Moonfire & Midnight

This was an outrage.

Insulting, belittling, infuriating.

A lifetime of training, years of acquaintance, endless negotiations for engagement, and in the span of a week, he threw her away for another.

Now, instead of an ornate carriage heading for one of the largest estates in the kingdom, she was in a military transport, hastily decorated by someone who’d clearly never spent any time in High Society and headed to an estate that hosted military drills instead of luncheons.

Not that she didn’t like a good thrash from time to time, but she also enjoyed an evening of music and dancing, and the Camelia, despite its name, was an estate that hadn’t hosted a ball or celebration of any kind in a hundred years. It was at the far edges of the kingdom, along the eternally disputed borderlands.

It was a place Eirian Soliel, daughter of the Grand Duke of the Isles of Smoke and niece of the King himself, had never had to concern herself with before. At five and twenty, she had spent her entire life so far in the capital, Aontacht, enjoying the freedom and attention being the closest female relation to the crown brought her.

She had expected to enjoy it for another year before entering into marriage with the heir to the Barony of Water. She and Philip had grown up together in the capital, learning to navigate the complicated and often threatening environment of power and privilege. Their games had dragged on for years before she had given in to the begging, and he had finally broached the topic of marriage.

Promises he had made in private over the course of the year-long negotiations and all their previous years of acquaintance had apparently meant nothing.

Eirian had thought they were on the same page, planning to announce their engagement at the last ball of the season, her birthday celebration! When, instead, he’d shown up with Lady Abigail Partha. No doubt a beauty, but she was from an impoverished house, a line long out of favor with the crown. She had, in Eirian’s opinion, far too bland a personality for someone of Philip’s intelligence and interests.

He’d managed to keep up with Eirian after all.

She’d been so stunned, so enraged, that she’d thrown a glass of wine on the woman when they had come over to tell her of the engagement and promptly left the party.

According to her stepmother, her tantrum had ended the party early and sent society into a storm of gossip.

It was that same stepmother who’d helped arrange this farce of a marriage. She was only a year older than Eirian. They’d been friends by circumstance before, part of a small generation of girls who had entered society after the conclusion of the Twilight War. Eirian had almost considered her an actual friend after a few seasons together, but then she’d set her eyes on Eirian’s widower father.

What had followed had been a year of ridiculous displays of wealth and coquettish eyelash fluttering that bordered on inappropriate.

Eirian had known it wouldn’t be good for her the moment it had begun. Philip was supposed to be her way out of that house, but instead, he’d chosen a woman who was practically a commoner, and as soon as her stepmother had given birth to a son, Eirian’s exile to a distant land had been assured.

Perhaps she had spent too long enjoying herself. For most of her life, she had not ever expected her father to remarry. He had spent nearly a decade in mourning clothes after her mother’s death, and yet, one day with an infant son was enough for him to send his beloved daughter away.

She understood his logic, of course. A son would carry on his bloodline, while Eirian would always marry into another family. Unless she had multiple sons, the lines would be combined into a new one instead of remaining independent.

Given her Uncle’s bad luck in siring children healthy enough to survive to adulthood, her father and stepmother no doubt held hopes of a throne in the future.

Never mind that Eirian was extremely well educated, strong in magic, and skilled in negotiation. Her father was old-fashioned in his beliefs about women, and while he had indulged Eirian, it turned out it had only ever been that—an indulgence.

The carriage bounced violently and tilted dangerously. She winced as her head bounced off the wall.

Weren’t these things supposed to be sturdy? She thought viciously, doing her best not to lean against anything that could jab too painfully with every bump. At this rate, half her things would be broken by the time she arrived.

It had been a twelve-day journey, moving from dawn until dusk each day, and they would still not arrive until just before twilight.

She still had hours to go and nothing to do but think about how wrong everything had gone. To wonder what kind of man her new husband was. All those in the capital knew about him was his refusal to visit them. Somehow, he’d managed to keep the favor of the king despite never presenting himself, but she supposed that was more understandable. He commanded the defenses along the borderlands and, thus far, had been successful in keeping out any invaders.

And yet, he was her senior by several years and remained unmarried, childless, and uninterested in alliances in society.

Was he so boring?

So ugly?

So cruel?

It mattered little in the end, she knew. The marriage agreement was ironclad, and Lili was well and truly trapped. If she tried returning to the capital, she’d be laughed right back out and likely returned to the Camelia in chains.

She would have to make a new life for herself in this barren land, in this loveless marriage.

She collapsed back in her seat as the road finally smoothed out and pondered her future.

Her husband.

A small smile came to her face.

He could always die on their wedding night.

~ tbc