I gave him a little, shy smile and took the arm he extended. Together, we crossed the grass toward Ianthe’s stone altar, the Hybern royals, Jurian, and Lucien trailing behind.
I wondered if Tamlin was also remembering another day all those months ago, when I’d worn a different white gown, when there had also been flowers strewn about.
When my mate had rescued me after I’d decided not to go through with the wedding, some fundamental part of me knowing it wasn’t right. I had believed I didn’t deserve it, hadn’t wanted to burden Tamlin for an eternity with someone as broken as I’d been at the time. And Rhys … Rhys would have let me marry him, believing me to be happy, wanting me to be happy even if it killed him. But the moment I had said no … He had saved me. Helped me save myself.
I glanced sidelong at Tamlin.
But he was studying my hand, braced on his arm. The empty finger where that ring had once perched.
What did he make of it—where did he think that ring had gone, if Lucien had hidden the evidence? For a heartbeat, I pitied him.
Pitied that not only Lucien had lied to him, but Alis as well. How many others had seen the truth of my suffering—and tried to spare him from it?
Seen my suffering and done nothing to help me.
Tamlin and I paused before the altar, Ianthe offering us a serene, regal nod.
The Hybern royals shifted on their feet, not bothering to hide their impatience. Brannagh had made barely veiled complaints about the solstice at dinner last night, declaring that in Hybern they did not bother with such odious things and got on with the revelry. And implying, in her way, that soon, neither would we.
I ignored the royals as Ianthe lifted her hands and called to the crowd behind us, “A blessed solstice to us all.”
Then began an endless string of prayers and rituals, her prettiest young acolytes assisting with the pouring of sacred wine, with the blessing of the harvest goods on the altar, with beseeching the sun to rise.
A lovely, rehearsed little number. Lucien was half-asleep behind me.
But I’d gone over the ceremony with Ianthe, and knew what was coming when she lifted the sacred wine and intoned, “As the light is strongest today, let it drive out unwanted darkness. Let it banish the black stain of evil.”
Jab after jab at my mate, my home. But I nodded along with her.
“Would Princess Brannagh and Prince Dagdan do us the honor of imbibing this blessed wine?”
The crowd shifted. The Hybern royals blinked, frowning to each other.
But I stepped aside, smiling prettily at them and gesturing to the altar.
They opened their mouths, no doubt to refuse, but Ianthe would not be denied. “Drink, and let our new allies become new friends,” she declared. “Drink, and wash away the endless night of the year.”
The two daemati were likely testing that cup for poison through whatever magic and training they possessed, but I kept the bland smile on my face as they finally approached the altar and Brannagh accepted the outstretched silver cup.
They each barely had a sip before they made to step back. But Ianthe cooed at them, insisting they come behind the altar to witness our ceremony at her side.
I had made sure she knew precisely how disgusted they were with her rituals. How they would do their best to stomp out her usefulness as a leader of her people once they arrived. She now seemed inclined to convert them.
More prayers and rituals, until Tamlin was summoned to the other side of the altar to light a candle for the souls extinguished in the past year—to now bring them back into the light’s embrace when the sun rose.
Pink began to stain the clouds behind them.
Jurian was also called forward to recite one final prayer I’d requested Ianthe add, in honor of the warriors who fought for our safety each day.
And then Lucien and I were standing alone in the circle of grass, the altar and horizon before us, the crowd at our backs and sides.
From the rigidity of his posture, the dart of his gaze over the site, I knew he was now running through the prayers and how I had worked with Ianthe on the ceremony. How he and I remained on this side of the line right as the sun was about to break over the world, and the others had been maneuvered away.
Ianthe stepped toward the hill’s edge, her golden hair tumbling freely down her back as she lifted her arms to the sky. The location was intentional, as was the positioning of her arms.
She’d made the same gesture on Winter Solstice, standing in the precise spot where the sun would rise between her upraised arms, filling them with light. Her acolytes had discreetly marked the place in the grass with a carved stone.
Slowly, the golden disc of the sun broke over the hazy greens and blues of the horizon.
Light filled the world, clear and strong, spearing right for us.
Ianthe’s back arched, her body a mere vessel for the solstice’s light to fill, and what I could see of her face was already limned in pious ecstasy.
The sun rose, a held, gilded note echoing through the land.
The crowd began to murmur.
Then cry out.
Not at Ianthe.
But at me.
At me, resplendent and pure in white, beginning to glow with the light of day as the sun’s path flowed directly over me instead.
No one had bothered to confirm or even notice that Ianthe’s marker stone had moved five feet to the right, too busy with my parading arrival to spy a phantom wind slide it through the grass.
It took Ianthe longer than anyone else to look.
To turn to see that the sun’s power was not filling her, blessing her.
I released the damper on the power that I had unleashed in Hybern, my body turning incandescent as light shone through. Pure as day, pure as starlight.
“Cursebreaker,” some murmured. “Blessed,” others whispered.
I made a show of looking surprised—surprised and yet accepting of the Cauldron’s choice. Tamlin’s face was taut with shock, the Hybern royals’ nothing short of baffled.
But I turned to Lucien, my light radiating so brightly that it bounced off his metal eye. A friend beseeching another for help. I reached a hand toward him.
Beyond us, I could feel Ianthe scrambling to regain control, to find some way to spin it.
/> Perhaps Lucien could, too. For he took my hand, and then knelt upon one knee in the grass, pressing my fingers to his brow.
Like stalks of wheat in a wind, the others fell to their knees as well.
For in all of her preening ceremonies and rituals, never had Ianthe revealed any sign of power or blessing. But Feyre Cursebreaker, who had led Prythian from tyranny and darkness …
Blessed. Holy. Undimming before evil.
I let my glow spread, until it, too, rippled from Lucien’s bowed form.
A knight before his queen.
When I looked to Ianthe and smiled again, I let a little bit of the wolf show.
The festivities, at least, remained the same.
Once the uproar and awe had ebbed, once my own glow had vanished when the sun crested higher than my head, we made our way to the nearby hills and fields, where those who had not attended the ceremony had already heard about my small miracle.
I kept close to Lucien, who was inclined to indulge me, as everyone seemed to be torn between joy and awe, question and concern.
Ianthe spent the next six hours trying to explain what had happened. The Cauldron had blessed her chosen friend, she told whoever would listen. The sun had altered its very path to show how glad it was for my return.
Only her acolytes really paid attention, and half of them appeared only mildly interested.
Tamlin, however, seemed the wariest—as if the blessing had somehow upset me, as if he remembered that same light in Hybern and could not figure out why it disturbed him so.
But duty had him fielding thanks and good wishes from his subjects, warriors, and the lesser lords, leaving me free to wander. I was stopped every now and then by fervent, adoring faeries who wished to touch my hand, to weep a bit over me.
Once, I would have cringed and winced. Now I received their thanks and prayers beatifically, thanking them, smiling at them.
Some of it was genuine. I had no quarrel with the people of these lands, who had suffered alongside the rest. None. But the courtiers and sentries who sought me out … I put on a better show for them. Cauldron-blessed, they called me. An honor, I merely replied.