Chapter 1306: Lovestruck(2)
The clouds strode slowly away from the sun as it climbed higher into the sky, its sharp, brilliant rays drifting down through the morning mist like the great fingers of the Father.
For a tense moment, one massive, dark-bellied cloud threatened to swallow the light entirely, but the wind nudged it along. Seconds later, a glorious pillar of sunshine broke through, coincidentally raining down directly upon the bride. She stood waiting at the small, flowery altar, framed perfectly beneath the sprawling nut tree that rose majestically from the palace earth.
At her side stood her uncle, Shahab’s son, Lord Jared. He had ridden to the capital alongside a glittering host of trusted lords who could proudly boast of the crown’s friendship and pleasure.
Alpheo’s eyes scanned the front rows of the congregation. The old Wolf of Bracum was there, seated heavily beside his eldest son and heir, Caelum. Near them sat the twin "Maimed Lions," as people had cruelly but accurately taken to calling the surviving sons of the late Lechlian. The eldest brother went wobbling around with his newly fashioned wooden peg, a fine blue silk doublet bearing his house’s roaring heraldry stretched tight across his chest. He offered a small, tentative smile to the gathering, seemingly just happy to have received a royal invitation to where most lord had not been invited.
The younger twin, however, was far less jovial. He sat rigidly, limping even in his seat, his white knuckles gripping a golden-etched cane topped with a snarling lion’s head. The youngest of Lechlian’s proud brood had technically survived his horrific battlefield wounds, though many in the court whispered it was not for the better. The grim reality was proven clear by the agonizing wince that deformed his features whenever his mangled legs shifted against the grass. He would never walk a straight line again, and by the unadulterated scorn painted across his face, he was perfectly aware and made poorer for it.
Suddenly, the collective gaze of the high lords drifted off the cripples and settled onto the latest comer.
Ratto marched into the garden, his fingers trembling violently as he clutched a single red rose plucked from a thornless stem. In his other hand, he held a tightly rolled cloak, which would soon become the traditional garb of his house. The heraldry on that fabric remained as much a mystery to the bride as it was to the King himself.
The young legate had been strangely, fiercely defensive about it during the preparations, refusing to let anyone catch so much as a glimpse of the colors. Alpheo’s curiosity pricked at the sight of it.
Ratto offered the crowd a smile, though it was a distinctly lopsided, terrified attempt at bravery. He took one look at his bride and he grew up a bit, then caught the terrifying, unified scowl plastered across the faces of her uncle and grandfather and down he went, instantly souring whatever fragile courage remained in the boy’s chest.
Alpheo pitied his young commander, but this was a personal battle the boy had to fight alone. The King gave him one last, heavy pat to the shoulder blades and stepped away to take his own seat beside his family. There was no family to accompany the legate; a groom had to walk the carpet entirely alone. And walk he did, his leather boots skitting nervously off the edge of the plush red fabric path all the way to the roots of the great nut tree.
"He doesn’t have a good look on him " Jasmine whispered softly, her thick black hair falling down past her shoulders in elegant waves, crowned in a braid of hair around the back of her head. Alpheo always loved that hair-style.
Her lips moved just below Alpheo’s chin, her breath warm against his neck.
"He is just minorly nervous," Alpheo murmured back, a small smirk touching his lips as he stared at the frozen, rigid back of his legate. "You would think the boy was facing his very first battle."
"Most men would say a marriage is exactly that."
Against his own best courtly sense, Alpheo let out a sudden chuckle, burying the sound quickly into his fist as he leaned down. The Queen instantly guided his head back with a firm, scolding hand on the nape of his neck, forcing him to sit upright.
"Come now, firm yourself," Jasmine chided with a ghost of a smile. "It is a good, holy day."
"As you say, my Queen."
"Still," Jasmine mused, her eyes returning to the frantic groom, "why is he trembling so? Most men of his low birth would find it the ultimate, unimaginable honor to marry—" She quickly corrected herself, catching her own slip though not without a small snort. "To unite with a princess of royal southern blood."
"Aye, there is undoubtedly as much honor in it as there is genuine love in the whole affair," Alpheo noted, his tone turning reflective. "It is perfectly normal for him to get nervous. This is a life-long choice that they themselves carved out of the mud. They will either rejoice in it until they are old and grey, or they will grow bitterly sour over it. Only the passage of winters will tell."
Jasmine leaned forward slightly, her green piercing eyes locking onto his, forcing him to gaze directly into them. "And tell me your Majesty... were you like this when we were wed?"
"We didn’t exactly marry for love, if you recall."
"Aye," Jasmine whispered, her voice dry as tinder. "You proposed to me with a sharp sword pressed directly against my neck, both literally and figuratively. It is hardly a romantic gesture I am likely to forget.Not the only blood you drew from me"
On Alpheo’s immediate right, Basil shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearing his throat loudly and looking away. Luckily, young Rosalind was entirely distracted by the beautifuul white bride’s dress etched with flowers and hadn’t heard the exchange.
Alpheo’s mind drifted back to that cold, fateful afternoon. He remembered it with terrifying clarity; he had proposed the deal while his battle-hardened legions stood arrayed just outside the palace gates, their naked steel drawn and waiting to see whether those weapons would be pointed at the newly uncrowned princess of Yarzat, or unleashed upon her enemies. In the end, they had cast her sword to his grand cause. The rest, as the chroniclers would no doubt love to write, was history.
"Well," Alpheo murmured, leaning his forehead gently against the side of her head, completely ignoring the eyes of the court. "We did eventually grow rather fond of one another, didn’t we?"
Jasmine pushed his face away with a single, elegant finger against his cheek, though her eyes softened. "Too soon for such talk, Fox. Now sit tight, hold your tongue, and watch the ceremony."
And watch the ceremony they did, as the baseborn legate prepared to claim his princess under the midday sun.
The proceedings were remarkably similar to a traditional southern marriage, with the singular, glaring exception that a priest of the Star was nowhere to be found near the altar. That particular detail remained a bitter, sour pill for many to swallow, but Alpheo did not deign to change his decree. If he wanted his own son to inherit the throne after his bones were dust, he had to clear the political field of any rival claimants, regardless of whose ancient sensibilities were bruised along the way.
A brand-new branch house of Veloni-isha would be born this day, to be sure, but by the strict terms of the contract, their offspring would possess absolutely no legal claim to the sovereign throne of Yarzat. Thus, the crown could comfortably look upon them as reliable allies for the generations to come.
First came the ancient ritual of the meal ceremony. Ratto was forced to lift a heavy silver chalice and drink a full quarter of a small urn of raw bull’s blood. Alpheo could still vividly recall that thick, metallic, and deeply acidic taste on his own tongue, even after fifteen winters. It was evidently every bit as foul as he remembered; a thoroughly disgusted scowl rapidly bloomed across the young legate’s face as he labored to swallow the thick crimson fluid without retching.
Alpheo found it funny.
As for the bride, Princess Lysandra was made to consume the animal’s cooked hearth. Ratto’s eyes flared with the exact same sense of cosmic injustice Alpheo had felt fifteen years ago, his lips pursed in shared agony as he watched his beautiful bride stoically chew the meat.
It was probably even tasty with all the spices put on it.
Still, the harsh ritual was completed without a single mistake, and the guest muttered among themselves that the signs were highly auspicious. Normally, this was the exact moment where a holy man would step forward to pronounce his final blessings under the light of the heavens. But since this was no church-sanctioned marriage, the young lovers had to improvise.
Ratto took a step closer to her, his posture suddenly losing its frantic stiffness, replaced by a quiet, fierce intensity. He reached out, his calloused hands catching her trembling fingers as he slipped a ring on her.
"Under the unblinking witness of the true gods," Ratto spoke, his voice ringing surprisingly clear across the quiet garden, "I swear to always treasure you, Lysandra. I swear to defend your honor with my bare steel, to shelter your hearth from the winter storms, and to stand by your side through every triumph and every peril the world sees fit to throw at our feet."
Lysandra looked up away from the rings and at him, a radiant smile breaking through her courtly veneer as she squeezed his hands in return.
"And under that very same holy witness, I swear the same to you, " she promised, her voice unwavering. "I give you my loyalty, my council, and my heart. Your victories shall be mine, and your burdens I shall gladly carry as my own."
They looked into each other’s eyes for a profound heartbeat, entirely forgetting the brooding royal family and the King watching from the front row. Together, they spoke the ancient, binding vow.
"With this kiss, we swear our eternal love."
When their lips met, the tension holding the entire garden captive instantly shattered. The congregation erupted into a deafening roar of applause and cheers,some Voghondai warriors that were invited to please Torghan and her sisters let out wild, celebratory howls that echoed off the palace walls while the lords begrudgingly joined in the claps.
With a beaming, lopsided grin, the groom finally unrolled the mysterious cloak he had been clutching so defensively.
With a flourish of his arms, Ratto gently draped the proud cloak over Lysandra’s shoulders, claiming his princess before the eyes of the realm.
It was done quick enough so it was hard to take a proper glimpse at it, but that was all right they had the whole day to gaze at that.
It was time for dancing.