Page 35 of The Last of the Dark Lords

I didn't answer. It didn’t seem right to correct him on the way to our wedding.

"Let's go,” Cyrus said. “We don't want to keep Manod. He gets impatient."

Jelenna waited for me in a small, bare room next to the entrance to the chapel. When I walked through the door, she smiled, but there was a palpable tension underneath it. She closed the door behind me after checking the hallway for people.

"You look nice." She locked the door.

"Thank you?"

She turned to me, straightening the collar on my robe.

"You're getting married." Her tone was inscrutable, her eyes boring into me.

"I am."

"Tonight, you must perform your appointed task."

I didn’t say anything. I understood what I'd been assigned to do. But I also knew that in fifteen minutes, Cyrus would be my husband.

"Skye?"

"He’s not a monster,” I said, the words rushing out of me. “He makes me crazy sometimes, but he’s trying to do what's right, to be a leader."

"It's a facade. It's not real." Jelenna maintained a flat, emotionless tone, but she clenched her fists as she spoke.

"I stood beside him when he saved those villagers from the fire. It was real. It cost him. He wants to do what’s best for his people."

"What aboutourpeople?" Jelenna stepped away from me, picking something up from a nearby table.

"I...I don't know. I need to understand things better. I can’t do it tonight. I need to write Grandmother, to get some clarity.”

Jelenna brought hands up to my throat, pulling my collar out. In her hand was a small brooch: a gold bow, the symbol of the Archers. She attached it to my robes, her fingers gentle but sure.

"You've known him for a week,” she said. “Don't forget your home because you have a crush."

"It's not that simple."

She raised an eyebrow to me, but I continued.

“People say you can sense emotion through the marriage bond. What if we get married, and I find there’s no trace of deception? What if he is exactly who he says he is?”

She stepped back, appraising me from head to toe, and sighed. She was my oldest friend. She knew when I wasn't going to change my mind.

She smiled again. It was bittersweet, but it was genuine this time. "You really do look very nice."

"Thank you,” I said, trying to project the calm and certainty that I didn't feel. I held out my arm. She took it, and we walked out together.

The chapel of Stahkla was beautiful, if dark for my tastes. It was on the lowest level, and the walls were not constructed from stone blocks, but rather had been hewn out of a single enormousboulder of black chalcedony. It was an astonishing feat, and I could only imagine that they had needed the help of the God of Fire and Metal to complete it. The walls were covered in candles, and where an altar would be, there was a pit with a blazing bonfire contained within.

Manod stood in front of the fire, his arms outstretched in welcome. His robes were black, and emblazoned upon them were symbols of flame, similar to the banners Cyrus’ soldiers had carried. They pulsed orange with magical energy.

Excitement shown on Manod’s face, cutting through any of the weariness of old age. Jelenna let go of my arm and stepped to the side. I approached the bonfire.

"There’s a complicated ritual that we do mostly to impress the masses. We'll save that for the public wedding. Today, we enact the part that actually matters." Manod gestured down the chapel aisle. "Your intended has arrived."

I turned to see Cyrus in the doorway of the chapel. His robes sparkled in the light of the bonfire, and the crown on his head swirled with yellow and amber and pink. In the previous times I’d seen it come to life, it had been a deep, fiery orange, but these were the colors of the setting sun.

He exuded a noble air that was undercut by a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

---