There are hours when I can bear the weight of what I’m stepping into, and hours when it feels too vast to look at directly.
So I do what I’ve always done when the world grows loud: I seek a quieter corner and let learning steady my hands.
Fenloris and his maps hold history as fact. The scars remain, but the distance time shapes carries them more gently. As much as I find structure and knowledge in his company, today I find myself seeking the heart of Caerhollan, without audience, without having to coax it into words. With a spare moment, before Fenloris is expecting me, I find my way to the quiet forgotten chamber filled with portraits of the royal family. I study the paint across canvas spanning centuries. It seems impossible to think that my face might be here among them someday. Not just someday, but someday soon. A wedding portrait.
I walk to a far dark corner of the room. There, among the massive canvases with entire broods, I find it. Vale’s parents. Thalen and Sylara, their wedding portrait. Small in comparison to the others. A couple not meant to take the throne, married for the sake of love alone.
My fingers hover just above the brushstrokes etchedin time. The delicate lace of her gown, the ornate jewels across her throat. The glowing smiles on their faces. Vale’s father standing proud. There are none of the markings of a ruler across him—not like the later portraits from his reign. Just the sight of a man and the woman he loves.
I linger there, praying for a blessing I will never hear from people I will never meet. A solemn moment before returning to the chaos of preparations.
Fenloris is just as ever, scuttling about before noticing me and forgetting whatever he might have been looking for. “Ah, yes, there you are,” he says with a sense of victory, looking from me back to the stacks of parchment in the same instant. He stops, his hands pressing down into the table wide at his sides. “What can I do for you today?”
Is that frustration I am picking up on? “We can continue another day if now is not a good time.” I am always so careful to not startle him for fear he might flinch.
“No, no, no, it’s fine, I just can’t—” His eyes scan again. “Here! Yes. Work must continue,” he mutters to himself. “We all have a job to do.” He rifles through more papers, placing a number of them in a satchel by the desk. “But where is my sextant?”
I step next to him, reaching across the desk to the instrument leaning against the window. His eyes widen at recognition and exasperation at the item being precisely where he last left it. “Good, good, and my seal…” He scans the desk once more. Scrolls with pressed wax showing the mark of Caerhollan tell me it must not be far. I search the cluttered terrain of his desk with him, lifting stacks but careful to set them back where they were. He does seem to have a method to his madness. I pull at the drawers, looking for the rogue item. “No!” He belts out, and I take a step back. He pales at my intrusion.
“I’m sorry, I was just trying to help.” I retreat further from the desk, startled and worried I might have done something wrong.
“I-I just, my things, don’t mess with…” His hands are shaking with tension before he takes a deep breath. Running his fingers through his hair, then removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose, he continues, “Perhaps now isn’t the best time.”
“Again, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’ll go. Maybe we can try again tomorrow.”
The exchange has me unnerved. As do so many of late. For all the progress I make each day, a quiet undercurrent keeps pulling at me. The bitter sulfur directed at me the night of the banquet still clings to me. I push through, I always do. But the feeling lingers, something I cannot escape no matter how hard I try.
Vale notices. He always does. He watched me when I moved through the cottage, busying myself to avoid the war against my own desires. The way I didn’t just wake in the night but woke trembling from fighting that call. Even now, though I sleep peacefully through the night, he is keen to the struggles of the day.
He asks what’s weighing on me but doesn’t press when I can’t seem to put it into words. Fact is, by the time his arms reach outstretched for me, I am ready to leave it all behind. The planning, the fears, the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. Each day I move forward, each night I relish the peace I feel with him.
As dawn creeps in past the curtains, I find myself not wanting to leave the bed. Uneasy about facing the day. One more day. Tomorrow, I will become his wife. I nestle into his hold, burrowing my face into the crook of his neck despite the way his beard tickles when I do. “Can we just stay here until it’s time?” I groan into him, hiding my face from the world.
He sighs heavily. “I wish we could, little flame, oh how I wish we could.” He kisses the top of my head tenderly. The only crown I have ever truly desired.
I grumble as I start to sit up, letting his hands linger on my skin before moving away. I tuck my knees up close to my chest, and his fingers caress my back idly, just brushing where my hair cascades down my spine. “If I didn’t have so much to tend to, no force on earth could keep me from you, my dear. But know, each task I address today is one more thing done so I can have you all to myself very, very soon.” He sits up, brushes my hair aside, and presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. I look back at him. Tomorrow. Our new life starts tomorrow.
“I know,” I say, accepting defeat. “And from what I hear, my schedule is packed too. Soria is probably pacing outside the door as we speak.” I chuckle at the thought.
Vale takes my hands in his, pressing a kiss to them. I brush the hair away from his face, relishing this side of the man no one else gets to see. I wonder how many moments of quiet like this we will have before the ceremony tomorrow afternoon. I just need to get through to tomorrow night then… well everything. There won’t be a storybook ending, no, I don’t think so. But still, there is a relief waiting just around the corner. If I can just get to it.
Soria walks in, alight with energy, the moment Vale leaves the room, much as I expected. Attendants follow not long after, carrying an array of items to prepare me for both today and tomorrow. I pick at the food offered to me. I teeter on the brink of going numb or feeling everything all at once.
“The tailor will be here soon, the last fittings before the big day!” I quietly chuckle to myself at her enthusiasm.
“You may be more excited than I am,” I muse.
“Perhaps,” she says, clutching the underskirt in her arms and leaning against a table. “I was nervous before my wedding,” she tells me with a far off look in her eyes. “My mother said I looked like a horse right before a storm, that uneasy feeling they get when danger is near. But it wasn’t fear of what I was entering into, just the day itself. I loved him, I still love him, even after all these years without him.” Standing tall and brushing at the fabric, she goes on, “It’s natural to feel any of a number of things. Even more so given everything.” She moves to me, her hands on my shoulders in the way that always grounds me. “Focus on the love. That’s your why. Everything else… it’ll fall into place.”
I let her kind words wash over me. I never had a mother, nor a sister. Her warm friendship is the closest I have ever known, and I treasure it dearly.
She steadies me through the day. She scolds the tailor when he reaches for pins and insists the dress is already perfect. My hands rest over my abdomen as I look at the stunning ornate silver gown I will wear this time tomorrow. Intricate threading, delicate lace, and ornate beadwork—it almost seems too much. I know it’s not, not for a queen. Butfor the woman from the woods, I can barely fathom where I am standing.
I ask Soria if it’s possible to claim a few hours for myself, and after more coaxing and convincing, she shifts obligations to grant it. I yell back my gratitude, still trying to cinch the belt over leather as I run down the hall. Tomorrow is for their queen, but this is for me.
Knowing washes over me the moment I reach the stall. Bracken lifts his head, ready without me having to say a word. This is exactly where I need to be.
I tack him myself, brushing off the stablehand who seems beside himself when I won’t allow the assistance. Soon I will be duty bound, so today I will taste true freedom while I can.
