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My twin regained her mirth at the invitation, “Funny you should use the term bastard, brother. You’ve always been so intuitive, powers aside.”
I recognized with quite a sick feeling the moment that we had all entered into some sort of game. A clever little puppetry that Melany had choreographed from beginning to end, with us at the center to pull and shorten the strings of our own fate. We needed only to sit ourselves at the table, and we’d done just that. Now having piqued Gabriel’s interest, she’d secured reason enough to let it begin. Leaning forward sinuously, her ribcage braced the edge of the stone table, seductive and terrifyingly quaint as her delicate fingers laced under her chin.
“I figured you would all be so delighted, for you already know of him.”
Looking straight at me, she drew up her lips into a devilish curl. To some secret servant tucked away, waiting in the wings of the hall, Melany called, “Shadowfader, do go fetch my darling groom, Kalen Herja.”
I rushed into thethrone room, alone, determined to stop the wedding.Wedding, I sneered in my head.She can’t do this, I thought more desperately. But over the last few days, I had sought out every possible ally—in Sythe and Cypra. All of them had shut me down. Even those I commanded in Leoth refused to rise against Melany with me. It was a sin, they had said.
To refuse the Rite to any immortal, let alone a goddess and my blood, was not only an act of treason, it was the highest form of it. I was of equal stay as my twin and there were rules on this Continent that not even a Sage could rend. It was written: there would be no plea I could make, no bargain I could strike, no boon I could promise. Kalen was to Yield to my sister—tonight.
The hall was quiet. Eerily so. It was near dusk, which meant the wedding court and partygoers would not arrive for another three hours. Melany would be readying in her chambers for what mortals dubbed the greatest night of her life, while my other family members strategized over what to do with me on the worst of mine.
Whether Thesion knew of my attachments to Kalen, I was unsure, but I was positive Gabriel would have taken the time to explain it in great, humiliating detail after I had projected out of Sythe, hurrying off before Kalen arrived and Melany could ruin us both.
I paced from the dais to the dining table, trying to slow my wretched breathing. There had to be a way, but I had never been good at finding loopholes. Like my father once said: too much of the truth, and you will be blinded to everything else around you. Rage sent a flame of Light through my blood and I kicked a chair to extinguish it.
“Careful,” Melany called from behind, “You’ll scatter the roses.”
I looked down, and indeed there was a long aisle of blood-red and black rose petals leading from the door to my sister’s throne. My anger returned like it had never left me at all. She was going to celebrate taking his life from him. And then after she took his life, she would take him from me. Then the question that I’d kept to the fringes of my brain since the Council meeting. Was he letting her Yield him?
I gritted my teeth. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a littletoo far?”
“I couldn’t possibly know what you mean.” Melany smiled with that feline grace of hers.
“What do you want, Melany? Tell me what it is that you want from me, and I will give it to you. Just let him go.”
Pressing a hand to her heart, my twin pouted. “Sister you wound me. You assume I want something from you and that’s why I am stealing your favorite toy. For leverage? I’d hardly need to marry Kalen for that.”
“Thenwhy?” I hated the whine of my voice. “What does this treachery amount to for you?”
“Treachery? Gods, I couldn’t write this any better than it plays out before me.”
Melany ascended the black stone steps of her dais, scraping her heel against the base as she sat on her throne. She threw her palms out expressively. “Maybe I just want him, Gwyn. Maybe I like his company, his idle conversation on a pleasant afternoon. Have you ever thought of that?”
“When is it ever pleasant in Sythe?” I provoked.
“Alright, an unpleasant one, when the cloud and rain force us to play inside...” Her eyes turned cold and she smirked. “Maybe I love the things he does with his—.”
Before I could control myself, my dagger flew from my hands, shanking into the stone at her feet. I knew I couldn’t kill her, but I wanted her to hurt. My poor aim was only proof of how overwhelming my anger was becoming. Melany looked down and giggled at the display. I marched up the dais to her throne, each step hollowing out the place in my mind where common sense lay. I may not be able to kill her, but maybe she’d reconsider getting married with a busted lip and ten missing teeth. When I was at arm’s length I raised my fist.
Melany didn’t even flinch.
She knew I wouldn’t do it, but before I had the chance to wager if I could, Thesion shouted into the hall.
“Gwynore! Stand down at once!”
I forced my arm down slowly, controlled so that I wouldn’t crumple to the ground and sob. My father charged through the room, his footfalls light so as not to disturb the damned roses.
Thesion’s face was terse, but it made him look every bit of ruggedly handsome. Dressed in his finery, he wore a black tunic and pants that fit every taut muscle his immortal body had gifted him. The clothing was embellished with red and silver threads to mark the importance of this day for his Shadow daughter. Low in my abdomen, my gut twisted, just slightly at the sight of it.
Thesion would do this for any one of us: wear our colors, place crowns on our heads, walk us down the aisle—if that was what we wanted. But it still hurt, the depth of the cut he was making on me in that moment.
When he’d finally trudged up the steps to meet us, Thesion took my sister’s hands gently in his.
“Melany,” he said softly, not even daring to look at me. I was grateful for the opportunity to wipe a traitorous tear that had fallen. “You know that I love you as if you were my own. I would do anything for you and I have proven that time and time again...but...” Thesion stammered, a rare occurrence and one that only accentuated how awkward this predicament truly was for him.
Finally, he cleared his throat. Melany looked at him, making her eyes grow round like she cared—very much—what her Father had to say. “Must you Yield the boy so soon?”
