She hoped her father was watching too.
“With this sword, you will conquer all that seeks to separate you,” the high priest said, a blessing to the couple and a prayer to the mighty Syrek. “Your allegiance is to each other and to the crown.”
Erida bowed her head first, dipping her brow to the pommel. “To you, to the crown,” she said. They were the last of her vows, the binding words. She expected to feel them like a chain around her neck. Instead there was nothing. Not joy, not fear. Nothing changed in her heart. The line she walked remained straight and true.
“To you, to the crown,” Taristan answered, lowering his own face as she straightened.
His black eyes followed her movement. His head was bare, the red of his hair shining darkly without a consort’s crown. Taristan had refused even a simple circlet. He had no use for jewels or gold. Though he had spent all night combing the city with the garrison, he did not look like it. Erida saw no circles beneath his eyes, no sharp pull of exhaustion at the edges of his face. There was only the grim shadow of failure, something they shared. For now.
And of course the four lines torn down the left side of his face. Starting below the eye, the scratches were not so deep, but they were unmistakable and refusing to fade.
He’s still handsome, at least, Erida thought, contemplating his face. The scratches did little to hide his well-boned features, more rugged than beautiful. Which is more than I can say for most. And, truly, he was a man. Not a boy playing at swords or an overgrown toddler coddled into adulthood. Taristan of Old Cor walked his own pace, self-assured, single-minded in focus. He was no stranger to blood or ambition. She’d seen it in their first meeting. She’d seen it in their second, the night before. And she saw it now, the third time, as he became her husband, rigid as a statue, determined as stone.
When he stood up again, the deed was done. She braced herself for a wave of regret that never came.
This is the path I’ve chosen.
She looked him over, her new prince consort. The celebrating, simpering court drowned out all sound from the high priest, who spoke words she did not need to hear. Taristan was not smiling, his lips set like a challenge. She offered no smile of her own. He returned her stare, black eyes meeting blue. He was not unfathomable. His wants were clear, his use obvious. There were things each could take from the other, in equal standing.
He is the right path.
Prevail returned to the high priest but their hands remained joined, as they would all the way back to the New Palace. His skin was hot but not uncomfortable, her palm fitting oddly well in his. Their steps matched as they turned from the altar and led the procession back out of the cathedral, the aisle carpeted in soft green. Taristan did not speak, as taciturn as he’d been in their first two meetings. Of course, the second had been under less than ideal circumstances, with only a few words passed between them at all before the feast went to ruin. And the first meeting had been closer to a military negotiation than a proposal, both sides well armored and clear in intention.
Taristan’s red wizard fell into the procession, a scarlet dot at the corner of her vision, just outside the circle of the Lionguard escort. Ronin, he was named. Spindletouched and gangly, he was ill at ease surrounded by people, and spent most days in the archives, hunting the tomes and crumbling parchments for word of Spindles long gone. He did not speak now, but his red hood was lowered, showing a white face and pink-rimmed, darting eyes. He reminded Erida of a hairless rat.
Outside, the summer heat continued to climb, and Erida was glad for the short walk back to the cool shade of her palace.
The canals echoed with the voices of Ascal. Her subjects roared their approval from seemingly every bridge and waterside street, their faces a pink-tinged sea. Erida waved and gestured for Taristan to do the same. Coaxing the love of the commons was always wise, especially when it was easy. And there was nothing the commons loved so much as a wedding, the splendor of a life they could not fathom brought close for a heartbeat. Joy, false as it might be, was difficult to resist.
Erida fed off it, the love of the people for the Queen. It was a comfort as much as a shield. While they love me, I am safe.
Taristan’s fingers flexed in hers, his grip loosening as they reached the Kingsbridge.
“Wait until we’re out of sight,” she warned. Her teeth set in an exaggerated smile. “Don’t give anyone an excuse to gossip. They’ll find enough reason without our help.”
He grimaced but tightened his grasp again. There were calluses on his palm and fingertips, patches of skin worn rough by years of swordsmanship. The touch of them shuddered her a little. Taristan of Old Cor had lived hard years, the testament of them in his skin. She tried not to imagine those hands elsewhere, as they would be later. There was no wedding without a bedding, no bond of marriage without a bond of body. A sword in the church and a sword in the sheets, as the crude saying went.