The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 5: The Gift of the White Moon, Part 2

 In the tightest grip of her fear, she wondered, desperately, who she could possibly go to. A priest of the Graces? They would damn her as a blasphemer, and worse, a deviant who lay with a wolf. Her mother? The very thought raised almost crippling shame in her. Silenio? He might well be able to kill Tacen, and she thought he would do so gladly, but under no scenario could she imagine her elder brother not informing their father of the situation, and the notion of the Emperor learning what she had done was simply horrifying, and that eliminated every courtier in the Palace, even the cunning Grand Chancellor. For the first time in her life she found herself hating her father for destroying the Academies. Deserving of their fate as they might have been, she had no doubt a cursewright would have been able to handle this beast, and even break whatever hold he had managed to acquire over her.

If such a hold actually existed, that was. Even during her worst moments during the day, Carala found herself craving what would come when night drank the city and the white moon rose high in the sky. That made her wonder sometimes -- most especially when she returned to her own bed in the purple hours before dawn -- if all of this was of her own free will. And the possibility that the wolf held no enchantment over her but his own charm; his own wildness, and her own desire for him, terrified her most of all.

She began to grow paranoid. She feared someone knew. Every curious glance from a handmaiden, every speculative look from a courtier, whether a lowly linkboy or Varallo Thray himself, made her wonder who knew she had become a wolf's lover and answered his every beck and call. As her nerves began to fray, her lessons suffered. Her tutors admonished her as they had not done since she had come of age. Her handmaidens repeatedly inquired after her health. Even the Empress-Consort cornered her one afternoon, laying a gentle hand on her daughter's cheek and asking if there was anything she needed from her.

"No, mama," she had murmured, feeling tears trembling against her eyes as she lied to her mother. "I am just nervous about the wedding, I think."

The Empress-Consort had smiled sadly, told her that every noble woman who had to marry as their father demanded felt the same way, but that she had nothing to worry about; that Denisius was the best of the Gallises, no matter what the courtiers in the Chalcedony Palace might think. Yvelle herself, after all, had been wed at fifteen, a full five years younger than Carala was now, and to a less even-tempered man (to put it kindly). They turned then to discussing the Madame Greythorne's upcoming salon, her mother offering encouragement for the slowly improving portrait of her husband-to-be.

Three days before that fateful night in the Curate's Tower, Carala found herself at dinner, once more agonizing over how to stop herself from descending into the city after the Palace had gone to sleep, barely touching her food. The assembly at the high table had been a trifle unusual that night. The Emperor, the Empress-Consort, and Carala herself were virtually always there, unless one of her parents was visiting some other corner of the Empire -- her mother in particular often took rest at the retreat at Leusenia down in Ismene. 

Silenio was there, which was not so strange as he was Commander of Fort Shale, which stood only twenty miles from Talinara. He took dinner with his father at least once a week, openly currying favor with the Emperor since he was the eldest child who was anywhere near the capital. The Emperor's firstborn son Perseun had been serving as Imperial Ambassador to the Sultan's court for almost five years, and Silenio made little effort to hide the fact that he believed he should be named as heir instead of a son who practically served a foreign monarch amid his court of eunuchs. 

Varallo Thray had been there as well, and that was more noteworthy, as he rarely dined with the Emperor unless there was some pressing court business to attend to or some important personage was a guest of the Palace. And most unusual of all, the Princess Sarai had been there, visiting from her tour of the Azure Sea, where her father hoped some petty lord might find her attractive enough to wed.