Shay had never seen a place so beautiful in all her life…and probably never would again, considering that night would likely be her last.

The ceilings of the largest chapel of Heaven’s Hall—apparently there were a number of them—soared so high overhead she could have stacked three of her old childhood house inside of it. Stained glass windows spanned the walls in rows to either side of her, painting the space and everything within it in darkly vivid jewel tones. Twelve in total, one window for and depicting each of the First Saints. Their luminous eyes seemed somehow to watch her as Nicos and Aster, one to each side, escorted Shay down an absurdly long aisle at a ridiculously slow pace.

For once, she wished to go slower still. Xavir’s claws dug into her shoulder, driving the fabric of her silvery-white dress into her skin without piercing it. Her skirts billowed around her legs, voluminous and annoying, and her corset dug into her ribs. At the end of the aisle, at the back of a raised level and behind the altar, a Saint in dark robes played a monstrous pipe organ. The notes sounded like the echoing voices of ghosts, breathy and damning.

But the most remarkable things of all were the flowers.

It was overwhelming, going from never having seen so much as a single real blossom in all her life to being surrounded by huge, aromatic bouquets arranged in jeweled vases taller than she was. Dizzied by the alien perfume of their scent, Shay couldn’t stop staring. Some were like little bursts of starlight, glimmering, surrounded by petals of violet and blue. Others resembled split-open hearts strung along a stem, translucent and the palest of pinks. Lovely little organs drained of their blood.

Shay’s whips, each now the length of one of her forearms, curved upward over her shoulders, swaying as they tasted the air. So much more than just occasionally spore-baring appendages, they served as sensory organs as well. Through them she felt the heat of bodies nearby, and a strange, crackling sort of energy that reminded her of lightning, only it coursed through everything that lived. They could sense the slightest movement of the air, the direction of its source, pick up on the tiniest chemical and atmospheric changes. And they were mesmerizing, too. Glimmering and green as though coated in a dusting of jade sand.

But every time shay lagged too much, almost lost in the splendor of it all, her escorts squeezed her arms and pulled her into pace. The favored of the court, all dressed in the showiest of their silver-threaded wardrobes, filled the padded pews. Inhumanly still save their eyes, their collective gaze followed her every step. Each of them more than ready to leap to action should she make a single suspicious move, their auras were a dizzying array of shattered, agitated hues.

Between them, the flowers and the stained light of the windows, it felt as though Shay had fallen into a drug-fueled dream, soaked in candy colors too vivid to be real. And over it all presided the crows and ravens, who observed from wrought iron perches above the windows like feathery grotesques.

At last, but entirely too soon, they neared the altar. Shay dragged her gaze from the flowers and windows and birds to glare defiantly up at the priest. My executioner. And like an executioner, he wore a mask. She’d seen one illustration, a long time ago in her town’s tiny library, of a saint who’d worn one like it, and she’d wondered then why that was. Of course, that was before she could read. Black like his robes, the mask extended outward to resemble the beak of a raven over his nose and mouth. Lenses of smoky crystal obscured his eyes.

At his side stood Shay’s future spouse, oblivious of just how brief their future together would be. And to her intense surprise, Shay recognized them.

It was the seraph from the day she was changed, one of the others who’d been offered up for the nymph’s selection. Only they were radiant now, Sainted. Shay wondered how that was possible, considering the last queen was dead and she herself hadn’t yet produced spores.

Positioning her to stand facing her betrothed from just under a pace away, Aster and Nicos took two steps back and stopped. Hovering. Ready to be the first to act should Shay prove herself noncompliant.

Xavir stayed on her shoulder. He had not ever told her who she was to marry, because the point was up for debate until hours before the ceremony itself. She’d known only that two rival families had been warring for the privilege.

By the time an offer was accepted, about a week after she’d conceded to taking the oath, she’d been temporarily transferred to the supervision of a number of older Saint women of the court. They’d had zero interest in answering her questions and a great deal of it in barking orders at their Mistmarked servants until they’d cleaned, coiffed, dressed, and lectured Shay within a hair’s breadth of her life.

The servants, warped by the Mists but still recognizably mostly human, had somehow not smelled human at all. They’d smelled nice, spicy even. But they didn’t make Shay’s mouth water. They didn’t drive her berserk.

The truth of the oath, however, had. Shay had been furious, when she’d learned the oath of compliance would be made directly to her betrothed as part of the wedding ceremony itself. The damned bird hadn’t bothered to tell her that until after she’d agreed to it. But it didn’t matter, really. She knew she’d have chosen this path all the same. And so she stared hatefully up into the dark eyes of the one who presumed to become her captor, and she couldn’t help but smile.

Soon, she’d know how Saint’s blood tasted. And, later that night, she’d feast of Saint flesh, too.

Shay repeated that silently to herself like a mantra, as if by believing it she could make it real. There was still a chance, of course, that what she’d been told of Saint’s oaths was true. If that were the case, if she became a slave to her word, she swore to herself she’d fight it every breath of her existence from that moment on. Until she broke it, or until she died.

Nicos and Aster drew her up the stairs, and she held her head high as she stood before the seraph whose name she didn’t know. Xavir’s claws stabbed deeper, but still didn’t tear the stupid dress. What the hells is this thing made of, anyway?

Her betrothed studied her with interest, much as they had the first time. She examined them back, supposing that her former self would have found their swept back, ink-colored hair appealing. Been attracted to their scattering of freckles, their dark gray eyes and sharp features. She remembered what attraction felt like, though she hadn’t experienced it since her transformation. She was glad of that.

The seraph stood straight, their elaborate silver raiment every bit as pretentious and overwrought as her dress. Fashioned in a style allowed only to angelic genders, their split cloak hid their arms and hands and pooled on the floor at their sides. While it looked well enough, Shay noted snidely to herself that it bore no resemblance to the wings it symbolized. Fervently she imagined what their flesh would taste like as the priest—his voice muffled and distorted by his mask—spoke the opening words of the ceremony.

“We are gathered here on this day, in the light of the Twelve Most Blessed, to bind this seraph and this woman by oaths everlasting,” he intoned. Shay scoffed, inviting many an acidic glare. She didn’t care.

The priest looked then to the seraph.

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”Do you, Micah Montagal, come here of your own free will and volition to give your hand to this woman in marriage and bind her to yourself by oath forever after?”

The seraph didn’t so much as glance his way, instead maintaining that corvid-like look of curiosity at Shay.

”I do,” they said.

“And do you, Ashra of the Silver, come here of your own free will and volition to give yourself in marriage and obedience to this seraph forever after?”

Shay’s lips twisted. Even her original name—her all-too-common peasant name—had been stripped from her. Instead they had dubbed her Ashra, surname pending upon marriage.

“I do,” she said, the words tasting like vomit on her tongue.

“Then kneel, Ashra,” said the priest. ”Step forward, Micah.”

Xavir steadied himself on her shoulder as she did as she was bid. Shay fought to contain the rage simmering just beneath her skin as the seraph stepped in close, revealing a fine-boned hand. From the periphery of her vision, she saw the priest’s beaked mask pointed her way, watching closely as she took the seraph’s hand in both of her own.

“Drink,” said the priest. “That the blood of your betrothed become your own.”

The flesh of Saints would make her sick, Xavir had said. But the blood, apparently, would do something far worse. Even knowing that, she couldn’t contain her curiosity. How will it taste? How will it feel?

Shay breathed in deep through her nose. Micah’s scent was mineral. Cold, somehow. There was some pressure in her gums, but her secondary teeth did not extend. That hadn’t happened since the ghoul. At the thought of it, her mouth watered, and she swallowed—then bared her teeth and bit, hard, into the soft flesh between the seraph’s thumb and forefinger. They sucked air through their teeth but cut the breath off quickly, going still and quiet as she drank.

The blood tasted of metal. Of Saintsteel. A faint, cold buzz of energy sparked in Shay’s belly and spread through her veins.

“Repeat after me,” said the priest, then, addressing Micah. “By drinking of my blood, you are bound by my word.”

The seraph echoed him, word for word, voice clear and strong despite the teeth dug into their hand and the blood flowing out of them.

“By drinking of my blood, you are bound by my word. You will be obedient to me in all things. You will harm neither yourself, nor any other Saint, nor any child of a Saint, except in service to myself or my family and at my command.”

Micah repeated it, their eyes fixed unwaveringly on Shay’s.

“You will make no attempt to escape whatever place I see fit for you to be.”

“You will make no attempt to plot, scheme, or conspire against myself, my family, or the Sainthood.”

“You will not speak to, approach, or devour living humans.”

“You will never descend into the world below nor make any attempt to do so.”

Shay drank on as the two spoke, and the energy in her veins intensified—but it was distant, somehow. As though she were only a conduit for the power, unable to harness it herself. Was this the power which would hold her to her oath, and punish her should she ever attempt to defy it? Or something else entirely, obscured by Sainted lies?

All the while, Micah echoed the priest’s words without hesitation—until they reached the final line. They paused. Their muscles clenched. And then they repeated that, too.

“Stop now, Ashra, and rise,” ordered the priest. Shay released the seraph’s hand, but they held it where it was, turning palm-upward in offering as a few drops of blood spattered from its already-healing wound to paint the stone tile below. Shay ignored the offer, rising fluidly on her own.

“I declare you now Ashra Montagal, wed and bound by oath to Micah Montagal,” said the priest, laying a hand on her crow-free shoulder. She ground her teeth as Xavir screeched and flapped off, joining his kin on the perches above. Micah and Aster stepped down from the raised level to flank either side of the aisle at the base of the stair. Releasing her shoulder, the priest extended his hand outward to indicate the aisle. “Walk now, together, as one.”

Down in the front row of pews, a pair of Saints rose. Radiating power and age, their finery glimmered in the muted, many-colored light of the lowering sun. Shay presumed this was Lord and Lady Evinstrad. After them and to either side another couple arrayed themselves, and Shay guessed by their scent and resemblance to her new spouse that they must be Micah’s parents. Lady and Seraphi Montagal.

Micah, taking her gaze again and holding it, offered their arm. This time Shay forced herself to accept, and side-by-side they descended the short stair to the main floor. The pair took up places behind the Lord, two Ladies, and the Seraphi, and Nicos and Aster fell in after them. Then, one-by-one, the pews emptied as they passed to form a trailing procession. The crows and ravens launched from their roosts to stream overhead, shedding feathers like downy black snow.

Spilling out of the free-standing chapel and into the stone gardens beyond, they followed a winding path through a forest of huge, upright and tapered rocks, each of them intricately carved. Carvings of the First Saints of course, like in the windows—but depicted in a much older style, all curving, coiling, knotted forms and repeated patterns. But there were animals, too, and trees and other plants. Fantastical beings from down below that Shay had never seen outside of books and stones and stained glass. Deer and palm trees and rose bushes and whales.

And I gave my oath never to go.

Reaching the end of the garden path, the procession snaked through a set of enormous doors, held open by guards—two to each side—and into the castle proper. Down a long corridor, and then another, and finally into a dining hall nearly as grand and every bit as fragrant as the chapel they’d just come from. Smoky crystal chandeliers the size of carriages hung from the ceilings, flowers burst from winged vases set all down the centers of two rows of massive silver feasting tables, and more stained glass windows darkened the light of the setting sun. Shay forgot to keep walking, bringing the whole parade to a halt as she craned her neck back to stare up and around at the windows.

This time, they depicted only one of the First Ones, a different scene of her life in each window. Saint Marta, who presided over spiritual and physical nourishment—including feasts and cooking, among other things. She’d been Shay’s favorite, in her days of devotion. The corvids circled and cawed for a time overhead before taking to new perches, and Micah cleared their throat. Shay scowled and carried on alongside them. The other Saints filled the seats they left behind as they followed their seniors to the head table at the very end of the hall. Lord and Lady Evinstrad took seats first and at the center with their backs to the wall, looking out over all. Seraphi Montagal sat beside the Lord, and Lady Montagal beside Lady Evinstrad.

And then, by some bizarre custom, Shay was directed to sit beside her new mother-in-law, while Micah went to the other end of the table to take a seat at the side of the Seraphi. Shay was relieved. She wasn’t sure how much harder it’d be to eat her spouse later if she got to know them at all first. Probably not much. They were nobility, after all. But it couldn’t hurt to avoid it.

Harpists played unobtrusively from raised alcoves in each of the corners as the dining hall filled with talk and laughter. Not a heartbeat after all were seated, Mistmarked servers streamed in to fill their goblets with a wine so dark it was nearly black. Shay eyed the one who poured hers, admiring the way the Mists had shaped him and wondering what his flesh tasted like, and if it would make her feel stronger, like the ghoul’s. Though his uniform covered most of it, the skin of the left side of his body bore blue-gray scales that looked hard as metal. His pupils were slits, his eyes pale yellow and cast downward.

And the right side of his face, the side without scales…

She stared. Tilted and dipped her head so she could get a better, more direct look at the young man’s features. Feeling the intensity of her regard, the Mistmarked’s impeccable manner faltered. He looked up and into her eyes. The blood drained from his face.

Shay sucked air through her teeth, gripping the edge of the table so hard her claws extended.

“Amir?”

The man’s wide eyes darted a glance to either side of them. Shay followed his gaze. Lady Montagal was deep in conversation with the Lady of Heaven’s Hall, while the noble to Shay’s other side was busy making eyes at a man across the table. For once, no one was watching, at least not that she could see—in fact, the other Saints seemed actively to avert their gaze from any and all of the Mistmarked servants and anything too near them.

For a moment more, the server was still with shock and fear. And then he gave the slightest of nods.

Amir. Her brother’s friend from the clinic, back when she’d had to take him twice a week. He’d died about a month before her brother had…or so she’d been told.

As she stared at him, blood boiling in her veins, the Mistmarked mouthed two words.

”He’s alive.”