White Horse Black Nights （The Godkissed Bride, #1）
Evie Marceau
The Ancient Immortal Court
Vale the Warrior, King of Fae
Iyre the Maiden, Goddess of Virtue
Artain the Archer, God of the Hunt
Solene the Wilderwoman, Goddess of Nature Popelin the Trickster, God of Pleasure Meric the Punisher, God of Order
Thracia the Stargazer, Goddess of Night Alyssantha the Lover, Goddess of Sex Woudix the Ender, God of Death
Samaur the Sunbringer, God of Day
Chapter 1
Sabine
Shivering in my father’s courtyard in the cool morning air, I feel naked beneath my robe, yet I’ll lose even that scrap of silk any minute now.
I shift from bare foot to bare foot in the spring mud as I fix a hard stare at the gate, waiting. A maid sweeps the front stairs behind me, acting like today is like any other day, and for her, maybe it is.
But for me?
Today, everything changes. Today, I’m a sold bride.
The church steeple chimes from three blocks over. Each clang shoots straight into my chest as though the iron clapper slaps directly against my heart. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. A tremor reverberates through my bones until I squeeze the cockleshell hanging on a cord around my neck like a protective talisman.
Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong.
Eight chimes for eight o’clock in the morning. This is the hour the ride is supposed to begin—so where is he?
Soft, feminine footsteps pad through the mud behind me, and in the next moment, Suri rests a gentle hand on my shoulder, making me flinch.
“He’s late,” I rasp, my voice hoarse.
She doesn’t answer right away, and instead smooths her umber brown hand along the thick rope of a braid that circles the crown of my head, then runs down the length of my back all the way to kiss the ground. She spent an hour last night braiding it into the intricate style called an “immortal crown,” named in honor of the sleeping gods. All the different regions of Astagnon call the deities by different names: Immortals in the capital city of Old Coros. Fae in the northeast. Gods in the south. Whatever name they go by, legend tells us they went to sleep one thousand years ago in underground realms and will wake again to rule the human world. Until then, we keep their memory alive by mimicking their fashion with elaborate braids, swipes of colored kohl to wing the corners of our eyes, and golden caps on our ears to make the tops look pointed.
Today, though, I’m just me, unadorned. That will have to be enough.
“Are you so anxious for the ride to begin?” she asks.
I fold the robe tighter across my chest and hug my arms over top. “It’s cruel, on top of everything, to make me wait.”
Then again, what isn’t cruel about this day? This ride and its obscene rules are the definitions of cruelty. I know my future husband’s reputation, and “cruel” is a common word used to describe him, followed by “arrogant,” “rich as sin,” and “just like the rest of the Valvere devils.”
You have to wonder about the type of man who would buy a bride only to require her to ride naked across half of Astagnon to his castle.
If you ask me? Not the best way to begin a marriage.
“Maybe he just got held up?”
I snort. “At the bottom of an ale tankard, maybe.”
“Lord Rian holds a powerful position in the Valvere family,” Suri chirps in a tone that rings with false optimism. “They’re second in wealth only to the king. The ride may be challenging, but you’ll never know hardship once you arrive in Duren. Your husband will drown you in gifts.”
Petite, pretty Suri with her round cheeks and warm walnut-brown eyes takes her role as my stepmother with a comical amount of gravity, considering the fact she’s only two years older than me. When she married my father over the winter, I wasn’t allowed to leave the convent to attend the wedding. I had no idea what kind of woman my father’s new bride was, nor could I find the energy to care; I figured I’d be carted off from the convent walls to my new husband’s walls with barely a chance to give my new “mother” my regards, anyway.
The last thing I’d expected was to adore her. Kindhearted Suri. Quick-to-smile Suri. I’ve only known her three days, and she’s managed to bring me to tears twice in that time out of kindness. The first was at dinner on my initial night home from the convent, when she leaned over to whisper that I had a speck of spinach lodged in my teeth. The second time was when she snorted when I called my father a duette di marcer to his face, knowing he didn’t understand a word of the Immortal Tongue.
In the twelve years that I spent as a ward—or rather, prisoner—of the Convent of the Immortal Iyre, no one ever checked my teeth for spinach. Hell, I’d have killed for a taste of spinach instead of week-old gruel. And kindness? Laughter? Those were as absent as the sleeping gods themselves.
Now, Suri clucks over me like a mother hen. “You’re shivering,” she chides.
I deadpan, “And to think, I’m not even naked yet.”
The manor’s front door swings open, and my father stumbles down the freshly swept stairs. He checks his pocket watch, then squints at the courtyard gate with a frown before trotting over to Suri and me.
“Lord Rian’s guard will be here soon,” he informs us. “I have no doubt.”
“Maybe he died on the way,” I mutter under my breath. “One can only hope.”
My father’s cheeks redden in irritation.
“You’re twenty-two, Sabine,” he says forcefully. “You’ve been granted more freedom than most girls your age. I could have secured a marriage contract ten years ago, and the courts would have allowed it.”
I know better than to visibly balk in my father’s presence at the word “freedom,” so instead, I press my lips together to seal my anger. I don’t know any girls who would call spending the last twelve years imprisoned in a convent, beaten and starved by Sisters with hearts as sour as withered lemons, any type of freedom.
“Twenty-one days.” My father rubs his hands together in a farce of joviality. “The ride is only twenty-one days. Soldiers march for months at a time.”
“Yes, but clothed,” I point out wryly. As soon as I say it, his lips work like he has choice words to throw back at me, but Suri rests her tender hand on his arm before he can.
“Charlin,” she entreats sweetly, “let’s keep the peace on Sabine’s last day here.” She bats her long lashes at him. Their marriage is still so new, and he is still so besotted with his pretty young second wife, that he forgets the bulk of his ire.
“Lord Rian set the rules of the ride,” he mutters to absolve himself of some guilt. “Not me.”
And yet you didn’t object, either.
When my father sold me as a bride to Lord Rian Valvere in exchange for settling our family debts, I was the last person consulted. After all, why would anyone have bothered to include me in the talks? Since I was born, all I’ve been is a bargaining chip to be dangled before powerful men. But out of all the wealthy lords my ass of a father could have chosen, did it have to be him?
Lord Rian might be sinfully rich, but he’s also simply sinful. On my first day out of the convent, Suri whispered to me that he earned the moniker “The Lord of Liars” when he took over his family’s empire of lawful vices in Duren. The Valveres own every vice establishment in West Astagnon, from gambling dens to brothels to racing grounds—and if the rumors are true, they dabble in their share of unlawful vices, too. I suppose this ride is all just another game for Lord Rian.