let her unpin my hair in silence.
The crown is removed first, lifted away with careful hands, as though it might bruise if handled too roughly.
Then the heavier ornaments. Silk gives way to linen.
Piece by piece, the ceremony peels off me until there is nothing left but a woman standing in a room that still does not feel like hers.
Maridale chatters as she works. She speaks of customs and expectations, of how nerves are natural and everything becomes easier once it begins.
She tells me she cannot believe she is now lady's maid to a princess. I hear almost none of it.
You have a family who loves you and has been searching for you.
Eravic’s words loop relentlessly, as vivid now as when he spoke them. I see his face again, the honesty in his expression. A statement offered as fact.
Someone will come for you.
Who are they? How does he know them? How could he know me? And yet beneath the questions, something quieter exists in my chest. A certainty I cannot explain. A sense of truth that does not demand proof. Somewhere beyond these walls, there are people who have spoken my name with care.
My palms are damp.
Maridale notices as she helps me into the nightdress, thin and lacy and far too honest. “It is all right to be afraid,” she says gently. “Most brides are.”
I nod, though fear is not the whole of it.
It lies beneath everything else, threaded with something quieter and far more difficult to name.
I am afraid of how little I know, of how easily my inexperience might betray me the moment I am touched, of the way he might look at me and see only what is unfinished.
And beneath that, something worse. I hate myself for wanting to please him, for wanting the approval of a man I know despises me, for wanting his satisfaction, his attention. For wanting, most of all, to be wanted.
Maridale braids my hair loosely and kisses my forehead before leaving me alone. The candles are dimmed. The room grows quiet. I climb into the bed. The sheets are cool and smooth beneath my fingers. Expectant.
I wait.
Minutes stretch, then lengthen further as the palace shifts around me. Doors open somewhere distant, laughter drifts and fades, and music softens into memory. I imagine Colsar drinking, surrounded by courtiers, by women who know exactly how to please him.
Perhaps I misunderstood, or perhaps he is too drunk to come at all.
Perhaps I was meant to go to him, and this is already my failure.
The thought weighs heavily until I cannot wait any longer.
I rise quietly, wrap a robe around myself, and slip into the corridor.
The halls are dim now, lit only by scattered torches.
I know where his chambers are. I have avoided them often enough.
I step into the corridor and pull the door closed behind me with care.
The palace has changed since the reception ended.
The noise has drained away, leaving only the low murmur of distant voices and the faint hiss of torches along the walls.
Everything feels larger now, less forgiving.
My bare feet move over the cool floor, the hem of my robe whispering against my ankles.
I tell myself I am calm, that I am only clarifying a misunderstanding, that a wife does not wait indefinitely when the rules have not been explained to her.
Perhaps he is waiting and wondering why I have not come.
The thought tightens something in my chest. I picture him irritated, impatient, already regretting the match.
I imagine his mouth thinning as the hours pass, his assumption forming that I am difficult or incompetent or afraid.
I will not be any of those things tonight.
I turn the corner where the corridor narrows, the air warmer here, carrying the faint scent of wine and extinguished candles.
I recognize the intricately paneled doors ahead, the guards posted farther down the hall no longer paying attention.
This wing belongs to him. I slow as I approach his chambers.
Light spills beneath the door. That, more than anything, unsettles me. I stop just short of it, my hand hovering uselessly at my side. I draw in a deep breath. Asharin, this is normal. He is a prince. He is likely in there now preparing for our wedding night.
I lift my hand and knock once, lightly, the sound barely more than a courtesy. Nothing. No voice, no footsteps. I wait, counting my breaths, and when no answer comes, I reach for the handle. The metal is warm beneath my fingers, as though used recently.
The door opens inward with barely a sound.
The scent reaches me first, wine, heat, skin.
The room is lit low, dim in a way that leaves more hidden than revealed.
His massive bed remains untouched, its curtains drawn back and pristine, but he is not in it.
He reclines along the chaise near the hearth, bare to the waist, shoulders and chest exposed.
His hair rests loose at his collarbone. One arm lies along the back of the chaise, relaxed rather than possessive.
A woman lies against him. She is entirely naked, her body angled toward his, one thigh draped over the arm of the chaise.
Her head rests near his shoulder, her thick brown hair spilling down the side of the cushions.
He sits as he is, and below his hips, shadow takes over, obscuring the rest. She sleeps, but Prince Colsar does not. His eyes open as the door shifts.
So this is what he meant by distance. He looks at me without surprise, without haste, without even the courtesy of embarrassment.
There is no movement to distance himself from her.
No adjustment of her leg. No shift of her hand where it rests low against him.
He allows the image to remain exactly as it is.
For several seconds he simply watches me stand there, taking in the sight of him with another woman in his chambers. Then his mouth lifts into an unapologetic smile and he winks. The gesture is subtle, almost idle, but unmistakable.
My fingers slip from the doorframe before I realize I have lost my grip.
The air feels thinner, harder to draw. I cannot tell whether he is clothed below the waist, whether he has just finished with her, or whether she is there for display or for use.
All I know is that he sees me, and he is not inconvenienced by it. He does not want me.
When I close the door, the sound is soft and definitive. When I turn away, I am already running.