At last she took her place beside him, light to his shadow, and the priest began the first of nine saints’ blessings. Everyone sat again.
While the priest spoke of love, then joy, then peace, Meredith gazed up at Tobiah, her face soft and lit with happiness. But he looked dull and bored. Cold and distant. What everyone expected him to be, even now.
A knot of agony built in my chest while the priest moved on to the patience blessing, then kindness. Watching Tobiah obey duty, not his heart—I couldn’t breathe, and my eyes felt swollen with tears.
Finally, the priest reached the last of the blessings. I bit my cheeks and squeezed my hands together, as if that could hold back the expanding tangle of sorrow.
The words of Tobiah’s first letter to me came rushing back as the priest completed the final blessing. Please forgive me for what I’m about to do; know that it is duty and honor that compel me to act against my true feelings.
This was what it had been like for Melanie with Patrick, the aching and longing to be close to someone you weren’t supposed to have feelings for. This was why she’d sneaked around for weeks. This was what she’d felt when Patrick had announced his intention to marry me after we reclaimed Aecor.
I wished she were here so I could tell her I understood now, and I didn’t blame her. I wished she were here because most of all, I needed my best friend.
At the altar, the priest joined Tobiah’s and Meredith’s hands, and people all around were crying with happiness. But anguish filled my chest and throat. I was going to explode with it.
Thunder clapped and a boy appeared at the back of the chapel. Everyone turned as he strode down the aisle with dark purpose. My hair, my face, my eyes—Patrick’s movements.
The wraith boy.
It happened so quickly:
People yelped and rushed deeper into the seats.
Someone shouted my name.
The priest stopped mid-sentence and pressed his hands to his chest.
Tobiah stepped in front of Meredith.
Across the aisle, the queen mother reached for her son, even as a guard pulled her back. The duchess’s mother and father struggled against their guards, too. Prince Herman seemed confused, while Crown Prince Colin wore a strange expression somewhere between horror and triumph.
And I—I was rooted in place.
The wraith boy reached the altar and shoved Tobiah aside. Everyone was shouting, rushing in, and guards moved to intercept the wraith boy, but they were too slow. He was too fast.
He yanked Meredith to him—her eyes went wide—and he snapped her neck.
She dropped to the floor, dead.
“What Queen Wilhelmina wants is the only thing that matters,” he announced as the duchess’s ivory gown settled around her, and her hair flowed over the floor like a river of gold. Then the wraith boy turned to me, lifted one hand toward Tobiah, and bowed low. “He is yours now, my queen.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE SCREAMING STARTED immediately.
Guards threw themselves onto the wraith boy, tackling him to the floor. Others snatched Tobiah and the priest, dragging them from the chaos at the altar, but the king wrenched himself away and ran for Meredith.
The wraith boy threw off the guards. Bodies flew back, some caught by their comrades, while others slammed into benches or the altar. Another layer of guards hurled themselves onto the wraith boy, grabbing for his hands and feet and hair.
“Your Highness!”
I blinked away my stupor, finally registering that Sergeant Ferris was pushing his way between the benches to get to me. Like the wraith boy might attack me.
But he’d killed Meredith. For me. He’d murdered her.
I surged toward the altar, where the guards still struggled to subdue the wraith boy. He threw them off every time.
The corner of a bench caught my dress. I jerked it free, ripping the fabric. And like a ruined gown was the worst of my problems, the wraith boy shoved toward me. “My queen! Your dress!”
“Take it back!” I screamed. “Fix her!”
As guards moved to block the wraith boy’s path to Tobiah, I caught sight of the broken duchess lying before the altar, her gown spread around her like ivory wings.
“Fix her,” I rasped. “She can’t be dead.”
“But you wanted him.” The wraith boy pointed at Tobiah, who was bent over his bride.
“No!” I gripped the nearest bench for balance. “I didn’t want her to die. Now fix this. Take it back. Undo it.”
He shook his head, not quite sadly. “I don’t fix things; I break them.”
My knees buckled.
James and a handful of other guards grabbed for Tobiah, but he shook them away. Tears streaked down his face as he touched Meredith’s white skin. Her cheeks, her throat, her closed eyes. I couldn’t hear him over the cacophony, but his mouth formed her name over and over.
“You have to bring her back.” I couldn’t look away from Meredith.