The Bondbreaker Bride

The woman at my table had her husband's signature beneath her skin.

"Do I need his permission?" she asked.

Rain ticked against the window behind her. Downstairs, Tessa's sewing machine stopped. We had closed the shop an hour earlier, but neither of us liked the sound of a carriage waiting in the street.

"Not for what I'm about to do," I said.

The woman stared at the door.

"For what comes afterward, the registry will say you do. I won't pretend otherwise."

She looked back at me.

I had learned to give that part of the answer before touching anyone.

Her name was Mae Orlan. She was thirty-one, wore a good wool coat with one button missing, and had carried her marriage certificate through the rain beneath that coat.

The paper was dry. She wasn't.

I laid it beside the silver thread on my work cloth.

"Have you somewhere to go?"

"My cousin. Outside the city."

"Does he know where she lives?"

"He thinks she moved north."

"And the carriage?"

"Hired in her name."

Her answers came quickly. She had planned this long before finding the courage to climb our stairs.

I took out a blank sheet.

"Write what you want me to end. Your words, not mine."

She wrote two sentences. The second was longer than the first.

I want the marriage vow ended.

I don't want him to be able to call me home again.

Her pen hovered beneath them.

"He wasn't always like this."

"You don't have to persuade me he deserves it."

"I thought you might ask."

Six years earlier, when I still worked for the registry, I would have been required to ask. I had been good at filling out the answers. Less good at sleeping afterward.

"I need to know that this is what you want," I said. "That's all."

She signed.

I moved the lamp closer and offered my hand palm up. After a moment, she laid her wrist in it.

The vow showed as a silver curve beneath her pulse. Her own signature lay on one side of the knot. Garran Orlan's ran across the other, pressed deeper and darker by repeated use.

I could read the structure. I couldn't tell her every promise he had broken.

Mae lifted her free hand to her throat.

"He's calling."

The silver tightened.

My wolf stirred at the sudden scent of her fear. I kept my grip light.

"Look at the lamp."

She tried.

Her body leaned toward the stairs.

The call could not drag her through a locked door. It could make remaining behind one feel unbearable.

I set a plain silver needle against the knot and slid the thread from my cloth through its eye. No blood was needed tonight. Both signatures were already here.

"This won't erase your feelings," I told her. "Or the years. It will end his reach through the vow."

She swallowed.

"That's what I came for."

I drew the loop outward.

For one breath the silver lay above her skin, fine as a loose stitch. Mae caught the table's edge.

The pain entered me before the thread came free.

Not a memory. No face, no room, nothing I could offer as testimony. Just the crushing insistence that I must go somewhere I did not want to go.

I held the needle steady.

"Say it again."

"I want it ended."

The knot loosened.

I passed the needle through the last loop and pulled. Silver snapped against the work cloth.

Mae's shoulders dropped.

I lowered the needle carefully, then pressed my feet flat against the floor until the borrowed pain receded.

She stared at her wrist.

A pale line remained. It would not vanish because I wanted a prettier result.

"He can still come here," she said.

"Yes."

She took a breath without touching her throat.

"But he can't do that."

"Not through the vow."

For a little while she said nothing. I let her have it.

Then she pushed a wedding ring across the table.

"I don't have the rest."

I put it back beside her certificate.

"You'll need money where you're going. Pay me when you're settled."

"That may take time."

"I'm not sending a husband after you to collect."

She laughed once, startled by herself.

I made two copies of the release record, one for her and one for my locked box. I didn't write her cousin's name on either. I returned her marriage certificate, then put the severed thread into a small paper envelope.

Downstairs, the bell rang.

Mae froze.

Three knocks followed. Evenly spaced.

Garran had sent messages that afternoon. He hadn't sent anyone with manners.

That was not as reassuring as it should have been.

Tessa's voice carried up the stairs.

"We're closed."

"Royal courier."

I put Mae's copy in her hand.

"Back stairs. Tessa will take you to the carriage."

"If it's about me..."

"Then he'll have to explain why he's serving a royal notice on a woman who hasn't given her name."

She tucked the papers inside her coat.

I opened the door just enough to call down.

"Leave it with Miss Reed."

The courier said something too low to catch.

Tessa answered more loudly.

"I can read. Yes, that's the address."

By the time she reached the workroom, Mae was waiting beside the rear door.

Tessa held a cream envelope with a black crown impressed in gold wax.

"For you," she said.

"Has the palace finally decided to pay for its mending?"

"The palace owes me three weeks, Iris. If that's a payment, be careful opening it. I want to frame the miracle."

She guided Mae down the back stairs. I waited until I heard the carriage door close before breaking the seal.

My name appeared in the first line.

IRIS VALE.

The second named Prince Rowan Ashford.

The third made me sit down.

DESIGNATED BRIDE UNDER THE EMERGENCY MARRIAGE PETITION.

I read the page once standing, once sitting, and once with my hand over the title.

The words did not improve.

The notice required my attendance at a public sealing in seven days. Until the petition was resolved, I was forbidden to leave the capital without permission from the royal registry.

There was a place for my signature.

It was not blank.

I knew the shape beneath it: a thumbprint crossed by the little crescent I had used to authenticate registry work. I had stopped using it when they dismissed me.

Someone hadn't.

My wolf pressed restlessly against my ribs. I rose and checked the date, the registry number, the witness line. All properly completed.

No mention of when I had agreed to marry anyone.

Tessa returned to find me holding the page beneath the lamp.

"Mae's away," she said. "Driver waited at the corner like we asked."

I handed her the notice.

She read it without speaking.

Then she turned the paper over.

"No," she said.

"That's my preferred answer too."

"Do you know him?"

"I've seen his face on coins."

"Have you ever met him?"

"Not while conscious."

She looked at me.

"I have never met him," I said.

Tessa set the notice down beside my needle.

"Could someone have forged the print?"

"Someone with the old impression."

"Which is kept where?"

"The office that sent this."

We looked at the black crown.

The shop bell rang again.

This time no one announced a delivery.

Boots crossed the floor below. More than one pair.

Tessa moved first. I caught her sleeve, let go, and put Mae's envelope in the locked box with the release record.

"Don't give them names," I said.

"I know."

She went downstairs.

I heard a man request the proprietor, then another ask whether anyone had recently left by the rear entrance.

"People leave shops," Tessa said. "It's one of their established habits."

"Miss Vale is upstairs?"

The second man's voice was quieter than the first. Tessa didn't answer immediately.

I took the royal notice and went to the landing.

Four men stood among the bolts of cloth. Three wore guard coats. The fourth had rain on his dark collar and no visible uniform.

I recognized him anyway.

The profile on the silver crown coins was a less tired version of the same face.

Prince Rowan Ashford looked up.

He was younger than I had expected, though I couldn't have said what age I'd imagined. His gaze moved from my face to the paper in my hand.

Behind him, a guard glanced toward the rear door.

"No searches," the prince said.

"Your Highness, the report..."

"Names and movements can be requested through the proper office. We are not collecting them from a tailor's doorway."

The guard stepped back.

I didn't mistake that for the end of my trouble.

"Miss Vale," Rowan said. "May we speak?"

"About the woman you aren't searching for, or the marriage I didn't agree to?"

Tessa's hand closed around a measuring tape.

The prince looked at my notice again.

"Both, apparently."

"Then come upstairs alone."

He considered the narrow stairs, then told the guards to remain below.

At the workroom door, he stopped until I stepped aside.

I disliked noticing that. I disliked noticing the breadth of his shoulders as he passed even more.

I was twenty-six. I could recognize an attractive man without deciding he was safe.

He set a folded document on the table, leaving my work cloth untouched.

"I was sent to investigate an unauthorized severance," he said. "The report was made before nine."

I glanced at the clock.

Mae's vow had ended barely half an hour earlier.

"Efficient."

"That is one word for it."

"Are you here to arrest me?"

"Not tonight. I am here to require an account before the registry tomorrow."

"With you as investigator and prospective husband?"

His expression changed.

"No."

He unfolded the document.

Same title. Same two names. A matching registry number.

His copy bore his blood seal where mine bore my own.

"Did you consent to this petition?" he asked.

"No."

He looked at the mark under my name.

"Neither did I."

I looked from his paper to mine.

For the first time that night, the prince seemed less certain of the room he had entered.

"Then," I said, "we should start with who answered for us."