Page 45 of The Kingdom of Flames

Such was his defeat.

Part Two

Tristien

Lord of the Yellow Banner

Chapter 9

Summer in the Yellow Realm

Celestine looked back at Encarmine, the first man she had ever loved as he slid from view. In the carriage, Captain Aidric sat across from her. His face a masked mirror that she saw her reflection in whenever she glanced at it.

I am changed. And like many in the red realm, wounded.

The choice to leave had been… merciless. Beyond brutal. Harder than when she had cast herself off the tower. At least that would have ended her torment. Now, she carried a tear in her soul.

To lose your crest is one kind of pain. But this heartbreak at leaving his side, at leaving a man you love but cannot love… is there anything worse?

She felt a true affinity for those dying on the battlefield now. Not for their wounds but for the names they called for. Marrying Encarmine would be a life of order, of stately obedience from his people, but beyond that, it would be absent from him. How many times could she watch him die? Tend to his wounds? Be alone season after season, the flame of the summer sun never scorching his shadow near her?

To love him was to let him set the order, and conflict would reign. But she could not bring battle and war to the people of the Painted Realm. It would have been the most selfish choice she had ever made. Yet she still wanted to stop this carriage now and run back to him

Captain Aidric regarded her, head tilted, fascinated. He held a black handkerchief out to her.

The fabric felt comforting in her fingers. So black, no light reflected from it. There was no point in being strong. She wept savagely, deeply. Part of her wanted to die. Part of her wanted the pain of life with Encarmine, with his people.

How many more would shed tears of grief if I wed him?

She would shed their tears instead.

After some time, Celestine’s moans and sobs turned into stifled things. Strangled in her throat. She drank water from a chilled chalice in the searing sun; the carriage carrying them along from the dusty fields of the Red Banner into the golden smell of hay and dew.

She held his ring, turning it over in her fingers. It would be further grief to wear it. At the end of summer, she would return to Calendar and declare a decision made or one not yet decided upon. How many more Lords could her heart entail? Likely none. They would use her body, her torment, and she would have to decide who was most tolerable.

Such was the fate of women bound by obligation. Encarmine would want her to be brave, she knew. For him, she wanted to. For her father, for the realm, she had to.

“Did other brides weep so?” Celestine handed the handkerchief back to Captain Aidric, his mirrored mask and black cloth behind it covering everything about him. But the slits of his metal eyes seemed kind, if that was possible.

“Many weep, Final Bride. The Hunt is no thing of beauty. Young maidens of age twenty and above, sent from every stripe of the Painted Realm to Calendar, all eager, all afraid. But there is no fear like that of being hunted. No terror like that of being caught. Torn. Ravaged. To see the Lords of Season riding down maidens is like a coven of beasts gorging themselves once a year.”

“They all die?”

Aidric stared at the tear-soaked handkerchief as if it were a talisman. He set it inside his breastplate with a gloved hand and regarded her. “No, my lady. Many are taken, but not all. Some are sent home. Some never. I cannot speak of what happens to them.”

Celestine stared out the impossible smoothness of the carriage window.

“We are in the realm of the Yellow Banner, now?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Lord Solis, he is beautiful. I remember that. Is he kind?”

The Mirrored Captain stared upon Celestine. She felt his eyes that she couldn’t see. The air seemed to hum with a strange buzzing for a moment. “Few men of power are kind, my lady. Not in their deepest hearts.”

It was not a great reassurance, but at least it was honest.

“Have any brides lived past Solis’ touch?”

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