The last echo of Tenebrarum's command—Horses—had faded, but the shock of it remained, hanging thick in the perfumed air.
All eyes were fixed on the empty space where the king was to stand. Then, as one, they swiveled toward the figure at the far end of the aisle.
Isabella.
She stood perfectly still, a vision in layered lace and satin, her veil drawn back from a face that had gone from radiant to rigid.
The smile was a fossil. Inside, a silent scream of fury boiled, held in check only by a lifetime of discipline.
Whispers flew like poisoned darts between the nobles.
"Where is the king?"
"This alliance was to protect the borderlands…"
"He has abandoned the marriage.This pact is broken."
Faces turned pale, all eyes eventually darting toward the great witch Velmara, who sat motionless, her expression carved from stone.
Before the unrest could swell into open panic, Magnus rose from his place of honor beside the empty throne. He did not wear the opulent finery of Tenebrarum, but his authority was unmistakable.
The murmurs died as he strode, not toward the door, but to the center of the aisle, placing himself between the abandoned bride and the staring court.
His voice, deep and carrying the same royal timbre.
"My brother, the king," he announced, his gaze sweeping the assembled nobles, "has been called away to urgent matters of the realm." It was a magnificent lie, delivered with a brother's convincing concern. "But a king's duty does not end with his absence. It passes to his blood."
A different kind of silence descended, thick with revelation and sharp calculation. Magnus turned slowly to face Isabella. His eyes were not tender, but they were intent. They offered not pity, but a crown.
He walked toward her, each step measured. When he was close enough that only she could hear, his voice dropped to a fierce, private whisper.
"He has forsaken you, Matrona. Publicly. But the alliance he made need not be broken." He extended a hand slowly.
"You must marry me. Today. Now. The court is already gathered. The archbishop stands ready. Let them see that the royal line is not weakened—it is strengthened."
"What?!" Isabella's breath caught. Her eyes, wide with stunned fury, locked onto his.
She closed and open her eyes repeatedly to make sure that this was not a dream.
No it is Tenebrarum that is to die...
Her mind raced, a frantic counterpoint to his calm.
The wine. The poisoned confirmation wine. It had been meant for Tenebrarum. If Magnus drank it now, in front of everyone, the assassination would be revealed instantly.
The plan—Velmara's plan—would implode. She risked a glance toward the witch and saw cold, barely-contained rage burning in her eyes.
"Magnus," Isabella hissed, her voice low and strained. "You shouldn't do this. Where the hell is Tenebrarum? This is his covenant."
"His covenant is with the realm, not just with you," Magnus replied, his voice still low but unwavering. "Take my hand, or let this entire court watch you—and our kingdom's future—crumble into dust."
Isabella looked at his extended hand, then past him, at the sea of faces watching this breathtaking pivot.
The pity was gone, replaced by awe and keen political interest. Power was flowing from the absent king, and it was pooling around the brother bold enough to seize it.
But beneath the political theater ran a vein of pure terror.
To say yes was to risk murdering a prince in plain sight. To say no was to become a symbol of ruin.
The choice was no longer between a throne and a ghost. It was between a crown and a coffin.
A cold sweat broke out beneath the heavy layers of her gown. Her palms felt slick. Every instinct screamed to run, to shout, to expose the plot. But she was trapped. To refuse him was political suicide.
To accept him was to walk straight into the disaster Velmara had prepared for another man.
Her heart hammered so violently she feared it might crack a rib. The air grew thin.
She saw the jeweled chalice glinting on the altar, no longer a symbol of union but a vessel of death.
With a trembling she hoped he couldn't feel, she placed her icy hand in his.
"If that is what you want," she whispered, the words tasting like ash, "then fine."
But inside, a silent scream echoed: Don't you understand? Don't you know what you're accepting him to do?
They turned together, a portrait of royal continuity. As they began the slow march toward the altar, Isabella's smile was a mask of perfect porcelain, while beneath it, pure terror clawed at her throat.
Each step brought her closer to watching the man beside her drink from a cup she had helped poison.
The archbishop, a man of advanced years draped in robes of pure white samite embroidered with golden threads, raised his arms.
The hall fell into a hushed, sacred silence, broken only by the rustle of rich fabrics and the distant, uneasy shifting of armor.
"Prince Magnus," the archbishop intoned, his voice echoing in the vaulted space. "Will you take this woman,Matrona Velmara, to be your lawfully wedded wife? To love, to cherish, to protect and to honor, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?"
"I will."
The archbishop turned his grave attention to her. "And Lady Matrona Velmara, will you take this man, Prince Magnus, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love, to cherish, to serve and to obey, in prosperity and in adversity, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?"
The silence that followed was not respectful. It was thick, strained, and scrutinizing.
A thousand eyes bored into her—the entire court, a living tapestry of nobility, military command, and foreign dignitaries, all holding their breath.
They were not witnessing a blessed union; they were auditing a political salvage operation. She could feel Velmara's gaze like a cold brand between her shoulder blades.
She saw the calculating looks of the dukes, the wary confusion of the generals. The musicians in the gallery had lowered their instruments, their role forgotten in the unfolding, unprecedented drama.
Her mouth was desert-dry. The word she had to speak felt like a shard of glass in her throat.
To serve? To obey?
She was agreeing to a death sentence, either for him or for herself.
She opened her lips. A faint, choked sound emerged. She cleared her throat, the small noise absurdly loud.
"I… yes," she managed, the word cracking. She forced strength into it, shaping it into something that resembled conviction. "Yes, I will."
A ripple moved through the crowd, a release of held breath that was not quite relief, but acknowledgment. The step had been taken. There was no going back.
The archbishop gave a slow, solemn nod.
He gestured to a kneeling attendant, who rose, holding a velvet cushion. Upon it rested the ancient, sacred Chalice of Covenant. It was wrought of solid gold, studded with dark rubies like clots of blood, its stem wrapped with carvings of serpents consuming their own tails—the symbol of eternal union.
Another attendant stepped forward with a flagon and poured a deep, blood-red wine into the cup, the liquid catching the light of a thousand candles.
"Now," the archbishop proclaimed, his hands hovering over the chalice as if blessing the poison within, "the confirmation. From this shared cup, you shall drink. As the wine becomes one within you, so too shall your souls and destinies be bound, from this day forward, as husband and wife."
The attendant presented the chalice first to Magnus.
He took it firmly, his fingers curling around the stem where Tenebrarum's hands were meant to have been. He raised it, his eyes meeting Isabella's over the gleaming rim—a look of triumph, of possession.
"To our future," he said, his voice carrying to the front rows.
He brought the cup to his lips.
Isabella's world narrowed to that single, horrifying point.
The dark wine. The toxin that had taken seventy years to perfect. Time slowed, stretched, and snapped. A silent scream tore through her mind.
No. Stop. Don't—
He took a long, deliberate swallow.
A second passed nothing had happened. Then another.
His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. He closed his eyes, not in reverence, but as if listening to a strange, internal discord.
His free hand rose slowly, clutching at the base of his own throat.
A wet, guttural sound escaped him—"Orhor…"—more a vibration than a word.
Then the cough tore through him, violent and convulsing.
The first splatter of blood hit the pristine white marble at their feet, a shocking, vivid star.
Gasps ripped through the Grand Hall, a wave of sound that crashed against the silence.
What is going on?
Nobles surged to their feet. Benches screeched against stone. A lady-in-waiting fainted, her crumple lost in the sudden chaos.
The golden cup of Covenant fell from Magnus's grasp.
CLANGGGG!
It hit the ground with a deafening sound, a discordant bell tolling the end of the ceremony, splashing the sacred, poisoned wine across Isabella's satin slippers and the hem of her gown.
Magnus staggered, his hands now both at his throat, his eyes wide with a confusion that swiftly morphed into pure, animal terror.
He looked at Isabella, as if for an answer. What he saw were tears already streaming silently down her frozen, porcelain face—tears of guilt, of horror, of a plan gone cataclysmically right against the wrong man.
He coughed again, a great, heaving retch.
This time, it was not red. It was a torrent of foul, black blood, oily and dark as pitch, spraying onto the altar steps. The sight sucked the remaining air from the room. This was no natural death. This was sorcery.
Murder.
His body convulsed once, a final, violent rebellion against the poison corrupting him from within.
Then the light in his eyes extinguished. His legs buckled, and Prince Magnus, the king's brother, the man who had seized a space moments before, collapsed in a heap of brocade and sudden mortality at his bride's feet.
He was dead.
The silence that followed was absolute, deeper than before, heavy with the weight of witnessed regicide.
Every single stare—wide with shock, fury, and dawning comprehension—burned into Isabella, standing alone above the body, her wedding gown speckled with her Magnus's blood.
The tears on her cheeks were the only part of her that moved.
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To be continued...