His future bride,
Disguised, will join the royal hunt.
The ground will shake; the earth will quake,
The woods become a battlefront.
Your love one breath away from death
And clinging by his fingertips—
If you would save him from the grave,
The answer lies upon your lips.
In the silence that followed, I tried to make heads or tails of it. It certainly sounded like it was meant for me—the king’s future bride, riding beside him in disguise. But what of the rest of it? Was there going to be an earthquake? And if there was, what in the world could I say that would help?
“So, you can see why we stopped by,” said Calla, “as you’re the only one among us who’s about to marry a king.”
“Or is ever likely to,” Jonquil added.
Liam frowned. “I’m a prince. I could be a king someday.”
“Of course you could, sweetling,” Calla said, reaching up at an odd angle to pat the probable tailor on the shoulder. “But I can hardly be yourfuturebride, can I? Although,” she went on thoughtfully, “I suppose you might marry Melilot if I died.”
“Right. That’s why I wanted to know if I was the dream lover she was—”
“First, that’s morbid,” I told them. “Second, that’s gross, and third, no it wasn’t!” I’d have stomped my foot, but there wasn’t anything to stomp iton.
“The poem made it sound like her love is a king already,” Calla pointed out, as calmly as if she hadn’t just discussed her husband marrying her sister after her death. “So that would make it Gervase, wouldn’t it?”
Would it? I’d hardly met the man. Although that might matter little if our love was a foregone conclusion foretold by prophecy. Which is yet another reason prophecies suck. They make you feel like a doll being played with by some omnipotent child. As if an inescapable force were going to mash me up against Gervase and shout, “NOW KISS!”
“All of this is beside the point,” Jonquil said, trying her hardest to salvage the conversation. “What we really want to know is, do you need our help again?”
“Do I need…?” I narrowed my eyes. That little “again” she’d thrown in rankled.
“We couldn’t imagine why you would be disguised,” Calla said, “or heading to a battle in the woods, but if it is about you, and you want us to step in, just give the word.”
Four different faces regarded me from the endless void. Dark or pale or brown or green, sideways or upright or angled, smallor large—distance was hard to judge in the emptiness, and I couldn’t tell whether they were very close or simply very big. But either way, they shared a single expression.
Concern.
And it drove me livid with rage.
I didn’t want their pity. Or their sympathy. Or, least of all, a rescue. Again. Again, again, Jonquil could fuck right off back to Skalla with her “again.”
Apparently, they found it inconceivable that I was capable of handling a quest as simple and straightforward as “go and get married.” People get married every day. Women who can’t speak for six years while they sew nettle shirts get married. Men who never bathe or cut their fingernails and sleep in bear skins get married. My stepmother got married, more than once, even though taking her for a bride sounds about as safe as sticking your hand in a steel trap and hoping it decides not to snap shut; I suppose my father must have loved her, as baffling as I found it. While I might have failed to measure up to her example in every other respect, surely I could muddle my way through a wedding ceremony. Even a seven-hour-long one.
And yes, all right, my attempt at achieving marital bliss wasn’t going spectacularly well thus far. That didn’t mean I wanted anyone to come and fix it. Couldn’t they leave me this, at least? Couldn’t they leave me anything?
“I don’t think the prophecy is about me,” I said. “I’ve got no reason to don a disguise, and I don’t intend to join any royal hunts. They don’t hold royal hunts here, anyway.”
Jonquil cast a sidelong glance in my direction. “I thought King Gervase was supposed to be a keen hunter. Always out with his beloved horses and dogs, wasn’t that right?”
Drat. I’d forgotten to keep my lies close enough to the truth. “Oh, he was. But that was before he became king. Now he’s too busy with, uh…” My mind went blank for a moment as I tried to remember what non-sorcerous monarchs did all day. Idoubted Gervase spent his time turning his enemies into frogs. “Meetings and things,” I supplied at last. “Perhaps the rhyme is about someone Gnoflwhogir knows in the Summerlands?”
My sister-in-law pursed her lips. “I hadn’t heard King Oberon was looking for a seventh bride. But he might be.”
