She found herself at the edge of the garden, the appointed place for her ruin. The air was thick with the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine, a fragrance she would forever after associate with surrender.
Her eyes were drawn forward, past the rows of gawking nobles, to the space just below the makeshift altar. There stood her brother, resplendent in the ceremonial clothes of his new station. The morning sun caught the silver thread on his doublet, but it also caught the unshed tears glistening in his eyes, a fragile glassiness he fought to contain. The sight was a physical blow. She shut her own eyes, drawing a slow, measured breath, pulling the air deep into her lungs as if it were her last. She would not let her own tears fall. This was not a wedding; it was a strategic annexation of her life, and in enemy territory, any crack in her façade was a fatal flaw.
Her gaze, cold and assessing, swept over the assembly. They were all there—every preening lord and simpering lady who had ever called her bloodline cursed. She wanted to peel back their civilized masks and reveal the frightened, superstitious souls beneath. The scorn was a hot coal in her chest—until it was doused by a sudden, chilling realization.
Where was the groom?
The question echoed in the silent hollow of her mind. She couldn't bring herself to name him as her husband-to-be; the words turned to ash before they could form. A desperate, childish part of her clung to the hope that this was one of her more vivid nightmares, that she would jolt awake in her own bed, the ghost of this horror fading with the dawn.
The man she was to marry… Gods. She had built walls in her mind to keep the thought of him at bay. If he was a man at all. He was the Lord of the Red Vale, a title that described a territory vaster than any three kingdoms combined. His reign was not measured in years, but in epochs; historians merely shrugged when tracing its origin. It was not merely his cruelty that defined him, but a profound, cosmic indifference. He exhibited no rage, no joy, no ambition—only a cold, procedural approach to power. He was a natural law: opposition was met not with anger, but with an inevitable and meticulously crafted consequence. He had no heart to sway, no pride to wound. He simply… was.
Then, the music began. A single, mournful cello note that hung in the air before being joined by others, weaving a dirge that masqueraded as a processional. She walked. The black silk of her gown whispered against the stone path, each step a deliberate act of will. Beneath the veil, she let her power stir—a dark, familiar warmth in her veins. It was enough to level this garden, to send these gawking fools screaming. But it was not enough to protect her brother from the political exile and whispered ruin that would follow. His ambitions required the love of the masses, a currency her magic could never mint. Hers was the language of fear, and she was bargaining in a market that dealt only in adoration.
With a final, internal sigh, she let her expression harden into smooth, unfeeling marble. She reached the altar and fixed her eyes upon her brother's face, using his presence as an anchor. She ignored the priest, a frail man whose trembling hands made the sacred text he held flutter like a captured bird. The crowd rose in a rustle of fine fabric; she perceived them as one might perceive a shift in the weather.
Then, the world changed.
The temperature plummeted. Not the chill of a passing cloud, but a deep, soul-clenching cold that leached the warmth from the very stones. A pressure filled the air, a silence so profound it felt like a physical weight. It was not a sound, but the absence of all sound, suddenly occupied by a vast and terrible awareness.
She knew he was there.
Though they had never met, her every instinct screamed in recognition. This was not a man taking his place beside her; it was a predator entering its territory. She felt the sheer, staggering scale of what he was, and she understood, with crystalline clarity, that to earn his active enmity was a fate worse than any death.
He did not walk so much as he advanced, his strides eating the distance between them. She held her ground, refusing to grant him the deference of a turned head. Only when he stood beside her, a pillar of impenetrable shadow, and offered his hand, did she relent.
She turned.
And the breath caught in her throat.
He was not merely handsome. He was ethereal, in the way a shard of obsidian or a lightning-forked tree is beautiful—a beauty that spoke of dangerous, ancient forces. A jawline sharp enough to cut, a nose straight and severe. His eyes were not simply black; they were bottomless, twin voids that seemed to drink the light from the space around them. His lips were pressed into a thin, impatient line, as if this entire ceremony were a tedious administrative task. And his clothes… she had thought her gown a masterful representation of darkness. She was wrong. His robes were not woven fabric; they were an entity, a swirling, light-sapping void he wore not as clothing, but as a second skin. They were not decor; they were a declaration.
His gaze—those terrifying, lightless eyes—swept over her face. It was not a look of appraisal or admiration, but a swift, clinical verification. Asset confirmed. Then his attention shifted to the priest.
She followed his gaze. The man was now shaking violently, his face the color of parchment. Did they have a history? Her brother, too, had paled, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow. Was it the sheer, oppressive force of the Lord's energy? Perhaps her own affinity for the shadows granted her a measure of immunity, allowing her to stand where others would falter.
Before the thought could fully form, his voice cut through the tension, low yet resonating in the bones of every person present. It was not a shout, but a command that required no volume.
"Conclude this."
The words were directed at the priest, who looked ready to vomit or faint.
The ceremony became a blur after that. Their voices traded vows that were ornate lies, empty syllables that bound them in a contract of mutual convenience. The world narrowed to a dizzying smear of sound and light—until the priest, his voice quavering, instructed the groom to seal the union with a kiss.
The Lord did not move to touch her lips. Instead, his cold fingers encircled her wrist, his thumb pressing against the delicate, blue-veined skin. He bowed his head and pressed his lips to the very pulse of her life. The touch was like ice, a brand that shot a jolt of something—not pain, not pleasure, but pure, undiluted power—straight up her arm.
"For what flows in your blood," he whispered, the words a secret meant for her alone.
Every muscle in her body locked. He knows. The thought was a spike of pure terror. What was that supposed to mean? What did he know?
As the final benediction was uttered, a wave of nervous relief washed over the nobles. One, emboldened by the ceremony's conclusion, stepped forward to propose a celebratory feast.
The Lord did not even look at the man. His gaze was already turned toward the horizon, toward his vast and waiting Vale.
"I have better things to do," he stated, and the finality in his tone extinguished all further discussion.