A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 78: Long May it Echo

The officiant continued. Aldaric turned. Eurydice stopped, precisely one step from him. Her veil lowered itself, slowly, with a whisper of enchantment. She blinked once. Then smiled. Wide. Serene. Terrifying.

"Do you, Aldaric Selwyn, take this woman to be your bound and blood-sworn partner, to share in name, estate, and power, in loyalty to house and realm?"

"I do," he said, voice clear. Mechanical.

"And do you, Eurydice Trevers, accept this man's name, his estate, and the vow that binds you—body, wand, and will?"

"I do," Eurydice said. Her voice was like frost on glass. Perfect. Empty.

The officiant produced a small blade—glasslike and humming.

"Extend your hands."

They did.

The blade sliced once—thin, precise—and blood rose to the surface of each palm like it had been summoned.

The officiant caught each droplet in the crystal vial. It sealed itself with a whisper.

"The binding is set," he said. "Let it be known."

There was a pause. Not silence. Just... space. A moment of magic sinking into bone.

"They are married," he announced.

Applause bloomed across the hall.

Anastasia didn't move.

Tom, beside her, smiled faintly. Not at the couple. At the room.

She watched him. Watched the curve of his mouth. The tilt of his fingers against the armrest, so casually poised it was almost a mockery. Tom wasn't smiling at the couple. He was smiling at the room.

At the spell he'd cast long before the officiant had uttered a word.

Anastasia's gloves suddenly felt too tight.

The applause still fluttered through the air, restrained, genteel, meticulously polite. No one cheered. No one stood. That would have been vulgar. This wasn't a celebration. This was a coronation for a dynasty that hadn't yet declared itself.

She sat still through it. Chin high. Hands folded. A picture of composure.

But her stomach curled, tight and low.

She'd been posturing all day. All month. She'd told herself the wedding didn't matter. It wasn't hers. It wasn't a prophecy. It wasn't a mirror. And yet—

Here it was.

A glimpse of what hers might be. A dry rehearsal.

Anastasia Gaunt, betrothed. Bound.

Her fingers flexed once in her lap. The silk whispered.

They'd use a blade like that too. Maybe not the same one, but one like it. Etched with runes no one could quite translate. Sealed with a vow no one could break.

She'd speak those words, eventually. Recite them from memory like they were her own.

Body. Wand. Will.

A single drop of blood. A phial sealed. A life rebranded.

She exhaled through her nose. Quiet. Controlled.

Tom leaned slightly toward her, his mouth still curved in that ghost of a smile. "Beautiful, wasn't it?" he said, voice low enough to pass for intimacy.

Her eyes didn't leave the altar. Eurydice hadn't moved. Not really. The couple had turned to accept their congratulations, but the bride's posture hadn't shifted. Her hand rested in Aldaric's like it had been posed there.