Page 29

Wedding

The High King—the rhubarb-not-plum bear—stood before me in a midnight-blue velvet robe heavy with silver knotwork and sapphire-lined cuffs.

The bear-shaped medallion on his chest gleamed under the room’s dimmed lights.

And he was holding out his hand…

to me.

I was too stunned to take it, but then it turned out I didn’t have to.

The Shadow King placed my hand into the upraised palm of their supreme ruler.

The next thing I knew, I was on the dais with him.

And a minister appeared out of nowhere.

No—not a minister.

He carried a staff topped with a scepter made of twine twisted tightly around a green orb that seemed to pulse faintly with light.

And though he wore long robes like the Presbyterian clergywolf who oversaw Tara’s wedding, his cloak was deep green—green as evergreen moss—with the hood pulled up high.

And on top of that hood sat an animal skull.

A pale, bleached thing with a distended upper jaw that cast most of the clergymale’s face into shadow.

All I could really see was a long, gray beard and a heavy mustache that extended down to the middle of his chest, where a round medallion rested, embedded with a green stone inside a carved bear paw.

Was the skull a deer?

An elk, maybe?

It had a full rack of antlers, chipped and wide.

But its canines were long—disturbingly long.

I didn’t know of any herbivore with teeth like that.

And it occurred to me…

this might be an animal I’d never seen.

It might be an animal that no longer existed.

Some extinct creature from a time unknown.

The wall’s lake view abruptly dissolved into one of the hedge woods, dark under the gray morning light and steeped in shadow.

The scene was so vibrant and resolute, it almost looked like whatever kind of clergymale this was had emerged from those dark woods.

I could nearly hear the strings and drums of ancient music in the air.

Hold on—not nearly …

actually.

A quick glance to my left revealed a small collection of musicians playing instruments wholly unfamiliar to me.

After a lifetime of ceremonies soundtracked by nothing more than a lone piano—or more recently, an entire troupe of bagpipes—the sight was surreal.

The music, like the Irish Tadhg and the High King had spoken, sounded ancient and timeless.

Then the strange clergymale began to sing.

It almost… almost sounded like a hymn.

But his song had a more natural quality.

As if it had been composed by the wind and sky, as opposed to man-made notes, like the ones in our songbooks.

Apparently, his song was some sort of call and response.

When he stopped, the High King sang.

Not like we did in St. Ailbe.

This song was held low in his throat, with notes that reverberated and echoed.

Then the audience sang the same thing behind us, intoning low and deep, as opposed to the purposefully monotone singing we were required to use in the Wolfennite community.

I believe this was the moment when I made my final cognitive split from the life I knew.

Suddenly, everything I’d learned—everything I’d been taught to believe in that faraway place—struck me as clearly made up.

This was real. Ancient and factual in a way science could never replicate.

I am a bear! I am a bear!

And my voice joined the others, humming along, though I knew no Irish.

Then the song was suddenly over, ending with three pounds of the clergymale’s staff.

Still, he didn’t speak.

He just produced a pot of black something out of nowhere.

Paint, perhaps?

He stuck his thumb in it and stepped forward to smear it across the High King’s forehead, leaving behind a black mark…

before offering the High King the pot.

The High King stuck his thumb into the maybe-paint, and I jolted when a pair of unseen hands turned me to face him.

They belonged to the Shadow King, I realized when the scent of lemon hit my nose.

He’d taken on the role of attendant.

Offering me up to the High King.

Who smeared the paint across my forehead.

It was cool and smelled of stone and ash.

The High King stood slightly taller than Tadhg, though not as tall as the Shadow King.

But he was broader than the pale moon god now presenting me.

Declan’s hair was a rich brown, against which the white streak practically gleamed.

He bent forward after anointing me with the ash-paint and pressed his lips to my forehead.

Then each of my cheeks, leaving behind a mark, I was sure.

I shivered as something ancient passed through me, like a spell had been cast.

When he drew back, his lips were clean.

He took my hand, raising it to slip on a silver ring.

Instead of a diamond, like Tara’s, the center held a bear claw, crafted from a gemstone I didn’t recognize.

But it was the same midnight blue as his kingly robes.

Then he turned over the hand he’d just adorned and placed a second ring into my palm.

This one had a thicker band and the same blue bear claw.

A match.

Finally, he spoke directly to me again.

“Put it on me, álainn. And the ceremony will be complete.”

And just like that, I understood the difference between a teacher and a ruler.

His voice held a steel authority that Tadhg’s never had.

As if he’d been born with the right to command.

Which probably made it all the more confusing for him when I looked up from the ring and asked?—

“Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of not-funny-at-all joke?”

A collective gasp rose from the reverent audience.

Then every eye swiveled to him, waiting for his response.

Only to snap back to me when I didn’t give him a chance to reply.

“You strung me along. For weeks , you kept me waiting. Meanwhile, you were pretending to be your brother? Meeting with me nearly every day and listening to all my deepest, darkest secrets?” I shook my head at him.

“Now you just expect me to what—just go along with all of this? Act like you didn’t trick me by pretending to be someone else?”

Murmurs filled the chamber, nearly as loud as the song from before.

But one voice rang out over the others: “Well, lads, your gift from the royal family this season will be years’ worth of gossip. Ye’re welcome!”

I was pretty sure that was Brigid.

But Declan—the very not High Prince—just stared coldly down at me.

“I never pretended to be anyone I wasn’t. You assumed. And the secrets must not have been that dark—or that secret—if you were willing to tell them to a complete stranger.”

His words hit like a slap across my face, making everything inside me sting.

Did he not understand?

“They were!” I assured him.

“I trusted you! You know more about me than Tadhg and Cian—and I’m over the moon in love with them. The little I know of you, I don’t like. I mean, how dare you?”

I splayed a hand across my chest. “How dare you do something like this to me?”

The High King just stared down at me, his gray eyes so much colder than I remembered.

Then he informed me, “What I dared doesn’t matter. The ceremony is only that—ceremony. We were bound in marriage as soon as I gave my Yea. It’s already done. So you might as well accept your fate, as I’ve reluctantly accepted mine.”

I blinked at him.

And though I never, ever cursed, I found myself telling him, “Fuck this total deception of yours. Fuck this ceremony. And Declan…”

I opened my mouth a little wider here to make sure to use the most enunciated English I’d ever spoken: “Fuck. You. I am more than a deal, and my feelings matter .”

I punctuated that last part by throwing the ring at him, which seemed to understand its new role.

The piece of jewelry he’d actually expected me to put on his hand bounced off his chest and hit the floor of the dais with a very satisfying clatter.

But still, the High King’s stony expression didn’t change.

Nor did he look away from me.

It didn’t matter. I’d made a great speech.

Naomi would’ve called it a total microphone drop .

Our wedding audience was afire with whispers by this point.

“I’ve still absolutely no idea how I got mixed up in this,” said a tall, rotund male with a white streak in his rich-brown hair, seated beside Brigid.

He threw up his hands in exasperation.

This was obviously Declan’s brother, Darach.

The real plum bear.

That last realization probably should have been my cue to stomp off while my words still echoed in the air.

But before I could turn my back on him in triumph, something else reverberated through the room.

Something that smelled like strawberries…

…but hit with the piercing intensity of an emergency siren.

Underwear.

Specifically, the lack of it.

All the ones in the package Brigid had given me had been so large they created what she’d called an “unsightly panty line you definitely don’t want on your possible wedding day” when she’d convinced me to go without them.

I immediately came to regret that decision when my whole body flushed with a heat unlike anything I’d ever known.

And a damp spot bloomed on the front of my pretty, vanilla fairy-tale dress.

Right above my core.

No more whispering.

The room went deathly silent.

Which made the High King’s next words hit like a roar: “Everyone. Leave. Now .”