Her words… were confusing. Most others who came here came here with anticipation in their hearts, hope in their veins. My other brides had wanted to find their happiness with me, wanted to be the missing piece I was searching for.
They never were, but that did not stop them from hoping, nor me from wishing it, too.
“You search for a new bride every twenty-five years,” she said, those eyes locking with mine once more, boldness and defiance resting in their depths. “I’m under no impression that will stop after me. I don’t know what happens to your brides after twenty-five years, but I will tell you this.”
I watched as she took another step closer to me, then another. Morana only stopped when she stood just before me, close enough I could feel the heat radiating off her, the fire in her soul. She did not gaze upon me with awe or worship, did not hold a kernel of adoration for me, and yet she held every ounce of my attention in spite of all that.
“I will not spend the rest of my life sitting in that room, doing everything you ask of me. I will be your bride, but I will be no slave. Once I marry you, this castle is just as much mine as it is yours. I am well aware there will be… wifely duties, but beyond that, I want to do what I like, and I will—I did not bend to my parents, and I will bend to no man, god or no god.”
My hand, the one not currently fisted and holding up my head on the armrest of the throne curled, the gloves on my fingers feeling suddenly too tight, too restrictive. My voice came out low and quiet, almost a whisper, “You should watch how you speak to me, Morana.”
In fact, I could not remember anyone ever talking to me quite like that before. Not any of my brides. My brother was the only one who’d ever come close to speaking with me as she did, but even then, my brother was always flippant, smooth and easygoing. This girl? She was abrasive and rough, serious in every way. She meant each word she’d told me.
She gave me a smile. I could not tell if she was merely trying to puff herself up and act tough, or if this was truly the girl my messenger had brought me. The attitude radiated off her in waves, and I didn’t know if I liked it or not.
Morana made me confused, which was more than anyone else had done. Was it better to feel confused than to not feel anything at all?
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, a lie, but I let her proclaim it loudly, let her tell me off. “I refuse to be. A woman should not be afraid of her husband.”
I breathed out, watching her shiver right afterward, probably due to her sheer closeness to me. Even her fire could not keep her warm from my eternal cold. “We are not married yet,” I reminded her, not sure why I was saying it. I did not want her to be afraid of me, but I… I wanted some ounce of respect from her. Something.
Something other than the loathing hatred that seemed to ooze out of her as she looked at me.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “We aren’t. If you were any other man, you’d be trying to woo me right now.” Morana took a step away from me, letting those eyes study me. My appearance, my face, my posture; all of me. “Goodnight, Abner.” She called me Abner against my wishes, and then she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving me alone to replay the entire incident.
Long after she was gone, I sat on the throne, wondering what had happened. Morana was… not what I’d been expecting. Not at all.
Woo? Surely she did not mean she wanted me to try to woo her in the next two days? I was Winter. I was a king, a god. I did not have to woo anyone; everyone else simply had to do as I wished.
The glowing ice on the candelabras began to burn orange, and I rolled my eyes and let out a groan as someone appeared next to me, leaning on my throne and looking far too happy with himself.
My brother, of course, for who else would it be?
Ishan was exactly as he’d been the last time I’d seen him, wearing the same clothes and everything. We were brothers, but our appearances could not have been more different. Whereas he was day, I was night. His skin was a dark brown, touched by the sun and its warmth, while mine was as white as flesh could be. Same with our hair, though his was more of a honeyed brown than black. Mine was white.
The clothes we wore fit with our seasons; he always wore warm colors, browns and greens and tans, while I stuck to light blues and soft purples and whites. Such as it was now.
“So,” he spoke, his voice sounding far too amused, “you’ve met your next bride, I see.”
I did not get off the throne, didn’t even look at him as I muttered, “I did, and I am not impressed with what she has to offer.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t quite true. If I was truly not impressed, I wouldn’t have been thinking of her long after she left this hall, wouldn’t have replayed her words again in my head and pictured the light in her eyes as she’d said it.
“And I,” Ishan spoke, pushing off the throne to stand before me, wearing a knowing smirk, “do believe you are, as the humans say, lying through your teeth, brother.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if Morana was right there. She wasn’t, thankfully. I would not be having this conversation with my brother if she was still in the room. “She is something else, isn’t she?”
I had to blink at that, for there was a weight to his question I wasn’t expecting. I studied my brother, how he stood, how he still wore that smile… almost wistful in its grace. Something hit me: the heat that had come off Morana, the fire in her eyes and the color of her skin, the way her hair shined with gold.
“You’ve seen her before,” I muttered, feeling… something. Something I couldn’t describe. Was it jealousy? Was I envious of Ishan that he had seen Morana before, that he put himself into the lives of the humans in the kingdom? Maybe.
Or perhaps I was concerned that he would try to take her from me. After all, how many brides did I have, and not once had Ishan ever come to me so close to a wedding before. Many. Countless. This had never happened before, I knew, and that’s why I could not shake the feeling of unease from my gut.
Ishan let out a dramatic sigh, still grinning. “No point in lying to you, brother. Yes, I’ve seen her before. Many, many times, in fact. She is… she’s not like anyone else. You will have your hands full with her, I’m sure.”
I could not fight the suspicion rising in my stomach as I met my brother’s dark eyes. “Why are you here?”
“To wish you good luck with your future bride, of course.”
Narrowing my eyes, I said, “You’ve never wished me luck before.”
“I haven’t? Oh, what a terrible brother I’ve been, then.”
“What do you want?”
Ishan’s grin widened. “I’m not here to ask for anything, Abner. I’m simply here to wish you good luck.”
A deep sigh escaped me, and I got up, moving past my brother, bumping shoulders with him as I began to storm away. To my utter annoyance, he popped up right in front of me, and I stopped walking, glaring at him, feeling the ice prickle at my heart inside. “Get out of my way.”
“Why?” Ishan asked, cocking his head. Finally, that grin had fallen from his face. If I knew him well—which I did, for he was my brother—it wouldn’t be gone for long. “Did I upset you by wishing you luck?”
The frown I wore should’ve told him everything, but since he continued to play dumb, I said, “We both know you’re not here to wish me luck. You want something else.” There had been a time when he’d visit often, when he’d try to get me to come out of this castle and walk amongst the humans as he did, but that time had long gone.