KAEL POV
The first servant pulled too tight on her hair.
Kael's scalp burned, and she wanted to scream. She wanted to grab the woman's wrist and tell her that queens didn't get their heads yanked around like dolls. But she sat still in the chair with her hands folded and said nothing.
This was the price of getting what she wanted. This was what survival looked like.
They'd brought six women to prepare her. Six. Like one person wasn't enough to transform the last mage of a destroyed empire into a proper bride. They moved around her with practiced efficiency, treating her like she was a statue instead of a person.
One painted her face. Another did her nails. A third arranged flowers in her hair while a fourth fitted her into a dress so heavy it felt like armor.
White and gold. The colors of Valorian. Not a single thread of Meridian's silver and deep blue. Not one symbol of who she was before this morning.
Kael stared at her reflection in the mirror and didn't recognize the woman looking back at her.
Her skin was pale as marble. Her lips were painted a shade of red that looked like blood. Her hair was woven with pearls until it didn't even look like hair anymore. It looked like something precious that had been put on display.
She looked like a possession.
"You're beautiful," one of the servants whispered.
Kael wanted to laugh. Beauty was just another cage. Beauty was what made people think you belonged to them.
The door opened without a knock.
Helena slipped inside like a ghost, and the servants scattered like she'd brought a storm with her. Kael's sister was still wearing her maid's uniform, but her face was pale with something that looked like panic.
When their eyes met, Kael felt her control crack.
She stood up and pulled Helena into her arms. They held each other without speaking because there weren't words big enough for what they'd lost. For two years of separation. For a sister who'd hidden herself in the enemy's palace. For secrets that Kael still didn't understand.
"I'm sorry," Helena whispered against Kael's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you everything but I can't. Not yet. You have to get through today first."
"Tell me now," Kael said. "Before I do this. Before I walk into that room and tie myself to him forever."
Helena pulled back. Her eyes were red and wet. There was guilt in them so deep it looked like drowning.
"Some truths cost more than they're worth," Helena said. "And this one will tear apart everything you're about to build. Just marry him. Find out on your own terms. Please."
"Helena—"
"I love you," her sister said. "I'm so sorry I can't be braver about this."
She was gone before Kael could grab her again. Just gone, leaving behind the smell of lavender and the weight of unsaid things.
Kael stood alone in the preparation chamber with a dress that didn't belong to her and hair that wasn't hers and a face that looked like a stranger's.
The servants came back. They finished the last details. They sprayed something on her that smelled like roses. They checked her reflection one more time and declared her ready.
Ready for what? To betray her people? To sleep next to the man who'd burned her world? To smile and pretend this was anything but a cage made of gold?
When the doors opened, the throne room was full of people.
Hundreds of them. Valorian nobles in their dark colors. Meridian survivors who'd been given seats as a symbol of the new alliance. Guards standing at attention. Mirrors reflecting candlelight so the room glowed like something alive.
And at the end of the aisle, waiting at the altar.
Darius.
He was dressed in black and silver, and he looked like something that had been carved from stone. His dark hair fell across his forehead. His storm-gray eyes were fixed on her. And the expression on his face when he saw her made her breath catch.
He looked at her like she was something precious instead of something conquered.
Like she mattered.
Kael walked down the aisle and felt like she was walking into a trap. The music played. The crowd watched. Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might break through her ribs.
When she reached him, Darius took her hand.
The moment his skin touched hers, everything changed.
A spark of electricity ran up her arm. Her magic woke up inside her chest, suddenly alive and aware and reaching toward him like it recognized something. Like it knew him. Like every part of her that was magic was saying yes to something her mind hadn't agreed to yet.
She looked up at him.
His pupils were wide. He felt it too. She could see it in the way his jaw tightened. In the way his hand gripped hers a little tighter.
The priest began speaking words about alliance and peace and the joining of two empires.
But Kael wasn't listening. She was staring at the man holding her hand and trying to understand why her body was responding to him like this. Why her magic was burning beneath her skin like it was greeting someone it had been waiting for.
Why she could feel something like recognition passing between them.
"Your magic," Darius whispered so quietly no one else could hear. "It's burning."
"I know," she said back.
Their eyes held. The priest was still talking but they weren't listening. They were having a conversation that had nothing to do with words.
"Don't be afraid," Darius said.
"I'm terrified," she told him truthfully.
He smiled then. Just slightly. Just enough to show her that he understood. That he was terrified too.
"The rings," the priest announced.
Darius reached for the black iron ring. But before he could slip it onto her finger, Kael felt it.
A pulse of magic so strong it made her stumble.
It came from somewhere in the crowd. From somewhere behind them. A wave of power that felt wrong. That felt hungry.
She turned her head sharply.
In the crowd of Valorian nobles, standing next to a silver-bearded man Kael recognized as the Chancellor, was a woman with copper skin and eyes like smoke.
Those eyes were staring at Kael with so much hatred that it felt like a physical thing.
The woman smiled when their eyes met. It was a smile that promised war.
And in that moment, Kael understood that this wedding wasn't a peace treaty.
It was a declaration of something else entirely.
A beginning to a battle that would tear apart everything she thought she understood.
Darius slipped the ring onto her finger. It was cold as ice. Heavy as a crown.
"I do," she heard herself say.
And somewhere in the watching crowd, that copper-skinned woman's smile grew wider.