They gave Sarisa a moment alone in her room, which felt less like kindness and more like the last pause before a sentence was read aloud.
When the maids left and the door shut behind them, the silence lasted all of three seconds before the world outside came rushing back in through the walls.
Footsteps in the corridor. Voices lowered in excitement. Music somewhere below, soft at first, then swelling as musicians tuned and tested the air. The whole palace had taken on that strange, shimmering hum of a place dressed for spectacle.
It was happening.
Sarisa stood in the middle of her room in white silk and pearls and did not know where to put her hands.
The veil lay light against her shoulders. The train of the dress curved over the floor like spilled moonlight. Every mirror in the room reflected some version of her, and every version looked like a woman from a story she did not want to live in.
From outside, through the open slit of the balcony doors, she could hear birds startled from the garden trees by the arriving carriages, could hear the soft roll of wheels on stone, the murmur of nobles gathering in the lower courtyard, the bright, brittle sound of a day everyone believed belonged to joy.
Sarisa wanted to scream.
Instead she stood very still and tried not to think of Lara.
Which, of course, meant she thought of nothing else.
Of the warmth of Lara's hands. Of the laugh she had swallowed into Sarisa's mouth that morning in another castle under another sky.
Of the ridiculous, impossible promise tucked inside the question would you run away with me.
A knock came at the door.
Then it opened before Sarisa could answer.
Elysia entered first.
She wore dark blue silk edged in silver, elegant enough to suit the day but softened by her own quiet grace. Beside her came Kaelith and Aliyah, and for one breath Sarisa forgot everything else in the room.
Aliyah looked so small and so beautiful that it hurt. Her dress was pale lavender with tiny silver stars sewn into the skirt, the sort of thing that made her look like a determined little fairy who had somehow wandered into a royal wedding and intended to improve it by force.
Her curls had been tamed into something almost formal, though one rebellious strand had already escaped to rest against her forehead.
Kaelith, meanwhile, had somehow been put into a miniature black suit with a tiny tie.
It should not have worked.
It worked far too well.
She looked like a very charming child mob boss.
The two girls stopped just inside the room and stared.
Then, together, with all the sincerity in the world, they said, "Wow."
Sarisa's throat closed so suddenly she almost laughed from the force of it.
"You look beautiful, Sarisa," Elysia said softly.
Sarisa looked at them, at Aliyah's wide eyes and Kaelith's solemn approval and Elysia's warmth, and almost cried then and there like a fool in white silk.
"Don't," she muttered to herself.
But Aliyah had already come running.
She threw herself against Sarisa with exactly enough caution not to crush the dress and exactly enough force to undo her anyway.
Kaelith followed a second later, all angles and affection and tiny suit buttons, and then Elysia too, folding all three of them into an embrace that smelled of perfume and morning and family chosen as much as born.
Sarisa closed her eyes.
For one small, impossible moment, she let herself have it.
Aliyah's little arms around her waist. Kaelith pressed against one side. Elysia's hand warm at the back of her head. Love, simple and immediate and not asking for permission from courts or crowns.
"It's almost fucking time," Sarisa whispered when she trusted her voice again.
Kaelith, muffled against the dress, whispered back, "Language."
That startled a laugh out of Sarisa despite everything.
Elysia drew back just enough to look at her. There was something in her eyes, something knowing and steady and dangerous in the way kind people became dangerous when protecting those they loved.
She opened her mouth.
Sarisa knew, somehow, that whatever she was about to say would matter.
Then a maid appeared at the door and shattered the moment with a breathless, formal urgency.
"Your Highness," she said, bowing low. "It is time. Let's go."
There it was.
No more pauses. No more private rooms. No more pretending that the day might somehow lose its nerve before the end of it.
Sarisa looked down once at Aliyah. At Kaelith. At Elysia.
Then she straightened.
"All right," she said.
The walk through the palace felt unreal.
The corridors were lined with flowers. White roses, silver lilies, drifts of pale blossoms chosen to suggest purity and grace and all the other lovely lies wealthy people liked best when arranging ceremonies.
Servants moved ahead and behind in careful patterns.
Music grew louder with every step, strings and soft voices rising through the stone like an enchantment.
The doors at the end of the final corridor stood open.
Beyond them lay the ceremony.
It was beautiful.
Fucking beautiful.
Sarisa hated that almost as much as she hated the dress.
The whole garden court had been transformed. White silk canopies floated overhead, catching the light and making everything glow.
Lanterns of silver glass hung among the trees, though it was still day, and their tiny flames flickered like stars trapped in daylight.
Flowers climbed every arch. The aisle itself ran like a pale ribbon through rows of carved white chairs already full of people.
So many people.
Nobles, ministers, allied houses, generals, distant relatives, women in pearls, men in dark formal coats, all of them turned toward the aisle with expectant faces. They looked pleased. Moved. Hungry for the moment.
Sarisa saw them all and none of them.
Her eyes found the front first.
The altar stood beneath a flowering arch, white stone and silver filigree and a priest waiting with a solemn, practiced expression. And there, already in place, stood Vaelen.
Of course he looked perfect.
His suit was black and silver, cut so sharply it made him seem carved rather than dressed. His hair had been arranged just enough to look natural.
His smile was measured, princely, warm in the way people applauded. He looked like the image of a husband people would sketch into history books and point to as an example of noble union.
Fuck him.
Her gaze slid farther, desperate for something else.
There. Veylira. Raveth. Malvoria. All seated to one side in the front section reserved for family and honored guests. Veylira sat like a queen among wolves, composed and lethal.
Raveth looked as though she'd prefer to be sharpening knives. Malvoria, black-clad and brilliant, met Sarisa's eyes from across the rows and gave the smallest incline of her chin.
A promise.
A signal.
An I'm here.
Sarisa looked beyond them anyway.
Looked to the shadows between the trees, to the back rows, to the edges of the gathered crowd where impossible hopes liked to hide.
No Lara.
Of course not.
She had been exiled. She could not simply appear among the guests in broad daylight and sit quietly while a prince stole the life she wanted. That was the whole point of exile. To make absence look lawful.
Still, the lack of her hit like a blow.
Sarisa stood at the edge of the aisle with Elysia at one side and the two girls close behind, and for one terrible second the whole world narrowed into one piercing, unbearable thought:
I hope something happens.
The music swelled.
A breeze moved through the silk overhead and stirred the veil against Sarisa's cheek.
She took one step.
Then another.
The garden held its breath.
And then—
An explosion tore through the far side of the ceremony.
Not close to the altar. Close enough to be heard, to be felt, to send heat and sound crashing over the gathered crowd in a violent wave of shock.
People screamed.
Birds burst from the trees in a wild black cloud.
The silk canopies shuddered.
Sarisa stopped dead in the aisle, heart slamming hard against her ribs as heads whipped around, guards shouted, nobles stumbled from their seats, and smoke began to rise beyond the white arches in a thick dark curl.
Out of that chaos, out of the broken edge of the garden wall where everyone had turned too late to stop it, a masked figure appeared.