Page 190 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I nodded at Adara, whom the warriors looked at as if seeing both a ghost and a goddess.
“Steel yourself,” was all she muttered as we began to move as one, my silent steps accompanied by strong, proud ones.
The road to the main temple was just as crowded as on the night of the Oracle’s prediction. No flames winked back at me now. Instead, garlands twisted out of rainbow flowers adorned the entire Citadel, from the trees to the houses and their residents’ necks.
Some smiled, some waved, some still narrowed their eyes. It would be a journey to win them over, but I’d taken the first steps and I’d continue my path.
Trust wasn’t earned from one day to the next, especially with so much bad blood between the Protectorate and the Blood Brotherhood.
I could patch up and sew the Clans together, like I’d done with the power lying dormant inside me. The stitches on my imagined pocket were still stiffer than before I’d been kidnapped, but they were healing. I’d ask Allie about it when we talked next.
My chest heaved. I’d wanted my cousins here too. I could imagine Allie in a staring match with Adara, sizing each other up as the powerful hunters they both were. Dax making a joke that would get him surrounded by the guards’ spears and then just laughing and showing them, exactly, why nobody should everthreaten him. Clara catching the eyes of everyone who thought the Protectorate were distorted evil creatures, changing their minds with her radiating beauty and energy. Dara casting her eyes over everyone and everything, noting the details even I had missed in my months here.
Dara would have loved the advisors’ Archives.
Once I was crown princess, they could visit. With that beautiful crown on my head, I would be part of the Clan and I could invite them into my home, to fill it with their laughter and their quarrels and their jokes.
So much had changed in these last months–Ihad changed–but I knew, deep in my bones, my cousins would always be a safe haven for me. One I needed to protect at all costs, from whomever wanted us all destroyed.
Zandyr would protect them as well. Not because he particularly cared for my cousins, but for my sake and my peace. I couldn’t name it, but there was something in our connection…something deep and raw and selfless that cocooned me whenever I felt its echo from Zandyr.
A year ago, he’d been the creature to fear in the night, who’d ruin me and my family. Now he was an ally.
My closest.
My groom.
My future husband.
The crowd was thicker and more restless at the base of the temple, the gold on the high arches reflecting on the civilians. The red doors had been swung open wide, flowers cascading from the necks of the dragons carved above it. If they had been alive, they probably would’ve seen it as an affront to be so mortally embellished.
The crowd applauded and cheered, looking at the entrance to the temple, way above the steps. One by one, alerted by my procession, they turned.
Claps still resounded all around me. Perhaps not as enthusiastically, but they were there, and they gave me hope that one day the Blood Brotherhood civilians would be as happy to see me as they obviously were at Zandyr’s arrival in the temple. My heart beat rapidly, but my skin didn’t turn clammy. Maybe I was getting used to so many curious eyes watching my every move.
The guards and warriors stopped at the base of the stairs. Only Adara joined me as I soared up them, slower than my feet wanted to carry me. Leesa had said I had to walk to the rhythm of the mighty drums flanking the edges of the stairs, beating against my chest.
So I did, back straight, gaze not straying from the doors. I couldn’t look down, not for a moment.
“Our leaders can’t second-guess themselves,” Leesa had warned. “They are guided by a power and an instinct stronger than ours.”
I let my connection with Zandyr guide me. Closer and closer to the entrance of the temple. Inside, hundreds of souls awaited my arrival; I heard their whispers, felt the vibration of their impatient feet through the stone.
In the middle of the stairs, the sacred cauldron awaited on top of its golden pole carved with mythical flowers and animals. It was old, perhaps older than the humans who now used it. Flames murmured inside the cauldron, not daring to breach its rim.
Zandyr and I had to throw our letters in it and watch how the smoke billowed. Each direction and height had a different meaning, which the crones of the Capital would unravel and reveal to anyone who’d listen. Too low, and there was no love or peace to be had within the couple. Too faint, and there wasn’t enough passion. The bigger the smoke swelled, the better.
Adara stopped right next to it. “I’ll be right here.”
I understood what she left unsaid.If you need me.
Right now, all I needed was to see Zandyr and get these nerves under control.
I reached onto the last step, shoes digging into the red carpet waiting for me. Slowly, I let my gaze trickle inside, past the hundreds of faces now staring directly at me.
The world crashed around me as I looked up at the altar. Zandyr stood there, still as a statue and menacing as a god, a lethal storm in his eyes.
But he wasn’t alone.
