Her brow knitted. “What are you up to?”
“Please.” I leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. Then I made for the door. It was an old trick, and one I felt bad for playing, but if I told her my plan, she’d try to talk me out of it.
The doors of the bridal wing were flanked by two guards. I half expected them to make me stop while they asked permission from Eirhan to let me in. But they stood smartly to the side, and I passed without a word.
Fear swelled in my throat. I could do this. The candidates were only people, like me. People had ten pints of blood, could run maybe sixteen miles per hour and lift about seventy-five pounds. And they were here on the sufferance of the grand duke.
I pushed on the ice doors and went in.
The antechamber was a mess of clothes and luggage. I tripped over someone’s lap harp and nearly slipped on a silk overcoat when I tried to right myself. For fifteen people who had been so refined in public, the princes and princesses looked like they were having a private competition to see who could be messiest. The antechamber itself was empty of people, but I could hear whispering behind a door. As I bumbled my way through the room, the whispering grew more pronounced.
At last, a door swung open, and one of the brideshow candidates stuck his head out. “Finally,” he said. Then he called over his shoulder, “Servant’s here.”
“Excuse me?” My protest was lost as candidates all but tumbled into the antechamber.
Before Father and Lyosha, they’d been cloaked in manners as fine as their clothes and jewels. Now they formed a wall of outrage. More doors opened as people came out, brandishing books or instruments or pieces of imported fruit.
“This is unbelievable,” said one with pale skin and hair the color of walnut. They wore purple, with a white buck dancing on their shoulder. I ought to recognize the sigil. “Some of us have been up for hours while you imprisoned us and stationed guards outside our quarters,” Dancing Buck said.
“If my father were here, he’d declare war on this miserable little country,” said a candidate who bore a lily sigil.
“Lucky me,” I said.
Dancing Buck folded their arms over their purple tunic. “Don’t take that tone with me. Your masters have trapped us in here without a word of explanation. What’s going on? Are we hostages?”
Complaints began to tumble out, as if irritation were a group exercise they’d practiced for the brideshow. Their faces ranged from bored to angry—except for one girl, the girl who’d smiled at me last night. Her muscle-toned arms were bare under a green wool vest, and her dark hair had little light streaks in it, as if it had caught pieces of the foreign sun and spun them into gold. I frowned at her crest, a serpent wound in a knot. She didn’t speak—she just drummed her fingers on her belt, where two ax loops sat empty.
She smiled at me again, and my stomach flipped. She had fresh kohl around her eyes, pink on her cheeks, and red on her lips. She looked like she was enjoying herself.
She looked like she was laughing at me.
I clapped hard for attention. The candidates fell silent, though more than one curled their lips, daring me to do something so insolent again. “Let me introduce myself,” I said when only one or two grumbling candidates were left. “My name is Ekaterina Avenko, daughter of Kamen Avenko of Kylma Above.”
The sneers vanished. A few candidates looked a little embarrassed. No one tried to simper or look happy, and I was strangely glad of that. I’d rather have the honest loathing.
“I am… unhappy to say that I am now the grand duke.”
More silence greeted this pronouncement. A few of them exchanged looks; a few of them squeezed hands. “What does that mean, exactly?” said the girl Lyosha had liked last night, the one I’d mentally compared to a snowdrop.
I took a deep breath. “It means that I’m in charge of the brideshow now. And I…” The knot in my stomach grew. I didn’t need ministers around to know this was a terrible idea. What was I getting myself into?
Whatever it was, marrying Sigis would be worse.
“What happened to Lyosha?” Snowdrop said.
“If he’s dead or something, can we leave?” asked Lily Sigil. Inconsiderate offal heap.
I fumbled for words. Most of the candidates looked some variation of curious. A few were incensed. But one girl—that girl. Her brown eyes were fixed on me, and the curve of her mouth—like the whole thing was a joke—
I’ll give you something to joke about, I thought, and stepped up to her.
I was supposed to say something. We’d been taught the brideshow ceremony as part of our lessons, but I’d been daydreaming about the properties of wild garlic and buckthorn bark.
Then again, how would any of them know I was doing it wrong? I pushed my shoulders back and adopted my Father voice. “As grand duke, I invoke the right to choose my bride.”
“Excuse me?” said Dancing Buck.
The sapphire ring stuck to my glove until I yanked. “I offer you this as a token of my—” Love seemed ridiculous. “Affections. And interest. And… and an alliance between our families and nations.” I seized the girl’s hand before she could pull away from me. “Please do me the honor of exiting the bridal wing as my”—no time for second thoughts, NO TIME for second thoughts—“wife.”
Her mouth dropped open in a wide O of surprise. But somehow, the smile was still there.
Did she have a choice? Had she acquiesced as soon as she’d come to the palace as a contestant?
I slid the ring onto her finger, and she didn’t resist. That was good enough for me.
The sounds of outrage spread. “You can’t do that,” one girl burst out. “The brideshow hasn’t even started yet.”
“It started two days ago,” I murmured. Or was it yesterday?
“Our delegations haven’t arrived,” protested Snowdrop.
“That makes no difference,” I said. One of my ancestors had picked a candidate weeks before the brideshow had even started. “I’ll see about moving you out of the bridal wing and into your delegations’ rooms.”
I took my new bride’s arm. Her shock had given way to a grin so wide it looked as if it were going to split her face.
She still looked like she was laughing at me.
“Are you serious?” someone shouted.
“Uh…” I reached for the door handle. “Thank you for coming.”
I pulled my new wife out and shut the door before someone could think to throw something at us. My ring glinted on her finger, and she didn’t look displeased. It helped to dispel the feeling that I was no better than Sigis.
I hooked my arm tightly through hers and began to walk. I expected her to say something, but the only sounds were of footsteps on ice. My servants and ministers stopped to stare. The news would be all over the palace by dinner.
Good.
I chanced a look in her direction once more. She looked as though this was the best joke she’d ever been part of. Her arm pressed against mine, and she didn’t seem to mind.
At the door of the Rose Room, I straightened my coat and checked her ring. “I, um, don’t know your name,” I admitted. Heat flushed my cheeks.
Was it possible for her grin to grow? “Inkar,” she said in a low voice that, if anything, made me blush harder.