“At last!” Ambrose sang out. “The wedding guests have arrived!”
26
I shook my head, trying to clear it of the dizzying taste and feel of Lia in my arms, under my mouth, against my body. And deeper inside, like the scent of flowers banishing the stink of vurgsten. My wife. The queen of Calanthe.
It all had happened so swiftly: the escape, the pitched fighting, being fatally trapped in Lia’s rooms, then miraculously seeing the way clear to fulfilling Ambrose’s prophecy, marrying Lia. I hadn’t enjoyed backing her into a corner. I’d thought I’d reconciled myself to the fact that I’m a ruthless bastard capable of doing anything to avenge my father and Oriel, but this victory felt hollow. I still didn’t know what I’d said that had convinced her.
Ambrose said the marriage had to be consummated and so it would. Lia said she insisted on that aspect, too, but the exchange of vows had felt as much like a battle of wills as a wedding. Viciously I wished I’d practiced this kind of thing. I hadn’t even been sure how to kiss her. There had been a moment, though, when she had returned the kiss … Perhaps I hadn’t been too clumsy and tonight would go fine.
She looked as stunned as I felt. Also uncharacteristically shaken at the prospect of facing her people so mussed. I hadn’t thought when I kissed her. Probably I should’ve explained my lack of experience, that I’m more brute than man.
But she knew that. The way she looked at me—the way you watch a half-wild beast, readying yourself for an attack—proved that she probably understood that better than I expected. With her hands clasped over the lower half of her face, her eyes looking larger than usual, pupils dilated so the black nearly overtook the gray, silver rims around the deep pools of shock, she seemed to be searching for equanimity.
If only we’d had a few more minutes to talk before her soldiers busted down the wall. My fault there, as I’d been drowning in kissing her.
“Your Highness!” Xichos stood in rigid surprise. Another Calanthean lord stood beside him, one who’d stood near Lia’s throne. Some sort of adviser then.
“Your Highness,” the lord echoed, looking from her to me in disbelief. “You are … married to this … man?”
Grimly I wondered to myself what other word he’d been about to use. At least Lia and Ambrose had been correct in predicting that the Calantheans would be able to see it. Something had happened, for sure. Even as dulled to magic as Ambrose accused me of being, I’d felt the power of it. Something wrenching and changing inside the burnt places, green vines erupting through baked soil.
Lia dropped her hands, dusting them together and shooting me an opaque glance. Whatever magical connection we might have, that apparently didn’t give me insight into her canny mind. I had no idea what she was thinking. She showed them the smeared blood on her palm, though to my mind her smudged, obviously kissed mouth, her face showing the scrape of my beard, made an even more undeniable declaration.
“Yes, Lord Dearsley, I am,” she replied with amazing poise, given how much I’d just torn it to shreds. I restrained the smile that wanted to worm its way through the dignified and sober mien I presented. Lia wouldn’t appreciate me gloating over how I’d melted that shield of cool calm. I kept the gloating tucked safely away, for just me to enjoy. Perhaps it boded well for the consummation.
It wasn’t easy because, for the first time since Ambrose had proposed the preposterous plan, I entertained a feeling of … hope? At least a relief from dread. And loneliness. No matter what happened now, Lia and I had tied our fates together. For the first time, too, I felt a twinge of remorse that our intertwined paths would likely lead to our mutual doom.
I was a selfish man because I couldn’t help but feel gladness to have some company on the road to destruction. Of course, recognizing that I’m the lowest of humans was hardly a startling or new discovery.
“We need to make a public declaration of the marriage,” Lia informed them. “Including a celebration to take place within a few hours.”
“Your Highness—” Xichos hesitated, glancing at me. “I have men dead and injured. The emissary and Imperial Guards—”
“I know,” she cut in, making it clear she knew everything that transpired in her palace. “See to your injured. Summon Castor to clean up the blood—he knows what needs to be done. Dearsley, would you personally oversee that? I know I can count on you.”
“Absolutely, Your Highness.” The lord she called Dearsley bowed and left with impressive obedience. I could wish my own people obeyed with so little argument.
“Send my ladies to Me,” Lia instructed Xichos. “I need a change of clothes. Move the champagne celebration to the grand ballroom. My … husband will require rooms of his own, as will his retinue. My ladies have a great deal to see to, as do you, so why are you still standing in My private chambers staring and acting as if I haven’t given very clear commands?”
To his credit—or, more likely, credit to Lia’s firm control of her people—Xichos snapped into a salute and cleared out his guards. Lia followed him out of the room into the antechamber, surveying the gaping hole in the wall and resulting rubble with an annoyed frown. “I should have told him to get someone to fix this.”
“It’s not that important,” I commented. Wrong thing to say, as she spun to give me such a hard-eyed stare-down that I wondered if I’d imagined the woman who’d leaned against me and passionately returned my kisses.
“You know very little about My life and what’s important to Me, Conrí,” she said in cold, clear tones. “Keep that in mind.”
The urge to salute or bow to the queenly command seized me, and I ruthlessly suppressed it. This would be an interesting marriage, if nothing else.
Her bevvy of ladies swept into the room, halting their various exclamations of concern and turning to eye me with the calculation of predators. Remembering how they’d easily taken me down—or not how, exactly, but that they had—I held up empty palms. One of them saw the line of blood on my palm and gasped.
“Then it’s true,” she said, turning what I’d call an accusing stare at her queen. Lia didn’t seem to register it, but I made note of the woman, her familiarity, and the strange reaction.
“Yes, Tertulyn, I’ve married Conrí. Calla, I’m sorry to ask this, but the champagne toast needs to become a full ball to celebrate the wedding. I’m counting on your considerable skills to make it happen.”
The lady she’d named Calla briefly bit her lip in dismay, but curtsied. “How soon, Your Highness?”
Lia looked regretful. “Two hours?”
Calla looked pained. “Could I have three?”
“Done. Whatever you need, you have My authority. Take Zariah to help. The best of everything to celebrate our wedding.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Calla turned on quick feet to go, but Lia called her back.
“Make it…” Lia glanced at me. “Make it seem as if this had been a secret, but not a surprise. Act as if everything we’ve been saving for a grand occasion had been meant for this.”
Calla smiled, apparently amused and excited by the challenge. “I can do that.” And she hurried out.