Chapter 2

I don't open my eyes till past noon.

A stack of sealed letters waits on my writing desk. I count them. Easily a hundred. All from the wedding council.

Only one is addressed to me. Margot's seal.

I break the wax.

Elara, sweetheart, I had the musicians swap out that ballad you picked. It was such a downer—nobody wants to cry at a wedding! Trust me on this one. xx M.

Underneath, in Gabriel's slanted black hand:

Agreed. The other one didn't suit.

Didn't suit.

I chose that ballad. I spent a month on it.

It was the song they played at my parents' wedding.

They died too young. I wanted them there in some small way.

Gabriel knew that. Margot knew that.

I open the next letter. Margot, again, copied to the whole council:

You all know how Elara gets with decisions—she'll fuss for weeks and still hate it. Just let me handle the rest, darlings. Saves everyone the headache.

Gabriel's reply is one word.

Agreed.

I stare at it.

I do not move.

Letter after letter. The whole council chattering past me on parchment.

No one notices the bride is reading.

No one notices the bride hasn't said a word.

I open the small box where I keep Gabriel's private letters. The last one is from yesterday.

I'm a little nervous, I had written.

Don't fret. I have it in hand, he wrote back.

That's it. Nothing since.

Not a single line asking why I left the fitting early. Just one casual note pinned to the council scroll that night:

What was that about, Elara? Nerves got the better of you?

No one answered. No one cared.

Margot sent a sketch around with a sweet little ribbon. Fitting went perfectly! Gown's done. And that was that.

Then they were back to flowers and seals and chapel banners.

I'm not just unwanted.

To be unwanted, you'd have to have been there in the first place.

I'm folding a cloak into my trunk when a maid raps at the door. Lady Margot is asking for me.

I go.

She's at her vanity. A painter is already working on her face, brushing rose powder across her cheekbones.

"Elara, finally." She doesn't turn around. "You take forever with everything. The bridal painter still wasn't sorted, so I just—handled it. I'm letting her practice on me first. You'll thank me."

I look at her in the mirror.

I want to say: I told you two weeks ago. Lady Helen is already on the road from Ravensbrook. She's painting my face.

I want to say: Did either of you, even once, ask if I wanted any of this?

I don't.

What would be the point.

Have I never asked before? Never been hurt? Never pushed back?

I have.

The answer is always the same.

You're the older one, Elara. Be the bigger person.

Soren grew up in my nursery, not hers. He still takes her side. Every time.

When Gabriel courted me, he told me my quiet ways were lovely. That he liked a girl who didn't chatter.

I believed him.

Then he met Margot.

Suddenly a girl ought to be lively. Ought to know her own mind.

One night I finally said it. Could you not be quite so close with her.

He laughed. He brushed his knuckles down my hair.

"She's family, Elara. You want me at war with my own sister-in-law?"

I went quiet.

Of course I didn't want that.

The eldest bears a mother's burden. Those words have been on my shoulders since I was sixteen. That night, for the first time, I couldn't breathe under them.

She's only two years younger than I am.

I wanted sweets too. I wanted someone to ask me, just once, do you like this one?

A line of sun comes through the window and falls across the stone floor.

I remember the gardens, the games of pretend-bride. After everyone ran inside for supper, I was the one who stayed behind to gather the petals back into the basket.

No one ever helped.

No one ever asked if I was tired.