Chapter 18 Goddess of shadow and darkness
The next two hours passed in a whirlwind of preparation.
Vesper directed my handmaidens like a general commanding troops. My hair was swept up into an elaborate construction of braids and loops, studded with pins and black jewels that shimmered with captured starlight. My face was dusted with Hel rouge, a Hel cosmetic that gave my cheekbones an ethereal, faintly dangerous glow. My lips were painted a deep, bruised crushing red.
And then came the dress.
The shadow-silk slid over my skin like cool water. The bodice hugged my curves, the obsidian beads catching the light and scattering it into tiny rainbows. The sleeves flowed down my arms like smoke. The living train pooled at my feet and whispered secrets I was too nervous to hear.
Beautiful, the shadows murmured. Dangerous. Worthy.
I stood before the mirror and barely recognized myself.
The woman looking back at me was not the exhausted, lonely princess who had cried herself to sleep the night before. She was not the outsider who had been mocked and belittled and stripped of her traditions. She was Nyx Andromeda Viveca Morrigan, Princess of Hel, and she was magnificent.
"You look like a queen," Liriel said softly.
"I'm not a queen yet."
"You will be. After today."
There was a knock at the door.
"Speaking of queens," Vesper chittered. "I believe that is your escort."
I turned, expecting Maz.
Instead, my brother entered the room with someone else at his side.
A small, scaly, distinctly winged someone.
"Ash!"
The dragon launched himself from Maz's shoulder and flew straight into my arms. He was still in his small form, cat-sized and spiky, but his tail wrapped around my wrist like a vice and his rumbling purr vibrated through my entire body.
"Where have you been?" I demanded, clutching him to my chest. "I was so worried, you just left..."
"He showed up at the portal site about an hour ago," Maz said. "Terrified the guards. Tried to set fire to a supply crate. You know, normal dragon things." He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Apparently he went hunting in the mountains and lost track of time. Very irresponsible. I gave him a stern talking-to."
Ash made a sound that was distinctly unapologetic.
"Don't ever leave me again," I told him.
He licked my chin with a tongue that smelled faintly of smoke and something that might have been sheep.
"Gross. But accepted."
I set him on my shoulder, where he belonged, and faced my brother.
Maz had changed into formal attire, a coat of black and silver, the Morrigan dragon embroidered on his breast. His white hair was still unbraided, falling loose around his face. He looked younger like this. More like the boy who had taught me to pick locks when I was seven, less like the prince who had spent the past months managing a kingdom without the help of our father.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No."
"Good. Neither was I." He offered me his arm. "Let's go get you married, little sister."
\-———————
But before we left, I remembered something.
"The Hel binding ritual," I said. "It's not part of the ceremony. Elowyn had it removed."
Maz's expression flickered, annoyance, quickly suppressed. "Yes. I spoke with the High King about that."
"You spoke with Cardan?"
"He came to welcome us. Eventually." Maz's tone was dry. "Very gracious. Very apologetic for the delay. Very Aurelian."
"Maz."
"I may have mentioned that his absence during our arrival was noted. And that the Hel contingent found it... very discourteous." He smiled, all teeth. "He got the message."
"And the ritual?"
"I explained it to him. The binding of shadows, the exchange of vows before the ancient powers of Hel. Told him it was non-negotiable." Maz shrugged. "He agreed. We're meeting with the High Priestess before the ceremony to make the arrangements."
"He agreed?"
"Surprised me too. Maybe he's not entirely terrible."
I thought of Cardan in the alcove, his hands on Freya's waist, her lips on his. I thought of his apology in my chambers.
"He's complicated," I said.
"All kings are. Present company excluded." Maz offered his arm again. "Come on. The High Priestess is waiting, and Vesper is making threatening gestures at me behind your back."
"I am not making threatening gestures," Vesper chittered. "I am communicating displeasure through the medium of body language."
"Same thing."
"It is not."
"It is absolutely the same thing. Nyx, control your handmaiden."
I laughed, bright and real and full of something that felt dangerously like hope.
And then I took my brother's arm and walked out the door.
\------------------------------
The Grand Temple of Solara was everything I had expected and nothing I had hoped for.
It rose from the heart of Aurelia Prime like a monument to excess, white marble and gold leaf and towering spires that pierced the clouds. Sunlight streamed through windows of stained glass, casting rainbows across the polished floor. The ceiling was painted with frescoes of winged Fae ascending into golden light, their faces beatific, their hands reaching toward a heaven I would never see.
It was beautiful. It was overwhelming. It was utterly, devastatingly alien.
And I was about to be married in it.
"You're squeezing my arm," Maz murmured.
"I'm nervous."
"You're cutting off my circulation."
"That's the nerves."
We stood in the vestibule, hidden from the congregation by a screen of filigreed gold. Beyond it, I could hear the murmur of hundreds of voices, the rustle of silks, the occasional cough. The entire Aurelian Court had turned out for the wedding. So had the Hel contingent, a dark cluster of darkness and scales among the golden throng.
Somewhere out there, Cardan was waiting.
"The High Priestess agreed to the binding ritual," Maz said quietly. "She wasn't happy about it, but she agreed. Something about respecting cultural differences."
"Cardan convinced her?"
"Apparently. He can be persuasive when he wants to be." Maz paused. "I still don't like him."
"You don't like anyone."
"I like you."
"That's because I'm your sister. You're contractually obligated."
"There is no contract."
"I wrote one. When I was six. You signed it in crayon."
Maz laughed, low and warm. "I remember. You made me promise to let you ride my shadow-stead when you turned ten."
"And you broke that promise."
"The stead threw me off three times. I was doing you a favor."
The organ music swelled. The congregation rose.
It was time.
Maz turned to face me. His violet eyes, our mother's eyes—searched my face. "Last chance," he said. "Say the word, and I'll portal you out of here. We'll deal with the consequences later."
"I can't."
"You can. The pendant…”
"I can't, Maz." I touched the obsidian pendant beneath my gown. It was warm against my skin. A promise. A temptation. "This is bigger than me. Bigger than what I want. If I run, both our realms suffer."
"Screw the realms."
"Maz."
"I mean it. You're my sister. I'd burn a thousand realms to keep you safe." His voice was fierce, uncharacteristically serious. "You know that, don't you?"
I reached up and touched his cheek. "I know. But I have to do this. Not because I'm forced to. Because I choose to."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed.
"You're too good for this world, Nyx. You always were."
"I'm not good. I'm just stubborn."
"Same thing, in our family."
The organ music shifted. The doors began to open.
Maz offered me his arm. "Ready?"
"No."
"Good. Neither am I. Let's go."
\-————————————————
The aisle stretched before me like a river of gold.
Hundreds of faces turned to watch as I walked. Aurelian nobles in their silks and jewels. Hel nobles in their shadow-silk and bone. The selkie child, Wren, standing on a pew to get a better view. Grandmother Silk, her eight eyes glittering with approval. Vesper, already crying, or what passed for crying among the Nocturni, which involved a lot of wing-fluttering and distressed chittering.
And at the end of the aisle, before the altar of golden flame, stood Cardan.
He was dressed in ceremonial white and gold, the colors of the Aurelian Crown. His bronze hair had been swept back from his face. His silver eyes were fixed on me with an expression I couldn't read.
As I drew closer, I saw his gaze flicker, down my gown, across the obsidian beads, the living train, the shadow-silk that moved like smoke around my ankles. His lips parted slightly. Something shifted in his eyes.
Surprise. Awe. Something deeper.