“Neither have I. We should be on our guard.”
“Mustn’t we always?”
Ludivine’s expression softened. “It’s my great hope for you that someday you won’t have to worry about such things.”
Then she kissed Rielle’s cheek, and though Rielle still felt uncertain around her—and though she was, honestly, a little afraid of tearing her gown—she drew Ludivine into a fierce embrace.
“You won’t leave me to walk alone with him, will you?” she whispered.
Ludivine’s voice held a smile. “As long as I live, you’ll never have to walk alone.”
• • •
Rielle hadn’t ever imagined that she would be escorted to her wedding on the arm of Merovec Sauvillier, but the world was a strange place and getting stranger by the day.
Baingarde’s doors and windows had been thrown open to the glorious day beyond. The sky was a cheerful, crystalline blue. Flower petals carpeted every courtyard. Banners in Courverie colors snapped from the balustrade of every guard tower. The crisp autumn breeze cooled the sweating brows of noble guests in their finest coats and gowns, and acolytes in their formal robes.
But with the doors and windows open, anyone milling about the castle with their glasses of punch and small plates of hors d’oeuvres could also hear the cries of the crowds gathered at the gates.
As Rielle descended through the castle, the low roar from outside became thunderous. While in the safety of her rooms, she had been determined not to let the hysterical rumblings of idiots disturb her happiness, but that became a more difficult thing to achieve when faced with the stark, messy reality of them.
“Ah, Lady Rielle, please don’t trouble yourself with the teeming masses,” said Merovec smoothly as they rounded the corner of the north mezzanine onto the grand central staircase. He waved his hand in the general direction of the city. “If I were the sort of man who enjoyed gambling, I’d wager that many people out there today are eager to catch a glimpse of you in your lovely gown. Many more, I would say, than those who would wish to run you out of the city and pray that you never return.”
“You’ve a funny way of putting Rielle’s mind at ease, my brother,” Ludivine remarked quietly.
“I’m sure Lady Rielle is quite capable of putting her own mind at ease, considering her many talents.”
Rielle fixed a smile on her face as they crossed the entrance hall. Each column and banister had been festooned with ribbons of gold and emerald, and the room was packed with whichever guests hadn’t merited an invitation to the actual ceremony. They parted at her approach, murmuring behind fans and fingers, gazing appreciatively at her dress. Movement rippled through the crowd as she passed—bowed heads, low curtsies.
The massive doors to the Hall of the Saints opened, admitting a wave of sound. The temple choirs were singing the “Song of Saint Katell,” accompanied by a small orchestra of flutes, horns, and chimes.
“Why did you want to escort me today, Merovec?” Rielle asked quietly. “The last time you were here, you were full of hate for me.”
“I was,” he admitted, “and it will take some time before I can love you as a proper cousin. But my sister has spoken a good amount of sense to me, and my time on the road home to Belbrion after my last visit gave me much opportunity to think and temper my anger.”
“You’ve chosen to put the past behind us, then? And decided that I’m not some figure of doom come to ruin us all?”
“I’ve decided,” Merovec replied, with a smile, “that the only way left to me is forward.”
At the doors, they stopped. Merovec kissed her cheek and slipped away into the crowd. Ludivine followed soon after, glancing distractedly after Merovec’s retreating form, her brow furrowed beneath her elaborate crown of golden braids, and then Rielle was turning to face the dais at the front of the room, and all other thoughts but one fled her mind.
Audric waited for her on the steps of the dais, and there were others around him, Rielle assumed—the Archon, of course, ready to perform the ceremony, and his acolytes would be there, ready to assist him, and the council, including Tal and Sloane and Miren, would be dressed in their most splendid finery, ready to contribute their own rites to the proceedings. Queen Genoveve would be sitting with Merovec and Ludivine, most likely hating everything that would happen, if she was still herself enough to hate.
But Rielle had eyes only for Audric.
He wore a dress coat in deep green, snug around his trim torso and embellished with gold embroidery—delicate sprays of leaves, suns blazing over crossed swords. The coat fell past his knees and buttoned at his shoulder, and there was a dark-gold vest beneath it, and dark trousers and dark polished boots. Saint Katell’s sash flashed gold over his vest, and a heavy plum-colored cloak swept across one side of his body to clasp at the opposite shoulder.
And he wore Illumenor, sheathed, on a gleaming weapons belt, and gloves fastened with brass buttons. He wore his father’s crown—a simple gold band inlaid with emeralds, and it sat in his dark curls like a conjured ring of sunlight. The very air around him seemed to snap and shine, as if the power contained within him could not bear to be trapped inside his body on such a day.
He beamed at Rielle as she approached, his smile so broad and familiar that for a moment he was a boy again, and she a girl. Not a king and an almost-queen, but children. They were running through the gardens, skipping from stone to stone across the seeing pools. They were huddled in bed beside Ludivine, reading aloud absurd, fantastical stories of the First Age.
And now they were here, watched by hundreds, and thousands more waited outside, cheering for them, jeering at them, and none of it mattered but this: Audric took off one of his gloves and reached for her, and his fingers folded around hers.
She stepped up onto the dais beside him, unable to tear her eyes from his face. His soft curls, his strong brown jaw, his eyes warm and happy as he gazed down at her. He was so beautiful, so marvelous and fine, and looked such a king in his crown and cloak. The presence of his power was palpable, like the touch of lightning across her skin.
Then the Archon delicately cleared his throat.
Rielle turned to him, startled. A small wave of laughter moved throughout the assembled guests, and with it came a reprieve. Faintly, she could still hear the crowds shouting outside, but this particular room, and everyone inside it, felt suddenly kinder, more pliable.
The Archon held out his hands for theirs and then brought them together to press gently between his own.
“Today,” he said, “we celebrate not only the marriage of a king and a queen, but also the union of the Sun Queen and the Crown.”
And in that moment, as the Archon continued through the ceremony they had practiced, the midday sunlight warm against Rielle’s neck, the stress of the last weeks melted away. There was no phantom girl on the mountain, no lies told by angels, or by saints who were supposed to have been valiant and pure. There was no melted villager in Polestal. There were no dead Obex, and Rielle was neither Sun Queen nor Kingsbane, and there was no child growing inside her.