She Stole My Curse novel · Chapter 9 of 32
Chapter 9: The Wedding Feast
For three weeks after that, Aurek was very polite to me.
He walked me to my door every night.
He said goodnight at it, and he waited until he heard the lock turn.
It drove me out of my mind.
On the night of Isveth's wedding feast, I wore the only gown I'd brought from Pearlmere, the gray one, and the old nurse took one look and made a noise.
"Not that."
She came back with something folded in her arms.
It was silver-blue silk, old and soft, sewn all over with tiny seed pearls.
"It was his mother's," she said. "From when she was queen. Don't you spill anything on it."
When I came out onto the hull deck in it, Corwen whistled.
Aurek turned around.
He didn't say anything.
He looked at me for so long that Corwen finally said, "Breathe, man," and he did.
The great dry hall at Pearlmere was hung with violet banners and lit with a thousand lamps.
Isveth stood at the door in amethyst silk to greet her guests, with Brannoch towering behind her.
She kissed my cheek.
"You look nice," she said. "For a widow."
Brannoch caught my eye over her shoulder.
His lips were their normal color. He gave me a tiny nod.
The herald led us in.
My place was at the high table, three seats down from my mother.
Aurek's place wasn't.
The herald led him past every table in the hall, past the lords, past the merchants, all the way to the back wall, where a long bench stood by the kitchen door.
The servants' table.
The pages and the kitchen boys were eating there, with their sleeves rolled up.
The hall had gone quiet to watch. Then it broke into laughter.
Aurek sat down on the bench without a word.
His face was perfectly calm.
Isveth rose at the high table and lifted her cup.
"Friends! Before we eat, a toast."
She smiled down the length of the hall.
"To my dear sister, who chose with her heart. And to her husband." She tilted her cup toward the back wall. "May he always know his place. And may the beast be house-trained by spring."
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