Tylla stood before her looking glass, gazing at herself in her wedding gown. Her heart tugged with regret before she had even shared her vows with Roland Davadas, but still, her vanity gave her some comfort.

I do look beautiful, she thought, stepping back to view the entire gown. As beautiful as I ever will look.

Her dark eyes traveled down the length of the white lace made by Illymimium hands and brought back in a trunk after the siege of her mother's home city. The fabric was some of the finest in all of Ardelym. Tiny iridescent pearls seized from the depths of the now dry Lake Ara were sewn into the lace, making the gown shimmer when she walked. The gown was hand-made by the best dressmakers in Oran.

Humbled by the attention directed at her, Tylla had retreated into herself. Her mother, wearing loose gowns to conceal her growing child, took care of all the details.

Like a dutiful lover, Roland Davadas visited his betrothed every few days. They would meet in the garden, while Hyperia watched their interaction, hawklike, from her balcony.

During their brief visits, Roland held Tylla's hand and offered up gifts: a pearl ring, a diary bound in ox-blood leather, a piece of fine silk. All these gifts Tylla received with shy gratitude. One evening, when Roland and his family had stayed for supper, the groom led Tylla down a moonlit garden path. There, away from the peering eyes of their respective families, he gently lifted her face and kissed her. She had been expecting this first kiss, had hoped bolts of lightning would accompany it.

For Roland Davadas, the thunder came in the heat of his skin, the fire in his eyes, the hard press of his hips against hers. Her own heart merely fluttered with embarrassment. The heat that she had known when she held Carmelle in her arms was a sensation as distant as the roaring thunderclouds over the Kadaar mountains.

When she put up no resistance, Roland kissed her again, and when he whispered words of love in her ear, Tylla felt a tear well in her eye. It trickled down her cheek, and Roland caught it with his finger and brought it to his lips.

He thinks I'm mourning my soon-to-be vanquished maidenhood. If only he knew the truth. Mother told me once there were some things you could never tell a man.

She broke the embrace demurely and suggested they return to the others.

"I love you, Tylla," Roland Davadas whispered to her in the dark.

"I love you, too,” she replied, her mouth as dry as ashes.

After dinner, with the lie she told still clinging to her conscience like a leech, Tylla changed her silk sage gown into one made of plain burgundy wool and set out to Rigel's room for a late-night conference.

She found him in a circle of candlelight hunched over his writing desk, composing another letter to Jabe.

"At least you're free," Tylla complained, flopping on her cousin's bed. "In a few days, I'll be selling myself to a man I don't love."

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Rigel quaffed down the rest of the wine in his goblet and said, "That is the plan, darling. At least you'll be away from your mother. You're getting the better bargain."

Tylla shrugged, sensing Rigel’s dark mood.

"I'm going insane inside this damn palace," Rigel said, tossing down his quill.

"Why don't you visit Jabe in the country?"

Ignoring the question with a gruff shrug, he abandoned his desk and lay down on his rumpled bed next to Tylla.

"What?" Tylla asked moodily when she saw him staring at her with a glint in his eyes.

“I’m just wondering about your great deflowering?" Rigel teased, smiling now. “Scared?”

"Hardly," Tylla scoffed.

"It's not the same as Carmelle's finger, you know."

"You beast!" Tylla picked up an embroidered pillow and slapped him with it.

Rigel laughed as he swatted it away. "If you ever grow tired of him, send him my way."

"What about Jabe?"

A cloud crossed the moonlit veranda, obscuring Rigel's face like a dark veil. "More and more, he's lost to me."

"What do you mean?"

Sitting up with a sigh, Rigel pointed to the messy writing desk with its spilled ink and crumpled vellum. "How does one compose a letter to his secret lover congratulating him on his impending nuptials while concealing the fact that his damn heart is breaking?"

Tylla gripped his arm. "Jabe is getting married? To whom?"

"A girl on a neighboring farm." Rigel rubbed his eyes as if to ease the tension behind them. "It's his only chance to better his situation. The girl's family owns a lot of land, land that will be his. He'd be a fool not to take it. What do I have to offer him?" He gazed at Tylla with a shattered openness she'd never seen her cousin reveal before.

Struggling to find words of comfort, she said, "Yes, he would be a fool not to take that opportunity. There's nothing for him here. You have no choice but to release him."

Rigel nodded grimly. "I know. Which is what I was trying to express in my letter, albeit badly."

"Well, what about you?" Tylla asked more brightly.

"What about me?" He pulled himself from the bed, crossed the room, and poured the last of the wine into a goblet. "I can't hang out here and be your handmaiden, can I? Your father has shut me out of any political opportunities." He drank down half the glass and,, wincing added, "I don't think he trusts us Illymiums."

"Including Mother?" The words flew from Tylla's lips without thought.

Rigel shrugged. "Well, that's a question for a more sober time, isn't it?"

Shaking off the thought, Tylla stood and shook the wrinkles from her skirts. "But seriously. What will you do?"

"I don't know." Rigel slipped through the curtains and stepped onto the marble balcony now flooded with blue moonlight.

Tylla followed. "Well?"

"You see that out there?" With the hand holding the goblet, Rigel pointed to the Crimson Sea. In the far, far distance shimmering gold lights danced on the water's surface.

"Barely. What is it?"

"It's the fleet your father sent to fight the Thrades in Kadaar. He's called them back."

"But why when Starlex hasn't been returned yet?"

"I suppose our King needs them for more important matters."

"Like what?"

"Well, my dear," Rigel gulped down the last of the wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "while you've been busy trimming your wedding veil, the Nazeer army has been marching on Mynimium. Their city was nearly destroyed by the volcano eruption and the dragon attack, and they are trying once again to take my city for their own."

"But is that dragon real?"

"Yes. According to Flenn Illymimium."

"I thought Flenn was ill."

"The old Illymimium mage is on the mend. I saw Flenn today, in fact."

"Without me?"

"You were busy, darling. Tell you what, we'll pop in on old Flenn tonight."

"But wait, what about the Nazeers? Do you think they have a chance at taking Mynimium?“

Rigel expression darkened in the dim moonlight, and suddenly he looked much older. “Over my dead body.”

“You don’t mean you’ll fight?”

“What choice do I have?” Rigel drained the goblet and gazed out again to sea at the flickering lights created by the torches on the returning fleet, “If Oran goes to war, I will go with her."