“Yes, but—"
I don’t let her finish. Instead, I turn and head toward the door. Marik steps in front of it. I push him aside, but he doesn’t move.
“Mae, you can’t go see her,” Elle’s voice commands from across the room.
I whirl around. “Why not?”
“It’s not safe.”
Feeling tears spring to my eyes, I turn to Marik, and he nods, agreeing with Elle. “You’re the High Queen. Things are different now.”
Behind me, Luca says, “Whoever did this is trying to draw you out. They’re attacking the people closest to you. They’re playing to your emotions, hoping that you’ll make decisions based on your emotions, even if it endangers you.”
“What am I supposed to do? Move everyone I love onto the grounds until the threat is contained?”
“If that’s what needs to be done to keep you safe, we can,” Ivan says. “Once Cally is stable, she’s welcome to stay on the grounds if she wishes.” He shuffles on his feet, then hesitantly says, “There’s one more thing we need to discuss, now that this attack has occurred.” My eyes stay locked on his as he continues. “We need to move the wedding up. I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting another week.”
“When?”
“This weekend. This Saturday.”
Before, this would have upset me. But since I’ve already chosen Marik, it doesn’t bother me to push the wedding up by a week. “Is it possible to pull together a royal wedding in forty-eight hours?”
“We’ll get it done,” Holly says.
My face falls, thinking of Cally in a healer’s bed. “Will Cally be able to come? I need her here.”
“Her injuries are superficial. She should be released by tomorrow. We’ll have someone escort her to the grounds as soon as she’s released,” Ivan says.
“Obviously, this moves up the rest of the events. Tomorrow is going to be busy for you both,” Holly says, looking between Marik and me. “You’ll both start tomorrow morning choosing your wedding outfits and going through alterations. We’ll also have the rehearsal dinner tomorrow. Marik, we’ll send out invitations to your family to join us for the rehearsal dinner.”
He nods, but my heart is racing at the thought of seeing Asmo again. I thought I’d have more time.
Holly claps her hands together and says, “Get excited! We’re having a wedding!”
Marik pulls me in for a hug, and I force myself to smile, but my thoughts are everywhere else. In just three weeks, I’ve discovered who my father was, become the High Queen, met, then dated all the High Princes. In less than two days, I’m marrying Prince Marik.
That’s a lot to process itself. Then there are cambion and osseris attacks, the witch on the grounds…There’s something larger going on, but I can’t figure it out. I have a feeling that it’s all related to the murder of the High Family, like someone’s trying to eliminate the Deer Court.
But why? The loose threads drift around in my brain, dying to be tied together, but every time I finally grab onto one thread, it slips through my fingers before I can connect it to another.
Chapter 34
A knock on my door wakes me up. My brain is struggling to catch up when a second knock comes, this time louder. I get up on the third knock, grabbing my robe on the way out of the bedroom to the front door. I peer through the peephole and swing the door open.
Cally and Ivan stand in front of me. Cally looks exhausted. Her skin, normally glowing, looks dull and lifeless, and there are bags underneath her eyes. A yellowing ring of bruises circles her neck like someone choked her weeks ago. My heart cracks when I see the bruises, but she smiles when she sees me and immediately moves forward, wrapping me in a tight hug.
I hold onto her, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I almost lost Cally last night. Or did I? Did they attack her just enough to scare me?
“You okay?” I ask her, surveying her. Aside from the bruises on her neck, she looks relatively unscathed. Holly said she was found unconscious and bleeding, but I’m not seeing where she bled from.
She nods and glances inside my wing. “Can we go inside?”
I look to Ivan and say, “Thank you for bringing her here.”
“Of course,” he says warmly before bowing and taking his leave.
Following Cally inside, I close the doors behind me and lock them. She sits in the living room and stares absently at the wall. I approach her slowly and sit beside her, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her in for a side hug. We sit there in silence for a few minutes. Silence is abnormal for her, so I wait until she’s ready.
