Chapter 3 - The Altar of Eyes
The heavy oak doors of the cathedral groaned open, revealing an interior swallowed by shadows and flickering candlelight. Inside, beneath a massive black-and-gold banner that hung from the soaring ceiling, King Rhys waited.
He was younger than Sera had expected—perhaps thirty-one—with dark, untamed hair falling against the collar of his ornate military tunic, but there was nothing inexperienced in the hard, calculating way he watched her approach down the long aisle.
He did not look at her crown. He did not look at the staggering expense of the pearls woven into her veil.
He looked at her hands.
The dressmakers had done their best. They had powdered, bleached, and hidden the deep chain bruises around her wrists with heavy lace cuffs, but they could not work miracles. They could not remove the jagged, disfiguring burn scar that stretched completely across her right palm—a souvenir from a childhood kitchen fire in the slums.
Rhys had met Princess Amara once during a brief, tense peace summit years ago.
Apparently, the real princess did not have that scar.
Sera’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird as she finally reached the altar, stopping inches from the towering, intimidating monarch.
The old priest, his hands trembling as he held the sacred text, began reciting the ancient marriage oath in a dry, papery voice.
Rhys stepped forward. Without warning, he reached out and took her hand. His fingers were warm, heavily calloused from swordplay, and strong enough to crush bone.
His expression remained perfectly, terrifyingly calm. He leaned down slightly, his lips brushing the edge of her veil as he spoke in a tone too low for the attending priests or nobles to hear.
“You are not Princess Amara,” he whispered.
Sera’s pulse stopped dead in her chest. The cathedral around her seemed to tilt, the flickering candlelight blurring into streaks of gold and red.
For a terrifying second, she thought of calling out, of screaming the truth to the guards. But survival instinct kicked in, hot and sharp.
“If you expose me,” she whispered back, her voice barely a breath against his skin, “the treaty ends.”
Rhys’s eyes flashed with a dangerous, dark amusement. “I did not say I intended to expose you.”
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Confusion warred with terror in Sera’s mind. “Then what do you intend to do?”
“Keep you alive long enough to learn why your kingdom sent a stranger in its princess’s gown.”
