The day of the royal wedding dawned bright and clear. Since the ceremony would be taking place at sunset, the guests started arriving shortly after the noon gongs struck. The skies above the Nenavar Dominion’s capital city swelled with all manner of luxurious airships that sported iridescent, multicolored sails in addition to the insignias of noble families from every corner of the archipelago.
These vessels were directed to the many docks strewn throughout Eskaya, their passengers ferried by a fleet of white-and-gold skiffs to the Starlight Tower: a building made almost entirely of emerald-green metalglass that jutted out like a thorny scepter from the rest of the skyline. As each guest disembarked, bedecked in furs and feathers and jewels and silks, they were escorted through the sparkling doorway and served refreshments while waiting for the ceremony to begin.
At least, that was what the bride assumed was currently happening. As for herself, she was in her chambers at the Roof of Heaven, trying not to puke.
“I can’t do this!” Talasyn all but yelled at Jie.
To her credit, the lady-in-waiting didn’t so much as flinch as she performed the delicate task of affixing tiny specks of diamonds to the tips of Talasyn’s eyelashes. They weren’t even her real lashes. She hadn’t even known that artificial ones existed until her arrival at court. They were unnaturally long and thick and she couldn’t see.
“You’re getting the wedding jitters, Lachis’ka, it’s completely normal,” Jie reassured her. “Why, my older brother climbed out the window the morning of his nuptials. When Mother’s guards apprehended him, he babbled some nonsense about embracing his true calling as a pirate— Your Grace, with all due respect, no,” she said firmly when she noticed that Talasyn was eyeing her bedroom window in desperation.
“Is Ossinast still here?” Talasyn asked. “Maybe I can talk to him and we can turn to a life of piracy instead.”
Jie grinned. “If elopement is more Her Grace’s style—”
“What?” Bile rose up Talasyn’s throat. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Apparently sensing that Talasyn wasn’t in the mood for jokes, Jie adopted a more somber expression. “His Majesty has already left for the Starlight Tower. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”
Considering that this whole affair is cursed from the start, that won’t make much difference, Talasyn thought darkly.
She was a mess of nerves and nausea by the time Jie finished pinning the tiara and veil. Talasyn rose to her feet, uncomfortable and overheated in her heavy dress. Jie stepped back in order to appreciate the full picture and broke out into a wide smile.
“Oh, Lachis’ka, you look positively dazzling,” Jie gushed. “His Majesty is a lucky man.”
Talasyn refused to dignify that with a response, and she fidgeted under Jie’s rapt scrutiny. It was, however, nothing compared to Prince Elagbi’s reaction. He was waiting for her in the solar and, as soon as he saw her, tears flooded his eyes.
“My child” was all that Elagbi could manage to say at first, the words choked with emotion, and Talasyn could only stand there and feel awkward and strange as he fished out a linen kerchief from the pocket of his formal blue tunic and dabbed at his cheeks. “Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just that—so much time was stolen from us, wasn’t it? I never got to see you grow up. And now here you are, as beautiful as your mother was when I married her. If only she could see you now. And if only—if only this was a wedding that you wanted. With someone that you cared for.”
Talasyn was helpless in the face of all this love. In the face of what had been found and what had been taken away. She didn’t know what to do with any of it.
So she just smiled tentatively at her father, and she let him take her by the arm and escort her out of the palace. Into the schooner that would bring them to her wedding.
Too many aethergraphs, Alaric grumbled to himself as he waited for the ceremony to begin. He was in a secluded alcove adjacent to the vast hall in the Starlight Tower where it would take place. He’d furtively poked his head out earlier to take the measure of the crowd, and behind the rows of guests was gathered a horde of correspondents with their aethermanced devices, bright-hot Firewarren-infused bulbs flashing with wild abandon.
When Gaheris swept through the Continent, the newssheets had been one of the first things to go in each nation that he conquered. Their sole function is instilling fear and panic among the masses, the former Night Emperor liked to say. They don’t understand what we’re trying to do. What we’re trying to build.
It seemed that Queen Urduja did not share this perspective. Of course, given the Dominion’s isolationism, whatever their newssheets wrote about the wedding would probably not trickle out to the rest of Lir. But the Night Empire would issue bulletins that were inevitably going to find their way to the trade ports. Their ambassadors would bear the news. It might even reach Sancia Ossinast, wherever she was. Assuming that she was still alive.
Alaric knew that he shouldn’t be thinking about that woman. She had left in the middle of the night. She was a traitor to Kesath. But it was hard to stop once he got started. Memories poured in, alive in the fiery light streaming in through the metalglass walls.
In Valisa, she had said to him once, her expression wistful, the way it always had been whenever she spoke of her parents’ homeland, when you wished to propose to the one you love, you’d take them somewhere with a lovely view, some place that has meaning. You’d hold their hands in yours and look upon their face, and you would tell them, “The stars guide me home to your heart.”
Is that how you asked Father to marry you? Alaric had wanted to know, young as he was back then, small and ignorant of so many things.
Sancia’s eyes had hardened. No, little dove. He was the one who asked and there was no talk of stars or hearts. It was a true Kesathese proposal in every sense.
The door to the alcove swung open and Commodore Mathire peered in, jolting Alaric back to the present.
“Your Majesty, your bride is here.” She then vanished with the air of someone ticking off yet another arduous task in a long mental checklist.
Once Alaric was alone again, he took a deep breath. Even as he did so, he castigated himself for the sudden onslaught of nerves racking his system. He was Master of the Shadowforged Legion and the Night Emperor of Kesath; he had stormed countless battlefields and made entire kingdoms bend to his will. A marriage ceremony was nothing in comparison.
There was no putting it off any longer. He stepped out of the alcove and into the Hall of Ceremonies.
Located beneath the Starlight Tower’s belfry, the chamber’s glass walls provided not just a sprawling panorama of the city below but also copious amounts of natural light. More minimalist in design than the ornate interiors of the Roof of Heaven, the hall nevertheless sported a breathtaking ceiling strewn with stained-glass panels that scattered hues of cobalt, rose quartz, jacinth, and lilac across the floor and over the hundreds of people occupying the pews. These people all fell into a decorous yet tense silence at Alaric’s entrance. Stone-faced, he ignored them and strode over to the raised platform housing the altar that was the hall’s focal point.
Perched atop columns fashioned from pure alabaster, the altar had been carved in the likeness of a dragon, crouched low with predatory intent, tail pointed to the ceiling, wings tucked into its sides, and the curve of its neck twisted forward so that it stared down the length of the hall with blazing sapphire eyes, a bronze censer dangling on a long chain from jaws stretched open in an eternal roar. Streaming down behind it were ceiling-mounted banners with insignias—the silver chimera of the Night Empire against a field of black, the gold dragon of the Nenavar Dominion rising starkly from silk that was as blue as a summer sky.
Alaric took his place at the base of the platform. The officiant was already standing at the top of the steps in front of the altar, draped in rich scarlet robes.
Willing himself not to fidget, Alaric maintained a blank expression as he surveyed the crowd. His officers, smartly turned out in their dress uniforms, occupied the first few rows along with Urduja, Elagbi, and the Nenavarene aristocrats who were highly positioned in court. Everyone looked positively grim.
“I’ve seen happier faces at funerals,” Alaric heard the officiant remark to the two initiates who were assisting her, and he fervently—if silently—agreed.
The music started, courtesy of the orchestra in the choir loft. First, a brassy gong was struck three times from up high. Then came the xylophones and reed pipes, soon joined by plucked strings to form a stirring melody punctuated by soft drumbeats. The main doors slid open. Talasyn walked in.
And, for several long moments, Alaric ceased to breathe.
He was dreaming. He had to be.
There was no way that she was real.
The Dominion had spared no expense on their Lachis’ka’s wedding gown. Spun from lustrous lotus silk the color of magnolia petals, the gold-trimmed bodice was a snug-fitting affair with a scalloped neckline, stiff butterfly sleeves, and a fitted waist melting into a dramatic full skirt that probably qualified as a feat of architecture. It was layer upon layer of chiffon and organza lavishly embellished with diamonds set amidst constellations of gold and silver thread, the back half sloping into a train that glided whisper-soft over floors made of glass. Talasyn’s chestnut hair had been gathered into loose curls and pinned atop her head, adorned with a gold-and-diamond tiara from which streamed a veil made of the finest gossamer, shot through with more diamonds and more silver thread to create the illusion of a starry sky. Clutching a bouquet of snow-white peonies that caught the rain of colors from the stained-glass ceiling, she floated down the aisle toward Alaric on the bright, airy strains of the arched harp. She was utterly exquisite in the fiery light of day’s end, heartbreakingly lovely in white, silver, and gold.
And she was going to be his wife.
Alaric paid no attention to the appreciative murmurs rippling through the crowd. He no longer noticed the ceiling or the altar or the view of the skyline. All he saw was Talasyn.
