“It is what I’ve prepared you for since you were a child,” Lady Coutre said. “How to be a good wife to a nobleman of power.”

“But the circumstances!”

Lady Coutre took Estora’s hands, and suddenly she looked frail, scared, alone. “My dear, dear child, when we enter a marriage, we never know what will happen the next day. This morning when your father awoke from bed, he was robust, as healthy as I have ever seen him with a shine in his eyes and ready to challenge the world. By the afternoon, he was dead. Cold, so very cold.

“Tomorrow, Zachary may be gone, or he may not be. His fate is up to the gods, but it is clear to me he needs you more than ever to watch over him, and to watch over his realm. Who better to advocate on his behalf than the woman with whom he agreed to spend the rest of his life?”

They embraced and cried together, and Estora came to a decision.

The ceremony took place in Zachary’s dimly lit bedchamber, the groom restless in some fevered dream beneath his sheets while an assistant mender applied cold, wet cloths to his forehead. The bride still wore her riding habit and mourning shawl. Someone had found dried flowers for her to hold since the ground was still much too cold for plant growth.

The castle’s moon priest and a pair of his acolytes performed the ceremony, and it was witnessed by Lady Coutre, Estora’s sisters, Richmont, Colin, General Harborough, Master Destarion, and the lord-mayor of Sacor City, who was accompanied by a law speaker. Four Weapons stood in the corners, both guardians and witnesses. Zachary’s chamber was spacious, but it didn’t feel so with such a crowd in it. Estora felt the absence of her father keenly and fought back tears. He should have been here.

The priest droned on about fidelity and companionship, love of the gods, love of family, and fertility. He tinkled a series of delicate silver bells each representing one of the seven virtues. They were supposed to exorcise past sins so the couple could enter marriage unencumbered and unbesmirched by the past. Estora was instructed to take Zachary’s hand. It was hot and sweaty. Heavy.

“Do you pledge to the gods your love and fealty for Zachary our king?” the priest asked her.

“Yes.”

A like question was asked of Zachary about her, but since he could not answer, Colin spoke for him.

“The rings,” the priest said.

Colin produced the rings, both gold, both filigreed with an interlocking crescent moon design. Estora and Zachary had been measured for the rings months ago. She had not known their crafting was complete.

The priest sang over the rings, then asked Colin to slip Estora’s on. He did, trembling as if he were the groom himself. Then Estora worked Zachary’s ring onto his swollen finger.

“Zachary and Estora, you are wed. May the blessings of Aeryc and Aeryon be upon you now and forever.”

Estora bent and kissed Zachary’s unresponsive lips to seal the spiritual contract. There was no clapping, no jokes, no well-wishes called out to the bride and groom. One final rite would remain unfulfilled this night, the tradition of the bride coming to her husband’s bed for the first time, the rite of consummation.

Those present paraded from the chamber like mourners to sign the legal contract of marriage awaiting them in the anteroom, proclaiming them witnesses to the event. Only Estora’s mother and sisters paused to hug and kiss her. They also bent to kiss Zachary who was now son and brother to them by law.

When they were gone, Estora slumped into the chair beside Zachary and said, “I should like to hear what you’d have to say about the wedding being moved up by three months. I pray that I shall.”

He did not respond. She took his hand again, the one with the ring, and pressed it to her face. “Please don’t die,” she whispered. “I’m not ready to do this on my own. Please don’t die.”

She’d already lost her first love, F’ryan Coblebay, to arrows. She was not sure she could endure another such loss again.

THE LIGHTED PATH

When Karigan’s boots touched the ground on the Blackveil side of the wall, she felt as though she faced another wall, but this one of shifting mists that wafted between her companions, graying some of them out while exposing the others. Tree limbs reached out of the vapor, crooked, amorphous, adrift.

She was also met with a wall of silence. Her companions did not speak. The Eletians stood so still they could have been ancient statues of lost Argenthyne. Lynx bowed his head and covered his ears as if the quiet hurt them. The others peered into the forest, trying to see beyond the mist, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

“They smell of fear.” Graelalea had come silently to stand beside Karigan.

“What about me?” Karigan asked. “Do I smell of fear, too?”

Graelalea did not respond, but Karigan could guess. As for the Eletians, their features remained stoic. Did they feel fear being in Blackveil? Despair? Outrage at what had become of their ancient land?

When Karigan glanced once more at Graelalea, she was startled to find a pair of tears gliding down the Eletian’s cheeks. Karigan watched them plummet to the forest floor and splatter among the choked weeds and muck.

Sorrow, Karigan thought. That is what they feel.

Graelalea strode over to Lynx. She lifted his hands away from his ears and spoke quietly to him.

“I hear everything and nothing,” he responded. “As though the world howls.”

Graelalea said something more and Lynx nodded.

“I shall try it.” He closed his eyes for several moments and his expression and posture relaxed. When his eyes flickered open, he said, “Yes, that worked. It’s barely a murmur now.”