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She forced a smile. “Fine.”
Bastian set his cup down on the vanity, gestured that she was welcome to it. “Today seems like a good day to be punctual.”
Lore shrugged.
A tremor went through Bastian behind her, a disturbance in the air. When she turned back to look at him, his eyes were closed, his jaw a tight line, like he was trying to fight off a sudden headache.
“I hope he doesn’t hate me,” he murmured, so quietly. Like a secret he wanted to keep, even from himself. “Stupid thing to hope. But still.”
Lore stood, her fingers closing around his tightly fisted hand. “He couldn’t hate you.”
“I guess we’ll test the limits of that theory.” Bastian lifted her hand, stared down at the ring on her finger. It’d twisted around, the stone slipping sideways. “Little big for you. We’ll have to get it resized, before…”
Before she became his Queen.
When Bastian looked up at her, his momentary vulnerability was gone. “Sorry,” he said. “Headache.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, idly kissed her fingers. Then he tucked her hand into his elbow. “This will be our first outing as an official betrothed couple, won’t it? Auspicious, that it should be a prayer meeting.”
Lore didn’t respond as she let him lead her from the room, sunlight flooding around them like parted golden curtains.
The North Sanctuary was nearly full when Lore and Bastian arrived. Curious eyes crawled over her, lighting on her ring, her face, the black dress she’d hurriedly pulled from the closet, spinning whispers from it all. The floor was an easier thing to look at than the gathered nobles, still bleary from the ball and the parties that came after, hoarse from a night full of gossip that bore her name.
Bastian let go of her arm when they sat in their places at the front of the Sanctuary, allowing a bit of distance. Gone was the tradition of the Arceneaux King and heir kneeling at the altar to begin First Day prayers—Bastian hadn’t attended since the eclipse, and there was no heir to accompany him.
The thought of an heir made heat rise to her face. Lore supposed it would be on her to provide one, as Bastian’s wife. She couldn’t picture them as parents.
The Sanctuary gradually grew silent, a sea of quiet nobles in stained-glass-colored light. Lore felt when Gabe entered the room—the collective intake of breath, the way Bastian stiffened beside her.
She looked up.
He was staring at her. Gabe stood in the center of the dais, the Bleeding God’s Heart on its shorter chain gleaming against his broad chest. The leather of his eye patch stood stark, like a badge proclaiming he didn’t belong in this role.
Bastian coming with her meant she hadn’t had the chance to speak with Gabe, to tell him about the voice in her head. Maybe she could bring it up to Bastian instead, but something warned her against that. He’d either panic or think it was nothing, and neither extreme was helpful.
She didn’t realize she was imagining her forest until a heartbeat later. Lore closed her eyes, and it swept around her mind, green leaves and brown bark and the open sky. A barrier, yes, walls to keep her safe.
A cage.
But maybe that was what she needed, if she was hearing voices in the dark.
A moment of silence, then Gabe started speaking, his voice a low rumble. The same prayer from every First Day service. It felt unnatural, to hear Gabe saying things she’d heard Anton say first.
Lore and Bastian rose and knelt with the rest of the congregants, an ingrained performance none of them had to think about. The stained glass making up the Bleeding God’s Heart in the window shone bloody, the brazier smoke making her eyes water.
“We ask that You make a vessel for Your light,” Gabe murmured, nearing the end of the prayer. The words were jumbled, like he couldn’t wait to get them out of his mouth, to leave this Sanctuary and everyone staring at him.
“We ask that You return and make us holy—” the gathered nobles murmured back, Lore’s voice lost among them. But then, that collective voice broke off, dissolved into gasps.
Lore’s eyes went to Gabe again. He was staring, but not at her this time, his eye wide and fixed on Bastian.
Dread chewing at her heart, Lore followed his gaze.
Bastian glowed. Not just from the light through the window, though that certainly heightened the effect—there was a golden luminescence wafting around him, the antithesis of a shadow. His eyes were closed, his face tipped up to the window, as if completely unaware of the pause in the prayer.
But then his eyes opened, and Lore knew he wasn’t unaware, not at all. He glanced at her, smiled, reached out and took her hand.
His touch was light and warmth and summer, a rush of blood, a rush of air. For a moment, Lore’s vision flickered, and the man holding her hand didn’t look like Bastian at all. As if some other form was superimposed over his own, like two sheets of vellum laid one atop the other.
“Beloved,” he murmured, and then she blinked, and the not-quite-doubling effect was gone.
