The wedding isn’t until moonrise, so I have no idea why I am standing at this window watching the dawn light spread across the gardens.
This is the last dawn I will see as an untapped vessel. My last dawn as a virgin.
Will everything look different tomorrow? Will my unleashed magic change me? Will I be traumatised from my wedding night?
I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. It’s hardly surprising I couldn’t sleep.
And now I have a long, busy, eventful day stretching before me. Oh well, it can’t be helped. At the moment, I swear I have enough nervous energy to power me through a year of no sleep. All I can do is hope that it is enough.
The soft knock on the door makes me jump, even though I know Rupert isn’t here, and he never knocks at all.
“Come in,” I call quietly.
A whole troop of shoulder-high fey servants file into my room. Their arms are full of silks, lotions, thick towels and hairbrushes and combs. As well as all sorts of things that I don’t recognise.
I face the servants with my head held high and a fake smile on my face.
It really is going to be a long day.
Several hours later, and I feel like I am going to pass out from nerves. I’m dressed in what feels like thousands of layers. I’ve been groomed within an inch of my life. I barely recognise my own skin, fey lotions have it gleaming and so soft.
My hair looks incredible. Like spun moonlight. As I stare at my reflection, for the first time in my life I can truly see my distant fey ancestry. Now I can really believe it. I always knew it was there, but today it has been brought to the surface.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I think I’m too scared to know how I feel about anything. The only thing thrumming through my veins and swirling through my thoughts is fear.
The wedding ceremony is about to begin, and I’m not emotionally ready. I don’t think I will ever be mentally prepared, even if I had a thousand years.
But it is time to leave. Right now.
I turn away from the full-length mirror and walk out of the dressing room.
A fair sized entourage has formed in my sitting room. Mother and several fey that I do not recognise.
Nobody smiles at me. They all simply get into formation. This is it. The moment has arrived.
The doors open, and like one we move. Stepping out into the hallways of the fey court and parading down to the stone circle.
One foot in front of the other. That is all I have to do. Head up. Walk in a straight line. It is best if I don’t think of anything else at all.
Far too quickly, we arrive at the entrance. A long bower of bent woven boughs. A tunnel of green living plants.
My entourage doesn’t even pause, and I’m carried along by their momentum. Entering the tunnel without any ceremony.
Our footsteps sound muted in here. Fireflies and luminous butterflies are flittering around the top of the bent tree branches. Illuminating the way. Sparkling, living fairy-lights. Despite my terror, the beauty takes my breath away.
We emerge from the bower into a space that shouldn’t exist. It defies all known laws of physics. It is both a large room in Buckingham Palace and an ancient stone circle in a clearing of an Eldar forest.
There is grass beneath my feet. And walls to my side that turn translucent and hazy as they reach the perimeter of the stone circle.
Above my head are stars, and a chandelier.
If I wasn’t already frightened to death, I would be now. This place is awe-inspiring. In the true meaning of the word.
But there is no time to stop and gawp. I’m being relentlessly led right into the stone circle where Prince Selwyn is waiting for me.
I swear his antlers are bigger. And his ears more pointed. In this dim light, his cat-slitted eyes appear to glow a fiery amber.
I force down a swallow and tear my gaze away before I get caught like a deer in the headlights.
