The night before the wedding, the palace didn't just smell of luxury; it smelled like a funeral. The scent of lilies was so thick it was cloying, mingling with expensive oils in a way that made Emery's stomach turn.
She sat as still as the marble statues in the garden while four handmaidens scrubbed her skin. They worked with a clinical, rhythmic intensity until she was raw and pink. They slathered her in jasmine and crushed pearls, handling her limbs with the detached care of butchers prepping a prize cut of meat for the altar. When they finally draped her in the heavy, stiff silks of an Imperial bride, the fabric didn't feel like a dress—it felt like a gilded shroud, cold and final.
