Chapter 15 The Aurelian bride
The days following the engagement party were a masterclass in isolation.
I had expected backlash. I had expected whispers and cold shoulders and the particular brand of polite cruelty that the Aurelian Court excelled at. What I had not expected was the systematic dismantling of everything I had tried to build.
It started with the wedding preparations.
"The Grand Temple has rejected the Hel binding ritual," Elowyn informed me three days after the party. She had cornered me in the library, which I had thought was a safe haven. Apparently not. "The High Priestess says it's incompatible with the Solara vows. Something about invoking Hel deities in a temple of light."
"The High Priestess said that? Or did you say that?"
Elowyn pressed a hand to her chest, the picture of wounded innocence. "I'm only the messenger, Princess. Don't shoot."
"I don't shoot. I eviscerate."
Her smile flickered but held. "In any case, the binding ritual is out. I've also taken the liberty of reverting the floral arrangements. Night-blooming jasmine is lovely, truly, but it simply doesn't match the rest of the decor. We need cohesion."
"Cohesion."
"For the sake of the court. You understand."
I understood perfectly. She was erasing me, petal by petal, ritual by ritual.
"The Hel dishes have also been removed from the menu," she continued, examining her perfectly manicured nails. "The head chef expressed concerns about the... exotic ingredients. Apparently the fungus you requested is related to a species that causes temporary paralysis in Faes. We cannot risk that. A lot of Lords will be in attendance."
"It only causes paralysis if you eat the whole bowl. A few spoonfuls is perfectly safe."
"Be that as it may, the decision has been made."
By whom, she didn't say. Cardan, presumably. Or the council. Or anyone who outranked me, which was essentially everyone in this golden cesspool.
I rose from my chair. My book, a history of Aurelian bloodlines that I had been studying for loopholes in the Oath, fell closed with a thump.
"Is there anything else, Princess Elowyn? Or have you successfully stripped every trace of Hel from this wedding?"
Elowyn met my eyes. Her gaze was cool, satisfied. The gaze of a predator who had cornered her prey and was savoring the moment before the kill.
"There is one more thing," she said. "The wedding gown."
My stomach tightened. "What about it?"
"I've taken the liberty of commissioning one for you. Aurelian silk. Traditional design. Very elegant. It should be delivered to your chambers by week's end." She smiled. "I do hope you like white. It's the color of purity, you know. A symbol of the bride's... virtue."
She knew. Of course she knew. She knew about the vow of chastity, knew about my eighteen years of faithfulness, knew about Freya and Cardan and everything else. And she was twisting the knife with surgical precision.
"How thoughtful," I said. "But I already have a wedding gown."
Elowyn's eyebrow arched. "From Hel?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure it's lovely. But Aurelian tradition dictates that the bride wears the colors of the sun. White and gold. Your Hel gown would be..."
"Inappropriate?"
"I was going to say unfortunate."
We stared at each other.
"Thank you for the advice," I said. "I'll take it under consideration."
"That's all I ask." Elowyn turned to leave, then paused at the door. "Oh, and Princess? I've heard that your dragon has been spotted flying toward the eastern mountains. Such a magnificent creature. I do hope he finds his way back. The mountains are very very dangerous."
She was gone before I could respond.
My hands were shaking. Not with fear, with rage. Pure, incandescent rage that made the shadows in the library curl and twist like living things.
Ash had left.
I had woken that morning to find his usual spot on my pillow empty. No warning. No farewell. Just... gone. I had told myself he was exploring, stretching his wings, hunting something in the forests beyond the city. Ash was a Hel-Drake. He needed darkness and space and the freedom to be the apex predator he was born to be.
But he had never left me before. Not once. Not in all the years since I had found him as a hatchling, abandoned in the Abyssal Ridge, small enough to fit in my palm.
And now he was gone too.
\-————————————————
The days blurred together after that.
Elowyn's allies multiplied. Everywhere I went, there they were, ladies of the court who just happened to be whispering as I passed, lords who just happened to make snide comments about "monsters" within earshot. The servants began to treat me differently too. My meals arrived cold, almost unpalatable. My requests went unfulfilled. The enchanted curtains in my quarters mysteriously malfunctioned, flooding my room with blinding sunlight that took three days to fix.
I stopped going to the library. I stopped attending court functions. I retreated to my chambers and let the world outside fade into a golden blur.
My handmaidens did what they could. Liriel brought me books and tea and fierce, whispered encouragements. She served me whatever Hel food we could find in my belongings, even going as far as planting some Hel seeds to grow our vegetables. Thalia stood guard at my door and turned away Elowyn's messengers with increasingly creative threats. Sera maintained a network of informants among the lower servants, feeding me tidbits of gossip that might prove useful.
But they couldn't stop the loneliness.
It crept in like a cold draft, seeping through the cracks in my armor. I missed Hel. I missed the eternal twilight and the bone-spires of Nyxara. I missed Vesper's chittering laughter and Maz's inappropriate jokes and Eris's steady, silent presence. I missed the markets and the cakes and the way my people looked at me without fear.
Here, everyone feared me. Or hated me. Or both.
Even Cardan.
Especially Cardan.
He told me would send Freya away. He had apologised. And yet, in the weeks since the engagement party, he had been conspicuously absent. No private conversations. No truces. Just the formal nod of acknowledgment at the rare court functions I bothered to attend, and silence.
I told myself I didn't care.
I was lying.
\-———————————————
The wedding gown arrived on a Thursday.
It was brought to my chambers by a team of seamstresses who insisted on dressing me themselves, their hands fluttering around me like pale birds. The gown was... fine. White silk. Gold embroidery. A train that stretched for miles. It was exactly what Elowyn had promised, traditional, elegant, and utterly, devastatingly wrong.
"It's beautiful," Liriel said, because she was loyal. "Very... Aurelian."
"It's a shroud," I said. "She's dressing me for my own funeral. Nobody in Hel wears white unless it's a funeral."
The seamstresses pretended not to hear.
After they left, I stood before the mirror and stared at my reflection. The white gown made me look washed out, pale, diminished. It swallowed my shadows and dulled my eyes. I looked like a ghost. I looked like a bride who had already been defeated.
"No," I said.
Liriel looked up. "Princess?"
"No. I am not wearing this."
I tore the gown off with more force than was strictly necessary. The delicate silk ripped in two places. I didn't care.
"Fetch the trunk," I said. "The one from Hel. The one I told you not to open."
Sera and Thalia exchanged glances. Then they hurried to the storage room and returned carrying a trunk of black obsidian, carved with the symbols of the Morrigan bloodline.
I opened it myself.
Inside, nestled in folds of shadow-silk, was my wedding gown.
I had packed it on a whim, the night before I left Hel. Vesper had helped me choose it, her compound eyes glittering with pride. It was Hel through and through, not white, but deep, iridescent black that shifted to violet and silver when the light hit it. The bodice was embroidered with tiny obsidian beads that caught the candlelight like captured stars. The sleeves were long and flowing, made of a fabric so fine it moved like smoke. And the train, the train was woven from living shadows that would trail behind me like a second veil.
"It's perfect," Thalia breathed.
"It's magnificent," I said. And for the first time in weeks, I smiled.