Evie had truly become stronger. She didn’t walk.
She floated.
My sigh of relief had barely escaped my lungs when a bolt of shock slashed through me as the image turned sharper.
“That’s–” My throat closed. “That’s not Evie.”
Too tall, too vulnerable, too meek to be my cousin.
“But sheisstunning.” Dax exhaled. “I didn’t know she’d have a bridesmaid.”
Neither did I–and it wasn’t me, like it should have been. “That must be Banu and Valuta’s daughter. Kyra. Kora–”
“Kaya.” He whistled. “As beautiful as the rumors said.”
But she wasn’t Evie.
My muscles tensed so hard, I’d risen in my chair a few inches.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hoping, even as the pressure in my skull pulsed harder.
Finally, after a few eternal minutes, with the Dragon’s face turning more thunderous and the drums blasting away, Evie appeared in the temple.
We caught the barest peek at her, swaddled in yards upon yards of gold brocade, her smile brightening the entire golden room.
Then the silvery oval shifted once more.
Dax and I groaned.
“Godsdammit.” He banged on the table, harder than me. “You go, Evie! Stand proud, like a true Vegheara!”
My heart jumped as the portal settled on Ryker, for the briefest moment. The shift was so sudden, Dax didn’t even seem to have noticed it.
But I did–and it tightened my chest.
He stood near the entrance, next to the Viper–I remembered those bangs I’d sliced–like they both wanted to stay far away from what was unfolding before them.
He looked as intimidating as ever, eyes sparking, but there was a bow to his shoulders. A tight line to his lips. A sharpness to his jaw that I didn’t like.
As Evie passed him, his gaze dropped–not to her, not the altar. To the ground. Ashamed.
In that moment, I knew.
Something very wrong was happening–and I could only sit there and watch the inevitable take place in front of me.
My hand fell from Dax’s shoulder, who kept hooting encouragements at Evie as if she could hear him.
After jumping through the crowd once more, revealing faces marred by surprise, the palaver turned back to the altar. The Dragon raised an enormous pearl crown.
One fit for the queen of the fiercest Clan in Malhaven.
I stopped breathing, as hope and dread fought within me.
Then, in front of our eyes, the entire Blood Brotherhood court, and Evie, he placed the crown on Kaya’s head.
