Looking down, I tuned out the rest of the prayer. I would throw something at the priest, otherwise.
When the prayer concluded, the priest unwound the rope binding their wrists. Sorley leaned in and pressed his lips to Brighid’s.
Searing pain shot through my leg as Cleiv Solais turned brilliant red. Reese clamped his hands around the hilt, but it would not heed him.
Fire pooled in the blade until Sorley’s mouth left Brighid’s. Only then did the red light fade.
Reese's head snapped up to regard Brighid.
Was the Paragon’s blade responding to Reese’s anger?
Or Brighid’s?
How could that even be possible?
Most people in the crowd clapped as the joining ceremony concluded. Raising a hand for silence, Sorley walked to the edge of the stage to give his speech.
“I thank you all for being here, on this momentous day.” His gaze swept over us. “For more reasons than one. We face an unprecedented assault from the south; our Paragon weapons have strayed from their centuries-long path; our Queen is without an Emperor. But I can at least remedy one of these troubles.”
My eyes snapped up. Worry clawed at my throat.
“After years of dragging their heels, insistent that a young widow could sit the empty throne.” He chuckled, and a few men in the audience echoed him. “Our Archbishop and magistrate have finally chosen a suitable husband for Siobhan. And I’m so lucky as to announce the name of our new Emperor.”
Sorley was staring straight at us. My heart slowly sank.
“Who more befits the throne than the holy rapier’s champion himself? Lord Tiernan’s celebrated son.”
Reese was engaged to the Queen? I glared at him, searching for answers, but he stared forward, mouth set in a tight grimace.
A few people in the crowd gasped, and others cheered.
I felt like I’d been punched in the face.
Diar and Agendra looked stunned. At least I had not been alone in the darkness.
“The Empire,” Sorley asserted. “Will be returned to glory in short order. The beasts from the shadows will be pushed back to where they belong. And perhaps more.” He glanced back at Brighid. “We will return to the peace we knew when Brighid and I first met—when she was a young girl with an unrepentant infatuation for a man she did not seem to realize was married.”
Cleiv Solais shone with fire again—and embers danced in Brighid’s eyes.
Lord Astartus laughed. “Heavens, she was inconsolable when she found out.” Rising, he took Sorley’s hand in his and shook it firmly. “It’s my greatest honor to join my family to the light of Forlaith—to a man I’m honored to give my daughter to—forevermore.”
Forevermore.
The word seemed to echo across the stage, pulsing with the heat of Cleiv Solais' violent fire.
A crow flew overhead. It was missing a talon.
Whirling in my seat, I followed it to the back of the courtyard, where a man in a brilliant purple cloak leaned against the tower wall.
He brushed aside his black curls and stared at me with a single, golden eye. A mask concealed the other. Vaf.
He raised three fingers and slowly curled one down.
Three, two . . .
Gasping, I spun back around.
All I saw was fire. All I felt was flame.
