“Daughter,” my father greeted, his gaze glancing off mine and fixing just beyond my shoulder. He leaned in, as if to embrace me, but his mouth rested by my ear, and the words he spoke made the flesh rise on my neck. “I promised your mother I would keep you safe. Will you make me betray her?”
Will you betray me? I pressed, but he continued to talk, unable to hear me.
“The king is not what he seems, Daughter.”
Then what a perfect pair we will be.
“I will take you back to Corvyn. You only have to make the walk, and it is over. The king will never arrive.” His grip on my arm was bruising, his hoarse voice in my ear almost shrill, and death clung to his conscience once again.
What have you done, Father?
“Lord Corvyn, it is almost time. Let us give our good wishes to your fair daughter,” Lord Bin Dar purred, suddenly at my father’s shoulder, Lord Bilwick and Lord Gaul flanking him. My father stepped back obediently, and Lord Bin Dar bowed so low, his nose almost touched his knees, and his voice was thick with mockery.
“Soon you will be queen. I’m sure your father thought this day would never happen.” His lips twisted, and he snapped his fingers to someone behind him.
“I’ve brought you a present, a gift for the queen-to-be.” A servant stepped forward, staggering under the size and heft of the item he carried. With a dramatic flourish, Lord Bin Dar unsheathed a beautiful, gold birdcage. It was empty.
“I thought about giving you a songbird from Bin Dar, something colorful and sweet. But I thought you might want to make that decision. So the cage is my gift, Milady. The bird you choose is up to you.” Dread curled in my belly. “We will be waiting for you in the cathedral, Lady Corvyn,” he murmured, bowing again.
Lord Bilwick looked at my breasts and my hips and sneered even as he, too, bowed to my father and dabbed at the line of sweat collecting on his upper lip. Lord Gaul seemed pensive, and his thoughts were centered on the bell tower. The tolls had begun again, and he counted the chimes, the chant rising from his thoughts, even as he placed a cold kiss on my hand.
The remaining lords and ladies did not approach me at all, other than to bow with deference as they took their places in the line. Lord Firi was too ill to walk, and he’d sent his daughter once more. She was a brilliant rose amid thorns, standing with the eight lords of Jeru. The people would wonder again why she wasn’t being crowned. Her presence made me square my shoulders and lift my chin. I would not draw pity. Yet.
The Council of Lords would walk first. I would follow at a distance, and Tiras would walk last, the bridegroom following his bride. Archers lined the walls, and the guards stood in full regalia, ready to accompany the procession.
The people of Jeru lined the long road leading from the cathedral to the castle, and I walked all the way, my back stiff, my eyes level, the long train of my pale blue dress trailing behind me for a full thirty feet. The people cheered and threw flower petals on my train, symbolizing the goodwill and wishes they wanted me to take with me on this new journey. White and pink and yellow and red, petals of every color imaginable, and so thick that my train was completely obscured and a few pounds heavier. I walked slowly, lifting my hands in regal greeting as I’d been instructed.
The people had already lined the path before me with the same flowers, protecting my bare feet—a representation of my vulnerability and humility as I walked among the people I would rule. My head was heavy with the jewels woven through my hip-length hair, but I didn’t allow it to droop, and I didn’t lower my eyes.
When I reached the cathedral on the hill, I was met by a veiled matron, the oldest woman in Jeru city, who knelt at my blackened feet and washed them with trembling hands. In a voice that cracked and broke as she spoke, she bestowed a blessing of long life upon me and the feet that would carry me through it.
The oil from her flask dribbled into the dirt as she anointed one foot and then the other, muttering about patience and zeal and health in every step. When she finished her blessing she peered up at me and said simply, “Wait for him.”
She raised her arms like a child asking to be lifted up, and immediately two guards stepped forward to assist her. She clutched my hands in hers and repeated her advice, an old woman telling a young woman to take care of her husband.
“Wait for him,” she pressed, and there was an urgency that belied her simple advice.
Wait for who? I asked, unable to help myself, even if she couldn’t hear my question.
“The King, Milady,” she answered instantly, and a smile broke across her face, creating a thousand creases to hide her secrets. And mine. I smiled back.
For how long?
“As long as it takes.”
She inclined her head, a regal nod, and stepped back from me, letting the guards draw her away. I wished she would return and tell me more, tell me how to wait when I wanted only to run. I needed a mother, or at the very least a guide, and I had neither. I took a deep breath, filling my chest with the courage to move forward. Then I stepped into the cool darkness of the cathedral, the sinking sun at my back.
The horizontal rays pierced the stained glass on either side of the huge arched door and made kaleidoscope colors on the black stone aisle that led to the raised altar. Circular stone benches in ever-widening rings created a ripple effect from the center where I was to kneel with my back to the entrance, waiting for the king to arrive. He was not to see my face until he knelt across from me, and I was not to see his.
The benches were filled with the rich and well-connected from every province, the Council of Lords sitting on the first rows, Lady Firi and four others to my left, four to my right. The prior, a royal advisor appointed by the king to perform Jeruvian rituals and rites, stood at the altar, waiting for me to approach. His robes were black with an emerald undertone of Jeruvian green. He wore a tall, gold dome on his head, carved with the ancient symbols of Jeru. The mouth, the hand, the heart, and the eye—the Teller, the Spinner, the Healer, and the Changer.