"Thank you, Mother." Freddy bent down to kiss her cheek. "I appreciate your wisdom and concern. I will see you at the ceremony."
"One last question." Her eyes darted back and forth as she studied his face. "Do you love her?"
Warmth spread through his chest, taking the edge off the dull ache that seemed to be a permanent fixture of his heart over the last several years. He smiled softly. "I do."
Every day and always.
Clarice nodded sharply. "Then I will see you there."
It seems Mother didn't need to worry about the wedding after all.
Freddy wearily leaned his forehead against the door to the guest suite. "Lizzie? Can we discuss this, please?"
"I wasn't aware there was anything to discuss," Lizzie's cold, emotionless voice filtered through from the other side. Freddy wished, not for the first time, that he could hear the way her heart used to infuse every word and tone. Hearing her speak was like looking at a sketch of a familiar landscape—easily recognizable, but lacking depth and color.
"We're supposed to be getting married."
"We were."
He waited, but when it became clear she wasn't following up her statement with anything else, he pressed on. "I know what happened was unexpected—"
The door swung inward, catching him suddenly off-balance. Freddy stumbled forward a step before righting himself.
Lizzie stood in the open doorway, no longer in her wedding attire, but rather wrapped in a dusty pink dressing gown. Her golden hair was still pulled back into an intricate mess of curls and twists that he could only pretend to understand but deeply appreciated. A few strands were left to frame her face, highlighting her cheekbones and her breathtaking eyes that had mesmerized him since childhood. They were a pale, icy blue, like the color of a winter sky in the northern countries, and ringed by a circle of deep blue that reminded him of the depths of the sea that surrounded Kysta on nearly every side. Her eyes had once been the most expressive part of her face, and he had learned to read them just as easily as Hadrian could read any of the many languages he so loved. Freddy searched them now, hoping to see something—anything—that would give an indication of emotion.
She blinked up at him with a detached interest, as if he were a stranger on the street and not the boy she had known since childhood.
"I would be concerned for the relationship between our countries if you had been expecting an assassination attempt."
Her words, so close in flavor to her former dry sense of humor that he loved, caught him off guard. A spark of hope flared to life in his chest.
She's still in there somewhere. I don't know what happened to make her this way, but I have to believe that she'll go back to herself someday.
"It certainly wasn't the way I would have chosen to start off the ceremony, but I suppose it did lend an air of excitement." He grinned at her, hoping to tease a smile out of her in response. "It certainly will be an interesting tale to tell our children."
Lizzie said nothing, and Freddy's smile started to falter. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I know that things today didn't go according to plan, but Mother is arranging for the ceremony to be rescheduled for tomorrow."
"I assume this means that Hadrian is recovered?" Lizzie clasped her hands together in front of her, the posture matching her tone of polite inquiry.
Freddy cringed. "He is. I'm sorry; I should have led with that. I know he's your friend, too. He—"
"I don't need the details."
A cold wave of emotion crashed over him, quenching the little hope that had returned. He forced himself to smile. "Right. Well, as I was saying, Mother is working on rescheduling."
"She doesn't need to do that."
"I know it's a lot to ask of her, but she was quite adamant that she wanted to take care of it."
"No, I mean she doesn't need to, because we're leaving."
Freddy froze. Ice flowed through his veins, and it took a moment for his mind to fully process her words. He blinked slowly. "What?"
"We're leaving. Father is quite upset at this offense to Nedra, and he has already made all the necessary arrangements for us to return first thing in the morning. The wedding is off."
"How is what happened an offense to Nedra? The attempt was on my life, not yours."
"You allowed your guests to disrupt the wedding."
