Impure,the whispers hiss all around me. Shameful. Deplorable.
I tip my chin toward Dain. “The Veilkeeper ought to be absolved. He was only doing his duty, but Tobias diverted him with a lie. I ask that you reassign him tomeuntil sundown, that he may not retire in disgrace.”
Dain’s helm lifts a fraction in surprise, then tilts again in the stiffest nod I’ve ever seen.
“Absolutely not!” my father thunders. “This is madness!”
Elder Councilman Darius raises a hand. “She won. She invoked her right and proved her claims. Solmere lawstands.”
“The maiden is—”
“The decision,” Darius continues, unfazed, “isfinal.”
Silence presses in as my father’s fury burns a hole through me. I let it. He can do no more to spurn me than he already has, and by tomorrow, it will mean nothing, anyway.
I find Kat in the crowd. Her eyes are wide and wet as she bites back a sob.
I stand still as the attendants pull the corset strings tight. The white gown doesn’t feel like mine. It clings to me like a stranger’s skin—smooth, fitted, and laced with red embroidery that coils along the hems like veins.
During the ridiculously lavish carriage ride from the capital to the massive estate surrounding Moonspire Lake—the mansion with twelve grand rooms reserved for occupants who arrive once every two years and are never seen again—I could think of nothing but the water.
How cold it will be.
How far the mist will stretch.
How long it will take to drown.
That is, if the fire doesn’t claim me first.
Those same thoughts threaten to consume me now, but I do my best to push them aside and take another deep breath—well, as deep as I can manage in such a tight corset.
Somewhere in the distance, temple bells toll, the soft, mournful peals in stark contrast to the celebration unfurling beyond the window. I wonder if they’re for me. Does anyone else feel it, too, the dread that this isn’t a wedding or a ceremony, but a sacrifice? A beautiful, blood-laced offering arrayed in silk and silence?
When the final ribbon is tied and the last knot pulled, the attendants leave me alone in the silence. I turn to the mirror only to find a stranger staring back.
“Well,” I murmur dryly, “looks like I’ll be wearing a wedding dress, after all.” I think of all the times I swore to Kat I’d never marry, nor wear such a useless color.
I wonder if they’ll remember me. Not just the girl in the gown, but the girl beneath it. The one who loved wild horses and late summers, who knew every tree on our land by heart. Will they remember the way I laughed? The way I fought? Or will all that I am be reduced to a name carved in stone, another bride burned away for someone else’s blessing?
The door creaks open, and I turn to see Kat in the threshold, frozen like she doesn’t know whether to run and embrace me or strike me. I’d take both over the look she gives me, and the unbearable silence that stretches between us with each passing moment. Her braid is half-unraveled, her eyes rimmed red. There are marks on her arms where she’s been gripping herself too tightly.
“Why did you do it?” she whispers, finally breaking the silence, voice shaking. “I don’t understand.”
I step forward to embrace her, but she jerks away.
“I was ready,” she spits, fists trembling. “You disgraced me in front of the entire city!”
“Kat, please—listen to me.”
She shoves me hard enough that I stumble. “No. You don’t get to do this again. You don’t get to make my choices for me.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“You humiliated me!” Her voice cracks. “Do you even know what they’re saying about me now? That I was rejected! That I tried to cheat my way to the gods’ blessings!”
I take a slow breath and lead her to the edge of the bed, where a stack of parchment sits neatly bound with a red ribbon.
She frowns. “What is this?”
