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“Please, Chloe, choose one. We’ve seen hundreds.”
“A thousand,” the shopkeeper whispers. “I’ve shown you a thousand dresses.”
“But none of them is the one!” I cry uglier.
My magic flares on my palm and dies instantly. In the past, the magic would lash out, but since D’Artaron’s trained it, everything is in control.
Except how I’ll show up at my wedding without the perfect dress.
“When I met D’Artaron at the Unseelie wedding,” I start, “my dress caught fire and left me naked in front of him. I will never forget the way he looked at me. No male has ever looked at me that way. There was yearning in his gaze, and I won’t ever forget being so desired. I want him to look at me like that at my wedding. In the dress.”
“Your Majesty,” the shopkeeper says, “if I may observe something I probably shouldn’t observe.”
“Go on, good sir.”
“I’m afraid your nude body will always garner more views than your dress.”
I chuckle and wipe my tears again. “Good point.”
“And you can’t marry in the nude,” Claudette says.
Oh. “Why not?”
Claudette huffs as I smile evilly.
Suddenly, the air in the room changes, and something cold and foreboding seeps through my bones. Outside, the clouds block the light, and I scurry to the corner of the space and away from the windows. My staff hides under the table and behind the dressing partition.
In the stillness of the span, as the clouds block the sun, I’m reminded of the night that murderers barged into my chambers intent on hurting me. At the time, I didn’t know that the male would spare me from the fate he dealt out to the former royal family. What mattered was that he scared the crap out of me.
When the lightning strikes, I take hold of it and rise, my palms heated, white flame flickering over my skin. I grow still and wait, allowing my magic to course through me, not out of me.
Three females dressed in black-on-black with veils trailing past their toes appear in the middle of the room.
I gasp, having nearly flung my flames at the fates.
Everyone’s more terrified now than ever before, and I hear the staff starting to whimper.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, but if I don’t speak out for my people, then who will? “Fates.” I curtsy briefly. “Your appearance must be of great importance, for it’s terrorizing my staff.”
They don’t answer.
My magic rises, brightening the room they’ve shrouded in darkness.
“State what you came here to state,” I order.
The three of them speak in unison. “We come to pay respect to the ascending royals. The king and queen.”
The fates vanish. In their place is a wedding dress.
“Oh my fates,” I whisper as I pull back my magic.
The most perfect wedding dress hovers above the floor in the center of the room as if held by D’Artaron’s magic No, this is the magic of the fates, who found a dress for me, and now I feel bad for protesting their invasion. “Thank you so much. So much. This is the dress. Everyone! Come out and see! We have a dress.”
Cautiously, people walk out of the closet and ooh and ahh.
We approach the gown, which spins slowly in place, allowing us to view it from all angles. It’s a short pale peach dress, with various textures perfectly layered over each other. Fine silk over cotton, then lace at the sleeves and leather at the hems. Pearls reflecting soft coral peach are sewn onto the leather.
A long pearl-white veil coils around the dress. I presume it will trail the entire length of the throne room.
