A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XXXX. Altared

Nephele

"Why did I miss you so much?" I whine after just about a minute of hugging Cressida in the privacy of my dressing room. I had literally led her through the palace at a run because I physically couldn't resist wrapping my arms around her until we were in private.
I certainly heeded Eris' warning, and I know it wasn't made in vain. The last thing I'd want is to give our father's any more leverage than they already have.
"Probably the same reason that I can't stop shaking," Cressida answers, pulling away, making me grip her hand for emphasis. "Seriously Neph, I'm like jitterbug."
"Hey, it's my wedding day," I pout. "I'm the only one who gets to be jittery."
"Oh, but you're not," Cressida teases, poking my rosy cheeks. "You look like you have the opposite of cold feet."
I shrug, smirking. "Eris keeps them warm and toasty, what can I say?" I want to tell her about the kiss, but I can't. As far as she knows, we had our first kiss months ago.
She squeals, tugging on my hair. "You should've heard how he wrote to me," she gushes. "I swear every sentence was on about what Nephele needs or Nephele wants or Nephele would love. I'd wager you have quite the honeymoon waiting for you, Girl."
I roll my eyes, fighting the flutter in my stomach that could fly me to the moon. "Though I didn't miss you putting rose petals into my head," I scowl mockingly at her.
"I'm serious, Neph. That boy really loves you," she promises, and I nearly refute her before I catch myself. Why wouldn't he love me? We're getting married for love in the eyes of the others. Why would I refute her? Why would the word love make me break out in hives?
"I just can't believe you're here," I change the subject. "I have so much to tell you about my travels."
"Well," she smiles, patting the chair. "We have about a hundred braids to unravel, so we have the time."
...
We're only about halfway done with my hair when I finish talking about my trip, but conversation never lulls. Not even as Cress starts the long process of restoring my natural hair after a month in twists and braids, explaining as she goes.
My natural hair is different than hers, she tells me. Where hers is closely coiled and shrunken over itself in a beautiful and thick cloud, mine is incessantly wavy, albeit in in concentrated and dense crimps and kinks that Cress enhances with oils. My scalp feels like it's burning from the freedom of wearing my hair untwisted, but it's a good burn.
Cressida praises the length of my hair and how it falls down my back, admitting she feels sick at the idea of taking scissors to it. I tell her that the dead ends do me no good and it will still be plenty long after she trims it.
After carving my hair to frame my face perfectly, it still hangs just as long down my back, healthier than before. She manipulates my hair into a style that pulls and twists twin pieces back from the crown of my head, joining them in a fluffy tail at the back with a silver comb. From the comb hang several crystals, shaped like rain drops.
"Marry me," I beg her.
"Your husband might object," she points out. I shrug.
"He's not my husband yet," I retort.
"Fair point," she smirks. "But he will still object."
"He will," I agree, despite my uncertainty over Eris' feelings for me. I know that much.
She glances at the clock. "I think makeup will be here soon," she tells me regretfully. "I better get going before anyone sees me and asks questions."
I frown.
"Eris wrote me and explained how... delicate the situation was with his family," she explains. "That it would be safer for me not to linger too long and risk catching their attention. I never wanted Beron to know I existed anyway." I shiver, hoping the same of myself, but I'm already on his radar for eternity starting today.
"But you'll be at the wedding, right?" I take her hand, holding it like she might wink out of existence. She laughs sweetly.
"I wouldn't miss it for the Mother herself," she grins, squeezing my fingers back. "I'll talk to you at the reception."
"Cauldron willing," I groan. "Marrying a prince is all fun and games and fairytales until you have to be a diplomat."
She snorts. "You get used to it," she smiles. "Your Princess lessons start after your honeymoon."
I roll my eyes, my mind drifting away. I hadn't even thought about our honeymoon. I have absolutely no idea what that sort of thing will look like in our circumstance, and I'm beginning to wish I would've asked.
"Okay," I reluctantly let her go. "See you in a few hours."
She smiles, kissing me on the cheek. "I can't wait!" Then, she dips out the door, and I feel nerves settle in my stomach thick.
I hardly even react when those silent ladies who tended to me my first days here file into my room and begin to slather my face in lotions and moisturizers and cremes.
It's as if all the stress from the wedding has chosen to catch up with me in this exact instant. It's more than needing this to go perfect. Marrying Eris will change my life forever, and if we're not careful, it could end both of our lives. I am signing my fate to his today, and if we fail, we die. Our fathers aren't the forgiving type. Maybe the war isn't today, but this wedding is certainly part of the fight.
I could beg the ladies to stay longer when they've finished my makeup, but it's nearly time for me to meet my mother, and I need to put on my dress. Stripping, I find the beautiful garment hung right where I had Cherkov send it. It looks almost as beautiful hanging as it did on.
It was crafted from billowing, white toile, pleated into a bodice that sculpts around my breasts and cuts the line of my waist, but billows at the skirts. The sleeves are not dissimilar, draped off my shoulders delicately, sheer and showing my skin. The whole gown was sheer, in fact- in what I'm sure will displease my mother. I didn't care about it just this once because if I'm to be forced into a marriage, I'm going to wear whatever wedding gown I damn well want.
Besides, my body wasn't exposed. Beneath the toile was a delicate lilac bodysuit. And woven through the cloudy layers of toile wear sparkling beads, stroked in the configuration of lightning when they catch the light. That was Cherkov's final touch to make it known that this gown was made for no other.
I stare at myself in the mirror for a good while, my fingers trailing over my skin slowly as I admire the subtle makeup around my eyes and the tint to my lips. I look beautiful. I don't need confirmation from anyone on that. It is a plain fact like the sky is blue or the dawn is early.
But in the back of my mind...
In the back of my mind, I hope Eris thinks I look pretty when I walk down the the isle in a few minutes.
Which reminds me, my mother will cut my fingers off if I'm late. Scrambling into my shoes, I make my way to the meeting point in front of the ceremony doors with a minute to spare, having moved as fast as physically possible under the refusal to break a sweat.
The most my parents give me is a click of their tongues in approval of my earliness, but oh, I get an earful of disapproval over the gown. "It's see through, Nephele," Mother fuses, straightening the pleats as if they will become opaque.
I shrug. "Eris picked it," I lie, feeling sorry to put all of the heat onto him again. To be fair, I don't have many other cards to play. "I'm fully covered."
"Hardly," my father scowls at me. "But if it makes the son of autumn happy, then so be it."
"Yes," Mother agrees. "You will do whatever you must to keep him happy tonight. Don't fight back- it's unbecoming."
I shiver a bit, thanking my lucky stars that Eris isn't like that. That he'd never hurt me. That he wouldn't lay a hand on me if I told him not to.
"Yes, ma'am," I look at my feet, struggling to meet her eyes. I hope she mistakes my disgust for submission.
"Good," mother presses her lips in a line, reaching to the table behind her. "Here." She hands me a bouquet of lavender and marigold, and I can tell just by looking at it that it was Eris who picked the flowers out for me. Marigolds must be his favorite how lavender is mine. Despite myself, I smile foolishly, smelling the flowers deeply. Their scents blend so beautifully that I have to shut my eyes.
Mother stares at me a while longer before shaking her head, sneaking through the doors to her seat at the end of the isle. I find myself more nervous to see her go. Despite my mother's cruelty, she was predictable, but father is a loose canon. I can never tell what will set him off. What he will do to me. Whenever it's just the two of us, I find myself wrecked with anxiety because I know there's nothing he wouldn't do to me if it made him feel good. If it caused me misery.
I look at him hesitantly, and he is looking towards my bouquet, suspicion in his gaze. "If I didn't know any better, I might think that little boy likes you," he says. I panic. I know Eris and I are friends, but I didn't think it was all that evident that he liked me.
"He likes my body," I say, trying to muster a calmness that I can hardly find. "He likes to make sure I don't fight back as hard as I can because he knows I'm more powerful than him." Speaking it is nauseating.
"That will change," Father says, almost comfortingly. I know better. He's only trying to comfort himself. "That power will keep building in you until you bleed your first time since subversion. That's why it is imperative that you get pregnant soon or it will all be in vain. It's what happened to your mother. The best we can do is pray for a boy."
Now I definitely want to throw up. I hate talking about pregnancy, and even in the few times I've thought of being a mother, I always wanted a daughter first. Maybe it's because I wanted to undo what my parents did to me because I wasn't a boy. Maybe it's because sons are so rarely good. Maybe it's because there are enough powerful men in this world without me contributing. Not nearly enough powerful women.
Still, I haven't had my period in the two centuries that I was kept in captivity for lack of nourishment. I can't imagine it will come back to me gently.
Nodding, I look over at my dad, smiling weakly. "Of course," I say, casting my eyes away as the harp begins. "That's our cue."
He nods, looping his arm through mine, though I catch the slight revulsion in his body to do so. As a kid, my parents only ever touched me to beat me, and now, I think I'd prefer it to touching each other like he ever loved me. Like he had any right to escort me on his arm to the only man who ever truly gave a shit about me. Like he had any right to give me away.
I silence the lightning in my bones as the massive doors are opened, the ceremony room positively packed, but my eyes find Eris' immediately.
His jaw is set in his trademark impassive silence, but I can catch his eyes twinkle, his ears turning pink at the points. I smile at him because I can. Because I can't help it. Seriously, he looks fucking adorable in his deep red pants and blazer, the white shirt underneath buttoned and tied up with a bronze-printed tie. His hair was absolutely perfect, every strand meticulously hung my the mother herself to make me drool as I blindly walk forward.
"I don't believe it," father murmurs, and I blink out of my trance, looking at him, catching his gaze over the aisles.
The aisles...
The aisles are filled with familiar faces- which is strange considering I know hardly no one in this world.
Winter court. Dawn court. Day court. Night. Summer. Spring.
I double take at Tamlin. His presence is the most jarring, but he sits there beside Summer, his jaw pressed in a line, but he nods in recognition at me from his seat beside Tarquin and Cressida who both give me massive smiles. I don't know what Eris had to promise to get him to come, but I'm positive it won't go unnoticed.
A row ahead, Thesan and his lover Ren sit beside Kalias, Vivienne, and Emelda who is smiling a toothless grin as she chews on her mother's necklace. The next row up Feyre and Rhysand sit beside Helion who gives me a sly wink, though his eyes look drained, probably from seeing Delia.
I refocus myself, turning my attention back towards Eris who has the ghost of a smirk on his face, tricky bastard. I don't know how he pulled this off, what sort of letters he has been writing these past few days because as of a few days ago, maybe half these people were going to attend our wedding- at best. And now, Eris managed to shake out the attendance of every High Lord and the High Lady. For a fucking wedding.
For our fucking wedding.
We've reached the end of the aisle before I can properly process his deviousness, and I'm handing my bouquet off to my mother before I know it, my eyes glued onto him. Happily parting with my father, I put my hands in his, trying to communicate chapters worth of interrogation with just my eyes. I'm sure he understands enough to be smug, squeezing my hand discreetly.
The priestess who I somehow hadn't even noticed begins to speak, and I lose myself in Eris' promises to me, his voice that could bring me to my knees. My promises come next, and I'm so lost in his eyes I forget what I'm even saying. It doesn't matter. I'd promise him the world if it meant we could stay like this.
But my body comes to life when the priestess says that Eris may now kiss the bride. Time slows when Eris takes my cheek in his pretty hand, my waist in the other. I loose a breath, my lips repelling apart as I look up at him, blinking a bit. He smiles at whatever innocent desire lingers in my eyes before seizing my lips with his, and I melt into him, resting my palm over his heartbeat, anchoring my fingers in his hair.
The room might be clapping- I couldn't say. All I hear is my heart beating out of my chest as I pull my body closer to him, biting his lip when he tries to pull back. He gazes into my eyes, an inch from my face, something fiery in his gaze before he charges my lips again. I smile victoriously as his tongue brushes across my teeth.
It takes us longer to pull apart the second time by a long shot. So much for dialing it back for the wedding. I wonder how much of it was an act. I know none of it was for me. I want to kiss him again, but the knowledge that we're surrounded stops me.
Slowly, both our heads swivel to the crowd. Everyone claps, some gushing, some judging with pursed lips, some looking repulsed, some looking like they wish they were us. As Eris takes my arm, I swallow, deciding I will try to decipher it all when I can see straight.