Chapter 6 Sheuan
Sheuan
Langzu – inner Bian
Wedding ceremonies throughout the unrestored realms have evolved from the time of Shattering to the present day.
Where once they were focused on words and jewels, ceremonies gradually changed to have fewer words and fewer jewels, and more inclusion of food and the exchange thereof.
Or in some cases, the exchange of rare plants.
As time passed, these things became more precious than gold.
Sheuan would have said she’d imagined more for her wedding day, though she’d never really been the type to imagine a wedding day at all.
When she’d thought of her future, it had always been an endless string of games, of political maneuvers, of obligation and duty, clinging to the clan name that kept her and her family from falling into the streets.
And now she’d given that name up willingly. She’d done what her mother had always forbidden her from – marrying outside the clan.
The Sovereign’s hands were warm in hers, almost hot, though no sweat gathered in his palms. They were dry as the parched landscape outside.
Sheuan tried on a smile, though, for some reason, it didn’t feel quite right.
This wasn’t the sort of marriage that warranted smiles and shyly delighted looks.
They both knew what they were and why they were doing this.
He could use her, she’d told him. And she was right. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t also try to use him. So she kept her face pleasantly neutral as they brewed the tea together, as they drank it, as they washed their faces and hands and repeated the words Kluehnn’s priest bade them to.
Late-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windows, lonely beams across the empty expanse of the Sovereign’s hall. The chair on the dais was cast nearly black by the light, and Sheuan avoided looking at it. No need to appear grasping in this moment.
Guests were few, and she put on a mild performance for them.
She could appear gravely honored; that seemed to fit.
Some scattered representatives from the royal clans, including the Ministers of Austerity, Arms, and Archives, stood around them.
The Sovereign had left the trade minister position conspicuously vacant – perhaps to remind Sheuan of her place.
The hall was mostly empty. He’d wanted to cut through the formalities, he’d told her, to solidify their union without the time and ceremony these things usually took. They had bigger things to consider.
Like the filter she’d shown him. The one that protected against the poisonous aether and that might protect citizens against restoration.
Langzu hadn’t been restored, not yet, and they had to work quickly if they were to manufacture more and use them to their best advantage.
They’d never be able to manufacture enough for everyone, not even close – some people would get them and others would not.
Was it not like that for every extrinsic advantage a person might have?
She eyed the people in the room. Likely he’d give the filters to them first. His inner circle.
The priest leaned forward, drawing an eye in ash on each of their foreheads. Where had the Sovereign found this fellow? He didn’t keep a priest at the castle, though she supposed there must have been some lurking in the city. Kluehnn’s eyes were everywhere, even, apparently, on their faces.
The thought brought a sardonic smile to her lips, and this time, she saw it answered in the Sovereign’s face, as though he knew what she was thinking.
“As Kluehnn sees into your hearts, so shall you see into one another’s. You are bound, body and soul, until you are remade or you extinguish.”
What exactly did that mean – was their marriage dissolved if they became altered? Her thoughts froze as the Sovereign leaned down. He was a tall man, aged as he was, his back still straight and not weighed by the years. His gray hair tickled her face as he brushed his lips against hers.
It was chastely done. Sheuan wondered how he would react if she laced her hands around his neck, if she worked her fingers into his hair, if she teased his lips with her tongue. Would he react at all?
He leaned away, lashes shading his cheeks. That was it, then? She was not na?ve, yet she had thought there would be something of restoration in this marriage, that sweeping black wall, bringing a cool wind and a sudden, all-encompassing change.
Servants brought out a table, cushions, dish after dish of fragrant food.
Sweet duck with crisped skin, in a dark, salty sauce.
Sticky rice with dried shrimp that had been rolled into balls and then fried.
Cold noodles in sesame oil, sprinkled with scallions.
Surreptitiously, she watched the Sovereign as she ate, unsure of what he was thinking.
Save that one smile he’d given her, she felt like she was eating alone with their guests.
He didn’t grace her with any further glances.
The click of chopsticks, the hum of gentle conversation around her, and the steam rising from the food: these seemed her only companions.
Sheuan was still the only one who knew how to make the filters. She’d held her breath for a little while, but Mull hadn’t returned from his expedition. It was the longest he’d been away. She was caught in a terrible place of hoping he was safe and hoping he would not return.
The Sovereign didn’t take her hand when they retired to his rooms.
She’d never been to this part of the castle.
The wooden beams formed a lattice above the bed.
It smelled like cinnamon and sage, the curtains open but the sun set.
A servant hurriedly left the room as they entered, a lamp on either side of the bedside lit.
Everything was richly decorated, decadent in a way that Sheuan felt she’d known once, back when her father had been trade minister.
The bedspread looked soft, silken, embroidered with some long-dead species of crane – black-tipped wings spread in flight.
The rug beneath her feet gave with every step, mountains and clouds rimmed in geometric patterns.
The Sovereign went to the bed, his fingers working at the sash of his wedding robe, his back to her.
Sheuan hesitated. When was the last time she’d been unsure of how to handle someone?
She had her own rooms, but tradition dictated they would share a room on this first night together.
Rasha’s face filled her mind, the sadness in her soft brown eyes a spear to Sheuan’s heart.
She felt that pang again, a sudden longing, the desperate feeling that everything happening now was wrong.
She’d encountered a fork somewhere in the past, she wasn’t sure where, and now she was lost, the landscape unfamiliar.
No. She was unsure. She was not lost.
The robe slid to the floor, white and gold elegance a puddle on the ground.
He was unbuttoning his shirt. What was she supposed to do?
She was used to being desired, even when others thought she was dangerous – and maybe sometimes because of it.
The Sovereign had made insinuations in the past, when he’d wanted to make her uncomfortable, but now she was as a cat, sliding into the corners of the room, barely observed.
“Did you need help with that?” She took a step forward, undoing the tie at the front of her own robe.
He didn’t look at her. “I am old. I am by no means incompetent.” His shirt joined the robe, and Sheuan found her gaze roaming over his back.
He hadn’t told her not to look, and if he was going to treat her like some silent pet, then she would do what they did and observe.
She’d expected thin, sagging skin, like cloth that had been laundered too many times.
In spite of the silver of his hair, if she squinted she might think him much younger than he was.
His shoulders were broad, his figure lean.
Scars marked his lower back, valleys and hills of shining flesh.
Without thinking, she moved the two steps between them and touched him there.
In an instant, he had whirled, her wrist in his grasp, his face a hand’s width from her own. A huff of breath, like a dog spotting a rival. His shoulders stiff. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She wasn’t sure where he’d earned those scars, or how. The stories said the Sovereign had once been clanless, had worked his way into leadership. Had he earned them during a fight? During childhood?
Sheuan took another half-step toward him, not working to free herself. She let her lips part, her breasts beneath her dress touching his bare chest. The lamplight glinted off the golden ring at the center of his eyes.
He dropped her wrist, his lip curling. “I suppose you wish something of me.”
This wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.
Was he rejecting her? She knew she was beautiful; she felt the gazes of men and women alike clinging to her when she walked through a room, their attention a glittering robe that she donned as her due.
Yet now the breath in her lungs turned to smoke, hot and choking.
He scoffed. “You think you are to everyone’s taste, don’t you?”
She’d never been so thoroughly crushed before, an insect examined with distaste before being pressed beneath the heel of a boot.
She was used to unkind words, used to brushing them away like ineffectual blows as she darted in toward her targets.
But she’d thought… The Sovereign was old, he had been alone.
For these reasons, she’d pictured him falling upon her, ravenous.
And now she was the one wanting, asking?
She couldn’t storm off. And if she didn’t consummate this marriage, her status would be in question. She had left her clan, her family. She might have gone to Mull, if he’d been in Bian. If he’d been alive.