"Erm... Nana?" Elyra choked out, her voice trembling as she backed away toward the carved wooden dressing screen, clutching her collar tight against her throat with whitening knuckles. "I... can I please dress myself? I’m... I’m really not used to people helping me. Back home, I always preferred my privacy. Please."
Lady Vivienne paused, her hand freezing midway through inspecting a velvet box of pearl pins. She slowly turned around, her sharp, intelligent eyes narrowing as she looked at Elyra standing cornered against the screen like a startled fawn.
Something in the girl’s posture nagged at her, a wrongness she couldn’t quite name, but she brushed the thought aside as quickly as it came.
"Dress yourself?" Vivienne repeated, her tone laced with absolute disbelief, as if Elyra had just suggested scrubbing the floor with her bare hands. "Darling, whatever do you mean? You are The Lycan King’s bride. You are my granddaughter-in-law! The grand mistress of this entire estate! Do you really think I would let you haul heavy silk over your shoulders and struggle with fifty tiny obsidian buttons on your own wedding night?"
"No, Nana, it’s not that, I just..."
"I know what this is," Vivienne interrupted smoothly, stepping forward with an amused, affectionate smile that made Elyra’s stomach drop even further. "You’re shy. It’s completely understandable, child. Coming into a palace full of strangers, surrounded by attendants you don’t know yet... it’s overwhelming. But you must get used to it, my sweet. You are royalty now."
Vivienne crossed the rug, her heavy velvet dress rustling as she reached out to gently pat Elyra’s shoulder... barely missing a fresh whip mark beneath the wool tunic. Elyra flinched inwardly, holding her breath and praying the old woman hadn’t felt the slight ridge of scarred flesh through the fabric.
"Besides," Vivienne continued, her voice softening into something surprisingly warm, "I have heard all about how doted upon you were back at the Veyrith stronghold. Veyrith praised his cherished Elowen endlessly in his letters... how pampered you were, how you had four personal maids catering to your every whim from the time you were a little girl! My grandson is a cold, difficult man, Elowen. I know he is. So I made it my personal mission the moment you stepped through those gates to ensure you do not suffer a single grievance under this roof. You will be spoiled twice as much here as you were at home. I won’t hear another word about you dressing alone."
She gestured firmly to the two head attendants waiting by the marble bath. "Girls, help her out of those travelling clothes. Mind her hair..."
"Nana, please!"
The desperation in Elyra’s voice was so raw it cut right through the room. She felt a cold, slick terror washing over her skin, and for one dizzying moment the chandeliers above seemed to tilt and swim. If those attendants pulled down her shirt, they wouldn’t see the smooth, pristine skin of the doted-upon princess Elowen.
They would see crisscrossing, weeping, charred whip scars. They would see the ragged marks of a slave who had been beaten three days ago in a dungeon cellar. The lie would shatter before it even began, and with it, whatever fragile safety she had managed to build in the last few hours.
Driven by sheer survival, Elyra did something she had never dared to do in her entire life - something she had seen Elowen do a thousand times whenever she wanted to get her way with their father. She whined. She let her shoulders drop, squeezed her eyes half-shut, and let out a soft, pathetic, trembling sound, leaning slightly toward the older woman with pleading eyes.
Every instinct screamed at her that this was beneath her, that she had never once been allowed the luxury of performing helplessness, but desperation made quick work of pride.
"Nana, please... I know you’re doing this out of love, and I am so, so grateful, I really am," Elyra pleaded, her voice dropping into a shaky, pathetic whisper that sounded genuinely fragile. "It’s just... my head is pounding so hard I can barely see straight, and the journey over the border made me terribly carsick. The smell of the rose oils and the steam... it’s making my stomach turn. If everyone is standing around me watching me change right now, I know I’m going to throw up or faint, and I just... I want five minutes of quiet. Just five minutes to gather myself so I don’t embarrass you or Vaelric down in that ballroom. Please, Nana? Just this once? Let me do it slowly on my own?"
Lady Vivienne stopped. She stared at Elyra, her expression shifting from firm insistence to deep, motherly pity. To Vivienne, it sounded like the genuine, overwhelmed exhaustion of a pampered young noble girl who had been dragged across country borders into a foreign court.
She thought, fleetingly, of her own wedding night decades ago, of how suffocating the weight of unfamiliar hands and unfamiliar expectations had felt, and the memory softened whatever resolve remained.
Vivienne let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Oh, you poor, sweet thing," Vivienne murmured softly. A tender smile broke across her regal face as she reached out and gently patted the top of Elyra’s head, smoothing back a stray strand of hair. "Listen to me fussing over you when your poor head is spinning. Of course. Forgive an old woman for being overly eager."
Vivienne turned around to face the servants, her posture instantly snapping back into that of an unyielding matriarch.
"You heard her," Vivienne ordered the women, her voice ringing clear across the suite. "Unlace the back of the gown so she can slip into it without straining her arms. Lay out the pearl shoes, prepare the hair oils, place the silver hairpins on the vanity, and pour a fresh glass of iced mint water on the table. Make sure everything is arranged so my granddaughter-in-law does not have to lift a single unnecessary finger or face any difficulty doing this herself. Then step outside immediately."
The attendants bowed low in unison. "Yes, Lady Vivienne."
They moved with swift, silent efficiency, laying out the midnight gown, unhooking the delicate closures, and setting out the jewelry before bowing once more and filing out into the grand hallway.
Vivienne turned back to Elyra, offering her a reassuring, warm nod. "We will be waiting for you right outside the double doors, darling. Take your time, breathe, and drink your water. If you need a single thing... even if you just need help with a zipper... ring the brass bell on the vanity, and someone will step in to help you instantly. Understand?"
"Yes, Nana," Elyra breathed out, her throat tight with overwhelming relief.
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
"Don’t mention it, child," Vivienne said with a smile, stepping back toward the doorway. "Now don’t linger too long. A room full of hungry shifters is waiting to see the King’s new bride."
The heavy oak doors clicked shut. The moment the latch caught, Elyra’s legs gave out, and she sank onto the velvet stool behind the screen, clutching her chest as air finally rushed back into her lungs.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, unbidden and unwelcome, and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to keep from making a sound. She had survived one moment.
There would be a thousand more before the night ended, and she wasn’t sure how many of them she could talk her way through.
Now, standing in the middle of the ballroom, she squeezed Vaelric’s arm a little tighter, purely to keep her knees from shaking.
Her hand was wrapped tightly around Vaelric’s forearm. His arm felt like a bar of forged iron under the dark fabric of his tailored suit jacket... solid, unyielding, and utterly cold. She fixed her gaze on a distant point above the crowd and counted her breaths, willing her legs to keep moving.
Vaelric didn’t look down at her. His expression remained totally blank, a carved mask of absolute stone as he guided her through the crowd. He didn’t offer a reassuring glance. He didn’t ask if she was alright.
He just walked, carrying himself with the silent, terrifying authority of a king walking through a den of wolves, and Elyra found herself wondering, not for the first time, whether there was anything alive beneath that composure at all.
"You’re squeezing too hard, Ms. Veyrith," Vaelric murmured quietly, his head barely turning toward her. His voice was a flat, low rumble that didn’t carry past her ear. "You’re going to wrinkle the sleeve."
Elyra bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, forcing her fingers to loosen their desperate grip on his suit jacket, though she couldn’t bring herself to drop her hand entirely. If she let go, she was certain her trembling knees would buckle right onto the floorboards, and she had no intention of giving this room of watching wolves such a spectacle.
"Sorry," she whispered bitterly, leaning in just an inch so only he could hear her above the swell of the orchestra. She stared straight ahead at a group of elder Lycan lords who were watching her with sharp, narrowed eyes like vultures weighing a carcass. "I’m just trying not to faint in front of your ’one percent’. Forgive me for holding onto the only stationary object in the room."
"Fainting is prohibited," Vaelric replied without a shred of humor or warmth. "It reflects poorly on my choice of bride. Stand up straight. Keep your chin lifted. Look at them. They are looking for blood, and right now, you are practically bleeding weakness."
A tiny, sharp laugh forced its way out of Elyra’s throat... bitter, dry, and laced with quiet misery. "They’re not looking for blood, Vaelric. They’re looking at me like I’m a stray, flea-ridden dog that somehow snuck into a cathedral."
"Then stop acting like one," Vaelric said smoothly. His eyes swept the room, acknowledging a bowing council member with the faintest, almost imperceptible tilt of his jaw while his mouth barely moved.
"You carry my name tonight. Whether you like it or not, you are standing beside the King. Act like it cost me something to get you, rather than looking like you’re waiting for someone to drop a lead on your collar."
Elyra’s jaw tightened so hard her teeth ached. A surge of hot, furious indignation flickered through the pain racking her body, momentarily overpowering even her fear. "You really have no idea, do you?" she hissed under her breath, her voice tight and laced with venom as she forced herself to keep her head high, chin locked, shoulders back.. even as the movement pulled agonizingly at the scabbed skin across her shoulder blades. "You think this is just me being dramatic? You think I’m just nervous because the room is shiny?"
"I don’t care why you are nervous," Vaelric stated, his tone as flat and unbothered as a frozen lake. "I care about the result. Your hands are cold, your breathing is shallow, and you are leaning your weight into my side as if you expect me to carry you."
"I am holding onto you so I don’t fall on my face!" she snapped softly, her eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous heat as she glared sideways at his flawless, unmoving profile. "You drag me out here, parade me around in front of people who look at my kind like we’re vermin, expect me to play the dutiful, glowing bride, and you can’t even manage a single human word of assurance? You really are a heartless bastard, aren’t you? Does anything actually reach you? Or is it just ice all the way down?"
Vaelric stopped walking.
The abrupt halt forced a few nearby nobles to pause, their curious, predatory eyes flitting toward the royal couple before Vaelric’s heavy, imposing aura subtly pushed them back into their conversations, as though even their curiosity knew better than to linger.
He slowly turned his head to look down at her. His face remained utterly motionless - no anger, no annoyance, no spark of offense, no life at all. Just that dead, terrifying emptiness that made her feel smaller than any insult her father had ever screamed at her.
Feeling emotions was a taboo he simply refused to indulge, a door he had locked and thrown away the key to years ago, and for a fleeting instant Elyra almost pitied him for it, before the pain in her own back reminded her she had no room left for anyone’s suffering but her own.
"Ice keeps things from rotting, Ms. Veyrith," Vaelric said softly, his deep voice carrying a razor-sharp chill that cut right through her anger. "It preserves what matters and kills what doesn’t. If I were ’human,’ as you so desperately want me to be, I would have killed your father three years ago and left your territory in ashes. Ice is the only reason you are breathing in this room tonight."
Elyra stared up at him, her chest heaving slightly as his words hit her like a physical blow. The absolute truth behind his cold eyes made her shudder. He wasn’t exaggerating. He wasn’t trying to scare her.
He was simply stating a fact, and somehow that plain honesty frightened her more than any threat could have.
"Now," Vaelric added, his gaze shifting past her shoulder toward the grand marble staircase leading up to the high balconies, "smile. My grandmother is watching us from the balcony, and she expects a love story. Give her one, or I will personally ensure the rest of this evening is far less comfortable for you than a tight dress."