“Leave us,” Ilys said simply. “A Veilwalker’s blessing must be given in private.” They filed out without a word.
Rowenna’s brows shot up. “What is a Veilwalker’s blessing?”
Ilys didn’t look at her until the door closed behind the last seamstress. Only then, she turned, letting her eyes settle on Rowenna’s face.
She gave a dry, tired smile. “It’s when I’m full of shit, but formal enough to be obeyed.”
Rowenna snorted. “I must be immune.”
Ilys tilted her head, stepping closer. “Yes, well. The wedding garb would indicate that.”
That earned a breathy laugh, and the tension in Rowenna’s shoulders seemed to ease. She stared down at the sleeves of her gown, brushing her palms against the embroidered fabric.
“I feel like a child playing pretend,” she confessed.
Ilys reached out and adjusted a loose strand of hair that had fallen from the braid. “A beautiful ghost.”
Rowenna met her gaze. Her eyes, always wide and dark, were teary at the corners. “I am terrified.”
“I know.”
“I have never even... kissed anyone,” she whispered.
Ilys’s smile faded into earnest empathy. “I know.”
“But I’m getting married.”
“Yes.”
Rowenna’s fingers twisted in the edge of her veil. “What if I don’t know what to do? What if I can’t pretend to like it?”
Ilys reached out to adjust the silver drape over Rowenna’s shoulder. “You do not have to pretend. Not for me, not for the King, not for the gods.” Her voice dropped to a careful rhythm. “Especially not tonight.”
Rowenna looked at her. Really looked. “What would you know of it?”
“Nothing,” Ilys said quietly. “But I know what fear feels like when it wears the mask of duty.”
Rowenna blinked fast, her lips pressing into a thin line. “Is it wrong that I want to run?”
“No,” Ilys confirmed, smoothing the silver fabric at her shoulder. “But it is brave that you won’t.”
She did not say what followed in her heart. She did not tell her to flee. She longed to give voice to Rowenna’s doubt, to feed it like kindling and let it burn bright.
Run, her thoughts whispered silently.Let us both abandon these cloaks of obedience. Let us play at being men, loud, sure, untouchable. Let us ravage the world and call it ambition. Let our desire be a shield, wrapping us like a woolen quilt against cold expectations. Let us make our own names feared so none may speak over us, none may say what we are or what we must become.
But she said none of it.
Instead, she touched Rowenna’s hand with familial emotion, and smoothed the veil over Rowenna’s face. “You look beautiful,” she said.
The candles flickered. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, a bell tolled to mark the hour.
“I wish,” Rowenna said, her voice cracking, “that I had known you in a different time and place. As just girls. Before veils and blades and wedding cloth.”
“You’d have found some other way to grow tired of me,” Ilys dictated. “I would bore you in every lifetime.”
Rowenna gave a shaky huff, half-sob, half-laugh, before lifting both hands to frame Ilys’ face. Her thumbs brushed lightly over her cheekbones. Veil to veil, she faced herjuxtaposed likeness; oh, how Ilys loved the reflection it offered her.
“You are everything,” Rowenna said, fierce in her softness. “You are not something to tire of.”
