One of the high ladies fainted, tumbling off her seat, landing hard on the red carpet swirling down the marble-tiled aisle. Her fae companion jerked from his seat, lifted her, and placed her back in her chair, pinning her upright with an arm across her chest. Her head lolled, but as long as she didn’t disrupt the event any further, she would not draw Madrood’s attention.
I closed my eyes but only for a moment. I wanted to reach out to Tempest one last time. To touch her. Hold her. Love her. Tell her in every way I could that she was treasured above all others.
Our time had flown, and we’d arrived at the turning point that would send her on the path I’d crafted not long ago.
She’d walk alone on the path, and the thought of that tore through me. I hung by one hand on the wire stretching across that imaginary cavern, and my grip was slipping.
The king grumbled and huffed.
“She can’t flit, Your Highness,” the high advisor whispered, overly loud in the starkly cold room. The audience remained silent, wise to the fact that one wrong move could draw the king’s—and Madrood’s—attention. “I’m sure her ladies will bring her to you soon.”
“Make sure you grabherwhen they do,” Ivenrail hissed for his advisor’s ears alone. “Hold her so I can finish draining her when this is over.”
“You won’t need her after that, Your Highness, but I . . .” High Advisor Adwarin’s conniving gaze caught mine. “Iwould be happy to take what’s left.”
“You can have the rider when I’m finished,” Ivenrail snapped.
The high advisor jerked his head in a tight bow, his face blazing pink with excitement.
Did they not remember that I was present?
A lovely arch festooned with ribbons and flowers, the kind of thing a woman like Brenna would adore, stood in the lower section in the room. The elder who’d perform the ceremony,dressed in a black formal robe, shifted his feet, glancing from the audience to the king, then back again.
Musicians waited in the far-left corner, holding instruments poised to be blown or strung upon the moment Brenna appeared. To anyone looking in from the outside, we were prepared to conduct the glorious wedding of the king to his favored lady.
The guests were about to receive an unwelcome surprise.
The door opened at the end of the aisle, and the guests craned their necks to watch. A few stood, as was appropriate when the bride entered.
Kerune strode through the opening instead, continuing down the aisle while the tall doors banged shut behind him. He walked over to the king and whispered something I suspected I needed to hear.
“Yes, you’re right. It’s past time,” Ivenrail said.
For one moment, my heart paused.
When the king turned his sly gaze my way, my heart turned to stone.
A flick of his finger, and I was wrenched toward the wall. I hit the stone hard enough to drive the air from my lungs.
Just like when I was five years old, manacles wormed their way through the wall, snapping around my wrists and ankles.
As I hung suspended, trying to draw on the power constricted by the collar a mad man had placed around my throat, that same mad man left the pretty arch and strode over to stand beneath me.
“I thought you’d learned long ago,” he snarled. His headtipped back, and the rage filling his face consumed me. “Did you think I didn’t see your plan all along?”
He bound me with power he’d drained fromme.
I couldn’t speak.
I could barely breathe.
And I could do nothing to protect my fury.
55
TEMPEST
We finally got Brenna to stop crying and took her down to the throne room, waiting outside while someone gave the signal that she’d arrived.
