The maid who entered at the sound of the bell first examined Cordelia’s arm. When she rolled back the wide sleeve that fell to the wrist, a bluish bruise was visible on the delicate skin where the former king had gripped her. Cordelia’s face went another shade paler, and the maid delivered her assessment with composure.

“It isn’t a serious injury. It should fade on its own in a little while.”

“…I see.”

Cordelia answered weakly. The maid withdrew her hands and stepped back, and Cordelia quickly pulled her sleeve down to hide the bruise. She wanted to conceal the mark even though it had already been seen.

The maid said, “I’ll bring you water and food.”

Cordelia did not reply. The maid left the room regardless, and Cordelia, left alone again, sank listlessly onto the bed as before. She squeezed her eyes shut to manage the dizziness rising inside her.

‘Father.’

She had never seen him like that before. Losing his temper like that, shouting, raising his hands…

He had always been gentle with her, whatever he may have been with others, and she had never imagined him committing violence in such a state of agitation.

She thought of Ian Lakenon, who had thrown his full strength into pulling her father away from her but had stood with both hands behind his back and quietly endured when he himself was being struck.

The memory of that still back made her chest tighten. Recalling the face with its burst capillaries made her feel stifled. Without thinking, she pressed her fingers into her sternum. It did nothing to ease the suffocation.

The door swung open and the maid came in. Cordelia lowered her hand from her chest and composed her expression as best she could.

The maid set the tray down on the table and stepped back. That day too, Cordelia ate her bread and drank her water under the maid’s quiet watch.

The modest meal finished, the maid withdrew, and Cordelia was left alone again. It was the last night she would spend in this room.

Tomorrow she would have to share a bed with the husband she had been forced to take, and after that she still did not know where she would go.

The thought of a wedding night with Ian Lakenon made her stomach turn. The image of the deep bruises covering his face made her feel worse still.

Was this what it felt like to be cast into the open sea with nothing? There was no one to ask, no answer to be had.

That night, she tossed and turned for a long time before sleep came. Even when it finally did, there were no pleasant dreams.

* * *

The wedding was a hasty affair. Exactly as the bride had been told it would be.

There were no lavish gifts, no grand banquet. Only the bare minimum of ceremony to declare that two people had become husband and wife.

Cordelia was brought to the chapel in a white dress embroidered with gold along the hem, as was the tradition for brides in this country. The two soldiers who had escorted her quietly withdrew to a corner once they were inside.

Apart from Cordelia, there were only three others in the chapel. The officiating priest, the groom in his wedding attire, and Michael, the sole witness and guest.

Seeing her half-brother, who had become king only days ago, Cordelia’s face twisted. Even at that open display of contempt, Michael maintained his gentle smile.

“Ah, my dear sister. You look especially beautiful today.”

Cordelia wanted to spit in Michael’s face, rake her nails across his eyes, and tear his hair out by the roots.

The only reason she held back was for her father’s sake. She feared that any defiance on her part would bring retaliation down on him. She was also anxious that the new king might forbid her and her father from ever seeing each other again.

She killed the sharp surges of anger and arranged her face into as blank an expression as she could manage, then lowered her head. But Michael gave her no time to collect herself. He strolled toward her at his leisure.

“I think it’s such a shame Father couldn’t be here. He would have been so happy to see you like this.”

He stopped in front of his sister and murmured pleasantly. The sheer nerve of it made Cordelia jerk her head up. She finally could not hold back.

“Was it not Your Majesty who chose not to invite him? To say you find it a shame after all that is rather amusing.”

“It couldn’t be helped. Father made such a mess of the groom’s face that the ceremony nearly had to be called off. How could I invite someone so violent and unreasonable to an occasion like this? I made the best decision for everyone.”

A lie. A brazen lie. It had been decided from the start that the former king would not be here. To speak as though he had been barred from attending because he had assaulted the groom the day before was a remarkably shameless deception.

Even knowing that, Cordelia flinched. Her gaze drifted involuntarily toward Ian Lakenon, standing some distance away. Dressed in a white ceremonial coat with gold embroidery to match the bride, he still bore a vivid bruise across the left side of his face.

“Poor Sir Lakenon, getting his face beaten by his future father-in-law the day before the wedding. That must have been humiliating, mustn’t it? But what can you do? Father shows no sign of remorse, so I suppose you’ll have to atone in his place. Spend the rest of your life apologizing to your husband.”

It sounded, on the surface, like a light jab. But Cordelia sensed something off beneath it.

Staring into those blue eyes that mirrored her own like a reflection, she realized her brother was suppressing a fury considerably deeper and more intense than what showed on the surface.

‘…He’s very angry.’

Was Ian Lakenon that precious to him? She had assumed that however close they were, he was still only a subordinate.

Cordelia glanced toward the groom again. But their eyes happened to meet, and the discomfort made her look away at once.

“By that logic, shouldn’t Your Majesty spend a lifetime apologizing as well? If Your Majesty had not given the order, Sir Lakenon would never have been marrying me. And then naturally there would have been nothing to get struck for.”

She returned the jab in an icy, measured voice. Michael’s expression darkened at once.

“Ha.”

A cold laugh split through his teeth. The force of it was sharp enough that Cordelia tensed. She thought he might lose control as her father had the day before and raise his hand at any moment.

Without thinking, she held her breath and drew her shoulders in. But Michael did not resort to violence in the end. He reined in his momentary fury and shaped his lips into a smile that was all the more unsettling for its gentleness.

“This small talk has gone on too long. I nearly wasted precious time. The ceremony is about to begin, so go on and join the groom.”

Cordelia did not answer. She straightened her back as coldly as she could and walked past her brother toward the front.

But with every step closer to Ian Lakenon, the composure she had forced into her eyes began to waver, and the chin she held high kept threatening to fall. Her legs lost their strength more than once and she nearly sank to the floor.

She reached the groom’s side with great effort. She avoided his eyes, which had been fixed on her persistently since before, and stared straight ahead at the altar.

But the sight of the priest standing before that altar brought back the reason she had been brought here, and despair drained the strength from her.

Cordelia quietly clenched her teeth. She could feel the man beside her watching her with relentless attention. She did not spare him so much as a glance.

The priest, who had been looking back and forth between the two very different expressions of the bride and groom, cleared his throat with a short, awkward sound and began.

“Ahem. Then let us begin the ceremony.”

The ceremony was brief and simple. The stiff-mannered priest recited the customary blessing, lightly dabbed anointing oil on both their foreheads as a symbol of divine blessing, and then handed each of them a cup of fragrant wedding wine.

Cordelia accepted the cup with mechanical detachment. She knew the general order of the rites well enough. Feeling as though she were swallowing poison, she took a sip of the wedding wine and then exchanged cups with the groom and took another sip. Ian drank twice in succession with an equally expressionless face.

After the cups were emptied, the priest tied a strip of white cloth around each of their right wrists to declare them husband and wife. Tradition held that the ceremony took place during the day and the cloth remained tied until the wedding night, when it was removed before the consummation.

For the two who had wed today, the banquet was being skipped in favor of proceeding directly to the wedding night, so the time they would spend with the cloth on their wrists would be shorter than most.

Cordelia looked down at her wrist, her face pale. The soft white cloth felt like a heavy chain. Like a shackle she would never be free of. Despair and fear closed around her throat.

“Congratulations on your marriage.”

The priest said quietly. His eyes on the princess were full of pity. Cordelia had no strength left to be offended by his compassion.