There’d been no rehearsal. No care. Only the bare bones thrown together: the motions, the vows, the rings.
The crowns.
Amarande swallowed and stepped to the threshold of the chapel’s main hall. Renard stood on a raised dais at the front, hands clasped politely before him, wearing his prince’s crown for now. The one meant for a king had been placed on a pillow on a marble pedestal behind the minister. At Renard’s shoulder was Taillefer, also cutting a prim figure, as if he didn’t have blood on his hands. He was smiling, of course.
All but one of the councilmen abandoned Amarande to sit by the Dowager Queen in the front row. She, too, had a crown—clearly she was not eager to relinquish it before the proper coronation. Amarande wasn’t sure the woman would give it away at all.
Not that it mattered.
Renard motioned to the musicians, who scrambled mid-song to reset.
In that moment, as everyone turned their gazes to the entrance, to admire her, a royal bride swaddled in gold, Amarande’s heartbeat slowed. Her eyes were completely dry. Her lungs worked in a normal pattern.
She had no friends here. None. There was not a soul from Ardenia, with the council and Koldo given no notice.
Every single person was an enemy as much as a stranger.
After she pulled her knife, one of these people would take her from this world and join her with Luca and Father—maybe even her mother, if some of the tales were true.
As the music began, the princess lifted her chin, set her eyes upon Renard, and started down the aisle. The eyes of courtiersfollowed her as they murmured under the cover of music, narrating the show among themselves. These people had come to witness history.
The princess would not disappoint.
Renard smiled at her now, more genteel than his brother, again as pleasant as a painting. He did not wear his ridiculous sword at his side, maybe because he didn’t trust her this close. Maybe he never planned on wearing it again so long as they were married. Maybe he’d have all the sharp things within the castle rounded up and stashed away and, for the rest of their days, the two of them would eat only with spoons like they had at their farce of a dinner at the Itspi.Coward.
It mattered not.
Pews creaked as she swept past, the councilor at her elbow trying to slow her procession into time with the music. After failing miserably, the prune-faced man peeled off to the side and sat with the woman who was his queen for a few more minutes.
The princess settled in beside her prince.
Renard looked to her, grinning as if he couldn’t help himself, and whispered to her, a show of affection for the audience, “Smile, my love.”
Amarande did not.
The music ended and the star-born priest began, looking not at the royals before him but over their heads, addressing the crowd.
“Today, we join the great kingdoms of Pyrenee and Ardenia, mountain neighbors for all eternity in the Sand and Sky, but after tonight, so much more.” Then from his breast pocket, the priest pulled out two simple gold rings.
There was no disguising this wedding as more than a business exchange—that much was certain.
The priest handed a ring to each of them. Amarande knew she was supposed to pass off her bouquet, but she held fast to it and no one stopped her.
“Princess Amarande, repeat after me,” the priest said as much to the crowd as to her.
“Do you, Prince Renard of Pyrenee, take me, Princess Amarande of Ardenia, to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, in peace and wartime, with love for both our kingdoms, until death do us part?”
Amarande repeated along with the priest, face placid as she enunciated every word.
Upon the vow’s completion, Renard smiled at her and then to the crowd. “I do.”
She slipped a ring onto his finger.
The priest turned to Renard, giving him no further instruction.
“And do you, Princess Amarande of Ardenia, take me, Prince Renard of Pyrenee, to be your lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health, in peace and wartime, with love for both our kingdoms, until death do us part?”
Renard finished his vow grinning hard, waiting. The whole room was waiting—the guards, lining the stage and exit in purple and gold, the Dowager Queen and her council, Taillefer and his laughing eyes.
