Chapter Fifteen
We spent the next few days going over every detail of the new Guild with the men that Ryder trusted the most. When we weren’t in planning sessions for the Guild, our time was spent between searching for any trace or sign of Ciara and planning the upcoming wedding. Ryder and his brothers were terrified of what may have happened, and with every passing day, any hope of finding her alive was fading.
I hated being unable to devote additional manpower or time to finding her, but with the portals growing and the Horde already being spread thin, it just wasn’t an option. It would leave the Horde’s stronghold more exposed than it already was.
The world around us seemed calm, serene. Like we weren’t standing at the edge of the war we knew was coming. Like there wasn’t a hole into this world, one we couldn’t close no matter how many experts we brought in to try. Nothing seemed to stop them from slowly expanding.
I spent my mornings planning the wedding, then missing my children by the afternoon. By midnight, I tired myself out, training until I fell into bed, exhausted to the point of tears, but knowing how important it was to prepare my body and mind for any battle I might face.
This fragile peace wouldn’t last for long, and we all waited with bated breath for the one thing that would be the breaking point and take us into full-scale war. The Mages had been quiet. Quiet usually meant that they were plotting and planning and at their most dangerous, so no one allowed our readiness to slip; no one grew lax with their inactivity. We’d taken a huge part of their weapon arsenal when we’d taken the God they thought would make them invincible, and they were probably licking their wounded pride. Even with that knowledge, we knew they wouldn’t wait long before they made their next move, and we’d be ready for them when the time came.
Faolán was yet another problem I knew was lurking, just waiting to stab me in the back when I least expected it. He wouldn’t stop hunting me until one of us was dead, and it wouldn’t be me who fell. I plotted and planned, and hated the fact that when I did end his life, Madisyn would be hurt by it. I couldn’t find a way around it, not with his evil taint threatening the very lives of my children. He’d crossed a line with what he’d done, and he had to be stopped.
“Ryder agreed that we should have feasting areas in the courtyard, as well as around the outside of the castle during the wedding reception, so that anyone who wants to share in the revelry of your wedding can. After all, I understand that a few centuries ago in the human world, it was customary for feasting to take place for several days when royalty would wed. I think this would be a nice homage to that tradition!” Madisyn chirped, pulling me from the troubles playing in my mind.
“What?” I turned away from the window to look in her direction, where she sat perched in a dainty chair as she picked at the assortment of cupcakes Darynda had brought earlier with our tea.
“You’ve not heard anything I’ve said all morning, Synthia,” she fussed, pursing her lips into a tight frown. “Should I come back later?”
“No, it sounds fine. Set it up wherever you like.” I shrugged tiredly. “I’m sorry, my mind is elsewhere.”
“Obviously, but we need to finish planning this wedding.” Without a hint of irritation, she patted the empty spot on the sofa next to herself. “Come, sit with me and I will show you what I have planned.”
I ignored her hint and moved to the chair opposite of her in the lounge we had decided to use for planning the wedding. She had pictures spread out with additional options of bridesmaids’ dresses, cakes, and layouts of what the great hall would look like once she’d had her people set it up. I thought we had already decided what was going to be done, but by the look of determination in Madisyn’s eye, she had some very different ideas in mind than I did for the wedding.
“This is your dress, because while I appreciate that you wanted to wear red for the Blood Kingdom, it’s unheard of to wear red to your wedding. Ryder was very clear about what we were allowed to do with your wedding, since he wanted a traditional one, like that of the humans’.”
He’d changed my dress? I stared at the creation and frowned. It was beautiful, with a bell-shaped skirt, and a lace bodice with a train and a veil. In fact, it looked like one I’d been admiring when I was about five years old, but that was because it looked like every cliché out of every Disney Princess movie ever made.
“What do you think?” she asked excitedly, and I raised my eyes to hers and gave her a soft smile.
“It’s beautiful.” It was, but it wasn’t me. My stomach flipped and nerves came up without warning. I was doing this; but it was frustrating, as nothing I said or did stopped Madisyn or Ryder from making this wedding huge. “It’s a lot of fabric,” I forced out, trying to be polite, and watched as she grinned.
“It’s perfect, and I think that out of all the dresses I saw, this will flatter your figure the best. I also think you should wear your hair up, in curls like this.” She fluttered her fingers and I could feel my hair being pulled back and twisted, and soft curling ringlets framed my face. “See!” she crowed excitedly and glamoured a hand mirror for me and I looked at the elaborate hairstyle she had created. “It will flatter your features, and everyone will be able to see the diamonds better.”
“Diamonds?” I asked woodenly. I wasn’t shocked with anything the Fae could create. I was just surprised she’d mentioned diamonds, because I’d planned on wearing pearls.
“This.” she pointed at a catalogue of jewelry. The diamonds were the size of an infant’s fist and gaudy. They were set in a platinum setting with smaller diamonds that created a waterfall effect all the way around the neckline. “It will make your eyes pop and it will also draw attention to your crown. Ryder has been looking at different concepts all week!”
“A crown?” I parroted, wondering when the hell these two had so much time to plan this shit. I had barely seen him unless he was falling into bed, too tired to do anything else but sleep. Not that the Fae really needed to sleep much, but they needed to detach from the world or they’d go insane. Yet the man was planning our wedding in every minute detail with Madisyn. It was at this point I had the sneaking suspicion that a lot of this drama was more of Madisyn’s agenda than Ryder’s or mine. Ryder knew me better than this, and while Madisyn wasn’t necessarily lying, I knew she was being very clever with what words she was choosing each time I asked her if a change was Ryder’s idea. I had a feeling that both Ryder and I were being manipulated because neither of us had the heart to hurt her feelings, and she was, for all intents and purposes, becoming momzilla of the bride, disguised as a beautiful Fairy Queen.
“You are a princess. You cannot marry into the Horde without your status changing, and so when you walk down the aisle, you will have a tiara, and when he sets the crown on your head, you will be raised from Blood Princess to the Queen of the Horde.”
“Of course,” I whispered as she passed me drawings that ranged from those of the tiara that had a blood ruby in it, to a golden crown that was embedded with hundreds of diamonds and looked heavy as hell. I was going to have to work on my neck muscles if they expected me to wear it daily.
“You’ll get used to it,” Madisyn assured me as she took in my frown. “It is a reminder of your station here, and the people will need to see you with it on. The Horde thrives on power, and if they forget it for a moment, you will need to remind them of who you are.”
“I know.” I nodded. “How many days before the wedding?” I sipped the tea Darynda had made—chamomile, to calm my nerves as I waited for the men to return from searching for Ciara.
“Two days,” she frowned. “You couldn’t have possibly forgotten already. You helped me send the invitations out.”
“How could I forget?” I grumbled. I couldn’t remember who we had invited because there had been so many that I’d stopped asking who was who. I didn’t really care because I wasn’t into this big wedding, and I was secretly more impressed with the army of tiny winged Fae that were charged with the delivery of all the ostentatious envelopes.
“So, we will be doing a rehearsal tomorrow, and I think you should consider changing your mind and allow the babies to be here for the ceremony. They should be here with you.”
“Absolutely not,” I replied, much harsher than I had intended to. “Madisyn, I’d like nothing more than for them to be present, but until Faolán is captured and dealt with, I won’t risk them being where he could use them against us. I’m sorry, but I won’t chance it.”
“I understand,” she said softly. Her eyes watered as she turned away from me. I knew it was difficult for her to grasp, but her son was a monster. I’d left out a lot of the things he’d done to me, but I wouldn’t place my children into the precarious position of being used against me. They were defenseless, and innocent in this.
“Anything else that needs my attention?” I sighed.
“Shoes; you have yet to pick out the ones you want to wear.” She shuffled through the papers until she found what she was looking for. She handed me a page full of what looked to be different styles of glittering, almost transparent shoes. “Ryder said he had seen you admiring some shoes that you said a story character wore. What was she called…Cinderella? He described the story, so we found some designs for similar ones.”
I grinned as I looked through the delicate looking shoes, and settled on a pair that had small heels and didn’t look like they’d break if I walked in them. Once we’d finished with a few more details, she left, reminding me of the rehearsal wedding tomorrow so that I wouldn’t be lost when the time came to walk down the aisle to Ryder.
Once she’d sifted, I moved to the study and pulled out the maps I’d been poring over before she’d arrived. There was a patch of rough terrain and mountains that the men had immediately scratched off the search grid and, while they dismissed it, my instincts were drawn to it. If I was hiding from the Horde, I would go to the last place in this world that they’d think to look. But hey, that was just me. Ryder had explained to me that no one would look there because it wasn’t habitable—even the plant life there was carnivorous. He’d told me in vivid detail about it and the monstrous creatures that were part of the land itself.
I paused and tilted my head, my finger moved over the map as I glamoured on my form-fitting armor, swept the ridiculous curls into a ponytail, and glamoured a few cleverly concealed sheaths for daggers at the wrist grieves, hips, and boots. I moved towards the window and looked down at the men, who were just returning from the search, and considered waiting for Ryder, but as I watched him dismount from his horse with slumped shoulders, I knew what I had to do.
I hated that every time they returned, they grew a little more defeated at the prospect that she may not be out there to be saved. There had been a lot of blood on the floor and furnishings when she’d been taken, and it had been hers. She’d fought her attacker with everything she had, but just how much had it cost her?
Her life?
I watched as amber eyes rose to mine as if he sensed my presence in the window, and he shook his dark head. Defeat was new to him, but he wasn’t ready to admit it yet, and neither was I.