Half an hour later, I stepped into the dining hall with my usual trepidation.
Five years had passed, but I’d never forgotten how I’d seen my own brother Caulder—dead with a sword wound in his back—laid upon the long table in here. Or my cousin Soren, who’d been disemboweled ten feet away for killing Caulder. Or Yasmin—Vienne’s sister—whom I’d murdered, turning to dust with magic power, not but minutes after Soren’s demise.
Sometimes, I still woke in a cold sweat, breathing hard and trembling, just remembering that one horrible hour that had transpired in this very room.
Tonight, however, it was full of lights and music and the merry, mingled voices of my closest loved ones.
“Nicolette! Nicolette!” Five-year-old Anniston ran up to me, grinning wildly. “Look what I got in the village at the celebration today. Isn’t it beautiful?”
She touched the pink floral wreath she wore on her head and beamed with pride as she twirled in a circle before me, making her lavender skirts float in a circle around her.
Immediately relaxing in the presence of the child, I crouched in front of her to inspect the wreath fully. “It’s a fine laurel, my lady. Probably the finest in all the land.”
When I tweaked her nose, she giggled and raced off to join her toddling brother, Emory, who was petting one of the hounds lounging on the floor in front of the fireplace. Vienne’s daughter, Anniston, had been named after the very grandmother who’d been sister to Indigo’s storytelling grandpa, Atchison. Anniston’s father, however, was my late cousin, Soren, which made the girl my first cousin once removed, I guess.
Realizing that connected me in relation to my own bodyguard, I glanced back to find Indigo, only to realize he’d trooped over to visit Emory and the hounds as well. Shaking my head in amusement as I watched him reposition the sword hanging from his side so he could kneel next to the two-year-old, I decided to take my seat at the royal table, only to be stalled by my brother before reaching it.
“Sister!” Brentley’s voice boomed in a pleasant kind of surprise from across the room where he was already seated. “Are you to dine with us tonight, then? I had thought you might not come down this evening, seeing as you skipped the celebration in the village today.”
If I had looked toward the king’s seat of honor five years ago, I would’ve seen Caulder there instead, seated next to Soren, the two of them deep in discussion about something or other. But now that both my cousin and eldest brother were gone, that left my second brother, Brentley, wearing the crown, and his brother-in-law, Urban, who sat beside him.
I had never been close to Caulder, and Soren had ignored me completely. But both Brentley and Urban nodded in greeting with great respect and affection when I glanced their way, smiling mischievously as if they had a secret to behold.
I still wasn’t used to garnering such a reaction from two of the highest-ranked men in the kingdom. So I nodded back to them solemnly, not feeling the same cheer they seemed to be experiencing.
“I just wasn’t in the mood for large crowds today,” I answered.
To which Brentley’s brow furrowed in worry because I usually adored going to the village. “Has something been troubling you, dear heart?”
I offered him a vague smile. “Of course not, brother. I must’ve just overtaxed myself with all the preparations for the festival, that’s all.”
“Then you must take it easier next time. I can’t have my favorite sister overtaxed and exhausted. There are always plenty of hands willing to help with such things. You know you never need to overburden yourself, don’t you?”
I inclined my head. “Of course. I just got carried away with all the planning. And before I knew it, I was completely spent.”
His smile spread. “Ah. I understand. ’Tis an affliction my wife suffers from as well.”
“Yes, we have much to share,” Vienne invited.
And yet, I ached, wishing for more.
Experiencing a nip of guilt for my ungratefulness, I nodded to my sister-in-law as I stepped toward her and Vienne, trying to force that spark of contentment in their company that I once had and knew I should have again. Touching Iver’s tiny toes as he slept peacefully in Vienne’s arms, I glanced over at Allera when she hooked my elbow with hers and tugged me in close, grinning wickedly.
“Should we tell her?” she asked Vienne before lifting her eyebrows expectantly.
“Oh, most definitely,” Vienne answered, swaying her youngest babe back and forth to keep him napping throughout our conversation. “Nicolette might never forgive us if we left her out of the loop a moment longer.”
When she glanced at her child’s face with such pride and adoration, I knew exactly what she was going to say just as both women shrieked together, “We’re pregnant!”
“We?” I repeated, glancing between the two of them. “You mean, you’re both—?”
“I—” I started in surprise, blinking rapidly. “It certainly is, yes.”
“And they’ll both be boys too,” Vienne added, shaking her head with a wide grin. “Nanny Wynter predicts they’ll be born within a week of each other.”
“Well,” I said breathlessly, pressing my palms to my cheeks when they stretched wide from the force of my smile. “This is all so wonderful. Congratulations! To both of you. And seriously, that’s some timing. Yet, I don’t wish to know how you two managed to coincide such a thing.”
While Allera laughed uproariously, Vienne blushed. “It was quite by accident, I assure you.”
“Brentley and I already have a name chosen,” Allera told me. “He’ll be dubbed Prince Cal. In honor of Caulder.”
Tears pricked my eyes as I nodded. “I love it,” I rasped, painfully moved by the tribute.
Needing to skirt any subject that might cause me more melancholy, though, I turned my attention to Vienne.
“And you?” I wondered. “Do you have a moniker selected for your newest addition? With all the progeny you’ve been manufacturing of late, I’m beginning to worry you’re running low on names to choose from.”
As Vienne scowled over my teasing, Allera threw her head back and howled in amusement.
“Certainly,” I sassed back, “except the speed in which you’re producing them suggests there might very well be dozens before you’re done.”
“Nonsense,” Vienne cried, turning bright red with embarrassment. “We’re just—”
“Completely horny?” Allera raised her eyebrows teasingly. “Unable to keep your hands off each other? Sexually unquenched?”
“Oh, you’re impossible,” Vienne muttered, trying to control her discomfort before pointedly turning to me. “Why do we put up with her heckling, Nicolette?”
I chuckled, shaking my head, and realized this was honestly the best life I could probably ever live. I cherished my family. I cherished how I was treated. I cherished my privileges.
So why was I filled with such yearning, wishing I had someone to share it all with, as Allera and Vienne did, or maybe my own child to cradle right now?
It was pure selfishness.
When my laughter faded before it probably should have, I glanced toward Vienne’s other two younglings, who were still over by Indigo at the fireplace, begging him to pick them up and dangle them upside down as he too often did.
I would probably never have children of my own.
I knew nothing about him—if he was a good man or bad, pleasant or brutish, honest or corrupt, serious or impish—and yet I was counting on him to return someday to make my life finally feel complete.
It all made me wish I’d never been so reckless as to get this stupid love mark tattooed to my face to begin with. I finally understood why Caulder had been so upset after I’d run out in secret and gotten one. They were powerful, dangerous magic. Once they tied you to another person, you never felt like your own again.
It was all hogwash, if you asked me. All the marks did was tie you down and prevent you from being who you could truly be.
Indigo had to be wrong; that’s all there was to it.
I sent my bodyguard a scowl from across the room, where he’d stationed himself against the back wall along with a horde of other guards, as Urban collected his children to usher them to the royal table for supper. It eluded me as to why Indigo still had so much faith in his mark when it’d never served him any good purpose either.
As if sensing my glower, Indigo glanced my way and winked.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Allera and Vienne, only to find them watching me with a bit too much interest.
They each glanced toward Indigo and then back to me with knowing little smirks.
Vienne was the first to comment. “It’s so nice to see how close you and my cousin have grown over the years.”
Allera nodded, her gaze alight with gossip. “Is he, by chance, the reason you elected not to attend the festival today?”
I furrowed my brow, confused. “What do you mean?”
I blinked at her, still not catching on at first. But then she added, “Not that I’d blame you or even discourage the match, if you were. He’s quite attractive and personable. I enthusiastically approve. In fact, I—”
Allera and Vienne traded winces before Vienne answered, “We’re just saying—”
“Ho there,” Brentley called from the table, finally noticing the tension brewing between us. “Is there something amiss between my favorite sister and favorite wife?”
Great. Now the whole damn family was going to join this dreaded discussion. What better way to end a miserable day?
