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“You will be the only reason our world does not fall to war. You will be the savior of our time. This is the chance you’ve asked for. This is your gift to your people. You’ll eat, and I’ll add a flower for the fallen king. And then you will go home and prepare for your life to change for the better. Deal?”
I closed my eyes with a heavy sigh. Maybe she was right.
“Deal.”
“Ouch.” I winced, trying not to glare at the seamstress as she pinned yards of black, lacy fabric to my body for the third day in a row. If I scared her off, I’d have nothing to wear to my wedding. The three silent women surrounding her brought pins and threads and heaps of judgment and fear, adding to the overall ambiance of dread.
A woman who resembled a mouse had come the first day, and she’d flinched anytime I moved a muscle. She didn’t speak a word, yet tears fell, and she rushed out before she could finish.
“Again, Princess Deyanira,” a shrewd woman, sitting in the corner every day since, managed from behind the group of silent women hustling around my bedroom. With permanently flushed cheeks and fingers that looked like sausages, she took notes and tsked at everything I said or did. She’d been appointed Courtier of Nuptials by my father. “Proper etiquette only.”
I set my jaw, staring straight at the mirror ahead of me, ignoring my long, dark braid pinned to my head to stay out of the way.
“The black veil is to be pinned on by a child so only the face of an innocent sees me before my future beloved. I’m to stare only at my feet, walk up the aisle, and stand in silence for the entirety of the ceremony. The new king will join me beneath the veil but will not look at me. We’re to seek each other’s hands in the dark, to represent finding each other without interference from anyone outside of our unity. His wrist will be placed over mine, and we will speak the solemn vow, igniting the only magic everyone in this kingdom is entitled to.”
“The binding.” The seamstress’s breathy voice shocked me. She slapped her hands over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Princess. P-please forgive me.”
The Courtier cleared her throat, but naturally, I ignored her.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“The magic is the best part,” she said, sharing a tentative smile.
My cynical response rolled right off my tongue without a thought. “Magic always comes with a price.”
The seamstress paused, meeting my eyes for only a moment. “We thank you, truly. For this marriage. Our people… We’re grateful. It is no small thing, and the masses know that.”
“And the Sacred Pact?” the Courtier interrupted.
No one had ever thanked me before. I spoke numbly, letting the words pass by without acknowledgement. “A kiss on the wedding day will reverse The Binding, and therefore, it is forbidden.”
“The worst part,” the seamstress added, the girls around her finally cracking their silence to snicker.
“That will be all for today,” the Courtier interrupted, standing to huff with every step toward the door. “Tomorrow, your father will visit you first. He will bring the child to fasten the veil. You’ll walk down the aisle silently and with proper posture, following the rules we’ve been over. Do you have any last-minute questions?”
“No.”
I’d spoken the word with a tone of finality that shook me to my core. I was doing this. Marrying a stranger at the behest of my father, just like many women before me. I’d become someone else’s problem, from my father’s perspective, and maybe, somewhere in there, our people would see the sacrifice for what it ultimately was: the loss of one’s freedom for the good of the kingdom. Tomorrow, I’d marry a perfect stranger, and I could only hope he would be kinder to me than my current king.
The scrape of a boot across the rug on my floor yanked me from my final night’s sleep in my father’s castle. Someone was in my bedroom. Hand gripped firmly around Chaos, I held my eyes closed, listening. Breaths slow and measured.
Closer and closer the intruder crept, their right footstep slightly heavier than their left, though they moved nearly silently. Injured left leg. Noted. Lying on my side, I held my breath for the final step. The second they were within viable reach, I jerked upward, knife extended, stopped only by the solid grip of a man on my forearm.
My eyes took longer to adjust to the silvery hues of moonlight flooding the room from the open balcony than my brain did. I’d broken his grip and smashed an elbow across his face before I could see a single feature.
As he stumbled back, my sleepy vision finally cooperating, I leaped from the bed, landing on him as he fell backward, that left leg catching a knee as he went down. Deep brown eyes stared back at me from behind my dagger sitting gracefully upon this stranger’s throat.
“Who the fuck are you, and why are you in my room?”
I could see the wheels of his mind spinning as he took me in, realizing only now who perched above him.
“My name is—” He gulped, the blade scraping the stubble on his neck. “Forgive me, Death Maiden. My name is Icharius Fern, and I’m to be your husband.”
Chapter 7
Chestnut brown hair fell effortlessly over the stranger’s forehead, framing his face, while his sharply defined jawline gave away the clench to his teeth. His penetrating brown eyes, so dark they could have been black, locked on to mine. Though he lay beneath me, his long, muscular physique radiated power, filling the space with a heady presence. The slight tilt of his lips gave away the cocky thoughts in his pretty head.
“Why are you in my room?” I narrowed my eyes until I knew he could feel the wrath behind them.
