Even if Garin hadn’t ever spoken of a Blood Vow, he’d at least cared enough to research it. But that didn’t matter, Lilac decided, shoving the thought from her mind. After realizing his intentional, planned betrayal, she knew better than to let tonight’s discovery fester into hope.
She wouldn’t put it past Garin to order her all the way to the altar, command the vows from her very tongue if he had to.
He had no qualms in forcing her hand, and who knew what he was capable of—to which depths the head of the Brocéliande vampire coven would sink—in order to ensure France did not win? And Artus was brazen enough to suggest that a marriage to Sinclair would prevent France from advancing. She had tried to do it on her own, but to her dismay, Garin was right; the countrymen capable of forming her army and fighting for her crown might not only refuse, but revolt,again, when she amended the Daemon law in Brocéliande’s favor. Which she would do, without question.
Riou and her father’s council also held fair points—England was too much of a risk to involve, especially in the early stages of war, when her marriage alone would stop the threat without wasting the resources and blood of outlying kingdoms.
Lilac would oblige, but she’d do it on her own terms. She swallowed and wiped her tears away. She would never be backed into a corner again, not by France nor Garin. She would not make a decision that would reign over her title, body, and land in a single moment of fear.
She’d make a stunning, devoted bride. She’d have Herlinde design the most breathtaking gown that would have Marguerite and her court falling over each other.
France would watch. So would Garin.
Lilac would do it afraid, her crowned head held high.
“I am to be married this weekend,” was all she said.
Piper rolled over to face the balcony doors and yanked the covers over her head. “Then I pity the kingdom who stands between you both.”
22
Lilac stared down the length of her table at the Grand Hall doors, sweat beading on her forehead, fingers gripping the corners of the table too tightly. Her slumber had been peaceful, finally void of nightmares of Garin, yet she’d woken with a growling belly and enough anxiety to power a horse.
“Has your food gone cold?” Isabel said from behind her. When Lilac didn’t answer, she tried once more, but a deep toll drowned her voice. The bells had begun to ring, marking the liturgical hour. Yanna was already removing her plate to the nearby cart. She was careful to sidestep Piper, sitting at Lilac’s right, with a wide enough berth as she silently refilled a second plate for the queen.
Not even Hedwig’s impressive spread laid upon their finest dishware could pull Lilac from the shock of the morning—of waking to the bells, discovering Piper with half the blankets kicked off, doused in morning sunlight from the balcony door they’d forgotten to close. Snoring. Her skin perfectly intact.
Piper had just opened her eyes when Lilac screamed. They’d leapt out of bed shouting, Piper batting at imaginary flames and Lilac falling over herself to shut the curtains, the ruckus masked by the deep tolling that rang throughout the keep.
Without another word, Piper had staggered to the door and opened it to a shocked Yanna and Isabel, mid-knock. The vampire slipped out between them before Lilac could stop her, Piper’s quiet sobs echoing throughout the stairwell. With no time to dress herself in anything ornate, Lilac ordered the two to go after her. Reluctantly, they’d obliged, and she tugged her comb through her hair, slid her shoes on, and dashed after them.
The four descended the steps to the second floor in order to avoid the bustling kitchen, Lilac snatching Piper’s hand and urging her to breathe. To her chagrin, there were several maids putting up ribbon and flowers in the foyer anyway; Lilac swore and urged the group along, but her staff still stopped working to acknowledge the queen and her entourage, if only to stare.
In the Grand Hall, they’d found Hedwig and her staff weaving the final touches—bouquets of roses and elderflowers from her mother’s garden—around the breakfast spread.
“Her food’s obviously gone cold,” Yanna said, eyeing Piper when the last of the bells echoed off. “Neither of them have touched their breakfast after the commotion this morning.”
“It’s very nearly lunchtime.” Marguerite lounged on Lilac’s throne at the top of the steps behind them, fanning herself in the sunlight. She squinted down her nose at Piper, who had also barely touched her breakfast, distracted with turning her palms this way and that under the table, checking her exposed wrists peeking out from her canary pink sleeves.
Unsatisfied that none of the girls had acknowledged her comment, Marguerite sighed. “I assumed my daughter’s impressive record with punctuality and appearance might actually be remedied by having a lady-in-waiting.” She examined her nails. “I suppose I was wrong.”
Piper only frowned, turning her head toward the doors.
“Yes, because yours have remained so dutiful,” Lilac commented. She hadn’t yet seen Gertrude and Helena, but was momentarily grateful for their absence given the morning’s events.
Marguerite had never cared for Piper, and there was no way Henri hadn’t told her mother whom he suspectedPhoebemight be. It was still Piper after all, despite her redder hair, eyes the color of spring, and herglowing, healthy appearance. It didn’t matter what they thought. Piper was her charge now.
Marguerite stared in disapproval at the both of them, tucking a lock of her hair into the blonde wig balanced precariously upon her head. “The last thing you need is a bad influence. Or, whoever gave you both the idea that wearing your nightgowns to this meeting would be acceptable.” She waved a finger at Yanna and Isabel. “Is there no way we can dress them? We’ve waited long enough. They both could have donned three gowns by now.”
“No,” Lilac said, immediately shooting the idea down. She’d been riding her nerves so high, if they went to her tower, it would be a challenge convincing her to leave again. “He could arrive at any time.”
A proxy wedding was risky business as it was; hopefully her future husband and those in his circle would not fuss over trite matters such as a woman’s appearance in relation to her worth.
As Garin had said, this was transactional; she was a ruler making a deal, a contract with another—although, she’d barely gotten her feet wet in terms of doing any real ruling since Henri’s abdication. She’d inherited a kingdom who did not want her in the first place.
This was her fate, the fate of many women before her. She was a willing pawn for the good of her people. A stalemate, and the thought probably unsettled her more than it should have. She washed down her nerves with a swig of cider, which she’d recently requested to be served at the castle, and was reminded of Sable and Jeanare. She thought of their grandchildren—wherever the boys were. The thought of Freya still made her uncomfortable, but it no longer brought her to her knees, because she coulddosomething about the systems that had harmed them. Shewoulddo something. This role was much bigger than her.
“If this emissary was sent all this way to propose for Maximilian without either of them ever meeting me, then I doubt he nor the emperor will care about me spending the day in a nightgown,” Lilac said.
