And Darren would choose Blayne.
I would lose Darren. By keeping these secrets, by turning a traitor, by ultimately betraying the Crown… I would lose. But sometimes the sacrifice is worth the cost.
My cost would be Darren.
I would keep him safe. From the rebels. From Blayne. From myself—except for my lies. And when this was all over. When we had his brother in chains and the country was safe from his family’s tyrannous plague.
Then I would fall to my hands and knees. And I would beg his forgiveness.
And maybe, someday, we could be that boy and girl he talked about. And we would leave this all behind.
****
I entered the ceremonial chamber, and the sun’s rays caught on my dress.
The glow of butter-yellow against scarlet-red locks and steel-gray eyes.
Down the row I walked, head held high as I strode across to the priest.
My eyes were locked on the tapestry behind him. It depicted a king in a gilded chair, a crown atop his head and a hematite pendant at his throat. With a man in ceremonial black robes at his right. His Black Mage.
The king and his right hand. Blayne and Darren.
My slippers glided along the soft carpet lining the walk, and it was only as I reached the end that I let myself look to my left.
Darren stood there. His face a wash of emotion. Ink-black, jaw-length locks and garnet eyes—everything I had ever loved. In his robe. Just like the tapestry.
He held a hand out as I climbed to the top of the dais.
The priest garbled on, almost incoherent in his speech. And then he stopped. He dipped his thumb into a bowl of crimson wine and pressed once along my forehead, and then once along the prince’s.
He issued a prayer.
And my eyes slid to the king waiting below, a cruel smile painting his mouth, his soul stained red with the blood of hundreds. Every life lost in the name of the Crown.
I wasn’t sure how I had missed it before. It was the same smile I had seen countless times over the last year, only this time I could see it for what it was.
Evil. Corruption. Greed.
“Do you, Prince Darren, First Prince to Jerar and Black Mage to the Crown, take the Lady Mage Ryiah of Demsh’aa, as your wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward and keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I do.” Darren’s voice rang out across the hall. His whisper after was enough to bring me back, and break me. “Always.”
“And do you, Lady Mage Ryiah of Demsh’aa, take Prince Darren, First Prince to Jerar and Black Mage to the Crown, as your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward and keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
My hands were trembling as I made myself look left and into the eyes of the boy I would betray.
“I do.”
The End