Rowenna inhaled deeply. “Mother Inrith has found me a match.”
Ilys felt the words strike her like a blow to the chest. “A match?” The question entered the world strangled, crying.
Rowenna squared her shoulders. “Yes, a match.”
A million questions battered at Ilys, pressing against her skull, but she swatted them away, forcing herself to focus. Ilys pictured Rowenna in someone else’s house, wearing someone else’s name, her laughter caged behind unfamiliar walls.
“To whom?” Her voice rang pitchy to her ears. Heart pounding loudly in her chest.
Rowenna hesitated just enough for Ilys to see the crack in her resolve. That hesitation alone drained some of the heat from Ilys’s anger, leaving only unease in its place.
“You have no idea.” Ilys realized.
“Mother Inrith wants what is best for me,” Rowenna said carefully. “I trust her.”
Ilys snorted, sharp and bitter. “Mother Inrith cannot differentiate between a babe and a hobbled old man. The woman’s mind is gone.”
“Our courtship will last three years. I’ll be able to discern for myself in that time.”
“Three years?” Ilys spat. “That feels irregular.”
Rowenna picked at the dry skin beneath her nail beds. “He needs the time to pay my bridal tithe.”
“Gods,” Ilys muttered with a grimace. “Fattening you up before the slaughter.”
Rowenna’s face darkened, her posture stiffening. “I won’t have any better paths to walk, Ilys.”
Ilys grimaced. “There are a million other paths, and you know it.”
Rowenna let out a short, tired laugh. “I know you think yourself married and chained to a grim, horrible fate, Ilys. But there is freedom in your duty. You are owed respect and choice at so many crossroads I am not.”
Rowenna’s comment soured in Ilys’s stomach, sitting heavy and unmoving.
Rowenna turned and stalked away, her dark cloak billowing behind her. At the last moment, she glanced back, expression ineligible.
“I hope you and Jorrin have a lovely evening,” she said, voice light but strained at the edges. And with that, Rowenna strode away, leaving Ilys standing alone in the cold.
Ilys had never prepared for a guest before. Not in any real way. Grim did not count; his presence in her chambers had never required thought. And Rowenna was more prone to invading than visiting. But now, with Jorrin expected, she found herself staring at her own space, seeing it for the first time as a place meant to be presentable.
Modest by the castle’s standards, the chamber still felt wholly her own. The hearth lit, the glow flickering against the stone walls, casting long shadows. She had tidied in an absent-minded sort of way, straightening the furs on the bench by the window, brushing off the small wooden table, adjusting the simple plates and cups that she had set for them. She had even taken the trouble of setting a pitcher of mulled wine beside the meal that had been brought to her. And yet, standing in the middle of it all, Ilys felt a sudden, absurd wave of panic.
What did people do at these sorts of events? Should she be charming? Did one play games over dinner? Should she have practiced being more… alluring? She had tried in the stables and had nearly throttled herself with her own veil.
Ilys paced the chamber, hands clenched at her sides, her mind a restless tide of second-guessing. She practiced opening lines. Discarded them. Tried again.
Everything sounded wrong. Too stiff. Too formal. Too casual.
Then the eighth bell tolled, and Jorrin was nowhere to be found.
She glared at the door, willing sheer force to summon him. All the rules. All the lessons. Veilwalkers were not meant for attachments. Jorrin would not come. Rowenna would leave. Grim would retire. She would be cursed to walk all her days with only Death as her companion.
She blew out a breath and collapsed onto the bed, her arms flung out as she stared at the ceiling, frustration curling in her chest.
Just as she had resigned herself to her fate, a knock kissed the door.
Ilys shot up. She smoothed her veil, straightened her shoulders, and strode to the door, opening it with as much indifference as she could muster.
“You’re late,” she noted, tilting her head.
