“I would choose you,” she said across from him.
The dawnstone gleamed orange on the pedestal to her left. The red diamond shone beside him.
“And yet, your suit is a trifle plain.” She hadn’t embossed any of the armor plates.
He smiled so that only she could see. “And how can that simple dress contain your complexity? We both need more color.”
“The ritual will have to begin without,” Hiresha said. “Where is Guile?”
“Always close,” a crone said in a quiet voice. She wore a black robe, the cowl pulled far over her head. That shriveled, whiskered face might even have belonged to an old man. Guile had been standing between the pedestals the entire time, yet in memory she was only a floating mask, half black, half white.
Hiresha’s skin tingled with sweat beneath her armor. The happy lights of countless jewels danced in her vision, yet she focused past them. She inclined her head to Guile.
“Tonight,” Guile said, “we will witness the union of two great beings, the Lady Hiresha, and the Lord Tethiel.”
The guests could not be surprised. Some might’ve hoped otherwise, yet by now they could not doubt. Hiresha would have chosen no other than Tethiel, not in this world, not in this facet, not tonight. Of all those on the corsair, only the king brute dared show any discontent. He crushed one of his ornamental feathers in a fist.
“Before we begin,” Guile said, “are there any here who would oppose this marriage? Speak now or abandon all hope.”
The assassins kept their silence. The king brute lacked their composure. He took a step forward; he raised his axe.
The dragon snatched him away.
His blood showered the bridal couple. Enchantments in their crowns Repulsed the gore from their faces. Hiresha flicked a section of entrails from Tethiel’s shoulder then stepped back to admire the splatter pattern across his chest.
“Now you’re perfect,” she said.
“And you’ve found your color.” He waved to her armor.
Red glistened on her metal gown. Red shone in the engagement diamond. Red crept over the corner of the eclipsing moon.
The ritual could at last begin.
Tethiel wouldn’t deny it. Hiresha made a striking pose with the egg orb lifted over her head. The fingers of her gauntlet fitted together like purple teeth, and no honest man could help but kiss them all and lick off the stray flecks of blood. Luckily, Tethiel was no honest man and kept his composure. All he needed do now in the wedding was be magnificent.
Hiresha hurled the orb against the crystal of the deck. The artifact fractured into spinning pieces of opal, and out steamed wraiths.
“They shall be your guardian spirits,” Guile said. “May they watch over both of you and your happiness.”
The wraiths frolicked around the ship, singing their screams. What a choice discord. Tethiel imagined the spirits rehearsing their wailing chorus together. They curdled the mist into a sallow fume, and the patches of sail they flew through became frosted in witchy symbols.
Tethiel clapped. The guests gave a half cheer. They had developed an odor of lemon meringue pie, over the execution of the king brute. Anyone who tried to undermine a wedding’s glee deserved death. None could argue against that, but Tethiel could soften the worries concerning who would rule the newly de-kinged Sky Islands.
Prepare your part. The sending went to the Mimic. Or your experience feigning death will be put to waste.
The Mimic started his method. His subject had been ripped apart by dragon claws, flown away from the ship and out of mortal sight, dragged high enough to flirt with stars, and then dropped into the sea. His scent of triple-chocolate fudge had lasted all the way through his plummet into the mists then ended at what must have been the waves. The ship couldn’t have reached land yet. The city was too far to smell.
The king had died, but truth was never more than opinion. The guests likely hadn’t seen all of his demise in the night, except for Xochi, and cats kept their secrets.
“My heart.” Tethiel pointed above Hiresha’s tastefully spiked shoulder plate. Her dragon leaned over the ship railing, and the king dribbled out from between the crystal fangs. Fos the Bronze-Brained stepped back and held his nose. “On so joyous a night, might we indulge in second chances?”
“We may.” Hiresha glanced from the assassins to the pile of king. “His only mistake was his rampant stupidity.”
She remembered the code phrase. Of course she did. Hiresha stood above the corpse, raised her gauntlets then clenched them. She understood the vital importance of panache. The Mimic did the rest. He pulled in his innards, tucked in his skin, threw in some moans and twitching for style, and swayed upright as the king.
“The cavern of the next life opened to me,” the Mimic said. He had become the king brute, down to the mismatched pupils in his wild eyes. “Then closed. I would’ve waded through the rivers of blades and pus. I would’ve wrestled the caiman who never sleeps.”
Actors, they needed so little provocation to threaten good men and women with monologue.
“But I see the greater challenge is to live.” The Mimic knelt before Hiresha. “And to ask forgiveness. I never should’ve wanted you for myself. Your destiny is with him.”
Hiresha had to be bottling in her laughter. “I’m glad to see that death has taught you a lesson.”
The aroma of raspberry muffins baked with cloves wafted from the Mimic. He feared disapproval for his performance and the following dismemberment. The other guests seemed to accept him as the king. His change of tone could be allowed after a short affair with death. The charade would be kept up for a week, until Tethiel could wrest firmer control over the kingdoms.
“It’s a wedding miracle.” The matriarch fanned her face. Her opinion of the man’s smell doubtless had changed little, resurrection or no.
“One wonder among many,” Guile said. With a gesture of her exquisitely wrinkled hand she harnessed attention back to the ritual. “A few miracles I’ve brought myself for the bridal couple.”
Veiled servants bowed their way forward with treasure boxes. Guile opened one and drew out two daggers made of what could’ve been green glass or the souls of those murdered by jealous greed then trapped in crystal for an eternity of bitterness. The second one sounded better, and that was reason enough for Tethiel to believe.
“Hold these close.” Guile pressed the blades into his and Hiresha’s gauntlets. “Never speak ill of the other, or by the Oathkeeper Daggers will your tongue be cut. Betray, and you will lose your heart.”
The Talon groaned and swayed nearby. He hugged his true love, his own knife.
“Swear over the daggers you’ll keep each other’s trust,” Guile said.
“By death and fine dining, I swear,” Tethiel said.
Maybe it was the magic in the dagger, or maybe it was standing across from such a woman that sent his heart thudding with wine. Every beat in his chest corroded his insides. It shivered his spine with pain then reinvigorated him with time-stretching bliss.
Schemes years in the making were coming true. He would wed Hiresha. Tethiel could leap to the moon and devour it to its last frosted crumb. He could melt into slime, boneless but still hungry for blood. How dreadful to feel this way. How monstrous. If only it lasted.
Hiresha turned her dagger over. “This is a wholly new method of enchanting.”
“A blessing from the masked gods,” Guile said. Between scab fingernails she lifted a glass bell. “As is the Chime of Silence. Use it to diffuse arguments between you.”
Tethiel took the bell. “And what if the argument is sustained silence? It can be ever so loud.”
“We’ll be much too busy to argue,” Hiresha said.
“Why must bride and groom swear off all pleasures at the altar?” Tethiel passed the bell to Jerani. The dear grape was ripe to bursting with uncertainty for Celaise.
Hiresha sniffed with finesse. With that sound she could shame a ballroom to silence, better than any magic
bell. “Maybe you should fear less what happens after our vows and more about surviving through them.”
She had threatened him. By all the fangs in the sea and the hearts of men, Hiresha was richer than cake in gold foil!
“My last gift,” Guile said and held out a bowl of chipped wood. “Let its common appearance trick the simpleminded. This is a phylactery for the spirit of your devotion. Should your love ever die, drink from this bowl, and your passion will reanimate as strong as it is now.”
“Love is a fever dream of the ego,” Hiresha said. “Will this relic restore trust?”
Tethiel knew he had chosen the right bride. A relationship had every chance of being splendid and enduring so long as it was devoid of love.
“The phylactery will restore all between you.” Guile held the bowl while waiters poured in water. “Now drink, and your bond will be eternal.”
He and Hiresha cupped the bowl together. She pulled his head against hers. Their helmets clanked. The bowl tipped and sluiced over their faces.
No, he couldn’t believe this was water. Not that air jelly he sometimes had to choke down. This was melted snow from peaks haunted with the ambition of dead climbers. It was liquid hubris, reckless opportunity, and well-gotten gains. Or drinking it with Hiresha made it so. What a world he might craft with her.
They both smiled. Her chin was damp. He kissed it dry. He knew they shouldn’t do that this soon in the ritual, and that made it all the sweeter.
“Drink to them,” Guile said to the guests. She and the rest lifted chalices. A waiter held out a saucer for the jaguar knight. “May their marriage be eternal.”
“Eternal!”
“To eternal love.”
“Eternal rule,” the Mimic said with a pump of his royal axe. He did know how to play to the audience.
The matriarch took up the call. “May they rule forever.”
“Forever rule! Forever rule!”
Nothing like hearing people chanting in your honor to help you remember the importance of humility. For others.
“I expect,” Hiresha said, “we’ll have a long honeymoon on a remote island. I could achieve much with a few years of uninterrupted work.”
“No, you must stay.” The Talon pointed his knife toward the Bright Palms. “You promised to oversee their sacrifices.”
Alyla kept up the nonchalance of the paralyzed. “The Order of the Innocent will need you, to mediate with the Dominion. As well as the new Feasters.”
“Casters, you mean,” Tethiel said. Their scheme was working. He must try to push the guests further away or they would never accept Hiresha and him. “You ask too much. The wedding ritual isn’t even finished, and already you’d consign us to the tedium of helping you rule your lands?”
“Might need you,” Ix the Green Blood said. “Could be trouble after the King of Gangral shits out his own liver. And I take his crown.”
“The Lands of Loam are vast,” Hiresha said. “I’ll have many mineral deposits to explore outside the Dominion.”
The jaguar knight’s muscles rippled under his fur as they tensed. He snorted and made a downward motion with his tail. Xochi too insisted they stay, that orange jubilee.
Hiresha’s fox squeaked in support of his new feline friend.
Tethiel had won, with Hiresha. The roaring pride in him was a deeper shade of crimson than the eclipsed moon. Redness had consumed its pale face bite by bite. Now the moon dyed the night. The fog rolled beneath the boat in a tide of blood.
“They are all against us.” Tethiel turned to Hiresha. They still held the magical wooden bowl between them. “We must surrender to their wishes and rule.”
“If we must, we must,” she said.
He and Hiresha exchanged a look blissfully bereft of love. Wraiths circled above and added their crazed voices to the chorus of well wishing.
Tethiel lifted the phylactery to his bride. “An eternity with you will be far too short.”
The amethyst dragon towed Hiresha’s corsair between the city towers. The sail wings brushed against the buildings. Cloth dyed black swept around the stone contours and jostled window plants. Mist billowed up from the city’s fog.
The night stars gleamed brighter relative to the moon. Its face had darkened to the shade of a spessartine gem, except for the lower left edge which glared a lighter red, almost rubellite in hue.
The moments plinked by Hiresha, each precious and unforgettable. No greater joy could be experienced than the fruition of a plan, and this happiness she shared with Tethiel.
Between them, Guile lifted her arms to the guests. Her long sleeves draped open, and metal glimmered from within their depths. “Seven seals are all that now bar this marriage. Seven, for seven guests.”
Servers bowed and lifted up circular tiles. The clay tablets were painted half white and half black. They were given to the greatest guests, though Alyla needed the other Bright Palm to hold hers. The jaguar knight gripped his between fangs.
“Break your seal, and by your hand these two will marry,” Guile said. “Break it and swear to protect their union. Give your oath to keep their counsel, to support them in war and peace, to share in their victories. Break it and gain the Lady Hiresha’s blessing to wear her armor of invulnerability, to be shielded by the Lord Tethiel’s shadows.”
This was the final test. If the guests agreed to this then the wedding would be a success. She knew it would be. Hiresha couldn’t allow it to fail now. Should anyone refuse the oath, she would have to slay and replace her or him as expeditiously as she had the king brute. The guests would suspect this.
Ix’s orb eyes swiveled toward the king then up at dragon. Hiresha willed the construct to perch on the prow. Let its faceted chest be her wedding altar. Behind it loomed an unlit tower.
Both Green Bloods exchanged a look. Saul nodded, a dip of their chin. Ix returned the slight gesture. They had decided.
Ix threw down the seal, and it shattered against the deck into seventeen parts. “By all the venom in my heart, I swear.”
The next cracking sound came from the seal between the jaguar’s jaws. Then Fos snapped his between his hands. All the guests were breaking seals and kneeling. The fennec sprang around them, spraying out trills of perfect pitches. Hiresha’s time had come. Everything had aligned. The stars gleamed above like an infinity of diamonds.
More precious to Hiresha was the light of the single jewel before her, the red paragon. The gnarled hands of Guile beckoned Tethiel to take it. He snaked the chain off its pedestal. The moon’s crimson glow enhanced the color.
The jewel swung between his hands; the necklace was perpendicular to Hiresha’s throat. Tethiel could wrap it around her with such ease. Soon she would feel the weight of the diamond against her chest. They only had to wait for Guile to speak the vow.
“Under the eyes of the gods and witnessed by these assembled powers of the Lands of Loam, Hiresha, will you take Tethiel as your wedded ally? To share your confidences in times of rule and rout, to make war and law together, to heal him in sickness and treasure him in health, to never betray, to forsake all other partners until your demise?”
As the red diamond swayed, all two-hundred and forty-five of its facets flashed from red to white. Tethiel’s hands lit with flecks of the gem’s fire. Hiresha knew this moment would be the end of independence and the beginning of something greater.
“Will you swear in blood?” Guile asked.
“I will.”
Hiresha lifted the malachite dagger. She flicked it across her tongue, and out blossomed heat.
The coldness of the chain seared around her neck. The links pierced her to the core without cutting her skin. The red diamond rested against her, swaying in time to her heartbeat and the throb of blood flowing into her mouth.
With a rustle of fabrics, servants held a purple cape to her back. Tethiel pressed the necklace against it with his gauntleted hands, and the men clasped it in place. His vow would come next, yet first Hiresha would tell him the trut
h.
She wrapped her gauntlet around his head to hold him close. “You did not ask how I killed the other you.”
“I never ask a lady to give up all her secrets.”
“With an amulet.” Hiresha tapped his breastplate where his marriage jewel would lie. “You wore it out of trust.”
She lifted his pendant from its stand. Traditionally, the women of Morimound wore both chains, and only the wife swore to be loyal. This ritual would form a better partnership, if Tethiel consented. She offered him everything. The dawnstone she held before him shimmered sunrise orange with an enchantment of everlasting life and sudden death.
Possibly she shouldn’t have told him. A lord of fear he was, but not fear’s master. She had seen before how his caution could make him balk. Then all would splinter into ruin.
Guile pronounced Tethiel’s vow. It was identical, except his included the phrase, “To care for her by night or by day.”
Her heart crashed louder than the storm’s distant thunder. More lightning of anticipation surged through her merely thinking about him refusing. He could vanish back into the shadows and be gone with the dawn. She might never see him again.
Yet, he wouldn’t. Tethiel would swear himself to her. She knew it with the resounding deepness of a dreamer seeing the future. In the other facet, she had killed him. In this, she would wed him. The jewels of her two lives spun against each other. Each facet fitted together. Memories reflected into prophecies.
Hiresha could never be wrong. She could never know what was real.
“Will you swear in blood?” Guile asked him.
An orange mote from the sapphire zipped across his face then was gone. He would swear now; she was certain of it, and yet he waited. Seven heartbeats thrummed by, then eight. He was dragging it out, the rapscallion, making the guests lean in to hear.
“I will.” Tethiel gashed his tongue.
A laugh burst out of Hiresha’s throat. She pressed the chain against him, and servants pinned it to a cape of red. A red diamond rested on her chest. The red moon rose from behind his shoulder and above a shadowed tower.
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