Chapter 5: The Wedding Feast
The grand banquet hall was a cage of light and sound. Thousands of candles swam in the air, their smoke curling up towards vaulted ceilings painted with stern-faced gods. The marble floors were so polished they reflected the chaos above: swirling silks, the glint of gemstones, the pale, upturned faces of roses climbing every arch. The scent was overwhelming—roasted meats, heavy perfume, and beneath it all, the faint, green smell of those countless white blooms, already beginning to wilt in the heat.
Gareth stood beside her at the high table like a statue of a warrior, carved from granite and poor temper. His hand, resting on the tablecloth beside his full goblet, was a fist. The ink stain on his middle finger was a tiny smudge of shadow.
The parade had begun hours ago.
Lord Cray, florid and smelling of port, had clapped Gareth on the shoulder with a meaty hand. “A fine match, Your Highness! Ties up that pesky border dispute nicely. And she’s a quiet little thing, isn’t she? Easily managed.” His laugh was a wet gurgle. Gareth’s jaw had tightened so visibly Elowen thought she heard a tooth crack.
Lady Illona, brittle as old lace, had taken Elowen’s hand with cold fingers. “How brave you are, dear, to come so far. He’s a bit… rough, our prince. But I’m sure you’ll have him civilized in no time.” Her eyes had flicked to Gareth’s unadorned tunic, his hair that refused to lie properly.
Elowen watched it all from behind a pleasant, unchanging smile. She watched Gareth’s politeness, a brittle shell that threatened to shatter with every backhanded compliment. He gave monosyllabic replies. He barely touched his wine. He was a man enduring an autopsy performed with gossip and good wishes.
Then came Baron Rykard, a man with the dead eyes of a pike and a voice like grinding gravel. He leaned in, too close, his breath sour with vinegar. “To the conqueror and the conquered!” he boomed, for the benefit of those around them. He nudged Gareth with his elbow. “Though from the look of her, the taming won’t take much effort, eh? A few gentle words and she’ll eat from your hand.”
Gareth flinched.
It wasn’t a large movement. Just a slight, involuntary recoil of his shoulder, as if the words were a physical blow. His knuckles went white on the table. The dark brown of his eyes flooded with something dangerous and shameful.
Elowen acted before she thought.
She slipped her hand through the crook of Gareth’s arm, feeling the hard muscle coiled tight beneath the velvet. She turned her smile up to Rykard, making it wider, emptier. “Oh, Baron, you’re too kind! But you must tell me, how is your son? The one with the interesting collection of, what were they… exotic songbirds? I heard the noise from his aviary keeps the whole eastern wing awake. How very… dedicated.”
Rykard’s smug expression faltered. The story about his son’s illegal, cacophonous menagerie was a court secret, not for the ears of a newly-arrived princess. His eyes narrowed. “They are rare specimens—”
“I’m sure they are,” Elowen chirped, her head tilting. “But all that squawking! It must make thoughtful conversation so difficult. Do excuse us, the Countess of Lyra looks desperate for your opinion on crest designs.”
She turned Gareth away, guiding him as if he were the one who needed leading. She didn’t stop. She dove into the crowd, a small, chestnut-haired missile of diplomacy. She engaged the next cluster of nobles, asking about timber yields, about a poet’s latest work, about the health of an aging matriarch’s terrier. She remembered every name, every stray fact she’d gleaned from her secret forays into the palace archives. She laughed at the right moments, her voice carrying a light, effortless joy that disarmed them.
She created a space around Gareth where he didn’t have to speak. She was a buffer, absorbing the barbs and the boredom, deflecting the attention. She felt him gradually loosen beside her, his arm becoming less of a rigid bar under her touch. Once, when a tedious minister began droning about tariff reforms, she felt a low, almost imperceptible rumble from Gareth—a suppressed, weary sigh. She squeezed his arm, just once, and kept talking.
A brief lull came as a troop of acrobats tumbled into the center of the hall, drawing all eyes. Elowen seized the moment, pulling Gareth towards a relatively quiet alcove shrouded by a fall of ivy and away from the immediate crowd. The noise subsided to a distant roar.
For a second, there was only the two of them, hidden in green shadow. Her curls were coming loose, tendrils sticking to her temples. His face was drawn with exhaustion.
He looked down at her, his brow furrowed not in anger, but in a kind of dazed wonder. The candlelight from beyond the ivy caught the scar on his eyebrow.
“Thank you,” he said, the words so soft they were almost lost in the din of the celebration.
It wasn’t a prince thanking a princess. It was one lonely soul acknowledging another.
“They’re tiresome, aren’t they?” she whispered back, a conspirator’s grin touching her lips. “Lord Cray has parsley in his beard. Has for an hour. I’ve been betting myself how long before someone tells him.”
A ghost of a smile touched Gareth’s mouth. “I’d rather muck out stables.”
“I know,” she said, and the simplicity of it hung between them.
Then the chant began.
It started somewhere in the back, among the younger, wine-flushed courtiers. A rhythmic, playful thump of hands on tables.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
It spread like a wind through dry grass. Within seconds, it was a unified roar, shaking the gilded cage. Hundreds of faces turned towards the alcove. The acrobats froze, their performance forgotten. Every lord and lady who had offered their hollow congratulations now beat the table, their voices merging into a single, demanding pulse.
Kiss.Kiss. KISS.
Elowen’s blood turned to ice. The pleasant mask she’d worn all night shattered. This was no subtle barb, no political game. This was a spectacle. Her chest felt too tight. She was a curious sparrow caught in a torrent of sound. She stared at Gareth, her eyes wide.
He looked from the roaring crowd back to her. His own face was a storm of conflict—embarrassment, anger, a deep, personal revolt against this public theater. The furrow between his brows was a canyon.
Then, something in him settled. The anger didn’t leave, but it was mastered, channeled.
He leaned down.
His hand came up, not to cup her face, but to slide into the riotous mass of her chestnut curls at the back of her head. His fingers were rough, calloused, but his touch was deliberate, almost careful. He felt the warm, springy chaos of her hair, so different from the sleek, ordered world he hated.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t smile for the crowd.
He simply brought his mouth to hers.
It was brief. A firm, closed-mouth press of lips that lasted only as long as three thunderous heartbeats from the hall. He tasted of the wine he hadn’t drunk and cold night air. She smelled the faint, clean scent of saddle leather and the starch of his shirt.
The crowd erupted into cheers and drunken applause, their demand satisfied.
Gareth pulled back, his hand lingering in her hair for a fraction of a second before falling to his side. His dark eyes searched hers, looking for fear, for pity, for anything but what he saw.
Elowen, her fingers trembling slightly, lifted them to her own lips. The ghost of the pressure remained. She didn’t see a monster. She didn’t see a hollow crown.
She saw a man who had just performed his duty in the only way he knew how—directly, without flourish, to get it over with.
And she found, to her own astonishment, that she was not afraid.