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“It’s the rainy season there,” Stella explained. “There was no way for them to travel, even if we would have asked it of Ivariel and Ochieng at their age, which we wouldn’t have.”
Inga narrowed her eyes at Stella. “Watch who you’re accusing of being too old to travel, young Nilly.”
“On that note,” Gen, who’d been quietly eating her own meal, diplomatically stepped in, “it’s time for Nilly to bathe.”
Lena stroked Stella’s hair. “Yes, if we’re to get this unruly mass washed and dried in time, we have to start now.”
“I could shapeshift clean,” Stella pointed out, not for the first time.
“No way,” Gen put in. “Not on your wedding day. The ritual is important.”
“It is,” Inga agreed emphatically and Helva nodded. “Enjoy an afternoon of primping with your girlfriends. A time-honored tradition. Shall we, Helva?” Together they moved to the door.
Ilkay picked up Prema, who sucked the two littlest fingers of her left hand sleepily. “Come on, Mom. Time to leave them to it.”
Ami looked torn. Oddly enough, so did Andi and Ursula. Her mother’s reluctance to leave, Stella understood, but she hadn’t expected her aunts—so powerful in their totally different ways—to be sentimental.
“If everyone is satisfied that she’s stuffed herself sufficiently,” Zeph added, a mischievously predatory sparkle in her eyes, “you all can go tend to your aged-lady beautifying. You’ll need the time.”
Ami gasped in outrage, tossing her sunset hair, twilight eyes snapping as she opened her pink bow of a mouth—but Ursula, laughing, pulled Ami to her feet. “Come on, baby sister. Time to practice letting go.”
Andi stepped up on Ami’s other side, looping an arm around her little sister’s waist. They were as alike and as different as the goddesses they looked to, all gazing with unabashed affection at Stella as she rose to her feet.
“The first of Salena’s grandchildren to marry,” Ursula remarked.
“Mother would have been proud,” Ami agreed.
“Sheisproud,” Andi corrected softly. “Salena is here with us in spirit.”
Ursula slid her a steely gray glance. “Do you mean that literally?”
“Yes,” Stella said, having felt the near presence of her grandmother all day. She smiled at her mother and aunts. “But it’s not me she’s proud of—it’s you three. You more than fulfilled all she sacrificed to attain.”
The three imposing queens blinked tears away.
“No weeping!” Zeph declared with considerable disgust. “Queen Amelia, that’s your rule, need I remind you?”
Ami waved a hand before her face as if to dry the tears. “I know, I know, but…” She heaved a watery sigh. “I can’t believe my baby is getting married.” She engulfed her daughter in agentle, but tenacious embrace, and Stella inhaled the love along with the scent of roses. Of course it wasn’t the last time she’d hug her mother, but this one felt different. Special. The end of one era and the beginning of another.
All in the best possible way.
~ 11 ~
The transformation thathad been worked on Castle Windroven was nothing short of astounding. Jak had always found the place rather dark and dour, with its old-fashioned narrow windows and thick stone walls, all built with war in mind, rather than enjoying life. The landlubber’s opposite to the openness and freedom of theHákyrling, where he’d grown up climbing the rigging and diving overboard to swim at the slightest impulse.
Windroven literally sparkled now, even the masculine side parlor where the men had gathered to toast Jak’s nuptials. As Stella had wryly observed, not one surface anywhere had been left undecorated. Candles, lanterns, torches—along with sorcerous fairy lights provided by Queen Andromeda—lit the lowering afternoon to beyond midday brightness. While dark evergreen boughs and black velvet cloths provided deep contrast in a nod to the goddess of night’s feast, Moranu was otherwise sparsely represented. White was the color of the day—in ribbons, banners, and endless wreaths and falls of white roses. Jak’s soon-to-be heart-mother had stopped shy of honoring Glorianna’s dominion over love by eschewing pink roses, but white roses were the dominant blossom, accompanied by lilies, snowdrops, jasmine, carnations, and moonflowers.
In addition, sparkling jewels glittered everywhere—clear diamonds, pearls, moonstones, opals, and crystals in dazzling array. To give the wedding precedence, none of the other accoutrements of the Feast of Moranu were in evidence. They would be brought out after the wedding ceremony, melding thereception and wedding ball into the biggest party of the year, if not the century, as Ami aspired to. And had likely accomplished.
The only other celebration of the longest night that Jak had attended that came anywhere close to this one in dazzling grandeur had been at Castle Ordnung the year before. It seemed impossible that so much had happened in the course of that single year.
So muchhadhappened in that year, in truth, that tonight he’d marry Stella, the one woman he’d pined for pretty much from the moment he’d noticed females.
“Second thoughts?” Rhyian asked, clapping him on the shoulder. “I know a secret passage out of the castle,” he added with a wink.
“That was sealed up ages ago,” Astar corrected. “Do you really think Ash would’ve left a chink in the defenses of this place so it could be penetrated by the enemy?”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Rayfe said drily, joining the group. “Though I feel I should be at pains to point out thatIpenetrated nothing—Andromeda came out.”
