38. Chapter 38 #2
Servants rushed in every direction, carrying flowers, adjusting banners, rolling out a carpet of deep crimson that stretched from the palace steps to the main gate.
Nobles clustered in groups, dressed in silks and velvets and glittering with more ornament than sense.
Everyone was watching the gate. Waiting.
The guards deposited me at the edge of the crowd, near the back, where the other servants stood in neat rows. The Suppressor drifted to a stop ten feet behind me—watching and suffocating. I was the only one without a task. The only one being watched instead of watching.
I scanned the courtyard. Found Maxx near the eastern colonnade, flanked by guards but alive, his eyes already on me. He raised an eyebrow. What the hell is happening?
I shook my head. No idea.
Serenya stood a few paces behind him, somber but composed, her hands clasped in front of her tightly. Dreadscale loomed at her flank, his bulk cutting off the world's access to her. Maxx's gaze kept drifting back to her between scans of the crowd, quick and involuntary.
Alive. All of them. The knot in my stomach loosened just enough to let me breathe.
But Eryndor—
He stood at the base of the steps, dressed in black and gold, his hair combed back from his face, crown on his brow, every inch the prince he'd been hiding. The King stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder. His chest all puffed up like the proud owner of a freshly bridled prized stallion.
Smug bastard.
The tether hummed between us. His awareness brushed through the bond—a flicker of something before he smothered it.
He didn't look at me.
Trumpets sounded.
The gate swung open.
The procession rolled through the gates like a conquering army.
First came the outriders—twenty of them, mounted on white horses with gold-threaded bridles, their armor gleaming in the morning sun. Behind them, a column of soldiers in formation, their steps perfectly synchronized, and their spearpoints rising and falling in perfect alignment.
Then the banners. Gold and white silk, snapping in the breeze. The sigil of House Luminar—a rising sun over a crescent moon—repeated on every flag, every shield, every polished breastplate.
The crowd pressed forward, craning for a better view. I stayed where I was, grey and invisible among the servants, my Suppressor a constant weight at my back.
The main carriage emerged last.
It was obscene. White lacquered wood trimmed in gold leaf, pulled by four horses so pale they looked carved from moonlight. Crystal windows. Silk curtains. A small army of attendants walking alongside, ready to catch their mistress if she so much as stumbled on a cobblestone.
The carriage rolled to a stop at the base of the palace steps.
And Eryndor descended to meet it.
I watched him walk down those stairs.
Watched his shoulders shift. His spine straighten. Something slid over his features—a mask I'd seen glimpses of before but never like this. Never so complete.
The Cold Prince. Every trace of the male who'd laid his hand to a wall just to be close—gone. Erased. Like he'd never existed at all.
The tether went mute. One moment it was there—that constant hum, that unwanted intimacy—and the next, nothing. He'd shut me out so completely it was like he'd hung up on a conversation I didn't know we were having. Good. Let him hide. He'd been hiding the whole time anyway.
I'd spent weeks wanting exactly this. Wishing for silence. For my own head back. But I hadn't expected the quiet to feel like an amputation. My hand clutched my chest before I could stop it. The absence ached worse than the presence ever had.
The carriage door opened.
A hand emerged first—delicate, gloved in white silk. Then a foot in a golden slipper. Then her.
Princess Vivienne of House Luminar stepped into the sunlight, and the entire courtyard seemed to hold its breath.
She was radiant.
Gold silk clung and fell in equal measure, responding to every step. White lace traced her collarbones, her wrists, the elegant curve of her throat. Her hair—dark as midnight—fell in perfect waves past her shoulders, threaded with tiny golden pins that looked like star dust.
She smiled at Eryndor.
It looked earnest. Warm. The smile of a female greeting someone she was genuinely pleased to see.
He took her hand. Bowed over it. Said something I couldn't hear that made her laugh—a musical, effortless sound.
She looks like the dawn.
I look like the shadow that ruins it.
I glanced down at my grey wool dress. My rough-spun apron. My flat shoes that had been worn by a dozen servants before me.
The King had done this deliberately. Dressed me like nothing so I would feel like nothing. And watching Eryndor press his lips to the princess's knuckles, her golden glow reflected in his grey eyes—
It was working.
She ascended the stairs on his arm.
The courtiers parted at her approach, bowing, murmuring greetings she acknowledged with gracious nods. She moved like she'd been born to this—the attention, the adoration, the natural command of every eye in the room.
Then she stopped.
Right in front of me.
I hadn't realized I was in her path. Hadn't realized the servants had shifted, leaving me exposed, a smudge of grey in a sea of color.
The princess looked at me. Her eyes—amber, flecked with gold—traveled from my face to my dress to the Suppressor standing ten feet behind me.
"So this is the companion." Her voice was honey and silk, pitched to carry. "The traveler you rescued from the wilds?"
A pulse beat in Eryndor’s jaw. A crack opened in the wall he’d built, clear through the tether, before he sealed it again.
"A guest." The King appeared at my elbow, his voice smooth. "For now."
The princess smiled.
It wasn't cruel. It wasn't mocking. It was pitying.
She looked at me the way you'd look at a stray dog someone had let into the palace—sad, but certain it wouldn't be staying long.
"How kind of you," she said to the King. "To offer sanctuary to those less fortunate." Her gloved fingers tightened on Eryndor's arm. Just slightly. Just enough to claim him.
She moved past me without another glance. Eryndor followed, his hand on her arm, his eyes straight ahead.
He still didn't look at me.
The tether stayed silent.
Wind stirred the hem of my grey dress. The crimson carpet was already being rolled away.
I stood there as the procession swept inside. As the courtyard emptied. As the servants returned to their duties and the nobles disappeared through gilded doors.
The King lingered.
He stopped beside me, close enough that the perfume on his robes hit me—something dark and suffocating.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" He watched his son escort the princess through the palace doors, their golden figures framed against the shadows within.
"I searched every noble house in the realm for the perfect match.
Their Marks combined—his Soulbinder, her Absolution Mark—will bring the healing our people so desperately need. "
He turned to face me.
"His betrothed."
Two words. They shouldn't have been able to hollow out my chest like that.
Betrothed meant chosen. It meant someone had looked at him and thought—yes, that one, I'll build something with that one. It meant there was a picture in a frame somewhere and I wasn't in it.
I'd known that. I'd always known that. It still landed like a boot through the face.
He smiled ruthlessly. "You should be grateful. You get to watch history unfold."
Then he followed his son inside, leaving me alone in the empty courtyard.
Nobles streamed past me, their laughter too bright, their voices too loud. Silk rustled against silk. Perfume clogged the air. Someone's elbow caught my shoulder—no apology, no acknowledgment, just the momentum of a crowd that had already forgotten I existed.
Betrothed.
The word kept coming back, no matter how many times I swallowed it.
He's betrothed.
A female in peacock feathers brushed past, nearly knocking me sideways. A male with a wine-stained cravat stepped on my foot without breaking stride. The world was moving, churning, celebrating—and I was standing still in the center of it, frozen and unable to remember how my legs worked.
Their Marks combined will bring the healing our people need.
The King's voice. The princess's pitying smile. Eryndor's hand on her arm, guiding her through the golden doors like he'd been born to stand beside her.
Like the last weeks had been a fever dream only I remembered.
Someone slammed into my back. I stumbled forward, caught myself, the world just kept moving. And I wasn't even sure I was still in it.
My hand found the nearest banner pole. Gold and white silk.
House Luminar’s rising sun. I didn’t think about it.
I grabbed the fabric and pulled. The silk tore with a sound like a gasp—a long, clean rip that no one heard over the music and the laughter and the champagne.
I let the ruined strip fall to the cobblestones and stepped on it as I turned away.
It changed nothing. It fixed nothing. But my hands had stopped shaking.
Then something warm pressed against my ankle. A dog—small, silky-eared, ridiculous—sat at my feet and looked up at me with the grave concentration of a creature who had just made an important decision. One of Vivienne's, probably. It had a gold ribbon trailing from its collar.
I didn't pet it. But I didn't move away.
The dog and I were still in some sort of absurd standoff when a hand closed around my elbow.
"Time for your medical appointment."
The severe fae from this morning. Her grip was iron, her face was stone, and she was already pulling me toward a side entrance before I could form a response. The Suppressor not far behind.
"My what?"
She didn't answer. Just dragged.
The corridor was narrow and cold.
We descended two flights of stairs, then three. The palace above us faded—the music, the laughter, the golden light—replaced by torchlit stone and the smell of something sharp and chemical.
My friendly escort deposited me in front of a heavy oak door and knocked twice.
"Enter."