Eryndor took the rose in his hands and placed it just behind his left ear, adjusting it within the tendrils of his blonde hair so that it wouldn't fall between this room and the ceremonial one. The rose sat nestled behind his ear, a vivid crimson flare against the twilight silk of his veil. Eryndor hadn’t intended to keep it. It was ostentatious, overly bold, nothing like the quiet elegance House Lunevere prized, but when his fingers brushed the velvet-soft petals, something in him faltered.
It was warm. Real. A mark left by someone who saw him not as duty incarnate, but as a person.
He adjusted the bloom delicately, almost reverently, before folding his hands neatly in his lap. Azariah’s voice filled the space again, and Eryn listened—not just to his words, but to their edges. The offer of celebration, of defiance, couched in charm. The wistful, almost reckless hint of something freer.
A party of their own. A life not dictated by bloodlines. A joke, but not.
His eyes narrowed faintly at the mention of another time, another way. A subtle reaction, barely more than a breath. But inside, it caught. A thread pulled taut. So he chafes against it too. Even golden sons can feel the noose.
When Azariah stepped closer and extended a hand, Eryndor didn’t move at first. The awkwardness that followed drew a quiet flicker of amusement across his lips, brief and vanishing. But something in him softened, too. Azariah’s offer to turn away—his question—was more than just nerves. It was rare. Kind, almost.
And kindness was dangerous.
Eryndor stood without flourish. Silks shifted like seafoam, pooling at his ankles. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he reached out and took Azariah’s arm gently, deliberately. A deliberate breaking of distance, observed by a dozen waiting eyes beyond the door.
His fingers barely grazed the inner crook of Azariah’s elbow, but the contact was there. His gaze flicked downward, where skin met sleeve. Then back up. Into those gold-amber eyes that burned too brightly for this dim, political hall. “Let us go, then,” Eryndor said, his voice as soft as tide over stone. “It isn’t every day you get married in such grand fashion.”
Something like a smile lifted the corner of his lips—quiet, ironic, and maybe… real. He tilted his head, ever so slightly, toward the high vaulted doors awaiting them. “May Her light shine upon us,” he murmured, invoking Anais by rite, by blood, by expectation. But in the hush that followed, his voice dropped an octave, just enough for Azariah to hear something meant only for him: “And may we not lose ourselves in the shadows.”
And with that, Eryndor stepped forward. But beneath the finery, the lace, the prayer-slicked vows soon to be spoken—his heart was not still. It was learning how to burn.
The doors parted with the groan of old magic.
The moment they stepped through the threshold, the sounds of courtly chatter vanished. Silence fell like a divine command. Every head turned to watch the heirs of flame and tide take their place beneath the eye of the goddesses.
The chapel was neither Lunevere nor Nymere—but it borrowed from both.
On one side, the tiled mosaics of the Pearl Isles shimmered like moonlight on water, carved with sea serpents and celestial constellations. And on the other, pillars of red stone, inlaid with fire opals, glowed softly from within—like a hearth burning behind glass. At the center: an altar of white crystal and obsidian, where three divine statues stood in solemn attendance.
Solvya, cloaked in gold and flame, her open palm a pyre of sacred union.
Myrien, serene and pale, pen in hand, eyes cast downward as if already recording the vows not yet spoken.
Liraen, draped in flowering silks, with arms open—welcoming, yearning, ever-hopeful.
The air held incense from both regions—saltwater jasmine and sun-charred myrrh. Together, they smelled like something ancient. Something holy. Their steps echoed in tandem down the crystal aisle. Between them, a single binding thread of gold light hovered in the air, trailing from Eryn’s left wrist to Azariah’s right—a spellweave cast by officiants as they entered, a literal tie that would not fade until the rites were complete.
Eryndor kept his gaze forward. But he was aware of everything. The rhythm of their steps. The light pressure of Azariah’s arm against his own. The sound of whispers—genteel and hushed, but present. He will never know what I gave up to be here, he thought. And I will never know what he’s hiding beneath that grin.
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