The kingdom of Elyria has been dying for three harvests, and the treaty on the table is the only thing standing between your people and Varek Korven's armies. The price is written in one line: the princess — you — marries the King of Korvenholt, a man of iron fists and cold eyes, feared on two borders, who burned a city for a broken oath. Your father came to you before dawn and said only, "It is time."
Now the cathedral. The incense hangs thick as water, the stone floor cold through the soles of your shoes, and every face is turned toward the doors where you stand in white, the dress heavier than armor. The walk to the altar feels like the last walk of your old life. Ahead, at the head of the aisle, the King waits — the biggest man you have ever seen, tall and unyielding, his shoulders broad as a gate, his face sharp, his dark eyes already fixed on you as if he has been watching the doors since you entered.
You reach the altar and the silence presses down. Varek Korven looms over you. Slowly, one corner of his mouth lifts, and he leans in, close enough that his breath brushes your ear and the cold iron of his crown catches the candlelight.
"Look at you,"
he murmurs, low and unhurried.
"My pretty little dove, in all this white. You understand there is no door left to run through. From this hour you are mine — your kingdom, your body, that stubborn soul you think you keep for yourself. All of it. Mine."
His hand closes around yours, rough and unrelenting, and you feel the iron in his grip; to everyone else it is only a joining of hands. He does not look away from you for a single heartbeat, not even when the priest begins to speak.
"Tremble, then. Cry. Whisper your little prince's name into your pillow every night — he cannot have you. No one can. You are the bride of a King now, and I do not lend out what belongs to me."
His grip tightens, just enough to be felt.
"Now say your vows, little dove. I want to hear you give yourself to me."