Unshakable

Unshakable
Ingrid

Two days before my wedding, I sit in the temple in front of Halit, the holy woman, and struggle not to fall asleep. She has that cadence to her voice, more lullaby than stirring religious rhetoric, and the temple is muggy-warm with late summer heat.

And, of course, Kaloni has been running us fucking ragged.

Cirocco sits beside me for the first time in—shit, has it really been two days?—fighting his own losing battle. There have been a thousand and one things to do for the wedding, enough to keep both of us more than busy. While I get my dress fitted, he engages in ancient rituals Kaloni just thought needed to be brought back for this particular wedding. While I review seating charts, he organizes rooms for all the visiting dignitaries in a palace already crammed to the gills. I’ve spent what feels like most of a week running past him, and when we finally stumble into the room together at night, both of us are too exhausted to do more than exchange a few mumbled pleasantries. I know he doesn’t think Kaloni or Corwyn suspect him. He knows Recai is still following me around. Nothing else.

If Cirocco has been an afterthought, Joli has been a ghost. I see her for a few minutes at a time, just often enough that Kaloni hasn’t commented on it. She looks exhausted every time I do, and she always manages to pull me aside to report some other piece of our plan has been moved into place. Even without Kaloni’s eye on her, she is falling apart.

“Princess?” Halit asks.

“Yeah?” I jerk and discover my eyes were shut. A little bit of drool crusts the corner of my mouth.

“This is where you agree to love the prince for the rest of your days.” Judgment edges her voice.

“Absolutely.” I scrub the evidence off my face and elbow Cirocco. He shoots me a tiny smile. He definitely let me fall asleep on purpose. “For all my days and every star.”

Halit nods. “Right. Then—”

“We’re pulling up!” Raven calls through the mind-link.

I shoot up. We couldn’t get them here in time for any sort of plan, but Kieran and Raven are too important not to invite to the wedding itself. “My family is here. I have to go.”

As I start almost running out of the temple, more to get away from its soporific effects than anything else, I hear Cirocco apologizing for my behavior. I’m just an excited bride.

That excuse has been getting a lot of wear lately. I’ve gotten used to the strange shape of Cirocco’s hand in mine, his thyme and orange smell. We share the bed, albeit with a wall of pillows between us to make both of us happier. And I know that this plan is going to work. That we’re closing in on the final strains of a symphony we’ve spent all summer playing out.

But anybody who expects me to be patient on top of all of that can go fuck themselves.

I bolt out into the main courtyard as the gates open, and the familiar carriage trundles in. It’s a piece of home, even if Candace is the piece I truly want. I gnaw on my thumbnail, and Cirocco steps up next to me.

Altair is the first one out the door. “Auntie Innid!”

I scoop him up in a massive hug, showering his face with kisses. He wriggles, laughs like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and I turn to introduce him to—

Cirocco. Goddess above, I actually forgot for a second. My mark scorches as I force a smile. Altair has a better eye for people’s emotions than anyone thinks. Of all of them, he’ll catch me first.

“This is a new friend of mine,” I manage. “Cirocco.”

“Seer-ukko.” Altair sticks out a serious hand to shake.

Cirocco takes it with a small smile as the others catch up.

“I would like to meet the man marrying Ingrid as well,” Kieran says. He stands tall and proud in Dun’s Crossing colors, looking like a true Alpha.

I grit my teeth. He has all the subtlety of a brick to the back of the head. Obviously, he is trying to intimidate Cirocco.

Bravely, my betrothed bows. “King Kieran, Queen Raven. I am pleased to meet you properly.”

Kieran looks him up and down witheringly. Raven curtsies, a sleepy Vespera balanced on one hip. The two of them exchange a glance, and I realize there’s a scheme playing out.

“I’ve always been fascinated by Som Palace,” Raven says lightly. “Cirocco, could you give me a tour?”

For the thousandth time today, I wish I could mind-link anyone in this place. I just look at Cirocco, trying to will him to refuse with my eyes alone.

“Right now, I am needed elsewhere,” he says.

Yes!

“Well then, walk me there with a short tour on the way.” Raven cuts between us and takes his arm, starting to pull him away. “We can do the rest later.”

No!

“And you can show Altair and me to our room,” Kieran says inexorably.

“He’s gone,” I mutter. “You don’t have to pretend that wasn’t a set-up anymore.”

Kieran sighs. “Does it improve your opinion if it was for your benefit, not his?”

“Mine?” I set Altair on the ground, my grip tight on his hand, and walk them inside. “I saw right through you.”

“I was hoping you would.” He looks around at the chaos inside the palace. Staff and nobles run in every direction. Quietly, as I re-enter, Recai detaches from the wall he was holding up while I was in the temple and falls into step behind us. “But perhaps we can talk more in the room.”

I glance at him. He isn’t even twenty-five yet, but the first few gray hairs dull his blonde, and he looks haggard. But then, he’s been haggard since Vespera was born. Maybe since he took over the kingdom. I watch him spot Recai once, on a quieter upper floor, and his shoulders go tight.

He’s worried about something. How much does he know?

Finally, we reach the room assigned to them. Recai stops outside, a few feet back. Kieran takes Altair and settles him for a nap. There’s a little bit of crying, but it ends quickly with a promise that Altair can see me later. A promise my schedule can’t keep.

I just sit on the couch. After Cirocco finished assigning bedrooms, Kaloni went through and made “a few tweaks.” Tweaks that coincidentally placed my only family on nearly the opposite side of the palace from me. The room is lovely, at least as nice as mine, but the smell of fresh lacquer in the air promises Kaloni might have spent a few days justifying moving them with a little decoration.

My brother steps back into the main room and sits across from me. “Are you safe?”

My stomach swoops. He knows. And if he knows, anyone else could—

“This boy, this Cirocco, is he making you do this?” he asks intently.

I laugh, a bubble of pure relief. The plan is safe. “Absolutely not.”

With a frown, he leans back. “I can get rid of that soldier outside if that makes the truth easier to tell.”

“I promise, I’ve chosen to be exactly where I am.” True enough—it was my idea to play up how happy we were.

“Why?” he asks disbelievingly. “I last saw you at your mate’s funeral, when you refused to come home until you finished grieving.”

My bones ache as I settle deeper into the couch and exhaustion threatens again. Weeks and weeks of lying weigh on me. I miss Amval, and I am tired.

Two more days.

“You saw Cirocco and I talking at the funeral, didn’t you?” I say. “We spent a lot of time together after that, and something just… changed between us.”

“That, I can understand.” He shakes his head anyway. “But a wedding? So quickly Candace can’t even be here?”

“Kaloni suggested it,” I say tiredly, “and it seemed right.”

Maybe, if everything goes wrong, he’ll remember that I said that. Maybe he’ll wonder if I wasn’t right all along. Maybe Kaloni can be brought to justice another way.

“Is that all?” I stand.

“No.” He stands to face me. “I know grief is hard—”

I tut. “You already gave me this lecture. The morning after my mate was murdered.”

He huffs. “Ingrid, you’re leaping headfirst into something you don’t understand.”

“I’m not a child anymore!” I throw my hands up. “I haven’t been for a long time, and I don’t know what it’s going to take to get you to see that.”

“I am treating you like a child because you are throwing a tantrum like you are one,” Kieran replies. “Running off? Refusing everyone who is worried about you? Ingrid, you are about to marry a man you don’t even know.”

“Almost everyone does!” My hands shake, and I don’t even know why anymore. “That’s what a mate is. I just picked this stranger out for myself, so you don’t like him.”

“A wedding is forever.” He takes a step closer, lowers his voice—one of Mother’s tricks for defusing a situation.

I vault over the back of the couch to get away from him. “Don’t. Don’t act like you’re my parent.”

He clenches his hands tight and then releases them with a long breath. “I know how far your impulses have carried you before.”

His voice echoes with Amval’s accusation. Everyone thinks I’m impulsive, incapable of thinking things through. As he said, a child throwing a tantrum.

“This time, I know what I’m doing.” I storm to the door. “And you arrived too late. I don’t have time to see Tai tonight. Enjoy telling him that.”

With my head held high, I storm out. Kieran doesn’t chase after me, potentially aware of how fighting in front of my shadow would look. As I head for the all-night pampering party I’m expected at next, Recai clings to my every step, as usual. Kaloni doesn’t even need to threaten me herself; she just attaches this armed dog to me, and the rattle of his armor does the rest. In every clink of his sword against his thigh, I hear the message. Marry Cirocco or die.

I gnaw on my thumbnail, wandering in circles.

If all goes to plan, I’ll do neither, and Kaloni’s reign of terror will end tomorrow.

Is the plan good enough?

What am I thinking? Of course it is. I helped come up with it.

But the brassy confidence that usually keeps me going when I hesitate rings hollow. Kieran is right. Everyone in my life has told me to stop, even Amval. And the stakes of tomorrow are a thousand times higher than usual. This isn’t jumping off the roof or testing out a new hobby. The future of Lightning Cape—potentially of the world—rests on tomorrow going exactly right.

My mark throbs, and I know what I need.

Finding Cirocco is so much easier than remembering where I need to be. My feet carry me to the armory, where he is choosing his royal blade. Recai, as always, pauses at the door. I pull Cirocco away from the armorer with a breathless half-smile I hope makes me look like I’m in love.

With my arms around his neck, I whisper in his ear, “I need you to get a message to Amval. I don’t have the time to get all the way there.”

Cirocco nods.

“Tell him I have a few minutes tomorrow night, and I need to see him.” With so little time, he needs to be ready.

Just like I need to hear from my mate that we’re not making a mistake, the night before I’m supposed to marry his brother.