Chapter
Twenty-Five
Galantia Present day, Deepmarsh Castle
hings were finally looking up.
Captain Theolif had returned to Tidestone to relay the news of my upcoming wedding to myT parents. My success in securing my betrothal had manifested immediately, taking shape as richly furnished, opulent personal chambers, meals served on gold platters, and at least a dozen people fussing over me in preparation of the wedding.
Like Darien, the court’s dressmaker, who ran his splayed fingers along my body without touching, letting threads of shadows thinner than hair weave, loop, and entwine. They formed the sheerest black cloth, which wrapped around my arms and torso like a second skin before it generously fanned out below my waist, yet it managed to cover nothing at all.
I stared down at the contrasting paleness of my skin that shone through the fabric, amplified by the morning sun coming from the window of my sitting room that overlooked a lovely garden with a pond.
“I can only assume Prince Malyr is planning to have me freeze to death in this.”
Arms crossed in front of his chest, Sebian took a few assessing strides around me where I stood
in the center of the room, grinned at the sight of my nipples, and gave me a wink. “I like it. Your beauty is shining through… quite literally.”
My cheeks warmed, reminding me of how good he’d felt inside me. How gentle and patient he’d
been. How he’d made love to me… … in front of my betrothed.
And at my betrothed’s request, just to add to my confusion. The most baffling part about all this?
Giving me to Sebian that night, allowing me to succumb to his tenderness, had probably been the kindest thing Malyr had ever done to me… “No imagination, this human.” Darien gave a graceful swat of his hand, his black strands an intricate weave of at least a dozen smaller braids, as extravagant as the black trumpet gown he wore.
“But one with a lovely waist.”
I cringed, internally mumbling a prayer. Oh please, let me hold on to that waist a while longer.
Sleeping with my betrothed’s best friend was strange enough, but potentially having his child in my belly? As things stood, I could hardly claim it to be Malyr’s, potentially leaving me at the doorstep of ruin once more. With a child. From a knave with a certain… reputation.
I resisted the urge to tug on the fabric around my belly to make it less tight. No, I hadn’t yet been in my fertile days that night. Risa had taught me to count based on my menses, so I may put it to good use once I was expected to do my duty and produce an heir. Gods damn this mess. I had to get Malyr to give me his child.
Darien ran a finger down along my waist. “I suggest we bring it out and go with vines.”
At the flick of his pointer, shadows built onto the sheer cloth in the shape of thorny vines. They curved inward along the natural dip of my waist, making it look more defined, even from my perspective. An optical illusion, which formed a thicket up along my torso before it burst into lacy blooms on each side of my scar, covering my breasts.
“Hmm, what to do with this train?” Darien rubbed a hand over his smooth chin as he walked around me, assessing his creation with a critical look. “Fuller. Yes, that’s what we need, but how to— ah!” He snapped his fingers at Sebian. “My pouch. Over there by the window. Quick.”
“I don’t recall you paying me to run your errands. Earlier, you chased me across the castle to get your measuring stick.” With a heavy exhale, Sebian grabbed the leather pouch where it sat on an upholstered bench beneath the window and tossed it over his shoulder. “Next time, bring your mate to do it.”
Darien let out a frantic yelp before he caught the clinking pouch with both arms, pulling it tightly against his chest, narrowed gaze snapping to Sebian. “She has no sense for beauty and never fails to inhibit my creativity.”
“She?” I took another look at his gown, the neckline so low, it exposed his shoulders and a sparse thatch of hair that sprouted between his pectorals. “I thought you were… were…”
“A lover of men?” he tsked, hooked the pouch on the thick belt that clasped his slender waist, and pulled a whitish stone from it, holding it out in his open palm. “Darling, above all, I am a lover of dresses. How can I not be, hmm? Frills, grommets, ruffles, laces, layers. And this…” His fist came down on the stone, letting it crumble. Wafts of shadows emerged from within, weaving into the shape of a rose in full bloom, petals and all. He carefully brought the delicate ornament to my train, stitching it onto the fabric with shadowy thread. “Trousers, shirts, vests. Why would I bore myself with the mundane if I can create this? Wear this?”
I watched in awe as he cracked one stone after another, turning my dress into a garden of flowers and ravens that roosted on the vines between them. “What is this?”
“Salted spells,” Sebian said. “If you look closely, you’ll see the shadows writhing on the inside.”
All it took was a hopeful look at Darien for him to hand me one such salt stone, which I turned between my fingers, watching the black threads shift ever so slightly. It was fascinatingly beautiful.
Darien took the stone from my fingers, cracked it, and worked the shadowy rose that emerged into my dress. “It takes me many days to create ornaments such as these.”
That was easy to believe. “What else can you store in these?”
“Any sort of shadowmagic,” Darien said. “But what’s more important than storing threads?
Without us weavers, everyone would walk around naked.”
When I looked at Sebian, he said, “We have to work plumes of shadows into our clothes, our weapons, our most important belongings for them to shift with us.”
I looked down at what had to be the most beautiful gown in all the kingdoms, utterly taken by this new knowledge. “I’ll be the finest bride in all of Dranada.” Just like Risa had said… “Bride? Oh darling, don’t insult me.” Darien chuckled as he fussed with the lacing along the shoulders. “It will take me a fortnight to fashion your wedding gown. This one, you’ll wear to your kjaer.”
“My what?” I asked, just as an unkindness or ravens flew in through the flight hole above the window.
“Your kjaer.” Malyr was still shaping out of shadows and plumes beside me, running his feathery touch over my scar before his fingertip replaced the sensation, and the scent of winter and lemongrass filled my nose. “Where I shall court you.”
“Court me?” That would have sounded rather romantic coming from any man who wasn’t Malyr.
“How terrifying.”
A twitch of his lips. “Agreed.”
“I didn’t think you’d bother with a kjaer.” Sebian leaned with his back against the bookshelf that lined one wall, both hands shoved into the pockets of his breeches. “How romantic.”
Malyr rolled his eyes. “Was it not you who suggested we could all do with some fun? There’s much fun to be had during a kjaer.”
I looked back and forth between them. “Anybody bother to tell me just what exactly that is?”
“A sort of betrothal ceremony,” Sebian said. “The male will feed you, groom you, present you with a gift. And um… fly with you?” He frowned at Malyr. “How exactly are you going to solve that?”
Malyr shrugged, my future husband once more dressed in one of the smartest corset vests I’d ever seen, the gray shirt underneath embroidered with silver moons and stars. “Most kjaer between our kinds made do with the Dance of Ten Feathers, and so it shall be with this one.”
Slowly but surely, nervousness prickled beneath my skin. “But… I don’t know that dance.”
“You have two days to master it,” Malyr said with a wolfish grin. “I publicly announced the kjaer and the feast that’ll go along with it less than an hour ago.”
Feast.
That word brought back memories I’d rather forget, making me set my pleading look onto Sebian, but he only let his head slump back against book spines before he said, “It’s a dance for fancy Ravens, not sons of farmers like me.”
Anger warmed my veins over how Malyr was seemingly setting me up for embarrassment again, but acting on it would hardly bring me closer to my goal. I had to make an effort here. Whatever brought our bodies closer together would be a step in the right direction.
I set my hand on his arm and searched his steely eyes. “Maybe you could teach me?” A swallow.
“Please?”
Malyr’s eyes wandered to where I touched him, as if he was contemplating to slap my hand away, but he merely let it slip off as he walked around me, taking in my dress. Cici was right; I had no talent for seduction.
“Is it to your liking, my prince?” Darien bowed and sidestepped after Malyr, letting one hand fan the train out while the other settled on Malyr’s shoulder. “I decided to bring out her—”
“Remove your touch this instant,” Malyr growled low, his posture stiff, his death gaze locked on Darien’s hand. “Or you will have to finish this gown one-handed.”
I frowned at the way Malyr’s eyes jumped from that innocent touch to Darien’s gown, and back to that touch.
“Apologies, my prince. I get carried away with excitement sometimes.” Darien quickly retrieved his hand, cleared his throat, then ran his hands over my shoulders. “Perhaps a collar like the one you had me make for the feast? With her hair curled and pinned up?”
“No curls. No pinning up her hair. I want it down and flowing.” Malyr placed his mouth by my ear where he whispered, “That’s how you prefer it.”
A jolt went through my belly as I turned my head to stare at him in nothing short of shock. Yes, that was how I preferred it, but… how would he know?
“No collar, then,” Darien remarked, and pointed at the ravens set into the train. “I’ll use real feathers to bring out the dimension of these. The finest, youngest plumes. It’s a shame we don’t have a white weaver. For the sake of solidarity, a few threads of white would strengthen the picture of unity.”
For a second, Malyr’s lips pressed together. “My house hasn’t seen much solidarity from them when the war started. They hid like cowards, watching the rest of us get slaughtered.”
Who was them? But most of all… “What’s a white weaver?”
“Some shadowmagic is white,” Sebian explained. “It’s extremely rare; I’ve never met one in my lifetime. Have you, Malyr?”
Malyr ran his hand down along my arm, thumbing the shadow-embroidered vines. “My father had one in his ravenguard. Strange beings, said to be sickly. If one didn’t pay attention, you might confuse them for—” When his fingers reached the silky blue string tied around my wrist, he gripped it, yanking my hand up between us. “What. Is. This?”
“I found it in my room one morning. I think that raven might have dropped it.” I looked at Sebian since Malyr likely hadn’t heard the story. “The one from the night of the storm? Remember, I said it carried something in its beak?”
“Oh, shit.” Sebian pushed himself off the shelf, his hands still buried in his pockets. He looked down at the ribbon, then he lifted his gaze to Malyr, exchanging a long, silent look.
Yet another conversation I wasn’t privy to. Why?
“What does it mean?” When nobody bothered to answer, I looked at Darien. “It’s just a string of ribbon, right?”
My question jerked Darien out of his daze before he pulled the pouch on his belt shut. “Oh, where is my head? I brought all these salted spells, but not a single pearl of aerymel for sparkle. No need to fetch it for me, Sebian. I’ll attach those in the morrow.”
Sebian waited until Darien was out the door before he said, “Who would dare?”
“Dare what?”
“Someone who is conspiring against me.” Malyr turned his attention to the hole above the window and pointed at it. “I want a builder to close every flight hole that leads to her chambers. If
any Raven at court so much as approaches her, looks in her direction the wrong way, I want to know of it.”
I hooked a finger into the ribbon for comfort. “I don’t understand… What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Sebian ran his hand down my spine before it settled on the small of my back. “Just Ravens quarreling for power is all. Go take the dress off. Put something else on, and I’ll take you to Cici. She might know the Dance of Ten Feathers.”
With a curtsy that went mostly ignored by Malyr, I left through the door that led back into my personal room. What was that all about?
I disappeared behind the privacy screen, peeled myself out of the shadow gown before I hung it over a nearby stand, and shucked back into a plain, silken blue dress. Something clattered behind the screen. Tjema, perhaps, who’d silently adopted her position as my lady’s maid.
“The fire has nearly gone out,” I said, still tying the strings in my front as I stepped around the screen. “I didn’t know what to put on, the oak or the—” The blood chilled in my veins, freezing my feet to the ground. “What are you doing in here?”
“He is mine!” Lorn’s hand collided with my cheek, slapping me with such force, Malyr’s spanking seemed like child’s play as I stumbled sideways and crashed with my shoulder against a stone column. “Don’t you ever forget that!”
Within the blink of an eye, Sebian appeared behind Lorn, gripping her hair with one hand and pressing a shadowy dagger to her throat with the other. “Step away from her right now, or I swear, I’ll do what Malyr can’t bring himself to and put you out of your damn misery.”
Lorn only laughed, letting a cloud of shadows whirl around her before she slipped out of Sebian’s grip. She shot her arm out, caging my throat in the death-grip of her fingers. “You can have the castles, the silks, the titles, but you cannot have him.”
“I got it.” Malyr slowly stepped up beside Sebian. “Lorn. Let her go.”
Lorn set her glistening eyes on him. “You announced a kjaer?”
Malyr lifted both hands in an appeasing manner, slowly stepping between her and me. Protecting me? “I have to marry, or I will not win this war.”
An audible gulp hiccupped from Lorn’s throat, a sound too vulnerable for someone so vicious.
“Why her?”
“If not her, then another.”
“Is that what you’re telling yourself?” she scoffed. “I saw how you looked at her. Ever since she arrived, you’ve been avoiding me, shutting me—”
“You need to stop,” Malyr growled. “I am a prince in need of an ally and an heir.”
“None of which I can give you because I’m nothing but a fucking Raven whore,” she bit out.
“Barren ever since we escaped those dungeons together. Do you even remember?”
My skin tightened as much of Lorn’s hate for me partially explained. They had been kept together.
Tortured together. Escaped together.
“I will never forget, which is the only reason why I haven’t sent you off to Hanneling Hold yet,”
Malyr said. “But I need you to let her go now.”
“Does she know? Did you tell her what you did? What you are?” Lorn stabbed her finger around him and in my direction. “Little girl, do you know he was your father’s pretty Raven boy?”
“Shut your mouth!” Malyr took a strong step toward her. “I swear, Lorn, one more—”
“She can never give you what I do. Do you know that, little girl? The things he likes done to him?” Lorn shifted her balance to one side, looking around Malyr and straight at me. “Do you know that he likes his vent tickled? Do you know he’s a fucking fa—”
A blast of shadows flooded my room, dousing me in cold blackness. Wood moaned, metal clanked. I held by breath, blinking through the fading whirls of shadows, only to bring Lorn back into focus. The blow had thrown her against my desk, from which she pushed herself up, staggering a step toward Malyr. There, she collapsed just as her head lolled back.
Malyr caught her, picked her up, and turned to look at Sebian. “Tell Asker to find him. Find him, and bring him to Deepmarsh.”
I watched as he carried her off, leaving me behind stunned, my entire body stiff when I turned and looked at Sebian. “Who is him?”
Sighing, Sebian sunk his head into his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s… complicated.”
