Page 9 of His Bride

“Lady Mila Darken,” she says, using a name I hardly recognize, let alone identify with. “I am Lydia, sworn to protect you. Where are your bags? The boys will carry them.”

“I don’t have any.”

“I see,” she says, not raising so much as an eyebrow at that news. “If you would care to come with me, a vehicle awaits to take you to your husband.”

My husband. I have ahusband.

The term feels foreign to me. The concept seems like something that was meant for someone else. Because it is. Maraline should be here, not me.

I am led through the airport and out to a vehicle. It is armored, which surprises me at first, but when I think about it, I suppose a general would have to have an armored mode of transport. I have become a general’s wife; does that make me a target too?

I don’t want to think about it, and I don’t have to, because I am far too busy marveling at the city I find myself in. It is built of glass spires that erupt from the ground and go on to pierce the heavens. The cloud layers are lower than the tops of the buildings, and when I look up, I can see some of them appearing through the clouds from time to time. There are so many of them, the effect is like being in a crystal jungle, surrounded by overly large shards of engineered material.

The roads that run between them are pristine blue. They look icy as well.

“What are these roads?” I ask the question with a sense of true wonder.

“They are made with solar and motion panels,” Lydia explains. “Energy from the sun and from vehicles traveling along them is collected and fed back into the main power grid. It makes things much more efficient.”

“Wow,” I say, somewhat understanding her explanation.

This is a much more advanced part of the Artifice’s civilization. I notice that there are no trees, no grass, no birds, and no bugs. The only living things here are the people getting in and out of vehicles and looking very impressive one way or another. The dress here is very different. Even if Maraline were to have arrived in her finest hand-sewn gown, she would have appeared somehow dowdy, I think. The fabrics and textures on display look like they come from some fashionable future. They are shiny and sleek, and they are cut in angles and curves that flatter the body more tightly than anything worn back home.

I stare out at this world, which seems to have replaced nature with endless construction. Even the rocks here are smooth andused to create buildings or pavements seamlessly. There are no cobbles or bricks, just great expanses of smooth terrain. Everything is set out on a grid, not a square one, but a geometry of a sharper kind that makes many of the buildings appear like razors slicing the sky.

Lydia does not speak to me in the vehicle, though she sits right next to me, with the other two in the front. I could almost forget that they were there entirely.

“We have arrived, Lady Darken,” she says.

That really does not feel like my name, but I cannot very well tell her not to call me that. Or maybe I can.

“Please,” I say. “Call me Mila.”

“That would be very inappropriate, Lady Darken.”

I am crestfallen for a moment. “Would it not be more inappropriate to address me in a manner that does not please me?”

My personal guard gives me a long, hard stare that transmits a lot of information without a word being said.Listen here, you little shit, it says.I will call you Lady Darken, because that is your formal title, and I don’t intend to be improper in the eyes of society in order to pander to the whims of a country brat who just got here.

It’s an impressive tirade, and it comes in absolute silence.

“Or Lady Darken is fine too,” I mumble. “Where is the house?”

“Here.”

I turn to look at the building she gestures to, noticing that her rather large hand is festooned in rings with variousprotuberances that would absolutely decimate someone if she were to, say, punch them in the face.

“This?”

I thought my family home was large. I thought we had extensive grounds. I thought I knew what it was to be rich and powerful. But this is a building that not only covers an entire city block, but rises many dozens of floors above my head, so tall that I cannot see the top of it. Unlike the many shimmering towers in the city, this one is fronted by obsidian black, giving the impression of having no windows whatsoever. It is not so much a building as it is a monolith.

“How many people live here?”

“This is the Archon-General’s home, as well as the garrison for those under his command. The first twenty floors are occupied by soldiers. Above that is personal family space,” she explains.

“Twenty floors of soldiers? There must be… hundreds?”

“Thousands,” she confirms.

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