Kaelith dropped into the nearest chair like someone had cut her strings.
That, unfortunately, did not improve the situation.
Malvoria still sat there looking regal and unbothered, one arm around Elysia’s waist, while Elysia looked concerned in the soft, elegant way of a woman who was probably about to say something kind and still completely useless.
Kaelith pressed a hand to her forehead.
“I don’t remember a lot.”
Malvoria raised one dark brow.
“That is not a sentence that inspires confidence.”
“I know that,” Kaelith snapped.
“I’m telling you what I have.
I remember the banquet.
I remember there were too many elven nobles.
I remember the wine being offensively good.
I remember…” She frowned, digging through the fog in her head with increasing irritation.
“I remember seeing Irielle.”
That got both mothers’ attention.
Elysia tilted her head.
“Do you remember talking to her?”
Kaelith squinted at the floor as if the answer might be written there.
“Maybe.
She was standing near one of the garden doors.
I think she looked pissed off.
Or that might just be her face.
No offense to the woman I apparently married.”
Malvoria made a quiet sound that might have been agreement.
Kaelith kept going because if she stopped, she might start screaming.
“I remember someone saying there was a drinking game.
I remember telling somebody their court was so polished it probably shined at night.
Then I remember dancing with…” She went still.
“Fuck.”
Elysia leaned forward.
“With Irielle?”
Kaelith looked at her like betrayal had taken maternal form.
“Maybe.”
Malvoria’s mouth twitched.
“That sounds promising.”
“That sounds criminal,” Kaelith said.
“I don’t even remember agreeing to dance with her, let alone legally binding myself to her for the rest of my life like a drunk idiot with beautiful taste in disaster.”
Elysia patted Malvoria’s arm gently.
“Darling, don’t look so pleased.”
“I’m not pleased,” Malvoria said.
“You are absolutely pleased.”
“I am fascinated.”
Kaelith stared at both of them.
“I am living in a catastrophe.”
Malvoria crossed one long leg over the other, all lazy power and unearned serenity.
“Yes, but it is an interesting catastrophe.”
Kaelith made a deeply offended noise and slumped harder into the chair.
“There has to be some mistake.
Some prank.
Some elf court nonsense.
I don’t sign marriage contracts.
I sign bar tabs.”
Malvoria lifted the letter again and read the magical verification marks at the bottom.
“This is not a prank.
The seals are real.
The legal signatures are real.
The enchantment binding is real.”
Kaelith wanted to die.
Preferably in a graceful way.
Preferably after setting several people on fire.
“So I’m just married,” she said flatly.
“That’s it.
I wake up, and suddenly I have a wife.”
“Apparently,” Elysia said.
Kaelith threw her hands in the air.
“How are you both so calm?”
Malvoria looked genuinely puzzled.
“Because this is your problem.”
For a second, Kaelith could only stare.
Then her jaw dropped.
“Mother.”
Malvoria handed the letter back to her with insulting calm.
“Hum.
So if you are married, that would mean you are not our problem anymore.”
Kaelith sat up straight so fast the chair nearly protested.
“Mom, you’re not helping.”
Malvoria looked thoughtful, which was never a good sign.
“Well, me and my beautiful wife were planning to go on vacation anyway.”
Kaelith turned slowly toward Elysia with the desperate expression of a condemned woman searching for one last merciful god.
Elysia smiled apologetically.
That was a terrible start.
“Sorry,” she said, and somehow managed to sound sincere and unhelpful at exactly the same time.
“I can’t really help.”
Kaelith made a strangled noise.
“Why did I come here, then?”
“Because you love us,” Malvoria said.
“Because I thought one of you would behave like a parent.”
“That was your first mistake,” Malvoria replied.
Elysia, who had at least the decency to look sympathetic, reached for the letter again and frowned down at it.
“Well… if it makes you feel better, since it’s official, you might divorce in six months.”
Kaelith blinked.
“Might?”
Elysia hesitated.
Kaelith did not like that hesitation.
Not one bit.
“Well,” Elysia said carefully, “you cannot immediately dissolve a magically registered royal marriage across kingdoms without review.
There are waiting periods.
Ceremonial clauses.
Verification procedures.”
Kaelith went pale.
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
Malvoria leaned back farther in the chair, clearly settling in to enjoy the destruction.
“The law dislikes impulsive royal unions.”
“I dislike impulsive royal unions!”
“Yes,” Malvoria said.
“But the law matters more than your feelings.”
Kaelith looked at Elysia again.
“So I can divorce her in six months.”
Elysia winced.
That was even worse than hesitation.
Kaelith’s voice turned dangerously quiet.
“Why are you making that face?”
“Because technically,” Elysia said, “you cannot divorce right away, so actually I don’t know.”
There was a full second of silence.
Then Kaelith stood up.
Then sat down again because the room had abruptly become unreliable.
“You don’t know,” she repeated.
Elysia gave her a small helpless smile.
“Not without checking the details.
It depends on whether the marriage was signed under ceremonial alliance law, noble emergency law, or mutual compact law.”
Kaelith stared at her.
“Those all sound made up.”
“They are not.”
“They sound evil.”
“That too,” Malvoria said.
Kaelith dragged both hands down her face and stayed there for a moment, palms pressing against her eyes until little bursts of angry light flashed in the dark.
Somewhere behind her hands, she could hear her mothers breathing, existing, remaining disgustingly composed.
It was intolerable.
When she finally lowered her hands, her voice came out flat with exhaustion.
“Do you at least know why Princess Irielle would marry me?”
Malvoria and Elysia exchanged a look.
Kaelith saw it and immediately hated it.
“What?” she asked.
Elysia chose her words too carefully, which was another terrible sign.
“Well.
There are possible reasons.”
“That sounds political.”
“It likely is political,” Malvoria said.
Kaelith groaned.
“Of course it is.”
“You are not exactly a random woman,” Malvoria said.
“You are my daughter.
Eldest.
Publicly powerful.
Socially inconvenient.
A possible future demon queen.”
Kaelith gave her a dead stare.
“You make me sound like a plague with jewelry.”
Malvoria’s expression suggested she did not entirely disagree.
Elysia reached out and squeezed Malvoria’s wrist before speaking.
“If the elf court is involved, especially Princess Irielle specifically, then I think we should assume someone arranged this for a reason.”
Kaelith leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
“Great.
Wonderful.
I’m not just married.
I’m politically married.”
“Yes,” Malvoria said.
“That does make it more serious.”
“I’m going to throw myself off a tower.”
“Don’t,” Elysia said.
“It stains the stones, and then people make memorial speeches.”
Kaelith looked at her mother in disbelief.
Elysia smiled weakly.
“I’m trying to help.”
“You’re both insane.”
“That is hereditary,” Malvoria said.
Kaelith stood again, this time pacing because sitting still felt too much like surrender.
Her boots struck the polished floor in sharp, angry rhythm.
“So what now?
I wait six months and hope the law takes pity on me?
I send a letter saying sorry, lovely cheekbones, but I would rather be disemboweled than continue this marriage?”
“Diplomatically phrased, perhaps,” Elysia murmured.
Kaelith pointed at her.
“I’m in pain.”
“I can see that.”
Malvoria watched her pace for another moment, then said, “Should we go see them?”
Kaelith stopped.
That was the first actually useful thing anyone had said in this room.
She turned slowly.
“Them.”
“The elf royal family,” Malvoria said.
“Or at least Princess Irielle and whoever signed off on this disaster.
If it is real, then we deal with it properly.”
Elysia nodded at once, relieved to finally be moving toward action.
“Yes.
I’ll send a letter.”
Kaelith stared at her parents.
At her beautiful, maddening, impossible parents.
One of them was already thinking strategically.
The other was halfway to formal stationery.
Neither of them had cancelled the vacation.
That, somehow, was the final insult.
“You know,” Kaelith said, very quietly, “if this ruins my life, I will haunt both of you personally.”
Malvoria smiled, slow and unapologetic.
“If it ruins your life, at least it will ruin it interestingly.”
Kaelith looked at the letter still clenched in her hand.
Princess Irielle.
Officially married.
Not a prank.
Not a dream.
Not something wine could mercifully erase.
Outside the tall windows, the castle grounds stretched bright and calm under the late morning sun, as if the world had not just shifted into absurdity.
Kaelith exhaled once, sharp and furious.
“Fine,” she said.
“Send the damned letter.”
And somewhere deep in her chest, beneath the anger and the disbelief and the savage urge to blame everyone in the kingdom, a colder thought had started to sharpen.
She needed to see Irielle.
Because if Kaelith had somehow ended up married, then someone had made sure of it.
And she wanted names.
Author notes here are some images of Ruby and Violet