*~*~*
Vasya stared at the stars, Emeline leaning against his side. They'd dragged beds out here to a courtyard and pressed them together―Gennadi had suggested it, as he hadn't much like the idea of sleeping in a fully enclosed area. He was asleep now, though the way he tossed and turned suggested it wasn't a truly restful slumber. And Lisette hadn't been able to get to sleep at all; after fidgeting restlessly for a time, she had excused herself, saying that she would be back later.
"Vasya?"
"Yes?"
She edged away slightly, her gaze on Gennadi. "Do you think it forgivable to mourn her? My daughter?"
"Of course."
"She would have killed Gennadi. Did kill thirteen protesters and Nazar..."
"And she was still your child."
"I should have saved her," Emeline said. "Long before her heart grew cold. I had so many chances―"
"The king would never have allowed it. You know this."
"I will make an agreement with you," she said. "I will let go of my guilt for this when you can let go of the guilt for your deathfights."
He smiled faintly. "Fair enough."
"Does it at least fade?" she asked. "In time?"
"My sister's boy would be an adult today," he said. "I could not save him, I know that now. But had I... had I found it within myself to strike, I could have made it quick. Could have spared him Grisha's tortures."
"What was his name?"
"Remy," he said quietly. "It doesn't ever go away. But it will become manageable, most of the time."
She leaned against him again, as Lisette came back into the courtyard and sat down behind Emeline. She had braided her own hair for the night, and began to braid Emeline's as well.
*~*~*
When Gennadi opened his eyes, it was to see the two faces he'd grown to hate most in the world, smiling at him.
"There you are," Ilari said, before giving Grisha a sly glance. "I think we may have been a bit too hard on him the last time; it took him forever to wake up."
Grisha chuckled. "And he looks so surprised! Tell me, Huntsman, where were you expecting to be?"
"You... you're dead," Gennadi stammered, struggling to free himself. This wasn't true, it couldn't be; he'd been rescued from here. His wrists weren't bound any longer; the cuts and bruises on his body had almost healed. And Emeline was alive, was safe, and was with him. Vasya and Lisette as well. "Both of you. You're―"
Ilari raised her eyebrows at him and then laughed. "That must have been some dream."
"Indeed," Grisha said, reaching back to take hold of a fireplace poker, lifting the pointed end out of the flames it had been resting in. "Do me a favor, darling, and hold his eye open."
"Of course." She fisted a hand in his hair and shoved his head back, using the thumb and forefinger on her other hand to force his left eye open wide. Grisha stepped forward, the poker held out in front of him, and though Gennadi's eyes were watering too much to let him see, he could feel the heat growing closer and closer to his face.
He woke up screaming.
An instant later, hands were on his shoulders, questions were murmured, and he swung at the source of the voice before he realized it was Vasya speaking to him, trying to pull him closer.
Gennadi scrambled off the bed, tumbling to the ground, his arms outstretched to keep the other man at a distance. He moved around the courtyard, nearly snarling whenever he happened to brush against a wall, his heart hammering and his mind flooding him with panic.
Tilting his head back, he looked at the stars, trying to reassure himself with the sight. He had never been able to see the sky from Grisha's dungeon. This wasn't a dream. Vasya, Lisette, and Emeline were here, watching him worriedly.
"It's all right," he rasped. "I'm all right."
"Come on," Emeline said quietly, staying several feet away. "Let's take a walk. Okay?"
Gennadi swallowed hard and finally managed to nod.
By the time they all reached the former throne room, he had relaxed enough to be able to hold Emeline's hand. The thrones had been relocated to the dining hall, combining those two rooms so that this one could be turned into a library.
So far it only had three shelves of books instead of the full walls upon walls that Lisette wanted, but Andriy was there nonetheless, poring over the thick tome that had brought forth a demon creature, banished a Shadow, and spared the life of one of their soon-to-be queens.
Gennadi took several deep breaths, closing his eyes as the remnants of the nightmare finally began to fade.
"You all right?" Vasya asked softly.
"I'd be better if I had about a gallon of fire brandy."
He nodded as Lisette turned her attention to Andriy. "Should I worry that you're taking so much interest in that?" she asked.
As Andriy laughed, Gennadi let a grateful smile show on his face for just an instant. Lisette had asked him three nights ago if he wanted to speak with the doctor about these nightmares, but she had agreed to give him some time and see if they faded on their own. It was asking a lot of Lisette, he knew―she was worried, perhaps rightfully―but rather than stay silent and let Andriy see that something was plainly wrong, she was providing a distraction. Gennadi squeezed her hand as a silent thank you and then sat down next to Andriy, giving the boy an easygoing smile. "So what have you found?" he asked.
"You simply must learn how to read!" Andriy replied. "There are so many fascinating things in here! The banishment spells alone are... do you know, with this book, someday it may be perfectly safe to go into Vedrana's Forest? Surely you've heard all the stories about the places and people on the other side. We could meet them again. Trade with them!"
"They may just be stories," Vasya pointed out. "Don't get your hopes up too―" Then he shrugged. "On second thought, hope as much as you like."
"Speaking of stories," Andriy said, "so far as I can tell there's nothing in here about the Silence. It might be just a room after all."
He sounded unsure, and Emeline asked, "Do you believe that place is haunted?"
"I think if any unhappy spirits survive here, they'd be in the Silence or Grisha's 'workplace'." He gave Gennadi a quick glance. "Sorry."
"Already forgotten."
"I'm more concerned with mortal threats," he said, looking back to Emeline. "I agree that it's important to keep the Silence open, to have another way out of the castle if need be. If more people had known about that door when the Shadow..." He cleared his throat, paused for a moment. "But another way out is another way in, of course."
"I'll look around there soon," Emeline said, thinking of the dank hallway where her crown had fallen. It would be good, she thought, to see that place in the light.
"Does that book say anything about Enchantresses?" Gennadi asked.
"One of the first things I looked up," Andriy said, flipping through the pages. "This part right here..."
*~*~*
"Done!" the attendant said, coming around to face her with a smile. She still didn't look directly at Lisette, but Lisette didn't push the issue. It was going to take time for people's habits to change.
"Now. I know I'm forgetting something... Goddesses be with me, you'd think with all the weddings I've helped with that it would all come to me easily."
"Don't fret about it, Isabelle," Emeline said. "Normally you have far more help."
"True, true," she murmured. Then she clapped her hands once. "Veil! Of course. I'll only be a moment!"
She hurried past Vasya, who was standing next to the doorway, looking as close to fidgeting as Lisette had ever seen him. She grinned and moved closer.
"This may be the most uncomfortable I have ever been," he said.
"You look wonderful, though. And," Gennadi said, sidling up to them, "I can't wait to get all of those things off of you two tonight."
"Likewise," Vasya said, and at the look he gave them Lisette found herself wondering if they had time to get undressed and then re-dressed again before someone came looking for th
em.
Unfortunately, that answer was most certainly no. "That's assuming either of you can get this off me," she said. The weighty garment was hard to get used to after so many years of wearing thin shifts and dresses. "I think Isabelle worked for hours on those laces at the back. I can understand for a wedding, yes, but yesterday it was the same ritual! I'll talk to the clothes makers and see about them designing a more practical style."
"The clothes the villagers wear are quite simple to put on and easier to move around in," Emeline said. "Perhaps something modeled after them?"
"Yes," Lisette said. "After all, we're certainly capable of dressing ourselves. And if they don't have to get up to help us, perhaps the servants can get some more sleep, or spend more time at breakfast. It's quite silly that―"
"Here we are!" Isabelle said, and the sight of what she had in her hands made Lisette lose her voice.
She knew that veil. Time had turned the delicate white fabric slightly yellow, but it was still the same one that framed her mother's face in the wedding portrait that hung in the Visitors' Hall.
"Are... are you sure that I―"
"Quite sure," Isabelle said. "Oh, I remember pinning this in your mother's hair. It's a right shame that I'm the one here to see this instead of her."
"I have to ask you something," Lisette said, reaching out for Vasya and Emeline's hands. That helped to steel her for the answer she knew might well be coming. "I know that my fathers were not the most decent of men. My mother... was she a fitting match for them, in that regard?"
"No. No, not at all. I do wish you had come to me sooner," she said. "Your mother was a Baroness from Village-by-the-Sea. She was sent here to marry your fathers. In time she loved them―but that didn't stop her from disagreeing with them, and she never hesitated to voice that. She did everything she could with what she had. She was a good woman, who died far too young."
"Thank you," Lisette whispered. "I am... I am quite grateful to hear that."
"And I am glad I could give you some measure of peace. Be assured, my queen, your mother would be quite proud."
*~*~*
Lisette drew the line at the shoes.
She winced as she took a few steps in the odd-feeling things. She could barely remember the time when she'd worn them every day, and this dress she was wearing with the puffed-out sleeves and enormous skirt was already concession enough, she felt. It was beautiful, of course, and she felt quite lovely, but she also felt confined.
She respected the traditions of the kingdom... of her kingdom. But she had her limits.
One of the servants she had worked beside less than a moon's cycle ago had helped Emeline and her put on their dresses. She knew that normally six or seven handservants attended a royal bride on her wedding day, but there simply weren't many handservants left. Half their number―as well as most of the loyalists―had been killed when the Shadow had attacked the castle.
So many were still reeling. She had been unsure of holding a wedding and coronation in such circumstances, but Ambre had helped talk her into it. In such a time, she'd pointed out, everyone could do with a distraction, a reminder that things would carry on even in the midst of grief.
After the wedding and the coronation ceremony, she, Emeline, Gennadi, and Vasya would have their first address. Her stomach clenched in nervousness at the very thought. They had already announced that the Wall would be moved and rebuilt outside the villages so that no one was left beside Vedrana's Forest with no protection against whatever might come out. Such a thing had been proposed before, when Nazar had taken the throne, but given that it was costly, many of the loyalists had expressed disapproval, wanting the taxes the royals gathered to go elsewhere.
Now, after losing so many of their own rank to a supposedly mythical creature, none of them had said a word against the idea.
She had a feeling that wouldn't hold true for everything they announced today.
When everything was finally in place, she followed Isabelle out of the room, slipping out of the shoes as she went, leaving them behind on the floor of their new quarters. Given that the dress she wore brushed against the floor, she doubted anyone would notice.
Normally weddings were held in the Great Hall, but although this would display things getting back to how they usually were, she couldn't stomach the idea of holding such a ceremony in a room where so much blood had recently been spilled. She would've just as soon gotten married in the Arena.
The former throne room was crowded, yes, but not near as crowded as it should have been. So many people were missing. Roz should've been beside her for this.
"You look beautiful," Ambre said, adjusting the glittering tiara that rested on her head in lieu of the crown that would be placed there this evening.
"Thank you," she said, smiling. There had been mourning, and there would be a time and a place for more. But that wasn't here and now.
Then Vasya came into the room, along with Emeline and Gennadi and three handservants, and as they took their places at the other corners of the room she couldn't help but grin. Ambre smiled knowingly and moved to her side.
"We will hear the four promises," the doctor said, from his place at the center of the room. "Lisette?"
Lisette swallowed hard, wondering if she could blame a sudden swoon on the corset she was distinctly unused to wearing. She couldn't remember ever being this nervous. "There are so many things I don't know about all of you yet. But I promise that I trust you. And I know that nothing I find out would ever make me regret this."
"Vasya?" the doctor said.
"I promise I'll always do my best to be worthy of you. I'm not there yet," he said, giving them a crooked grin. "But I'll keep trying."
"I promise that I love you," Emeline said. "I... I know it's not the most elaborate promise but it's the truth. I love you three and I always will."
"I promise that you saved me," Gennadi said. "So many times."
"The promises have been spoken," the doctor said. "You may cross to each other."
They started to the center of the room in the traditional pacing―a stately, composed walk. When she was still several paces away, Lisette whispered, "Oh, blast and damnations to this," and lifted her skirts slightly and ran. Gennadi opened his arms and lifted her off the ground, and she laughed and kissed him, giving a kiss to Vasya next as she took hold of one of Emeline's hands.
"You are now wed," the doctor told them, grinning as he glanced down, and it was only then that Lisette remembered her lack of shoes.
"I'm going to hear about this, aren't I?" she asked quietly.
"More than likely, yes," Vasya said, and then he kissed her again.
*~*~*
The first address went as such things always did, promises that they might or might not be able to keep, thanks given in advance for supporting them as the rulers of the realm. Until they got to their first edict.
Such things were normally for show only―decreeing that everyone would be well fed, or that more guards would be placed at the border of Vedrana's Forest for safety's sake.
But then Emeline told them that their first decree was that no more deathfights would be held.
Some of the people in the room looked curious, interested. Pleased. But a few others grumbled, and one, Loyalist Jodoc, took to his feet and spoke.
"You cannot do such a thing! It's a well-loved tradition!"
"Sit down," Yelena hissed.
"I will not! I am simply trying to warn her. New rulers often make mistakes, and taking away our entertainment would be―"
"You wish the fights to continue, then?" Vasya's voice was calm, but Lisette knew the underlying tone, and she held back a grin.
"Clearly!"
"As you wish. We will hold the first one right now." He took out two blades, kept one for his own, and slid the other across the table to the wide-eyed loyalist. "Face me."
"I... well―" Jodoc muttered, staring down at the knife, not touching it.
"Then I believe we're finished
here?"
"Yes," Yelena said, smiling as she slid the knife back across the table. She gave the other loyalist a pat on the arm. "You can relax now."
Lisette gave Vasya a brilliant smile. He wore the robes and a crown, but the effect wasn't precisely regal. She had a feeling that however many years they ruled, there would always be more warrior about him than king.
"Then I will move on to our second edict," Lisette said. "As to the treatment of criminals, and the replacement of Grisha."
She regarded the loyalists' faces. She had planned her phrasing carefully, wanting to make note of who among them looked worried, and who looked gleeful.
"There will be no replacement," she said. "Loyalist Yelena has expressed interest in watching over those who happen to need it. Those who must be locked up will be locked up―and fed, given drink, and they will be kept safe." She nodded to Yelena, who got to her feet.
"Just because some folk do not know how to treat their fellow citizens with any amount of decency does not mean that we as a land have to stoop even lower." She looked to Gennadi, and then glanced down at the scar tissue that covered her own fingertips. "No one need ever fear torture here again."
Lisette raised her voice over the resulting murmurs. "If you will," she said. "After the coronation, please come join us in the main courtyard. Today is for celebrating more than our crownings."
*~*~*
"We gather here," Emeline said, "to give those we've lost the ceremony they deserve. I wish to honor my daughter, Ilari." She heard more than a few grumbles from the people in the crowd at that―something she could not blame them for―and walked forward, setting a snowdrop, Ilari's favorite flower, into the wooden coffin. "I know what she grew up to be. But that never should have been who she was. I do remember her laughing freely," she continued. "When she was very small, before... before everything."
She stepped back, and Lisette hugged her. They'd gathered everyone in the former fighters' courtyard, which had been turned into a memorial square instead. Actual carved stones had been created for those who had never gotten one―Miruna, whose body had simply been disposed of in an anonymous grave, had been one of the first to get a marker. Also in plain sight now, where they should have been all along, were stones for Vasya's sister Ania and his nephew.
Winterbourne's Daughter Page 28
