The light-haired, beefy guard to Kadeesha’s right bowed. “Saw who?” he asked when he straightened. His shorter, slimmer counterpart expressed an identical sentiment.
Once that hurdle was cleared, Kadeesha and her sisters slunk to their wing of the palace without further incidents. It was early enough that the courtiers of the palace hadn’t yet stirred, and any servants moving about already would be doing so via the network of back entrances and sequestered corridors thather father dictated they use. When Kadeesha had first formed the Nkita, she’d wanted them all to live together to help forge bonds and camaraderie. Sylas wouldn’t hear of her spending a single night in the soldiers’ barracks where the rest of the palace guards and flyer squadrons slept, so she’d exercised the bit of sway she held over her father and persuaded him to allow her to move to a wing that was separate from his royal apartments—and house her Nkita in it too.
When they arrived in the wing they called home, they silently dispersed to freshen up before the day’s flurry of activity. Their trio didn’t need to exchange words because everyone knew there was nothing to say. Both her sisters passed her pitying looks all the same before leaving her side. Kadeesha gnashed her teeth, watching as her sisters made their way to their own rooms. She tried to accept the new existence she would step into today. She’d attempted to circumvent it but failed, and she needed to make peace with her marriage. What shedidn’tneed to do was be standing in the middle of the hall suddenly recalling how much she enjoyed giving herself over to a complete lack of inhibition at Oleander House. How much she yearned to have that level of freedom and absolute control over what she chose to do and not do, always.
She also didn’t need to be recalling just how good it felt to be with a man so ferociously committed to wringing every last drop of pleasure from her. She knew it wouldn’t be that way with Rishaud. Bedding her new husband would be a joyless, aloof act at best and a repulsive duty to endure at worst. She clenched her hands into fists, bile rising in the back of her throat. It wasn’t fair. If she’d been born a male, she would’ve had different and better choices. She would’ve faced a vastly different future.Nothingcould’ve dislodged her from being Sylas’s heirand remaining in her home among her friends and people and everything she’d worked so hard to attain. She would’ve had some say in whom she married as well.
She drew in a breath. As she exhaled, she let all of the whatifs and self-misery go. She couldn’t alter her course, so all that was left to do was figure out how to live with the life that lay ahead and not let it—or Rishaud—break her. She vowed to herself she’d at least be victorious in that and turned for her quarters to get ready for her wedding.
When she pushed open the door to her rooms, she startled. A woman sat on one of the chaises in her boudoir, sipping from a gold teacup. Kadeesha fortified herself to interact with her visitor and walked over to sit next to the woman who had her same deep bronze coloring, her same jet-black hair, her same high cheekbones. “Hello, Mother,” she said, reaching for the gold teapot resting on the foot table in front of the chaise. She poured steaming tea into one of the matching dainty cups, added two spoonfuls of honey, two sugar cubes, and a sprinkle of the ground lavender that were all in round dishes upon a silver serving tray.
Her mother, Yashira, scowled. “Must you drink your tea so sweet on this day? You’ll have a stomachache and be sick during your wedding.”
Kadeesha grunted and pointedly added another dollop of honey. Before bringing the cup to her lips, she said, “Perhaps the Celestials will smile upon me—I’ll be so sick that I become incapacitated, and then this day never has to occur.”
Yashira scowled harder. Her eyes, which were lined generously with kohl paint, narrowed on her daughter. Dressed in a vibrant orange gown, Yashira was a famed beauty among the Aetherfolk, and she carried herself as regally as any Aether queen might have done if Kadeesha’s father had had a wife. “Youshould be elated on this day,” the Aether king’s concubine started in. “Not woeful about it. You will become something I can never be. You will become more than any woman among the whole Six Kingdoms can ever dream to be—our high queen.”
Kadeesha only barely held back a snort. But that veered into disrespectful territory, and while Kadeesha had a complex relationship with Yashira, she loved her mother too much to go there. She did, however, state, “You are right, Mother. Let me correct my distasteful behavior. I am beside myself with delight to marry a man rumored to murder his wives when he grows tired of them. And I am absolutely ecstatic that my father is selling me off to my eventual death so he can gain greater political favor.” All right, maybe she failed at not wading into disrespectful waters. But on this morning, could Yashira really blame her?
Yashira sucked her teeth. “Are you done being dramatic, daughter? You and I both know that you will be well. Rishaud needs you alive to stir up fervor for a conquest campaign against the Apollyon Court.”
“And what about afterward?” Kadeesha snapped. “Will you still be so confident that my safety is assured then?”
Her mother passed her the look she often did when Kadeesha was a child and Yashira found some behavior of hers exasperating. “Be serious. You are the general of the fearsome Nkita. I daresay there is no man alive who could come for your life and live to tell about it. You can handle yourself fine against Rishaud.”
Kadeesha huffed because that wasn’t the point, and her mother knew it. She also ignored the pride that oozed from Yashira’s tone when she spoke of the Nkita and Kadeesha’s reputation. She would not let her mother find the soft bits of her today and wield them to make her more agreeable.
“When the sun sets,” Yashira forged on, “you will be so much more than Rishaud’s bride. You will have cemented yourself as a high queen anointed by the Celestials themselves. And then nothing can threaten to strip you of your station among the Six Kingdoms—not even any legitimate male heir your father may produce in the future. For you will be one of the most important individuals in all of the southern kingdoms.”
Ah. There it was. Kadeesha knew they’d arrive here soon enough. Sylas wasn’t without a queen or legitimate male heir for lack of desire or trying. He and Yashira had played a game for centuries that had resulted in any woman of suitable birth to whom Sylas proposed marriage being poisoned on their wedding night. Sylas was well aware of the culprit, as was his larger court. Both Yashira and the court also knew Sylas had a soft spot for Kadeesha’s mother and he wouldn’t lift a finger against her. Sylas would level some punishment, usually a few decades in irons because he must to save face, but Yashira’s life always remained intact. Then, Kadeesha was born and Yashira had the key to escaping any future sentencing. Sylas couldn’t deprive his daughter of a mother’s nurturing and the court would excuse him taking a lighter hand with Yashira for the same reason. The irony wasn’t lost on Kadeesha that she’d be thrust into the same danger once she was Rishaud’s wife that Yashira had visited upon Sylas’s brides. It was one sordid, twisted affair indeed.
“You meant to say I will be one of the most important individuals beneath the Hyperion king, each vassal king of the dominions, and every other high-ranking male of nobility and importance,” Kadeesha said to her mother, her voice dripping with acid.
Yashira had an infamous temper and Kadeesha could practically see the steam rising from her ears. A petty, childish part ofKadeesha felt joy in managing to aggravate Yashira so on this day. Kadeesha didn’t dare display such a sentiment; that’d push her mother too far. Kadeesha only gleefully watched as Yashira visibly summoned calm, drawing in a long breath through her nose and pushing it out.
“I’ve enjoyed taking tea with you. As always, your visits are a pleasure, Mother,” Kadeesha said before Yashira could speak something to aggravate her further.
Yashira blinked. “Are you dismissing your own mother?”
“I am about to be high queen, am I not?” Kadeesha retorted. “I guess it’s time to start acting like it, throwing around that power you say I’ll command for something useful.” Kadeesha got up, went to the door, and opened it, sending her mother a plain message.
“I … I’d hoped to help you dress for your wedding, since I, a lowly concubine of common birth, won’t be permitted to attend a royal ceremony.”
While nothing Yashira said was untrue, it was another manipulation attempt. The latter issue was the one that pissed Kadeesha off, stung her badly, and she wasn’t about to bend to Yashira for those reasons. She stiffened her spine, locked her complicated feelings for Yashira down tight. “I’ve got dress-maids for that. I’ll come see you after the ceremony and before I depart for the High Court to let you know how everything turned out.”
Yashira looked furious enough to spit venom, but excessive pride was another trait Kadeesha had inherited from her mother. So, Yashira stood and marched to the door. Kadeesha shut the door in her mother’s face, only wishing she could do the same to her fast-approaching future.
Chapter Six
WHILE AETHERFOLK WEREN’T HEAVILY RELIGIOUS, Hyperionfolk and the rest of the Six Kingdoms were. It meant Kadeesha was to be married in the traditional way, in a palace temple erected as homage to the Celestials who created the first among faekind. Kadeesha couldn’t escape having to wear a gown woven from gold cloth this time, either—it would’ve been too much of an insult to her new husband and too much of a mark of shame on her father and the Aether Dominion. But she still pushed the line and selected a wedding dress whose fabric had been dyed as light a gold as possible without becoming ivory. Her dress was made of a bodice that molded to her upper body and waist, then flared out in a fishtail at the knees. There was a six-foot-long train carried by four little girls—they were children of Aether archnobles who had been bestowed the honor of having their daughters carry Kadeesha’s wedding train. Her hair had been styled into loose, sleek curls that were then twisted up in an intricate pattern. A slim diadem crowned her head. After she spoke her vows, a high cleric would remove the diadem and replace it with the gold wreath crown that every Hyperion queen before her had worn.
Kadeesha’s father, kinsfolk of their house, and other archnobles of the Aether Court unrelated to House Mercier were seated on the left side of the violet-and-gold runner that Kadeesha walked along. At the runner’s end were seven marble statues—permanent fixtures in the temple—that stood taller than giants. Kadeesha swallowed the urge to bare her teeth at the Celestials and their infernal prophecy. In front of the statues of the gods stood her husband-to-be, beside the Ancient high cleric who’d conduct the ceremony on the temple’s altar. While Kadeesha still stood among the back-most pews, she paused and twisted to glance at Leisha and Samira. She’d argued with her father to have them seated closer, among the second pew. It’d be the spot any blood siblings would occupy if she had them, and Leisha and Samira were every bit as close and precious to her. It was a matter Sylas refused to budge on, however. From where she sat, Leisha passed Kadeesha a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Samira’s smile was more relaxed, more convincing to any onlookers that she was elated for Kadeesha’s marriage. Kadeesha dipped her head to her sisters, a silent thanks for their eternal love and support, before she started the wretched march up the aisle.
Rishaud’s kinsfolk and the Hyperion archnobles sat in seats to the right of the runner. Near the back rows of pews on Rishaud’s side were a group of five noblemen and one noble-woman. They were all dark-haired with unremarkable features. So unremarkable that the eye might easily skip over them. Except … something about the group seemed out of place. They were clothed in the same fine doublets spun of white-and-gold silk as their Hyperion counterparts, but there was a discordant gruffness about them. Kadeesha attributed it to the fact that their position among the back pews meant they were certainlydistant relatives, probably weren’t even significant enough to reside at court or hold titles of worth, but etiquette had required them to be invited and they’d chosen to attend. She met the amber stare of one of them, and a chill trickled down her spine. The Hyperion male’s penetrating gaze was wholly unsettling. It put her in mind of the stranger’s eyes—which were a more striking brown hue—at Oleander House last night. He had looked at her as if he was devouring her and seeing through her all at once with his eyes. A rush of unexpected lust hit her. She shook off the spell, whipped her gaze away from the Hyperion noble, and continued her march up the runner.
Kadeesha forced as blissful a smile as she could when she stood directly in front of her soon-to-be husband. He was dressed in resplendent gold-and-white robes with a blinding gold crown atop his head. His dark eyes raked over her, as possessive as his stare had been yesterday, in a way that made Kadeesha’s temper run as hot as her aether flames had the other day as well. She smiled brighter and held out her hand. Rishaud closed his hand around hers and tugged her to stand directly beside him.
She was proud to not recoil at his touch.
