Chapter 3 — Two Royal Weddings

Three days after the Founders’ Masque, two royal betrothal decrees crossed the capital.

Adrian’s arrived first.

His procession filled the Avenue of Kings with twelve gilded carriages, six heralds, and enough crimson silk to cover a cathedral. He sent Seraphina pearls from the western sea, silver from the royal mines, and tapestries taken from the Crown collection.

Then he ordered the entire display past Ashbourne House.

My mother watched from an upstairs window, white with anger.

"He means to humiliate you."

My father stood in the courtyard with one hand on the pommel of his sword. "Give me permission to challenge the master of his guard. I cannot challenge the Crown Prince, but I can break the man who planned this route."

"Adrian planned it," I said.

That did not improve my father’s mood.

Across the street, courtiers admired the royal wealth. I noticed the wax seals on the inventory cases. The Office of Ceremonies. The royal textile reserve. The Crown stables.

Adrian had spent public money to prove how little I mattered.

"Let him finish," I said. "The auditors will enjoy the receipts."

The last gilded carriage had barely turned the corner when riders in plain black entered the avenue.

There were no trumpets.

Prince Julian rode at their head in a charcoal coat without jewels. A leather falconer’s glove covered his left hand. Two white hunting falcons perched on a carved rail carried behind him, restless and bright-eyed.

He dismounted before my father.

"Duke Ashbourne. I could not borrow the royal treasury, so I have brought what is mine."

His men carried six darkwood chests into the courtyard.

The first held gold crowns stamped by three kingdoms. The second contained bonds and shipping shares. The remaining chests held estate deeds, warehouse titles, and trade charters.

Nothing borrowed. Nothing taken from the Crown.

My father lifted one deed and checked the seal.

"This is a vineyard in Arlesse."

"A profitable one," Julian said. "Its steward is honest, which is rarer."

My mother looked at the white falcons. "And those?"

"A royal courtship traditionally requires a gift that cannot be bought on the morning of the parade. I trained them myself."

He glanced up at me.

"They bite, refuse bad commands, and mate for life. They reminded me of Lady Evelyn."

My father laughed before he could stop himself.

At the far end of the avenue, Adrian had remained to watch.

His expression hardened as the Ashbourne gates closed on him.

That evening, Julian sent me a narrow parcel wrapped in brown paper.

Inside was a copied page from Ledger Seventeen-B.

Warehouse Nine had contained the proof exactly where I said it would.

Our wedding took place six weeks later.

Adrian chose the same day for his own ceremony.

Nearly every ambitious noble in Valedoria crowded into the Royal Chapel to witness the Crown Prince marry Seraphina. Julian’s smaller chapel held my parents, a handful of his mother’s former attendants, the Bell & Briar’s elderly master apothecary, and twelve officers who had served under my father.

I preferred it that way.

There was enough food for every guest. No one had to lie about why they had come.

Julian waited beneath a carved blackthorn arch. For once, he wore no careless smile.

When I reached him, he bowed over my hand.

"Last opportunity to flee."

"I used that opportunity in my first life. It ended badly."

His thumb paused against my knuckles.

"Then stay," he said quietly. "We will try something more dangerous."

We spoke the vows.

The Founders’ Masque claimed that royal tokens revealed the will of heaven. Yet when Julian slid the marriage ring onto my finger, I felt no hand of fate closing around my throat.

I had chosen this.

That made all the difference.

At the wedding supper, one of Julian’s theater couriers entered dressed as a maid and placed a glass of champagne beside me.

"The Crown Princess’s incense was purchased from Marrow & Finch," she murmured. "Same order as before: white rose, amber, and myrrh."

"And the addition?"

"Bell & Briar supplied it this morning. Harmless alone."

Julian took the glass before I could lift it.

"No whispered conspiracies without your husband," he said.

The courier disappeared.

"The reagent is in place," I told him. "If Seraphina uses the compound tonight, Adrian’s symptoms will appear before the poison can hide itself in his blood."

"How severe?"

"Painful. Frightening. Not fatal at tonight’s dose."

"You are certain?"

"No honest apothecary is ever certain. That is why three physicians are already in the Royal Chapel under the excuse of tending elderly guests."

Julian’s mouth curved.

"You arranged physicians at another man’s wedding on the morning of your own."

"I also arranged for the incense order to remain in the merchant’s ledger, for the delivery boy to be paid through a traceable account, and for a sealed sample to be kept at Bell & Briar."

"Remind me never to betray you."

"You may betray me once."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I will need you to feel safe enough to make it useful."

Julian laughed, and this time there was no performance in it.

Later, in the candlelit rooms prepared for us, he poured two cups of wine and drank from both before offering one to me.

"A romantic gesture?" I asked.

"A professional habit."

He set a leather case on the table between us. Inside lay glass vials, a folding knife, a small pistol, and coded maps of the palace service tunnels.

I placed my copy of the flood ledger beside it.

This was our wedding night: poison, stolen gold, and the blueprint of a kingdom’s collapse.

Julian traced a line in the ledger.

"Cedric moved the first payment through Rosemere, just as you said. But the second payment vanished into a monastery fund."

"Not a monastery," I said. "A military paymaster using a dead abbot’s seal. Lucien begins buying officers before winter."

"Then we move before winter."

"We begin tomorrow."

"And tonight?"

I looked toward the eastern windows. From Julian’s residence, the tower of the Crown Prince’s palace was visible beyond the river.

"Tonight, we wait for bells."

The first bell rang before midnight.

The second followed almost at once.

By the fourth, Julian was on his feet.

By the seventh, every royal physician in the capital had been summoned to Adrian’s bedside.

Across the river, the Crown Prince lay gasping on the floor of his bridal chamber while Seraphina screamed for help.

One physician overturned the brazier in the confusion.

The rose-scented ash spilled across white marble.

Among it glittered a scatter of black crystals that should not have been there.