ARIELLE:
Azriel leads me through the meticulously manicured gardens, a path I have traversed a thousand times yet which now feels fraught with ominous possibility. My nerves are wound tighter than a spinster's corset. We settle onto a wrought-iron bench, the chill of the metal seeping through my thin gown, and I fix her with a stare that has been known to wilt lesser hedges.
"Out with it," I demand, dispensing with pleasantries. "What dire secret requires a clandestine meeting amidst the aphids and rose blight? If you've brought me here to confess you've eloped with the stable mistress, I shall be profoundly disappointed in your lack of ambition."
She smiles, that infuriating, cryptic curve of the lips she reserves for moments when she feels particularly wise. It is a look that makes me wish, fervently, for a conveniently placed mud puddle.
"Long ago," she begins, her tone assuming the cadence of a dusty history tome, "when I was a girl among the Morrighai, before I was traded to this court like a bolt of interesting silk, we observed certain… customs with our neighboring people, the Iskari."
I blink. "The Iskari? The warrior men from the eastern cliffs? Mother always said they were a myth, like diplomatic immunity or a satisfying conversation with the Treasurer."
"We are very real. And during the spring rites, a delegation would cross into their territory for the Convergence. A two-month… festival." Her gaze grows distant. "I was too young to understand the purpose then. I only remember being taken to a pavilion of astonishing beauty."
"A festival?" I latch onto the mundanity. "Was there revelry? Excessive consumption of mead? Morrighai singing tavern songs? The mind boggles."
"It was… transformative," she breathes, ignoring my sarcasm.
"How transformative? Did you suddenly develop a talent for watercolors? A profound appreciation for tax law?"
"Arielle," she chides, a faint blush touching her cheeks. "As the rites concluded, the Iskari approached. My mother presented me to a warrior named Kaelen. He had eyes like a winter sea and shoulders that defied logic. It was… the single most extraordinary experience of my life."
"Elaborate," I command, leaning forward. "Was there juggling? Acrobatics? A theatrical performance with a morally ambiguous message?"
"I cannot," she says, the blush deepening. "It is a knowledge written in the blood, not in books. A… mutual discovery. A private language. Typically practiced indoors."
"A private language?" I am utterly lost. "Like mime? Charades? Because I am spectacularly bad at charades. Last time, I convinced an entire room that 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was, in fact, a treatise on badger husbandry."
"It is instinct. It is not learned. You will… understand when the time comes. Do not fret." She has slipped into the formal, archaic dialect she uses when she is being deliberately obscure.
"How can I not fret when I am apparently expected to become fluent in a language I've never heard?" I cry, my composure fraying. "What if I conjugate the verbs incorrectly? What if I use the informal tense when the formal is required and cause an international incident?"
"You will know," she repeats, her gaze fixed on a point beyond me, as if seeing a ghost. "Your body will know before your mind does."
"A comforting thought," I say dryly. "My body currently knows it is cold, anxious, and would very much like a strong cup of tea. Is that part of the ritual?"
"You will know soon enough," she says, standing abruptly and looping her arm through mine. Her smile is now all false brightness.
"Tell me now!" I hiss, planting my feet. "Did you drag me into the shrubbery just to speak in riddles? If the great secret is that men put their boots on one foot at a time, I shall scream."
"It is only he who can be your tutor, Arielle. Not I," Azriel says, her eyes glinting. "Consider yourself fortunate. He is a… coveted prize."
"Fortunate? I feel less like a prize and more like the consolation ribbon at a county fair—slightly wrinkled and wondering how I got here." A tremor of genuine fear slips through. "I am terrified, Azriel."
"Of what? There is nothing to fear," she insists, patting my hand with palpable insincerity. "Simply relax, do not overthink, and try not to accidentally challenge him to a duel before the wedding supper."
"I don't even know him," I whisper, the confession startling me. It is true. I know his title, his lineage, the cold set of his jaw. But the man beneath? A stranger. Unlike the one from my dream, whose impossible presence felt more familiar to me in a few stolen moments of sleep than this prince has in all our waking, strained encounters. The memory of that dream—the heat, the deliberate stalk, the devastating gentleness—washes over me, a wave of confusing warmth that clashes violently with the garden's chill.
"His name is Caith. And I believe he could be… gentle with you."
"Gentle?" I scoff, the word tearing me from the dream's echo. "He looks at me as if I am a puzzling entry in his ledger. 'Gentle' is not the adjective that springs to mind. 'Calculating,' perhaps. 'Aloof,' definitely. 'Likely to compare me unfavorably to his horse'—almost certainly."
"So?" she says with a shrug of supreme indifference. The transformation is jarring.
"So—oh, for heaven's sake."
"So here he comes now!" she trills, with the cheerful malice of a woman releasing a fox into the henhouse.
My head whips around. And there he is. Caith.
He moves down the garden path not with a courtier's stroll, but with the quiet, ground-eating stride of someone used to crossing distances—between countries, between expectations, perhaps between states of being. The morning sun catches the unusual, faint patterns just visible at the open collar of his shirt, and for a dizzying second, I am back in the dream-space, watching ember-like markings glow against his skin. My breath hitches. It is him. It is them. The beast from my dream and the prince from my nightmare, one and the same, walking toward me in the merciless light of day.
"Please," I beg, my fingers clawing at Azriel's sleeve. "Do not abandon me. I will publicly endorse your terrible taste in poetry. I will even wear that puce gown from your aunt that makes me look like a wilted eggplant."
"Because you are not a complete simpleton? Adieu."
And with a swish of her skirts, she is gone, leaving me stranded on the bench as the living embodiment of my deepest confusion and most unsettling fantasy approaches. I am, as they say, in a proper pickle.
And he is here.
He approaches, his gaze as intense and unsettling as it was in my dream. I find a sudden, profound fascination with the embroidery on my slippers. What fresh decree does he bring? I wonder. A list of wifely duties? A critique of my posture? A bill for the 'inconvenience' of having to marry me?
He says something in a low tone, the words lost beneath the frantic drum of my own heart. There is only one way to silence the noise, to bridge this impossible gap—a theory born of pure, desperate instinct. I rise, close the small distance between us, and press my lips to his. Briefly. A question, not a kiss.
His eyes darken, not with dreamlike heat, but with startled shock. He looks at me as if I've just sprouted a second head. Why? Is lip contact forbidden in his world? Is it considered… unsporting?
"This is how I learn to communicate," I say, my voice thankfully steady. "What were you saying?"
"Your mother sent me," he says after a beat, his voice a deep, resonant contrast to the higher melodies of Khavena. It is the voice from the dream, stripped of its whisper. "She suggested we… talk. Is that amenable to you?"
"No trouble at all," I lie, my heart now attempting a full-scale rebellion against my ribs. I am terrified. Of him. Of the echo of the dream that this waking proximity stirs. Of my own bewildering impulse to reenact a fragment of it.
"I must apologize," he continues, his tone formal, icy. "For the abruptness of this union. A courtship would have been preferable, but my schedule is… congested. Affairs of state, you understand. Rebellious provinces, trade disputes, the occasional maritime monster. The usual."
"You speak of things I have no frame for," I state, clinging to wit as my life raft. "I am certain you are aware that your very existence is a personal affront to my worldview."
"An affront?" One dark eyebrow arcs. "Is my presence so… disruptive? I assumed tales of men would have reached even this sequestered shore."
"Oh, tales abound," I say, waving a hand. "Told by nurses to frighten children into finishing their peas. Beasts of burden and appetite, with the manners of a boar and the charm of a damp rock. I confess, I thought them allegory. A metaphor for poor hygiene and loud noises."
"A boar?" A faint, almost imperceptible smile touches his lips. It transforms his face, hinting at the man beneath the prince, and it's dangerously compelling. "I assure you, my hygiene is exemplary, and I can be quite quiet when the situation demands."
"So the Old Mothers' stories were factual," I muse, looking past him to the safety of a rose bush. "I truly believed 'man' was a philosophical concept. Like 'justice' or 'a well-balanced budget.' I had no idea you were a… species."
"And what, precisely, did these stories entail? That we hatch from stones? That our strength is stolen from giants?"
"Something like that. Strong. Warriors. Protectors. It never made sense before." I dare a glance back at him, at the breadth of his shoulders. It makes a different kind of sense now, one that sends a traitorous thrill through me. "But your origin story eludes me. How does one… come to be?"
He regards me, and I see him choosing a path—truth, lie, or simplification. "The bards sing that we were shaped from the clay of the First Land by the Goddess Athene, Queen-Mother of Strategy. She breathed not just life, but ambition into us. A blessing and a curse, as it happens."
"Athene," I repeat. Our own tales speak of her as a distant, ordering power. "Not Eirene, Mother of Joy? That seems a significant oversight."
"Joy was Eirene's gift to the world later," he says, and his voice dips, losing some of its frost. "But it was Eris, Mother of Sorrow and Change, who found Athene's creations too placid. She pricked our hearts with a thorn of longing. For more. For better. For different. That, they say, is why we are never content. Why we build and fight and… sail to hidden islands."
The way he says it feels like a confession. It mirrors the restless, consuming energy he had in my dream. A product of Eris's thorn. Is that what I felt? His longing?
"So you are born of a goddess's will and another's spite," I summarize. "It explains a great deal. The constant fidgeting. The need to conquer my perfectly peaceful island."
He actually chuckles, a short, warm sound that contradicts his chilly demeanor. "We are not a subtle people, it's true."
"And the women in your realm," I press, "are they like us? Do they train with blades and view your kind with healthy suspicion?"
"Some do. Many do not. They are… individuals. As varied as the stars. Some rule, some heal, some argue philosophy, some make astonishingly good bread." He says this last part with a gravity that surprises me.
"But are there any places like Khavena?" The question is urgent. "Where women's law is the only law?"
He shakes his head slowly. "None that I know. There are matriarchies, yes. Councils of mothers who guide. But a land with no men at all? That myth belongs only to you." He looks at me, and his gaze is not unkind. "It makes you remarkable, Arielle. A living legend. It also makes you profoundly unprepared."
"So I am to be a cultural artifact," I say flatly. "A trophy from a forgotten world. 'And here, gentlemen, is my wife, the savage princess who didn't know what a door hinge was.' Charming."
"You will be a queen," he corrects, but the words sound heavy. "My queen. In a realm where power is a contested blade, not a inherited diadem. It will have… challenges."
"If it's so vital," I challenge, stepping closer, driven by a mix of fear and that dream-born fascination, "why not teach me? You seem to be the only one here who doesn't speak solely in riddles and vinegar. What is a wife, Caith? In plain words. Am I a treaty? A ornament? A… partner?" I use Azriel's word, testing it.
He goes very still. "I came here for a wife because it was required," he says, his voice hardening back into its shell. "A king must have a queen. It is the order of things."
"I don't believe you," I whisper. The air between us crackles, not with dream-energy, but with a taut, waking tension. "To cross seas guarded by Eris's own storms, you must have wanted more than a checkbox on a royal ledger."
"Perhaps I did," he admits, his eyes locking with mine. For a second, I see the beast from the dream—raw, intent, stripped of pretense. "Perhaps I wanted the one thing my kingdom cannot provide. A woman untouched by its games. A true ally. Or perhaps," he adds, the mask slipping back, "I just enjoy long sea voyages."
"Where is this kingdom?" I ask, refusing to be derailed. "Should I prepare for frozen wastes or sun-baked deserts? I have a wardrobe to consider."
"Thornvale. It is… not like here. It is hidden in its own way, behind mists and old magic. A place of sharp beauty and sharper politics."
"And I am to travel there by ship? With you?"
"Immediately after the ceremony."
"Could we not… delay? A few days to properly say farewell to sunlight and sanity?"
"Regrettably, no. Duty is a stern master. And my ship's cook makes an excellent sea-broth. You'll barely notice the weeks passing."
I sigh, a sound of profound exasperation. Just then, a maid scurries up, a welcome interruption.
"Your Highness, the ritual bath at the Temple of Eirene awaits. To cleanse you for… for joy."
Joy. The word feels like a mockery. "Very well," I say, tearing my gaze from Caith's. "Until the altar, Prince."
I turn, feeling his eyes on my back. The phantom warmth of his dream-touch flares against my skin, and the memory of my own reckless, waking kiss burns on my lips. I am not being prepared for joy. I am being armed for a war I do not understand, and the enemy—or ally—is the most fascinating puzzle I have ever encountered