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And if her mother and stepfather exchanged smug glances, Stella let it go. She knew perfectly well they hadn’t staged this whole thing just to test the integrity of her relationship. Not even her mother wasthatdevious.
Somehow, Jak had sworn the seamstresses working on his wedding suit into total secrecy. Stella had no idea what leverage he’d used to extract their promises—Glorianna knew her mother had tried everything, including a royal command to counter it, to no avail—and he refused to budge on the subject with Dasnarian tenacity. If Stella’s gown was to be a secret from him until the wedding ceremony, he declared, then his outfit would be, too.
The biggest debate—aside from the missives regarding the Dasnarian guests that Ami exchanged with her eldest sister and reigning monarch, naturally, a correspondence that raged on at a blistering rate—was when exactly to have the wedding ceremony. Ami was in love with the idea of them exchanging the final vows just before midnight, with their first kiss sealing their vows as a wedded couple occurring exactly on the toll of the final bell that signaled the new year.
This posed a number of logistical issues, not only because it would call for meticulous timing that left no room for spontaneity—or having any fun at all at the party, Jak noted sourly—but also due to the holiday itself. The Feast of Moranu was steeped in tradition, more so than Danu’s midsummer feast day or either of Glorianna’s celebrations at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. And the core of Moranu’s traditions centered on midnight and the transition from darkness to light. Superimposing a wedding on top of that observance made everything exceedingly tricky, especially if they aimed to avoid giving insult to the goddess on Her feast night, at the height of Her power, and with Her avatar, Queen Andromeda, the most powerful sorceress in existence, standing right there.
“I don’t know why I agreed to having the wedding on the longest night,” Stella groaned to Jak, lightly banging her head on his shoulder as he embraced her in the empty guest room he’d pulled her into as the expedient location for a quick retreat from the field of battle.
“Because neither of us had any choice,” he reminded her, kissing her hair and rubbing her back. “We were marched into this by the fiercest of generals, like prisoners of war locked in chains of glitter, bedecked with white lilies and crystal globes.”
“Don’t mention that image to my mother,” Stella commented dourly. “She’s run out of things to make sparkle, so she might decide gilded chains of love are just the thing to top off the ceremony.”
He chuckled. “Have you asked Andi for her opinion on the wedding ceremony versus the midnight observance?”
“No, my mother refuses to consult with or listen to anything Aunt Andi or Aunt Essla have to say about anything. This is her party, not theirs, she insists.”
“Is this an appropriate time to mention that this isourparty?” he asked wryly. When she wrinkled her nose at him, he kissed the tip of it. “Talk to Andromeda. She’s your mentor and you both look to Moranu, so this is very much in the chain of command.”
“You make this sound like we’re in an army.”
“Surely entire wars were staged with less trouble than this,” he commented with a sigh, lowering his mouth to take hers in a devastating kiss that scattered her thoughts and dissolved the tension of this latest confrontation with her mother.
“But how can I talk to Auntie Andi? I can’t just fly over to Annfwn, not really,” she mused when he finally let her breathe.
“So contact her mentally.” Jak arched a single brow at her frown. “I know she was able to mind-speak over long distances during the Deyrr War—she kept in touch with theHákyrlingvia Mom that way, and we all know Jepp has zero magic—and you’ve done that trick with me. I was surprised you didn’t while I was away.”
“I’ve never done it over distance,” she protested. “And,” she admitted when he raised a dubious brow, “I was afraid you weren’t speaking to me, after I was so awful,”
“You weren’t awful,” he replied, giving her a lingering kiss. “You were human. You can be yourself with me, my star. Always.”
She sighed in pure delight. She didn’t deserve him, but she was keeping him. “Still, when I’ve mind-spoken to you before, you weren’t that far away from me.”
“No, but I’m as magically inert as my mother.” He grinned. “The powerful sorceress Andromeda will meet you more than halfway, I’m sure. You only need to send up a flare, of sorts.”
“I don’t even know what that would look like,” she grumbled.
“I have faith that you’ll figure it out. Go to your tower and try. Besides…” He rubbed his thumb over the tense spot between her brows. “You’re getting a headache and could use some mental space.”
She nearly told him she was fine, thank you—but he was right, and she was trying to be less obstinate. Jak smiled at her acquiescence, rewarded her with one more swooning kiss, and she climbed the spiraling stone stairs to her tower work chamber. His point was further proved by the immediate sense of relief when she ascended the heights and felt the pressure of so many excited minds fall away.
Jak would say this meant she should always listen to him, which made her smile, missing him already. At the same time, she cherished the sweet pain of temporary separation knowing that she could remedy it at any moment—and that she would always be able to.
Going to the narrow window, she pulled aside the heavy tapestry and this time had the foresight to use her sorcery to create a bubble of warmth around herself. Amazing what a difference it made, having a calm and rational mind.
She gazed out to the west, the night brilliantly clear with stars, aware of the generational echoes that still wove through their lives like subtle music. Though Windroven lay far to the south of Ordnung, the two castles were more or less on the same longitude, both on the other side of the Wild Lands from Annfwn. Stella’s grandmother, the sorceress Salena, had been known to gaze from her tower window at Ordnung, face always turned toward her lost home of Annfwn. Since Jak’s return, Stella had taken to wearing Salena’s ruby ring on her right hand—her mother hadn’t wanted it back, saying it was hers now—and Stella rather liked having the connection to her ancestress. It balanced the black diamond ring from Jak, her past and her future, on either side, and always herself between.
Focusing her mind, Stella reached out toward the Queen of Annfwn, also wearing Salena’s rubies, shining bloodred in Stella’s mind, the magic of the mark of the Tala that bound them in a sorcerous lineage snapping into effect. Making the magical connection was astonishingly easy. Andi appeared outside the window—or seemed to—her translucent form sparkling with stars, her hair tossed in a tropical breeze that flowed off the Onyx Ocean in Annfwn, not the tranquil night of Avonlidgh. She smiled at her niece.
“I wondered when you’d reach out to me.”
“It didn’t occur to me to try before this,” Stella admitted. “It was Jak’s idea.”
Andi’s smile deepened, her gray eyes luminous as twin moons. “It was my idea, in truth. When young Jak was here, I suggested it to him.”
Cocky bastard.But Stella smiled at that, too. Andi observed it. “You look radiantly happy and in love.”
Stella nearly denied it out of habit, paused, then nodded. “I am, but for one small fly in my ointment of joy.”
