In his plush chamber—within the tower adjacent to his betrothed’s—Vesper slouched on the edge of his bed. He tapped the skin between his brows with the glowing whorls of a creeping myrtle he’d picked on his way to the castle. He had more company than he liked, and none were whom he wanted them to be.
“My spiritual wards have predicted a night tide.” Madame Dyadia spoke from her place beside the dormer window looking out upon the courtyard far below. Her chameleon complexion and enchanted vestments, lit with the orange flicker of a lantern, blended into the gray stones framing the circular pane. Earlier, Vesper had questioned Thana’s whereabouts. Dyadia claimed her third eye was keeping watch over Eldoria—to be a lodestar of sorts—for when the moon made a showing there.
As no one knew exactly how the magic was to work—if Nerezeth and Eldoria would physically stand side by side once more, or if they would simply share the sun and moon at different times in their respective realms—he agreed the portending crow was well positioned.
“When?” Vesper asked of her weather prediction.
“Soon. Upon the surface of the waters taken from the mystic cavern, I saw snowflakes returning. By the beginning of our cessation course, they’ll multiply on icy winds to smother the flowers and vines. The thorns will be reborn and our living rainbow will withdraw back into the cold, dead ground. It is better we perform the ceremonies now as planned . . . ride the faith and hope the princess has invoked in our people. Perhaps, upon your vows, this consolidated wonder between our two kingdoms will unite us and merge the skies at last.”
“Something’s wrong with the prophecy,” Vesper said for the twentieth time. He inhaled the myrtle’s mint-and-honey notes, then laid it upon the tray balanced on his pillow alongside the remains of the meal Queen Nova had insisted he eat. The fish pie and creamed figs may as well have been tasteless, but he’d managed to swallow enough to mollify her.
“You’re making no sense.” His lady mother eased down beside him, the jeweled crickets abandoning her skirts as the fabric crushed against the edges of his mattress. They hopped beneath the safety of his bed. “How can you refute that it was the princess’s song that saved you?”
“Her song woke me,” he corrected. “But it didn’t save me.”
“There are eyewitnesses. Your own sister saw it. And how can you have second thoughts of your bond with Lady Lyra, after the way you kissed her in the shrine?”
“She has romantic feelings for you, brother,” Selena said, standing beside the desk where Cyprian sat. Her hand rested at the back of the knight’s neck beneath the plaited lengths of his silvery hair. “All your worry has been for naught.”
Cyprian watched Vesper studiously and added, “Selena is right. There was sincere affection in the princess’s trembling hands, in her tears.”
“Tears the color of water, not ink. They look nothing like the jewels upon her hairpin,” Vesper insisted.
“Her enchanted hairpin,” Cyprian added. “Some might argue the tears were altered when they became jewels—that the color’s no longer a true comparison. Either way, we don’t have the pin in our keep. It’s in that thieving boy’s hand—”
“He’s not a boy. He’s a girl . . . my girl.” Vesper gritted his teeth upon watching everyone’s reaction—his loved ones’ faces fraught with concern or cynicism, most likely both. Queen Nova anxiously plucked at the satiny black quilt upon his bed while keeping watch on Dyadia’s distorted movements at the window.
Selena cleared her throat. “Well, I for one am grateful to see your obstinance returned, Vesper. It’s good to have you hale and hearty enough to set our queenly mother’s teeth on edge once more. At last I’m the favorite again.”
Cyprian lifted his gaze to Selena’s and a corner of his mouth quirked up.
The habit of smoothing things over with a dose of wit was something Vesper and his sibling had always shared, and he found himself wanting to smile, though it was more from seeing his sister and best friend so comfortable in their new romance than anything else.
He stretched out his long legs beneath the traveling trousers he’d donned in place of his ceremonial garb, relishing the pure red blood that coursed through him. His sister was right about his health. He felt surprisingly robust for someone who’d been flirting with death for years. His body no longer had the limitations of petrified musculature or metallic flesh. The sun’s flame no longer lapped within, threatening to overtake. His limp was gone, he looked and felt like himself again—the dark prince with his lord father’s bone structure, features, and stamina.
Physically, he lacked for nothing. Emotionally, he lacked patience. He was at a loss for how to explain his reservations when the only savior anyone had seen was the princess preparing for a wedding in her guest chambers at this very moment.
How could he marry a stranger when all he could think of was the little foundling who was the truest friend and partner he’d ever known?
Yet that damned prophecy said he must . . .
“Your kiss sealed the betrothal, my son. You have to realize this.”
Vesper growled. “As I told Regent Griselda when she intercepted us upon my entrance to the castle, I kissed her niece to prove to myself it wasn’t she who broke my curse. And just as I told the regent then, I’m telling you now: I won’t apologize for seeking answers before I sign my life and my kingdom away.”
His lady mother’s hand gripped his. “We have an oath already signed—in my own blood and the princess’s father’s. You are not only condemning our people to die by this illness inflicted by artificial light, but you are condemning us to a war we cannot win.”
Cyprian stood. “Majesty, please heed our queen. You’ve seen for yourself the military escort Eldoria brought. With so many of our own fallen to illness, they outnumber us fifty to one. The last thing we should be doing is challenging their sour-tempered regent over a five-year contract.”
Unless you have proof that the prophecy is flawed, such that could sway both kingdoms, Selena said privately within Vesper’s head so no one else would overhear. He turned a grateful glance her direction, and she tipped her head—her smile soft and encouraging. At least she was trying to understand . . . to see his side.
Vesper retrieved the luminous flower from his pillow. “Lady Mother, do you remember when we last spoke of my shadow-bride? I made her a cape, worried she couldn’t embrace this world, thorns and all. I feared she would be too tender.” He flipped his mother’s hand in her lap to place the creeping myrtle upon her palm, then curled her fingers atop it. “You said if the prophecy is to be taken at its word, my betrothed should be capable of handling everything . . . the terrain, the creatures, the night tides, as well as me. That we should be evenly matched already, today.” Vesper squeezed her hand to a fist. “I’m telling you, I’ve found that match. And she’s not the princess.”
Queen Nova broke loose and opened her fingers to reveal the crushed flower, its light faded from its petals. “Before her song’s intervention, you were a statue.” Her voice cracked. “Moments away from your heart turning to stone. This would’ve been your ending.” She let the flower’s remains fall to the floor in demonstration. “Drained of life and lost to us.” Her chin quivered. “Eldoria’s princess may seem tender skinned and mild mannered, but she cured you. I’m beholden to her now. Indebted to her always. I will make any compromise necessary to accept her as your bride. As should you.”
“This doesn’t feel like making a compromise, it feels like making allowances. The two are very different things.” Vesper rose and strode to the dormer window next to Madame Dyadia, looming over the sorceress. “She’s out there. Somehow, she made it here into Nerezeth.”
“If there is another who’s followed you from the day realm and seeks to infringe upon your foretold and sworn marriage,” Madame Dyadia broke in, “she will be accused of treason. She will suffer imprisonment or worse. All present witnessed Eldoria’s princess sing you alive. This other girl was nowhere to be seen.”
Vesper rubbed the nape of his neck, wary of the logic. During their life together in the forest, each time Stain brought flowers to bloom, it drained her . . . hurt her. After all she’d done today, she might be half-dead. At the very least, defenseless. A wild rage thundered in his heart to think of someone harming her. He’d have to find her first.
“Cyprian, round up our best trackers and saddle Lanthe. But be discreet.”
The knight’s reflection stirred in the windowpane as he propped his hand at the baldric where a borrowed sword stood in place of his late father’s, the other one having been destroyed by Vesper while in the form of the Pegasus. A fact Cyprian had yet to learn. The first knight’s pale hair formed a white blur in the glass as he glanced from Selena to the queen.