His younger brother’s chocolate eyes were narrowed on Elodie as he gave Cael a subtle shake of his head.
Wait. Listen.
Elodie regarded Cael expectantly. As if seeking his permission as well.
Cael released Elodie’s hands and gestured toward the crowd. “By all means. Today is your day.”
Elodie demurred, “I wanted to say just how very much I agree with High Councilor Zephyrus’s speech.”
“Please,” Arran crooned from his seat. “Call me Father.”
A pained grimace clouded Elodie’s face, there and gone in an instant. If Cael wasn’t standing right beside her, he might’ve missed it.
“Father,” she cooed, honey smooth, and inclined her head. When she looked up, silver lined her eyes. “Familyisthe most important thing in the world. During times like these, but also in the times to come. If civil war comes for our continent, bonds will be tested, families will be torn apart, and many of us will be forced to decide where our true loyalties lie.”
Cael placed a hand on Elodie’s bare back as the crowd twittered polite, nervous laughter. “My darling, why don’t you?—”
Elodie angled her arm behind her back, then elongated her claws and sunk the tips into Cael’s knuckles. An unmistakable warning.
“Please, husband.” A saccharine smile. “Let me finish.” Elodie cleared her throat. “As I said, many of us will be forced to make choices. Especially when our families are inevitably wronged. How long would you wait to seek your revenge?”
The guests were deathly silent, no doubt wondering where in Ethyrios Elodie was going with this. Many on the Zephyrus side looked embarrassed for her.
“Weeks? Months? Years?” Malice glinted in her eyes. “Centuries?”
She removed her hand from Cael’s, then lifted her bouquet.
“Where I come from, when someone harms your family, you harm them back. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.”
The yard was silent enough to hear the drizzling rain splattering the leaves in the woods beyond.
“Or perhaps, a son for a mother.”
Arran shot to his feet as Elodie turned to Cael, gifting him a glorious smile.
“Per Ta Cynn Drakan,” she whispered, then slid the top of her bouquet off the stem with an unmistakable metallic hiss. Shelifted the dagger up over her head, then arced it down toward Cael’s chest.
Before he could yell or blink or step back, a flash of rainbow light bloomed behind Elodie.
“Don’tfuckingtouch him,” Xenia snarled.
She pressed the barrel of Arran’s gold pistol—the one he used to implant tracking devices—to Elodie’s neck, then pulled the trigger and tapped the cuff around her wrist.
Cael reached for Xenia, his fingers brushing her forearm, and the last thing he heard before he, Xenia, and Elodie portaled off the altar was the war cry that erupted from the Laskaris side of the aisle.
“Per Ta Cynn Drakan!”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
The cuff spit Elodie and Xenia out at the base of a moss-covered tree deep within the woods behind Stoneridge. The damp ground soaked Xenia’s dress as she spun away from Elodie’s claws and frantically searched for Cael.
He’d grabbed her arm before she’d portaled with the cuff, but he must’ve slipped before they’d fully made the jump. Only Elodie and Xenia had arrived beneath the tree.
Well, notElodie.
Lizbeth Burkhardt.
Lizbeth stood on shaky feet, pressing her palm against her neck. Inky crimson lines trailed down the ivory bodice of her elegant wedding dress, and wet leaves clung to her lace sleeves. Her bouquet was nowhere to found, buried within the layers of vegetation at their feet.
