Now she stood at the base of the platform. The slave girls clustered around her. Up the low steps they went, then the staircase, a rain of white blossoms falling from some unseen hand. She shivered in her wedding dress, her chest bare, so cold. I won’t do this, she thought. I can’t do this.
Kepi kept her hands at her sides, clenching and unclenching. Her ladies had powdered and dressed her face and breasts with gold flakes that now and then caught the torchlight. The image was no doubt stunning, but Kepi had never felt less like a bride than she did at that moment. She felt like a sacrifice. How she longed for her armor and sword. I want my freedom.
The song stopped and the girls parted. Slaves lit braziers on all sides of the platform and the blackthorns came alive with flickering lights. Dagrun spoke to the crowd—words that rang out in a voice that might have been stirring had Kepi been capable of being stirred by anything Dagrun did or said. Either way she did not bother to listen to the content of the words—she had no interest. Across from her she saw Merit, wearing their father’s double crown, their mother’s short sword, and a dress of sheep’s wool, warm and long-sleeved, a look of naked triumph on her beautiful face. Why does she hate me so? Kepi wondered, not for the first time.
The hymn stopped abruptly. Kepi struggled against the slaves and the opiate, stumbling as she tried to free herself from their hold. Dagrun caught her before she fell to the ground, but she pushed herself up, pushed him away. I need no help.
The priestess in the gray robes picked up Kepi’s cold hand and placed it in Dagrun’s large, rough one. She wrapped their grasped hands with the sleeve of her muddy robe. The gesture was symbolic. Feren handfasting—the girls who dressed her had explained—bound the wife to the husband and the wedded couple to Llyr. The Feren priestess, her skin caked with mud, spoke in a language Kepi could not understand, her prayer a single, unaccented stream of words. “Tha-llyris-colla-han-fere-an-Dagrun-inne-Kepina-shri-bal-tanne,” she chanted, then spoke in the common tongue. Kepina Hark-Wadi, she announced, was now queen to Dagrun Finner, first of that name, king of the Ferens and Lord of the Gray Wood.
Bells chimed in the distance. The warlords of Feren scaled the wedding platform. Feren had twelve clans, and the head of each clan gave a speech in her honor, rambling on about her unparalleled beauty, her unequalled worth. Each wore their respective clan colors, gray and green and black strands woven into their mantles. Ferris Mawr of Caerwynt spoke first, then Deccan Falkirk of Caerfrae, Seken Anders of Caerkirk, Arni Faerose of Caerspirren, and Cowen Ulli of Caeriddison.
For each tribute Kepi wanted to snort in laughter—surely they weren’t talking about her, the youngest and least attractive, the least worthy of the females of the house of Hark-Wadi. Her sister would have glowed under such praise; to Kepi, who recognized them for the false accolades they were, they felt hollow.
When he was done speaking, each warlord presented a slave to Kepi, a gift from the clan to the new queen. Eleven now sat before her, and one was missing, but no one seemed bothered by the slave’s absence. The girls who dressed her had described the ritual: After each clan offered a slave to the queen, she was to pick one slave—a slave who would be sacrificed—an offering to Llyr, the kitefaethir. Llyr’s followers named him the mud god, the lord of chains, deity to all who served and suffered in the Gray Wood. The sacrifice of the slave sealed the marriage and brought good fortune to the couple.
Silence.
She had only to lift her finger and the task would be done, but Kepi did not move. One to kill and ten to consign into her service till the end of their lives. Another barbarian practice. Her arms at her sides, her mind frozen with rage and fear, Kepi remained silent. I will not choose.
Merit cleared her throat. “Choose,” she hissed. “Choose one and be done with it.”
Dagrun nodded, waiting. “Whatever my queen desires, she will have.”
But still she did not move.
Choose one.
“I have no—” Her mind went blank; the opiate still pulsed in her veins. “I have no need for more waiting women and no desire to see death on the day of my wedding.” Kepi heaved a long breath. “And as for tradition, perhaps, since it is the first union between a Feren king and a Harkan king’s daughter, may I suggest a new offering?”
Dagrun raised an eyebrow.
“I choose to give them all their freedom. The Harkan gift.”
For a moment, she thought Dagrun might slap her. Merit took a deep breath and her eyes blazed. Foolish girl.
But the king of the Ferens only laughed in amusement. He clapped his hands. “The Harkan gift of freedom. A worthy gift.” He gestured to his men. “Whatever my queen desires, she will have,” he said. “Take your freedom as a sign of good faith from my new bride.”
Kepi flushed, her chest a rosy pink, and for a moment she was as beautiful as Merit, if not more beautiful. She felt Dagrun’s eyes on her face, on her body, and saw the slow curve of his smile and returned it with one of her own. Next to her, she felt Merit’s anger, coiled and ready to spring.
But there was nothing her sister could do about it. Merit was only queen regent of Harkana.
But today, Kepi was queen of the Ferens.
34
Ren shouldered through the noisy streets of Rifka, blood on his hands, fingers gripping Adin’s wrist as he pulled him through narrow alleys and courtyards where packs of beggars roamed like sheep, past a gate of dangling logs and the blackthorn bridge. All the while, they saw soldiers searching the crowds, soldiers on the walls and in windows. “Find the boy,” shouted one. “Capture or kill the filthy little bastard,” said another. If the streets were not dark, if the crowds were not so dense, they would surely have been spotted. Ren pictured himself in Feren chains, kneeling alongside Adin, explaining that he was heir to the Harkan throne. No time for that. Adin’s a prisoner and I need to get him out.
Ren had struck at Adin’s guard when all eyes were on the wedding platform. He’d pierced the man’s silvery mail with his father’s blade, freeing Adin, the two of them stealing away into the crowds. Ren had wanted to find his sister, the queen, but after he’d seen the way the Ferens treated Adin, chaining his friend like a common slave, Ren had lost all interest in Kepi. Why bother; she must be just like Merit, ruthless and unkind.
Past the gate, they hurried through the thronged streets, over the newly poured sand that covered the muddy roads, past the herds of peasants bearing white flowers. Beyond the densest parts of the city, they stumbled into a wide, lightless field. Drunken woodsmen and skinny dirt-farmers filled the dark, muddy pasture, men who had come not for the wedding, but for an excuse to drink and brawl while their children ran wild through the fields. Ren and Adin pushed through the revelers, their hearts pounding, wind in their faces.