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AMIRA
I’d heard women dreamed about their wedding day from when they were little girls. But it hadn’t been like that for me. Back when I worked at the menagerie, there’d been no time or energy left for daydreaming. Neither had there been anyone I could even remotely imagine as my future husband.
Even after meeting Kyllen, I hadn’t fantasized about marrying him. All I’d ever wanted was simply to be with him.
The night before my wedding to the king, I couldn’t sleep. As his snoring filled the room, I climbed out of my nest and sat in the window. Hugging my legs, I watched the occasional paddle board pass by on the dark lake far below.
Kyllen had never asked me to marry him when he was alive. Yet my marrying the king still felt like a betrayal somehow. If there truly was an afterlife for gorgonians, then Kyllen would know how I felt, even in death. He always was so acutely attuned to my emotions when he was alive.
I wished I could speak to him again, that I could see his face once more. I’d dreamed about him almost every night. But those were just regular dreams, not the vivid visions of before.
Closing my eyes, I drew in a long breath. I felt him. The connection between us was so strong, even death couldn’t break it. I felt his affection, and I embraced it, letting it fill me with warmth.
I didn’t need to learn to live without Kyllen after all, because he never really left. He’d never been further than a thought away from me.
Placing a hand next to me, I curled my fingers. It took just a few heartbeats before I felt the sensation of his warm, strong fingers lacing with mine. It never lasted long, just a second or two, before the feeling of his touch would slip away and the warmth would seep through my fingers like the morning mist.
“No matter what, I’ll always be yours,” I whispered. “Don’t let me go. Don’t ever let me go.”
I might be marrying another man tomorrow, but there would never be a place for anyone else in my heart. Wherever he was, I longed to believe Kyllen sensed it, too.
I sat there, listening to the familiar sounds of the Ufaris night.
In just a few hours, I would marry King Zeldren and become the Queen of Lorsan—the role I had never dreamed of taking and felt like an imposter for accepting it.
Normally, people had a lifetime to prepare for something like that.
I had hours.
There’d be courtiers, lords, and councilors to deal with. Every one of them would judge and appraise me. In my role as the king’s pet, I hadn’t been expected to speak. Silence helped me observe and analyze. By now, I knew these people much better than they knew me. That could give me an advantage if I used it properly.
King Zeldren said the crown was just a weapon. But it was a mighty weapon to have. I had to learn how to wield the power he was giving to me. Then, I could hope to keep my head on my shoulders and live another day.
The leaves on the tree moved gently with the breeze. The roots of the great royal tree sucked the lake water up, then sent it down its branches in waterfalls. Some had been diverted to fill in the water features in the many rooms of the courtiers. Some were allowed to flow freely. The trickle of the water added a calming sound to the peaceful night.
Soft lights of the glowing insects living in the tree reflected off the smooth lake below. Music from the taverns in the distance traveled over the surface. Somewhere close by, life burst with energy. But on this side of the tree, all was quiet.
I sat awake for hours, enjoying the night, until the sky grayed with the rising sun, and the stars twinkled and paled.
Instead of music, distant voices sounded over the water. Merchants’ paddle boards glided busily over the surface with baskets of bread or produce tied to them.
Teams of arborists appeared on the trees. Using intricate systems of ropes and pulleys, they could get to any branch, trimming and training twigs or patching cracks in the bark.
The busy life of Ufaris had become a familiar picture to me. The sounds felt comforting.
This had been the longest I’d ever stayed in one place, and I loved it here. Every little, mundane thing made me feel at home. I loved having more than one change of clothes and enough space to store them. I enjoyed knowing where my next meal would come from and where I’d sleep each night.
Whether I planned for it or not, Ufaris had become my home, and I didn’t want to leave it.
I was ready to fight to keep it.
As the sky grew lighter, I came back to my nest and got an hour or two of sleep before Kiris and his small army of caretakers appeared.
Right after breakfast, an equally energetic group of maids and ladies-in-waiting arrived to whisk me away into the adjacent quarters meant for the queen.
These rooms had rarely been occupied during the reign of King Zeldren. He’d never had a queen before. I’d read that important dignitaries had stayed here on a few occasions. Other than that, the rooms had been vacant.
Until now.
Practically overnight, the queen’s apartment had been cleaned and dusted. Fresh, blush-pink sheets graced the luxurious nest. New grass mats covered the floors.
The maids bathed me and brushed my hair. The ladies-in-waiting I recognized as wives and daughters of the lords and courtiers who had rarely spoken to me before now chatted animatedly. They fluttered around the room and filled the space with activity without being particularly useful.
I was dressed in an apple-green gown. Due to the constraint of time, the Royal Wardrobe Master and his team of tailors and seamstresses had just taken one of the dresses I already had, attached the longest, most luxurious piece of lace they could find for the train, then added matching sleeves, almost as long as the train. In the remaining time, the seamstresses had added as many fresh-water pearls and gold thread to the entire garment as they could.
The result was breathtaking. I’d never worn anything this elegant before. The gold and pearls shimmered in the daylight. The delicate lace of the sleeves hugged my upper arms, flaring from the elbows all the way down to trail on the floor.
The maids left my hair undone for today. In the humid air of Lorsan, it immediately sprung up into its thick natural waves. In lieu of the crown, they attached a wreath of yellow water lilies to the circlet holding the veil on my head.
The ladies-in-waiting produced dozens of chests filled with priceless necklaces, rings, bracelets, and anklets. Once they were done with me, it felt like I had the entire king’s treasury on my person. My arms felt heavy, with the golden snake bracelets spiraling from my wrists to the elbows. There was at least one ring on each finger. My legs ended up decorated from my toes to my thighs. And a multi-tiered necklace heavily weighed on my chest, the strands of pearls, crystals, and gold cascading all the way past my breasts.
“You look gorgeous,” the ladies-in-waiting cooed.
“Let’s just be done with this,”spun through my mind. With this much weight on me, I wondered how long I’d last.
Walking out of the room was unnerving. Both the corridor and the hallway behind it were filled with people gawking at me. The urge to run away and hide in some small, dark place itched inside me. But I took a deep breath and raised my chin.
I was about to become their queen, and a queen wouldn’t run. A queen would meet any challenge head on and deal with it. She would handle the attention with grace, too.
Plastering a huge smile on my face, I held my head high, meeting their stares instead of cowering from them. They bowed to me in return.
King Zeldren waited for me at the top of the grand staircase in the main hall. His chair had been adjusted to bring him to my height, shoulder to shoulder.
“You are a vision, my bride,” he greeted me.
