Chapter Thirty-One
Wynessa
I woke to an unfamiliar perfume lingering in silk sheets and spent hours being measured, brushed, and pinned by women who never smiled with their eyes.
Meals passed in silence or half-concealed whispers.
Courtiers bowed too low or not at all, and every hall echoed with the quiet that meant you were being listened to.
They showed me how to curtsy, how to smile without showing teeth, how to wear rings I hadn’t chosen, and speak words I didn’t mean.
I’d thought the court of Caerthaine would be grand, but it was something else entirely, like being dressed in someone else’s skin and told to dance before it hardened.
There was a knock. Before I could answer, the door opened and four women filed in, silent as a shadow line.
Not Elyrien handmaids. These were Caerthaine court attendants; older, sharper in their movements, dressed in subdued hues of slate and deep blue.
Their polite smiles didn't reach their eyes, instead remaining vacant and unreadable.
“Make her ready,” one of them said softly. “His Highness has requested elegance.”
The word tasted like saltwater in my throat.
Jasira stepped forward, voice firm. “She’ll need a moment to change. Alone.”
The nearest maid offered a small smile, the kind that looked painted on. “The Princess has no need for shyness here. We are trained to prepare honored guests.”
Jasira didn’t budge. “She’s not your guest.”
Another maid moved past her, already unfastening clasps from a wooden case. “She’s Caerthaine’s bride-to-be. She must be presented accordingly.”
Before I could object, they were already unbuttoning my cloak, tugging at the hem of my tunic, like I was their puppet.
“Wait—” I began, but their hands moved too quickly.
Jasira raised her voice. “She said—”
“Please. Let us do our work.” A cool hand pressed against Jasira’s arm.
Jasira’s jaw tensed. I caught her eye again and gave her the slightest shake of my head.
It wasn’t worth it. Not here.
With visible reluctance, she stepped back. The door closed behind her.
The room became very quiet.
I stood there in my shift, bare feet chilling against the polished floor, while the attendants unveiled the gown.
It was not a color I would have chosen.
Charcoal black, like the color of midnight.
Heavy silk, cut close to the body, with a neckline that plunged farther than it had any right to.
Silver embroidery crawled like vines up the bodice and twisted around the waist. A high slit ran along the left thigh, hidden by a sheer outer layer of chiffon that shimmered like fog.
“It’s a Caerthaine cut,” one maid said gently as she held it up. “Stern, but sensual.”
“It’s…not really what I—”
“Tradition, Your Highness,” she said, cutting me off.
They guided me into it with superb efficiency.
The corset laced tight, until I couldn’t quite breathe right.
My breasts, small as they were, were pushed into a shape that didn’t belong to me.
My arms were dusted with silver powder. A thin chain was wrapped around my waist like a leash made of metal.
Then came the hair.
Another maid approached with a tray of pins and oils. Someone managed my hair with practiced fingers and combed it straight with perfumed oil I didn’t recognize. She pulled it back tight, weaving it into a sleek, knotted updo that exposed the sharp line of my jaw and every angle of my face.
I felt like a statue being carved.
“You have a lovely neck,” one of them said, adjusting the fall of earrings that brushed my collarbone. “They’ll notice that first.”
“I don’t…think I want them to,” I whispered.
The woman met my eyes in the mirror and smiled faintly.
“That’s not for you to decide.”
My eyes fixated on the girl in the mirror staring back at me. Completely unrecognizable.
Her skin was powdered smooth, and her eyes rimmed in ash-toned pigment. Her lips were painted the color of dusk. She didn’t look like a healer or a princess. She looked like an offering.
I thought nothing could suffocate me more than that crystal flower, until they dressed me in this.
I whispered, “It’s…not really what I—”
“You’re not here to want,” she said, stepping forward and draping a completely useless sheer wrap over my shoulders. “You’re here to symbolize.”
A loud, sharp, and unsettling thud vibrated through the floor, catching me off guard.
“Time,” the steward’s voice called. “The banquet has begun.”
The maids stepped back in practiced unison. The one behind me placed a final pearl pin at the nape of my neck and whispered, “There. Perfect.”
The mirror girl didn’t smile.
Jasira stood motionless in the hallway. The tension in her shoulders sagged, and her face fell into a grim mask of disappointment the moment her eyes met mine.
“You look—” she tried.
“Don’t,” I mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I should’ve stayed and fought harder.”
I shook my head and took her arm.
“Get me through the door, please,” I said. “And promise not to let me fall.”
She offered a tight, fierce smile. “If anyone makes you fall, I’ll toss them into the sea.”
Jasira walked at my side in a fitted uniform of Caerthaine. A blue tunic, crisp and belted with silver thread that caught the candlelight when she moved. It looked wrong on her. She was a woman made for wild colors, for motion and laughter, not the stiff hush of this palace.
Every step taken in those ill-fitting shoes pressed the weight of unwanted choices upon me. A prickling irritation crawled across my skin, saturated with foreign scents and oils. Meanwhile, an inexplicable tightness squeezed at my throat.
I wasn’t dressed for a celebration.
I was dressed to surrender.
Court musicians tuning strings and nobles glittering like coins filled the halls outside. Perfumed air stung my nose. Laughter clinked like crystal.
I walked in silence, surrounded by too many eyes.
And then the Grand Hall opened around me like a gaping mouth.
Slate-gray silk covered every window. Smoky crystal chandeliers caught what little light there was above and broke it into fractured, colorless shine.
Kaelen waited at the head table, already seated, already smiling.
He stood as I approached and took my hand, like we were dancers in a play neither of us wanted to rehearse.
“Radiant,” he murmured in my ear.
I said nothing as we sat.
His fingers remained laced through mine as the hall filled with people, tables groaned under the weight of food, and conversation bloomed around us like vibrant, yet fragile, glass roses.
The noblemen here didn't engage with me directly. Instead, they asked questions about me, but loud enough for me to hear, which only made me feel on display even more.
I wanted to peel myself out of my skin. Slip away and dissolve into the marble beneath my feet.
Across the hall, I saw Erindor standing at the wall, straight-backed in his dark guard uniform. His expression carved into stone. But I knew him too well. I saw the tension in his shoulders. The way his eyes flicked every time Kaelen leaned too close.
He was watching. Always.
Jasira was seated among the court attendants, back straight. Her eyes burned toward Kaelen, but she held her tongue.
Alaric, two seats down, toyed with his wineglass and looked like he was debating which noble to provoke first. Dorian, however, was the one already speaking, laughing too loudly at some joke told by a man with too many rings and not enough neck.
The feast dripped with false celebration.
Until Kaelen rose.
He held a goblet carved from a pale, translucent stone, red veins running through it like old blood. The hall hushed.
“To peace,” he said. “To unity. And to the Princess who brings it.”
He reached down, took my hand, and drew me to my feet.
“To my future bride. May she bring peace, grace, and heirs to Caerthaine’s throne.”
There was no pause. No question. Just a bitter smile and the flare of goblets raised in practiced rhythm.
I tried to breathe. But I couldn’t.
Across the room, Erindor hadn’t moved.
But I could feel him there, a pulse at the edge of everything.
And I looked at him.
Just once.
He didn’t look back, but he clenched his fists and tightened his jaw.
I didn’t taste the food. I smiled when I remembered to. I lifted my goblet with the others when Kaelen did. My hands moved, my face moved, but none of it felt like mine.
I was a storybook figure being read aloud.
From her perch near the musicians, a noblewoman's voice, a rustle of silk and gossip, drifted from behind her fan: “She looks younger than I thought.”
Another sipped from a glass cut with emeralds. “Elyrien must be desperate to send her.”
They weren’t whispering to hide. They were whispering to be heard.
One man with a pinched mouth and a jeweled sash added, “He’s a collector. Perhaps she’s another trinket for his shelf.”
I held my goblet tighter.
Kaelen smiled beside me. That same sculpted, practice-perfect expression. His hand never left mine, resting too firmly, like I might bolt.
And he wouldn’t be wrong.
Every instinct inside of me roared a single command: run.
My eyes drifted toward the outer wall.
Erindor stood as still as ever, cloaked in shadows at the edge of the hall.
He hadn’t looked away from me once.
Gideon stood beside him, arms folded. Jasira sat quietly near the second table, unreadable behind her lashes.
A gong sounded softly, not a chime of celebration, but a cue. Kaelen stood, his smile widening.
“Come, darling,” he said, loud enough for all to hear. “They’ll expect us to open the floor.”
My legs were already up and moving before I had even realized it.
The musicians began to play slowly, sweeping notes from long silver strings. We moved into the center, and Kaelen’s arm wrapped around mine like a snare. We danced.
The steps were smooth. Rehearsed. I let him lead because I didn’t know how not to. I moved my body the way they taught me: a glide, a dip, a turn. I could’ve been anyone.
He leaned in, voice low and too amused. “Smile, Princess. It costs nothing.”
So I did.
But not for him.
I smiled because I had nothing else left in that moment.
When the dance ended, the applause was polite. Another pair stepped forward. Then another. Soon, the floor filled, nobles spinning and laughing with gemstone smiles.
Kaelen released my hand. “I need a word with the steward,” he said smoothly. “Don’t wander too far.”
I nodded obediently.
I walked toward the edge of the room, pressing one hand against the wall to feel something solid beneath my fingers.
And then I heard his voice.
“You look like you’d rather be facing a bandit again.”
I looked up.
Erindor stood a whole arm’s length away. No smile, no humor, but his tone was softer than I expected.
I blinked. “I don’t know the steps.”
“Neither do I,” he replied. “We’ll look foolish together, Princess.”
He offered his hand.
The room blurred. The music blurred. But his hand was steady.
I took it.
We moved slowly and awkwardly at first. I stepped on his foot. He grunted. I apologized. And he didn’t let go.
The hall fell away, note by note.
I kept my gaze on the floor until he whispered, “It’s not your fault they don’t see what you are.”
I looked up.
“What am I?”
He paused briefly. “Stronger than this room. And far too bright for any man who thinks he can own you.”
A wave of adrenaline surged, sending my heart racing.
The music slowed, signaling the end of the dance.
I stumbled, and his hands caught my waist, steadying me.
They lingered there for a moment too long.
“I—” I started.
He let go.
The space between us rushed back.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, dipping my head.
He nodded once, a knight’s bow, but softer.
As I walked away, I felt the weight of eyes on my back.
Kaelen. Watching.
The moment the music shifted again, I slipped away.
A graceful turn, a polite smile, a hand brushed against someone’s shoulder as I excused myself from the crowd. I crossed the floor with practiced steps, but every inch felt like drowning in brocade.
Beyond the banquet doors, the corridor was cold. Blessedly quiet.
I leaned against the stone, breathing slowly. Laughter and music were now muffled sounds, as if underwater, distant, and unreal.
My hands trembled as I pressed them to my skirts.
It had only been a dance.
But it hadn’t felt like just a dance.
His hand was on my waist. The look in his eyes. That line…
“Far too bright for any man who thinks he can own you.”
What did that mean? Why had it meant so much?
Why did I still feel him standing close, like a warmth that hadn’t faded?
“I’m starting to think you enjoy lurking in dramatic doorways,” came a voice beside me.
I jumped.
Dorian stood there, leaning against the opposite wall.
With his arms crossed, multiple bracelets clinked softly as he shifted.
He wore deep plum tonight, with gold chains layered over his chest and a single sapphire dangling from one ear.
His hair was tied back in a sleek knot, but a few curls had escaped to frame his sharp, amused face.
I tried to compose myself.
“I wasn’t lurking.”
“No?” He raised a brow. “Because from where I stood, it looked like a tragic princess escaping to the edge of her story for a moment of stolen breath.”
I exhaled through a laugh.
“Maybe I was overwhelmed.”
“Of course you were,” he said gently. “This place is a mausoleum with diamonds. It makes everyone feel like they’re drowning, but they throw more jewels at you instead of a rope.”
I turned slightly, facing him more fully. “Is that why you wear so many?”
Dorian grinned. “Exactly. If I’m going down, I want to sparkle doing it.”
A pause.
Then, quietly: “That wasn’t just a dance, was it?”
I didn’t answer.
Dorian pushed off the wall and stood beside me. Not too close. Close enough to be kind.
“I’m not here to pry,” he whispered. “But I am here to remind you that sometimes, one quiet step off the path is louder than a declaration.”
I looked down at my hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“None of us do. We fake it better the more embroidery we wear.”
Another pause.
“Kaelen’s watching you like a hawk,” he added, softer. “And your knight? He’s trying not to fall apart like a tower hit by a tide.”
I swallowed. “I’m trying not to fall apart, too.”
“Then I suggest,” he said, gently plucking a stray thread from my sleeve, “you give yourself one win tonight. Something that belongs only to you.”
“And what would that be?”
His eyes glinted. “This moment. Right now. Where you are not a princess nor a bride. In this moment, you’re a girl who stepped away when she needed air.”
He turned to leave but paused after a few steps.
“Oh, and for the record?” he added, glancing over his shoulder.
“If anyone asks, I didn’t see a thing. But if I had, I’d say your knight danced with his whole soul.”
And then he was gone.
Leaving me alone in the corridor's hush, heart thudding.
And for the first time in hours, I smiled.