CHAPTER SIX
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
he servants’ hands moved with practiced efficiency around me, a storm ofT silk and pins that I observed with a detached fascination.
Evening light filtered weakly through the stained-glass windows of my chambers, casting prismatic shadows across the ornate furnishings that had been brought in specifically for this occasion.
My wedding day.
The words felt foreign in my mind, as though they belonged to someone else. Some other noblewoman who might have spent her life dreaming of this moment. Yet here I stood, soon to be bound to the Butcher of Realms, a man whose very title made the servants’ hands tremble as they prepared me for my fate.
I studied my reflection in the polished silver mirror, noting the hollow look in my silver-flecked eyes. The gown they had draped me in was a masterpiece of Nocthari craftsmanship—deep crimson, the color of freshly spilled blood. Not the traditional golden hues of Vareth brides. I ran my fingers over the intricate embroidery at the bodice, where tiny garnets caught the light like droplets of crystallized gore.
I loved it.
“It suits you,” said a voice from behind my shoulder. One of my father’s seamstresses, her eyes quickly dropping when I met her gaze in the mirror.
“Begging your pardon, Princess.”
I turned slightly, the heavy fabric swirling around my ankles. “No need to
apologize for speaking truth, Mathilda.” The gown’s beauty was undeniable, how it complemented my pale skin and dark hair. “Although, the Nocthari seem to have peculiar taste.”
Across the room, perched upon Isolde’s lap, Lysa clapped her hands with innocent delight. “Miri looks like a berry! Will there be dancing after? Can I come?”
Isolde’s arms tightened protectively around my sister, though her smile remained gentle. “Your sister looks like a queen,” she corrected, her eyes meeting mine with a warmth that belied the tension in her shoulders.
I crossed the room, the gown’s weight already familiar, and knelt before my sister, taking her tiny hands in mine.
“The celebration will be far too late for little princesses,” I told her, keeping my voice light. “But I promise to recount every detail. The musicians, the food, the dancing. You shall hear it all.”
“Even the cake?” she asked, eyes wide with solemnity.
“Especially the cake,” I promised, though I wondered when, or if, I would fulfill that vow. The thought left a hollow ache beneath my breastbone.
“There will be cake at your own birthday celebration,” Isolde reminded her, smoothing a wayward golden curl from Lysa’s forehead. “Only a fortnight hence. And you shall be the center of all attention that day.”
This seemed to satisfy Lysa, who promptly launched into an elaborate description of the exact color of the confection she expected.
I listened to her prattle, memorizing every animated gesture, every excited inflection. This was what I would take with me to Nocthar. Not the silk and jewels being packed into ornate trunks, but these stolen moments of ordinary joy, preserved like pressed flowers between the pages of my memory.
“Princess,” one of the handmaidens interrupted softly, “we must finish with your hair before the ceremony.”
I pressed a quick kiss to Lysa’s forehead and rose, the crimson fabric rustling around me like whispered secrets. As I returned to the mirror, I caught Isolde’s gaze. In it, I could see the worry she couldn’t quite conceal, the questions she dared not ask aloud with so many ears present.
The handmaiden began weaving my dark hair into an elaborate style, threading small garnets through the braids to match my gown. Each tug of my scalp was a sharp reminder of my powerlessness, each stone a drop of blood that would no longer be spilled.
“You don’t have to do this,” Isolde murmured as she joined me, leaving Lysa to be entertained with a servant who began weaving ribbons into her golden curls. “There must be another way.”
“Must there?” I asked, not turning. “My father has made the arrangement.
King Valen has accepted. The treaties are signed. Would you have me flee into the night like some frightened maiden from a bard’s tale?”
“If necessary.” The steel in Isolde’s voice finally made me turn.
I exhaled slowly. “And where would I go? Who would shelter the bastard daughter of Vareth when Nocthar came seeking their promised bride?” I shook my head. “Besides, there are advantages to this match.”
“Advantages,” she echoed, the word flat with disbelief. “Mireille, the rumors —“ “Are likely exaggerations.” I cut her off, though I wasn’t entirely convinced myself. “And if not, then perhaps a monster is precisely what Vareth needs as an ally.”
Isolde’s lips pressed into a thin line. “And what of you? What does Mireille need?”
“I need...” The words stuck in my throat. Control. Choice. Power over my own fate. Things that had always eluded me in my father’s court. “I need to matter, Isolde. As more than the king’s shame, hidden in shadows.”
Her eyes softened with understanding. “You have always mattered. To me. To Lysa.”
“I know.” I reached over and clasped her hand, a feeling I would miss more than I dared admit. “But as Queen of Nocthar, perhaps I will finally have a voice that cannot be ignored.”
A servant approached with a silver tray bearing goblets of spiced wine. I took one, just as Isolde’s lips parted as though to argue further—but she held her tongue. She knew me well enough to recognize when my mind was set.
The servant bowed and moved away, leaving the tray within easy reach. I took another sip, savoring the wine’s spice on my tongue.
Isolde touched my arm gently. “If anything goes amiss —“ “I will manage,” I assured her.
Her smile was fleeting but real, an expression so concerned that it warmed me more than the wine ever could. She left my side with reluctance, returning to Lysa, who now sat bedecked with more ribbons than hair.
I would manage. I always had.
The sun had slipped further toward the horizon, the servants moving about the chamber lighting candles in silver sconces. I examined my reflection, the light making the crimson of my gown look almost black in places, like congealed blood. Lysa looked to be drifting asleep in her cushioned chair, her small face peaceful in repose. I envied her that peace, that ability to surrender so completely to dreams.
My own sleep had been fractured since agreeing to this marriage, haunted by visions of a throne built from human bones and a crown that wept tears of blood. Yet, beneath the fear lurked an anticipation, a hunger to fully face the architect of such terrible rumors and measure myself against him. I knew he hadn’t yet shown his true form, and when that time came, I would not be a cowering sacrifice but a worthy adversary.
I sipped my wine and watched the servants prepare the final touches of my bridal ensemble. The veil, nearly translucent but dyed the same deep red as the gown, waited on a cushion of black velvet. Beside it lay jeweled combs to secure it, their metal worked into the shape of thorned roses.
How fitting.
My gaze drifted to the door of my chambers, just as it swung open with a force to silence all conversation.
The sudden vacuum of sound made every heartbeat audible as my father, King Aeldrin of Vareth, strode into the room with the commanding presence that had held a kingdom in check for decades.
His dark amber eyes surveyed the scene with the same detached scrutiny he might give a battlefield report. The servants froze mid-motion before dropping into synchronized curtsies so deep their foreheads nearly touched the floor. I alone remained upright, though years of conditioned response made my spine stiffen as his gaze settled on me, taking in the Blood King’s crimson offering with an unreadable expression. In his hands, he carried a small, ornately carved wooden box—something I had never seen before among the royal treasures.
“Leave us,” he commanded. No one dared question him. Servants gathered their supplies with hurried, silent movements, eyes fixed firmly on the floor as they retreated.
Isolde hesitated, her hand protectively on Lysa’s shoulder. The child had
stirred at the commotion, her drowsy eyes widening at the sight of her father.
“Papa!” she exclaimed with unguarded delight.
Something in my father’s severe expression softened, if only slightly, as he took in his youngest child. “Lady Isolde will take you to prepare for the ceremony,” he said, his voice gentler than I had ever heard it directed toward me. “Your attendants have a special ribbon for your hair.”
This simple statement, delivered with all the gravity of a royal decree, seemed to satisfy Lysa. She slipped her small hand into Isolde’s and allowed herself to be led toward the door, pausing only to look back at me with solemn eyes. “Remember about the cake,” she reminded me seriously.
“I will,” I replied, forcing warmth into my voice despite the tension coiling within me at being left alone with my father.
Isolde met my eyes before stepping past the threshold. “I’ll return shortly to help with the final preparations,” she said, the words carrying a weight beyond their surface meaning. A promise that she would not abandon me to whatever was to come.
The door closed behind them with a finality that echoed in the sudden silence. My father and I stood like strangers at opposite ends of the room, the crimson fabric of my gown a pool of blood between us. The crown of Vareth seemed to weigh heavier on his brow—or perhaps it was the burden of whatever had brought him here, on this of all days.
“Nocthar’s choice of bridal colors is... unconventional,” he finally said, stepping further into the room. His steps were measured, deliberate, as though approaching something volatile.
“King Valen seems to delight in the unconventional,” I replied, my voice steadier than I felt. “Or perhaps he simply wishes to hide any of tonight’s bloodstains.”
My father’s composure didn’t so much as flinch at my crassness. “Does his reputation worry you?” His question was almost academic, as if inquiring about an obscure point of governance rather than the man I was to wed.
I laughed, the sound brittle in the vast chamber. “Would it matter if it did? The treaties are signed. The alliance is made. My concerns are as irrelevant now as they have always been.”
He studied me, a faint frown deepening the lines around his eyes. “You believe I sold you.”
“Is that not precisely what you’ve done?” I asked, reckless now in these final hours as my father’s subject. Soon I would belong to another kingdom,
another king. What punishment could he inflict that would matter now?
“No,” he answered simply, and something in his tone gave me pause. “I secured you a crown and a kingdom. Power in your own right, not merely reflected glory as some minor lord’s bride.”
His words struck me silent. In all my imaginings of this arrangement, I had never considered that he might have made it with my interests in mind.
As much as I wanted to believe that to be true, and perhaps he even believed it himself, I knew it for the lie that it was.
He wanted to be rid of me. Just as much, if not more, than the rest of his family.
Then, as if weighing some great decision, he approached and placed the box on the table beside me, his fingers lingering on the carved lid as though reluctant to release it.
It was roughly the size of a large book, carved from a dark wood I didn’t recognize. Intricate patterns swirled across its surface—not the geometric precision favored in Vareth, but wild, organic shapes that seemed almost to move in the candlelight.
“There is something I kept,” he said, quieter than before, as if the words might break if spoken too loud. “It should have been yours. Long ago.”
I leaned closer, studying the twisting vines and flowers unlike any that grew in Vareth’s gardens. Interspersed between them were symbols—ancient script in a language I couldn’t decipher.
“Open it,” he instructed, stepping back.
I hesitated, then carefully lifted the lid. Nestled on a bed of midnight-blue velvet lay a crown unlike any I had seen in Vareth’s treasury. Delicate silver formed an intricate circlet, studded with moonstones that seemed to glow. It was stunning. Otherworldly.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, not daring to touch it.
“It was your mother’s,” my father said, the words striking me in the chest.
“She would have worn this on the day she became my queen.”
The world tilted. “Your queen?” I echoed, stunned. “But she was never… You were already wed to Ira when —“ “Yes,” he interrupted, his voice suddenly rough with emotion I had never heard him from him. “Your mother came to Vareth after Ira. Ira was a political match, and I would have dissolved the marriage had your mother accepted my request for her hand.”
I stared at him, blood roaring in my ears. All my life, I had believed
myself the product of a fleeting royal indiscretion. A passion that had flared and died. And while it sounded as though it hadn’t been fleeting on my father’s part, the court whispers were partly true.
My mother, the temptress. A foreign seductress who had captured the fancy of the newly-wedded king before vanishing as mysteriously as she had arrived.
Some whispers, darker than others, suggested she hadn’t disappeared at all. That she had posed too great a threat to the new queen’s position, and had been quietly eliminated on royal orders.
I had grown up believing my father had, at the very least, banished her.
At worst, ordered her death.
“You’re saying you wanted her as your wife?” I managed, my voice hardly more than a whisper. “What happened?”
My father’s face seemed to age before my eyes, decades pressing down upon his features. He turned away, stepping to the window, where the last light of day cast his profile in stark relief.
“She left,” he said softly. The words hung between us, fragile as breath.
“I begged her to stay. Offered her everything within my power—a crown, a kingdom, my heart. But she refused.”
I stood frozen, unable to process the revelation.
“Why?” I asked, my fingers hovering over the silver circlet as if it might burn me. “Why did she leave?”
“She said she couldn’t remain,” he continued, his voice distant with memory. “That forces beyond our understanding would tear us apart if she stayed. I thought it madness. The ravings of a frightened woman. I was a king. What force could possibly threaten us?”
He laughed then—a hollow, mirthless sound. “Then I learned she was carrying our child.”
His gaze turned back to me, hardening before my very eyes.
I saw it then. The blame. He blamed me for taking her away. For making her leave.
“You were left on the palace steps,” he said, his voice icing over. “An
infant, wrapped in silver cloth.”
The air stilled in my lungs.
“There was a note,” my father said, facing me fully. “Written in her hand.
She named you. Said to protect you. So I did what I could.”
I felt the floor beneath me shift, the certainty I’d built my entire existence
upon crumbling away. “So you... took me in out of obligation?”
“I took you in because you were hers. And I owed her that much.”
Hers. My mother’s. Not his.
My hands trembled as I tried to absorb everything he’d just told me.
“But why—“ My voice broke. “Why treat me as you have? As if my mother meant nothing to you?” I paused, my breath coming faster. “You didn’t give me even the dignity of your family name.”
I had always been just Mireille. The court was forced to call me Princess, but the royal name had never been bestowed upon me.
He sighed, as if this question was especially tedious. “Understand Mireille, I was newly wed. I had my heir on the way. I could not give you any claim to my kingdom, no matter how much your mother meant to me.”
He shook his head, moving back toward me. “And I could not look at you without seeing her.”
With deliberate care, he lifted the crown from its velvet nest and held it before me. The moonstones caught the candlelight, sending prismatic reflections dancing across the walls like trapped stars.
“This should have always been yours. It will be your legacy, when you leave for Nocthar.” His voice softened, just barely. “I did what I could to honor your mother’s request to protect you. But the kingdom, Vareth itself, comes first.”
I stared at the crown, unmoving. “So you sacrifice me to the Blood King and offer me my mother’s crown as consolation?”
Something flickered in his eyes—regret, perhaps, or merely irritation at my persistence.
“Take it,” he said, extending the crown. “If nothing else, let it remind you of her.”
Slowly, I reached out, half-expecting it to dissolve at my touch. But the metal felt solid. Warm somehow, as though it retained some memory of a body it once belonged to. Its weight surprised me—not just its heft, but the meaning it carried. The history. The lost possibilities it represented.
“Did you love her?” I asked, my voice scarcely more than a whisper, my eyes fixed on the circlet in my hands.
My father was silent for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. When he finally did, his voice was careful. Measured. As though he were still working out the truth himself.
“I looked for her. I used every ounce of my power, and others’, to find
her.” He paused. “But I’m not certain I am capable of love, Mireille. I have ruled this kingdom for over three decades. I have sired seven children. I have made alliances and broken them, won wars and averted others. But love?” He exhaled, the sound containing multitudes of regret. “If what I felt for your mother was love, then I have never experienced it again.”
The admission hung between us, more intimate than any conversation we had ever shared. I clutched the crown to my chest, feeling as though something precious and sharp-edged had just been placed in my care. A truth that cut even as it illuminated.
“I will wear it,” I said finally, lifting my gaze.
Something like approval flickered in his eyes. “Good. It suits you better than that crimson monstrosity, at any rate.”
The momentary warmth in his voice faded as he stepped back, resuming the mantle of kingship. “The ceremony begins in an hour. Do not be late.”
Without waiting for my reply, he turned and strode toward the door, his royal bearing fully restored. At the threshold, he paused.
“Your mother would be proud of the woman you’ve become, Mireille.”
Before I could form a response, he was gone, leaving me alone with the crown and a lifetime of reconsidered truths.
I sank onto a nearby chair, crimson skirts pooling like blood around me, the silver crown cold and heavy in my lap. My fingers traced the intricate designs, following patterns that looked almost like words in a language I should know, but couldn’t quite recall.
A hesitant knock pulled me from my reverie. The door opened to reveal Isolde and the retinue of servants, returned to complete my preparation for the ceremony. They filtered in cautiously, as though expecting to find the aftermath of some terrible confrontation.
“Are you all right?” Isolde asked gently, coming to my side while the others resumed their duties at a respectful distance.
I looked down at the crown, then placed it carefully back in the carved box.
“I’m not certain,” I answered honestly. “But I will be.”
Her eyes widened at the sight of the crown, questions evident in her expression, but she asked none of them. Instead, she squeezed my hand and turned to the task at hand.
“The veil, if you please,” she instructed a hovering handmaiden. “And Her Highness will need the jeweled combs secured properly. Nothing must
be out of place for the ceremony.”
I stood, allowing them to arrange the blood-red veil over my dark hair, feeling the weight of my mother’s crown as they anchored it in place. In the mirror, I looked like something half-born of myth. A creature of shadow and flame. Pale skin beneath crimson silk. Silver-flecked eyes gleaming through the translucent veil like the eyes of some otherworldly being.
A Queen of Nocthar.
The questions for my father would wait. The truths—and lies—of my parentage would remain to be unraveled. For now, I had a king to wed and a new kingdom to claim.
Whatever darkness awaited me in Nocthar, I would face it with my mother’s crown upon my head, armor forged of strength and inheritance.
The final preparations continued around me, but I hardly noticed. My mind had already moved forward to the moment I would stand before the
Blood King and bind my fate to his.
Not as a sacrifice.
But as a queen with secrets, with power, of her own.
