He had not expected the ritual to feel like a true binding, but the heat of Azariah’s spark lingered still. Not on his hand, but deep in the bones of his wrist, where the ribbon lay knotted. Its warmth was subtle, but insistent like a presence unwilling to be ignored. Eryn did not glance at the joined flames, he did not need to. He felt it. 

[i]The moment they became one.[/i] 

It was like a sigh loosed from the gods themselves.

And yet the moment he would remember most wasn’t one of fire or vows. It was Azariah slipping his hand into his. Unannounced, unasked. [color=#93E9BE][i]I will meet him there[/i][/color], Eryn had said. Azariah had heard it and chose to answer.

The heat from the rising steam made Eryn flinch. He had spent most of his life in the colder reaches of the Pearl Isles, where mist clung to stone and silence carried on icy winds. He had always preferred frost to fire. But now, he supposed, this was a fitting introduction to the life he was about to enter, one warmed not by solitude but by another's presence.

Had it not been for the desperate need to unify the houses, to support his father and the legacy of their line, Eryn would have chosen a different path. A quieter one. He had shaped his entire life around his role as a speaker of prophecy. And now?

The priestess of Solvya, strikingly similar to Azariah, Eryn noted. Were they related? 

She stood between them, her eyes drifting between the two men. Azariah, composed as ever, spoke his half of the vows with steady clarity. Eryn let the moment stretch, holding onto silence while he could still claim it. What role did he have now, if not the one he was born to fill?

When his turn came, the words came easily. They had been etched into his memory, like a prayer spoken too often to forget. He repeated Azariah’s vow without falter, though a part of him still watched from the outside.

The priestess offered him the match. Eryn struck it once, letting the flame catch, then turned toward the braided Lunevere candle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Azariah conjure his own flame, small and bright, with a flick of his fingers. Eryn quirked a brow. Of course. He hid a quiet smile as he touched the wick, lighting his half in time with his soon-to-be husband.

[i]Husband.[/i]

The word sat strangely in his mouth, as if it belonged to someone else.

The two flames met in the braided center, twining upward into a single tongue of light. Eryn watched it burn with a curious reverence. Somewhere deep within, he was relieved it hadn’t gone out. Some whispered that a snuffed candle was a sign—an omen that a union would be watched by restless spirits.

They turned together to walk the aisle once more. This time, his steps felt lighter.

He had done what was asked of him. Fulfilled his part.

A glance toward the gathering drew his eye to his father. Serath stood near the back, eyes turned skyward, his face drawn tight with tension. Others did the same—waiting, hoping, dreading.

Then, sunlight struck through the high skylight above them. Warmth bathed Eryn’s face like a mother’s touch, gentle and sure. He let out a slow breath and a single tear broke free, tracing his cheek.

Even without a formal blessing, even without knowing what came next, this feeling, this moment was enough.

And then the murmurs began. Whispers stirred in the back of the hall, voices pointing, questioning. Those nearest the great doors turned to look beyond them. Through the arched windows, the sea shifted. The waves recoiled all at once, sweeping far from the shoreline like a great inhalation, only to roll gently back in. A calm tide, some said. But others, watching the rhythm, felt something more.

Perhaps it was Liraren’s blessing after all.

A few nobles shifted in their seats, guards adjusting their postures, servants beginning to prepare for the couple’s departure. Just as the murmurs rose to speaking volume, the crowd was immediately hushed.

It wasn't commanded. It wasn't asked for. It simply happened. She stepped through the marble arch like a shadow cast in daylight—tall, austere, and arrestingly composed. Kizoh, Royal Advisor to Princess Lilith, moved as if time bent slightly to accommodate her.

Her gown was a sculpted masterpiece in shades of onyx and smoked garnet—structured shoulders giving way to a tapered bodice that wrapped around her like lacquered armor. The matte fabric glinted subtly at the seams with burnished crimson threading—subtle, but unmistakable under the torchlight. Every line, every fold, was deliberate, as though she'd been stitched into it by hands long dead and dreaming of conquest. Her hair, pure silver, flowed in sleek, gravity-defiant layers that gathered attention to her crimson eyes that seemed to pin the newly wedded couple in place.

When she smiled, it was all cheekbones and diplomacy. Her lips, painted in a shade too dark for court but somehow made allowable on her, curled with a kind of affection that made the air colder, not warmer.

Eryndor felt it before he understood it. The twist in Azariah’s hand, the way his posture coiled just slightly tighter. [color=#93E9BE][i]That must be Ishaan.[/i][/color]

Kizoh stopped a measured distance from the couple. Not close enough to crowd, just close enough to command.

[color=#972f2f]“How radiant,”[/color] she murmured. [color=#972f2f]“Salt and flame woven by goddesses, bound in law, presented in court. A perfect match, don’t you agree?”[/color] Her tone was honeyed, soft, but too clean to be kind.

[color=#972f2f]“On behalf of Her Highness, Princess Lilith, heir to the Solencian throne and guardian of the Accord, I offer the Crown’s formal blessing.”[/color] She paused then dipped her head, a perfectly regal angle, though her eyes never left theirs. [color=#972f2f]“May your union serve the realm.”[/color] When she looked upon Eryndor and Azariah, it was not as one addresses people. It was how one assesses tools. Weapons or chess pieces, each with their own consequence if moved correctly.

The silence that followed was not just quiet—it was suspended. The entire court waited to see whether she would continue. She did.

Turning slightly, Kizoh’s gaze slid across Eryndor like a silver needle through fabric. [color=#972f2f]“A moonborn in chains of gold. How the tides must whisper about you.”[/color] Her voice was thoughtful, almost affectionate. [color=#972f2f]“Tell me, Heir of Lunevere... when the sea calls, will you still answer with obedience, or prophecy?”[/color] A flick of her crimson eyes, now to Azariah. [color=#972f2f]“And the Heir of Nymere. Fire, so recently reined. How obedient you've become.” Her smile returned. “Does the brand still burn, I wonder? Or has it cooled now that you've found a prettier cage?”[/color]

Eryn’s hand tightened ever so slightly on Azariah’s, but he didn’t dare speak because then she lifted two pale fingers and Ishaan stepped forward. He bowed, crisp, mechanical. [color=#ba7575]“For the Crown,”[/color] he intoned. 

Kizoh turned back to the couple one last time. [color=#972f2f]“May your loyalties be long-lived,”[/color] she said, almost gently. [color=#972f2f]“And your secrets few.”[/color] Then, with the rustle of her scarlet-threaded hem and the silence of knives being drawn, she was gone.

[hr]

The carriage ride was a blur of whispers, of glinting glass and ceremony-slicked silence. Every step taken afterward felt too watched, too heavy with expectation. The blessing had passed. The gods had spoken.

But that... that man...

Eryndor’s spine had stiffened the moment he saw Ishaan.

Not from recognition—Eryn had never met the former marquis in person—but from something worse. An absence. A void so complete it seemed to warp the air around it. The kind of silence that Luneveres recognized instantly: not the stillness of peace, but the hush before a knife was drawn.

He'd felt Azariah’s fingers tighten around his, and this time, Eryn hadn't hidden his response. His own hand returned the pressure, not fierce, not desperate, but resolute. Now, seated beside him in the dim confines of the Nymere carriage, with the firelit chapel behind them and the future looming ahead, Eryndor finally exhaled. [color=#93E9BE]“He’s been [i]graced[/i].”[/color]

That was what they called it when Kizoh marked someone as hers.

It wasn’t a blessing. It wasn’t even a curse, not in the traditional sense. To be [i]Graced [/i]was to be rewritten. Not overtly, not at first. Those who were Graced smiled more than they should. They answered before questions were asked. They remembered everything and nothing at once. Their words were polished, palatable, and hollow.

Some said it began with a ritual: no blood, no magic circle, just a quiet moment when Kizoh looked at you too long, and something inside you shifted. Others believed it was the crimson thread in her garments that did it, woven by Delicanian priests in secret towers where sound could not reach.

The symptoms varied. Some forgot their family names. Others lost the ability to lie. A few became brilliant speakers for the Crown—eloquent, untiring, and completely unbothered by contradiction. All of them, however, shared one thing:

They no longer looked at the world the way they used to. They looked through it. As though they'd glimpsed something beyond the veil—and had chosen to obey it. 

Ishaan was the worst kind. The kind who still looked like he might be saved, but Eryndor knew better. He knew that look. It wasn’t loyalty. It was [i]vacancy[/i].

When Azariah helped him into the carriage, Eryndor had expected to withdraw his hand. The ritual was done and the appearances upheld, but their fingers were still linked, resting between them now like something uncertain. Something not-yet-defined.

Azariah had asked if anyone had come with him.

Eryn looked down at their joined hands. Eryndor hadn’t meant to hold on for so long. It had begun as a gesture of ceremony, steadying himself as he stepped into the carriage, but now, minutes later, neither of them had let go. The weight of it had changed. It no longer felt like obligation, or even kindness. It simply was. Eryndor shifted, not pulling away, but adjusting so their knees touched faintly.

[color=#93E9BE]“No,”[/color] He hesitated, then continued with a wry, delicate edge. [color=#93E9BE]“they thought I wouldn’t need anyone. That I would adjust.”[/color]

That was Lunevere pragmatism: sacrifice what could be borne, lose what was already lost.

He looked up at Azariah fully now, his gaze no longer unreadable. There was gratitude in it. [color=#93E9BE]“But I’ll manage,”[/color] he added, gently with a hint of a smile. [color=#93E9BE]“You offered a party once. I think may take you up on it.”[/color] Their hands were still joined. Eryndor’s gaze dropped to them again, half-expecting the illusion to vanish. But Azariah’s grip was gentle, thumb grazing once across the back of his hand before going still again.

[color=#93E9BE]"You're..not quite what I expected."[/color] He confessed, returning the graze of his thumb against Azariah's. [color=#93E9BE]"Though, this is much better than what I imagined."[/color]