Father Pole stepped forward and slipped the ribbon wrapped from around their hands. "You are now one under God," he said quietly, almost as a private message.
Karsyn's hand didn't slip away. It held hers more deliberately and in the delirium, he led. Faces flashed by, the hall receding as they stepped out of the church. A crowd greeted them with bright faces, animated to the point that the sound should be deafening—it probably was.
Her people cheered, bells tolling the announcement, the energy vibrating in the air and all Rhosyn could feel was her heart race. She didn't feel like she connected to any of this. As if it was happening to someone else and that she just happened to find herself in the middle of it.
The duke guided her down stairs, she not long struggled up, keeping pace with her and they came to the open carriage—great. Whose idea was it to make something already unappealing, worse?
She tried to lift her foot and found the step too high and her skirt too restricting. A hand slipped along her waist, his other still in hers and Karsyn lifted her easily enough. Rhosyn might've let out a surprised yelp, but she couldn't hear it for the thundering mass. Her feet steadied on the carriage floor and he stepped up behind her.
The space was somehow smaller than a typical carriage and as she settled into the cushioned seat, Karsyn slid next to her, his body pressed close and she found herself thumbing her pebble again. Only, as for the past week, whenever she did, her mind only turned to him more and she found it less of a distraction and more of a hindrance.
Caerwyn rode nearby, his presence more felt than seen. Rhosyn was sure she couldn't lose him in a crowd this size even if she tried. The people who celebrated beamed at her pressed against the duke and they ate it up. She supposed, any news was good news.
He shifted next to her. "You should smile—the crowd loves seeing you smile."
Rhosyn turned to Karsyn, hearing his words echoing ones he said before and hearing something toned underneath. She wondered who else loved it and his eyes shifted in the way that she learned meant he was in her head—or at least guessing what she was thinking.
She hadn't noticed his hand reaching up until his fingers glossed her cheek, catching a strand of hair and sweeping it behind her ear. Rhosyn's grip on her blue stone tightened and her eyes caught on something amongst the crowd—or so she told herself.
It was easier to track the way people shifted in the streets, colours hushing against each other and blurring. But Rhosyn's mind kept on the rock in her palm and the breath rolling down her neck. It purred across her skin and she curled in favour of it, pleasure sitting in her middle and a hum on her lips.
She couldn't concentrate on the potential risks. The shadows that could be lurking in the masses. The way the carriage clattered uneasily underneath them. He slipped into her mind and distracted her, and she knew it was all on purpose.
He felt the way she trembled when the cart began to move. The way she tracked people's hands rather than their faces. Karsyn had been reading her from the beginning, everything he did had a reason and this was just another one of those calculations—she kept telling herself.
When the carriage finally rolled into Ravelocke Estate, Rhosyn found nothing to focus on that wasn't the looming dread approaching in building form, or pressed against her in a naggingly annoying way. Though both won when the carriage came to a halt and nausea occupied her body.
Karsyn moved first, stepping from the vehicle and waited for her to stand. There were no more crowds of people. No one was waiting to witness a love story that didn't truly exist. All except Caerwyn of course.
Rhosyn straightened, feeling too tall atop something so precarious. She knew the possibility of her dismounting this cart was fanciful, if not outright impossible... Without help.
He had already reached out, hands seizing her before she could retort or retreat, and without ceremony, she was lifted.
Rhosyn decided there was nothing worse than being handled. Her body reacted, hands clutching Karsyn with all the urgency fear of falling instilled, and like she expected—he dragged it out.
Intentionally, he lowered her slowly, her body sliding against his. But their gaze never dropped, not even after her feet finally met the floor.
"Ready?" he whispered, fingers tracing loops in the lace at the small of her back.
"Would you believe me if I said 'yes'?" she quipped, not fully convinced by her own sarcasm.
He answered her with a smile that she tried not to linger on.
Rhosyn breathed one last full breath, tasting the sweetness of the day and turned toward the main entrance of her abode. It was the first time using them since returning from her uncle's funeral. How peculiar that such a sinister, sad thought would sneak into her head now. That was when she walked in as Lady RhosynValewyn of Ravelocke. Now, she'd enter as a completely different person. Maybe these doors could tell stories of change better than most books cumbering her library shelves.
Caerwyn was the one who cleared his throat to pull her from the thoughts. Funny, now she shared her mind with two others, and she wondered how they could operate for all the crowding.
Together, she allowed the men to help her ascend the stairs, and Rhosyn added them to her next least favourite thing, next to carriages and being handled. Who knew that weddings would enlighten one to their dislikes—or maybe that was just her.
When the doors swung open a completely unique feeling crawled over her. A room crammed with lords and minor nobles, but it was a prince's that prickled her skin. It could have been the lighting, or the heat for the masses of bodies, but Rhosyn couldn't quite read his expression. That was a first.
Her knight shifted in her peripheral, a promise he was close by and Karsyn stepped a beat closer.
But Rhosyn had lived this life longer than she needed their protection from Edrien, and so she raised her head, placed a deliberate palm against Karsyn's chest—the image of a newly wed couple—and smiled.
What could she say? He cast the first stone—well, brick.
She wasn't the only one who changed it seemed and something unnerved her how much relationships had shifted.
Karsyn's hand barely skimmed her waist, adding his commission to the scene and though the audience ate it up, Edrien knew better.
Together, they made their way down the stairs into her hall—normally disused and dusty—and yet again Rhosyn struggled with her new passionate hate for inclines that forced her to clutch to Karsyn for support.
The sea of people opened up, creating space that surprised Rhosyn. Music played in that expectant way and she drowned down the desire to roll her eyes. She couldn't catch a break.
Newlyweds' first dance.
She was running on severe dependency on the satire of the "joyous day" and she started to wonder when she would fold.
"Rhosyn?" Karsyn asked, as if gauging to see if she'd choose to flee instead—and if that was an option she would've contemplated it. But the ocean of people that opened up to allow them through closed behind them and Rhosyn stood in the middle of a dance floor caged more than Karsyn's arms.
Somehow she'd found her resolve when she found her composure, and Rhosyn wrapped herself around him in answer. His frame was oddly inviting as she stepped into it and then they were moving.
She concentrated on the steps, though they were simple. It's what kept her mind from wondering and eyes from searching. There was something arresting in the way Karsyn danced with her, capturing her attention and holding it. A light squeeze of her hand in his. His other, grazing fingers across her spine and something curled in her stomach. But even without his touches, she breathed him in, leather and cedar, tasting smoky in the air.
When the song trickled to a stop, Rhosyn sighed in relief. Now, all she had to do was eat and—
"Congratulations," a voice said from close by and twisted sickly inside her. "Could I be so brazen to ask my dear friend for a dance to commemorate her on her special day?" Edrien asked, all sweet and princely.
Karsyn's face didn't hide his thoughts and there was a dangerous line they were walking. Rhosyn dropped into a curtsy fitting the prince's station, and with a gentle hand pushed Karsyn back as she stepped forward.
"Of course, Your Highness." She smiled sweetly, despite the bile burning her throat.
Edrien happily took her offered palm, eyes shifting to Karsyn quickly and with a pleased scoff, he pulled her into his arms. A shiver crept up her spine, a chill down her arms and with eyes that told Karsyn to stand down, Rhosyn stepped into a new frame—or old, depending on how you look at things.
The duke reluctantly bowed and stepped back—but no further—and she held her breath, waiting to see how far pride would push them both.
The room turned in a different way and she couldn't concentrate on just the steps as she struggled in the restrictions of her skirt. But Edrien didn't let her catch her breath, always keeping her half second behind.
"You've got him trained," he gloated. "Maybe it's true what they say about the north—conquered by doe eyes."
Rhosyn had no retort, no time to retort and no time to catch the look on anyone's face besides Edrien's.
"I'm glad I caught you," he mocked.
He was enjoying himself, hands holding her close and if they didn't she was sure to fall.
"Now that you're married and I have my Vow of Loyalty." He had a look that rubbed salt into wounds. "Thanks for that, by the way," he added, quick and completely self-satisfied. "I know how much you love to sacrifice for me, and so as I promised, you have a place at my court." The words fell out of his mouth like a gift, and yet it drove the air from her lungs.
Everything was numb and for the first time today, she learnt what panic really felt like.
"Rhos," Edrien whispered too close to her ear. "I expect to see you after you're done with your wedding night."
Each word shuddered and echoed inside her. Surely, he was joking...
But the eyes that locked with hers had never been so confident.
Rhosyn wasn't sure if the song had finished—didn't care. A small ember burned somewhere inside her and she grasped at it for survival. Turning out of his arms, hands, reach, Rhosyn fled. Her vision tunnelled on a door and she didn't drop her composure until the commotion was contained behind her and the comfort of darkness welcomed her.
She wasn't being hunted. She was being snared.