Bride by Midnight Read online

  The room was dismally and sparsely occupied. Her father and stepmother, the holy man who would perform the ceremony, an anxious bride, and a nervous groom who’d arrived alone, without a single family member or friend as his guest. Lyssa was suddenly aware that there was not one cheerful face in the room. Sinmora attempted a smile, but it wasn’t genuine and didn’t last long. Should both bride and groom be miserable on their wedding day? It didn’t seem right, but neither did a lifetime alone. So what was she to do? If the witch’s prophecy had been correct, if her dreams of an achingly lonely darkness were more than simple nightmares, then Kyran was her last chance for all that she desired. A family. A home of her own. He was her last chance to become a wife before she turned twenty-three. Maybe they would learn to love one another, in time. At the very least, she hoped they would become friends.

  She was a little surprised that not one member of Kyran’s family had come with him. Was this not a happy occasion, for him to take a wife? Maybe they were angry because he intended to leave the farm. It had already been decided that he would live here and would immediately go to work for her father. Maybe his family knew of her unfortunate past and they were worried for him. Maybe they liked her even less than Kyran did.

  Truly, there was nothing she could say about the groom’s lack of a wedding party, since none of her own friends had come to the house for this ceremony. They all had very good reasons why they couldn’t make it; they were busy with their own husbands and children and responsibilities. But she did wonder if perhaps they simply could not bear the drama of yet another disastrous almost-wedding.

  Lyssa lifted her chin, dismissing all her worries as best she could and concentrating on the positive. She would be married before she turned twenty-three. Barely, as the sun was about to set on the last day of her twenty-second year, but it was as good as done. Kyran was here, having avoided death and disease on the way to their simple altar, and she was determined to see this done, in spite of her reservations.

  Kyran walked over to her and took both her hands in his own. The way he looked into her eyes, the sorrow there...

  Oh, no.

  “I’m so sorry, Lyssa. I can’t do this.”

  The floor beneath her feet started to spin, much as it had in the morning’s nightmare. Her vision narrowed until all she could see was his traitorous, ordinary, not-very-bright face.

  “Of course you can,” she said, her heart pounding. She could feel it slamming against her chest so hard that surely everyone in the room heard her heartbeat. Her father took a step toward her. The priest sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor. Lyssa stopped her father’s approach with a glance and a shake of her head and then she gave Kyran her attention. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t love you, either. There’s more than love to marriage. We can make it work. We’ll be friends, partners. We don’t need love.”

  “I’m in love with someone else,” Kyran whispered. “I thought I could do this. I was ready to marry you even though I knew it wasn’t right for either of us. I thought it would be enough, to have you beside me as a friend and wife while I worked in your father’s shop. Many people live worse lives. But then I met her, and I realized what true love could be.”

  Patience fading quickly, she snatched her hands from his. “You’re leaving me for another woman?”

  “Yes.” Kyran smiled weakly. “I met her quite by accident, on the road through the woods just last week. Oh, Lyssa, she’s so beautiful, so kind, and... I loved her at first glance, and she loves me.”

  She took a step back, the truth making her feel faint. “I truly do not need to hear this.”

  Kyran nodded, as if he understood. “We’re leaving Arthes immediately. She has family in the Northern Province. Trust me, it’s better this way. It would have ended badly for us. You deserve to find a love of your own, to feel what I now feel. Forgive me.” With that he bowed curtly and exited the house as if a wolf were on his tail.

  Lyssa stared at the door for a long while. Well, it seemed like a long while, as the seconds dragged on. Her parents and Father Kiril remained silent and still, disapprovingly solemn. She had done nothing wrong. She had given them no reason to be displeased with her, but...

  Again she felt as if the floor were dropping out from under her, just as it had in her nightmare. The witch had been right. This was the end of her life. She would never marry, never give birth to a child, never have a home of her own. No man would ever love her. She would have no partner in life.

  She wished with all her heart that she could convince herself the witch had been wrong all those years ago, but after four failed attempts at becoming a wife, what was she to think? The constant dreams of being alone in a dark room, where no one could see or hear or touch her... they were not only nightmares that woke her with a scream, they were horrifying predictions of her bleak future.

  If there truly was a battle between darkness and light going on all around her, the darkness had won. Somehow it was her fault. There must be a weakness in her, something bad that she could not control...

  It was Sinmora who broke the silence. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Her hug was warm and genuine, and Lyssa allowed herself to wallow in it for a long moment. “There will be other men. Kyran was likely correct when he said a marriage between you two would go badly. It’s a flighty man who meets a woman on the road and instantly thinks himself in love.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “You deserve better, dear. You will find happiness... one day.”

  Lyssa stepped away from the offered comfort. She steeled her spine, and forced her voice to remain steady and certain. “No, Vellance was right. This was my last chance. I’m going to live at home for the rest of my days.” That might be unavoidable, but she didn’t have to give in to whatever darkness might attempt to claim her. Besides, the magical part of the prediction could be completely wrong, an attempt by the witch to frighten her. As she had done all those years ago, Lyssa tried to convince herself that she could pick and choose which predictions she would accept and which ones she could dismiss as impossible. Her life would be what she made it, not a pre-ordained nightmare.

  She desperately wanted to believe that to be true, even though she was no longer a child who was capable of convincing herself that she could pick apart a prediction and take from it only the tidbits that pleased her.

  “I’ll work with Papa,” she said, swallowing her fear. “I’m good with numbers, and I’m good with people, too. Maybe it’s too late for me, maybe I won’t have a family of my own, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a good life for myself.” Her voice almost broke on that last sentence, but she wanted to believe it was true. Who needed a husband? And children were often disappointments to their mothers. Besides, it wasn’t as if she looked forward to childbirth. Who would?

  “Oh, that ridiculous prediction,” Sinmora snapped. “That was nothing more than a crazy old woman’s ramblings, and I can’t believe you’ve taken it seriously all these years. You will marry. You will have a family.” She reached out to caress Lyssa’s hair. “You will know love.”

  Lyssa wished she could believe that.

  The priest left the house without ever looking the “bride” in the eye. Lyssa refused Sinmora’s offers of a bite of supper, gave her father—who’d been silent and obviously disappointed through it all—a hug, and went to bed early. The narrow bed where she’d slept as a child would be her bed for life now, unless she decided to take vows at a nunnery. She shuddered at the thought. Not that the Sisters of Orianan weren’t fine women who had dedicated their lives to doing good, but it was not Lyssa’s dream to cut her hair and dress forever in black, and go months at a time without speaking a word aloud. Vow of silence? Horrors. Sacrifice was not in her nature. Neither was silence.

  No, her father needed her. She was his only child, and she would do her duty and assist him in his trade. As there was no son to whom he could leave his assets, no son by marriage to assist him in his business, she would become like a son to him
. Perhaps that was unconventional, but if it was that or a nunnery, her choice was an easy one.

  There were worse ways to live her life, she supposed.

  Eventually she fell into a deep sleep in the small bed she’d expected to share with a husband on this night, where the dreams of loneliness and darkness were more severe than ever before. The room where she found herself was so dark she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face, and when she began to fall, as she always did, she did not scream. Instead she accepted. She accepted the loneliness, the darkness... the disappointment. Why had she fought it all these years? Fear tried to rise within her, but she pushed it down; she fought it off and focused on the truth. This was her life now.

  Briefly, something glimmered silver in the darkness. A knife. No, a sword, long and sharp and deadly. It teased her, made her believe that she was not alone after all. She should have been afraid of the blade, but... it would never hurt her. She knew that as one could know things in a dream. And then it was gone. Lyssa spread her arms and held her breath as she fell, and woke to the silent darkness of her lonely bed chamber, her body lurching a bit as if she actually had fallen from above.

  As usual, she tried to see the bright side of the situation. This might all be for the best. She would probably hate having a husband who would no doubt want to tell her what to do every hour of the day, as some husbands did. She wasn’t all that sure about sharing a bed with a man, anyway. From all she’d heard, which wasn’t much, marital relations were messy and bothersome and perhaps only occasionally pleasurable. The act was for creating life and for a man’s release. At least, that is what she’d taken from what she’d heard. To hear her married friends tell it, their husbands were quite disagreeable if they did not get their way in the bedroom. Not that they shared everything with her. Because she was an unmarried woman, they deemed some conversations unfit for her virginal ears.

  For as long as Lyssa could remember, her father had been overly protective of his only child, shielding her from those he deemed unsavory or unsuitable and protecting her from the harshness of life. Sinmora had not prepared her stepdaughter for marriage, instead saying that it was a husband’s place to instruct his bride as he saw fit. This statement was always followed by a flush of her cheeks and a quick turn away.

  Lyssa didn’t care. Not anymore. There would be no husband to instruct her. No conversations of intimate matters with married friends. Her life had taken a different turn. Lying in the dark she had to wonder... Had her prospective grooms met misfortune or loved another because she’d chosen them? Or had she chosen them because, in the deepest, darkest part of herself, she had somehow known what was to come? She didn’t want to think that two men had died simply because she’d agreed to marry them. She preferred to think that she’d chosen them because they were meant to die. There was less weight on her conscience that way. If she possessed any magical abilities at all, that was the extent of it. What a worthless bit of magic that was!

  She tried to convince herself that she would be fine, but silent tears fell from her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. While self-pity was not an attractive trait in anyone, she decided she deserved to feel sorry for herself, at least for one night. She would be strong tomorrow.

  As she cried, her stomach growled. She shouldn’t have skipped supper. Maybe there were a lot of “shouldn’ts” in her life, but at the moment that was the big one. She was hungry. This problem she could fix. Lyssa threw back the coverlet and left her bed, heading for the main room where earlier in the day she’d almost become a bride. The large room was used as a sitting area for family and for visitors, and in one corner there sat a stove and work space where meals were prepared. There was also a small table there, just right for three. As she headed for that table she thanked her lucky stars that this house also had two small but private bed chambers; one for her and one for her father and Sinmora. As she would apparently be living here for a very long time, having her own room—however small—was a luxury.

  She and Kyran had decided to live here for a while after the wedding that hadn’t been, but the plan had been to soon have a place of their own. Their own small house, their own kitchen. A home they could share, just the two of them, until babies started to arrive. And now... now she couldn’t even imagine having her own home. It was such a simple desire. She did not wish for wealth or great beauty or power. Just a couple of rooms she could call her own.

  Her father and stepmother were still awake, talking. She heard their muffled voices from beyond their closed bed chamber door as she uncovered a half loaf of bread. She tried to be quiet as she cut a slice. There was no need to disturb them, and if they knew she was up and about they would probably feel obligated to attempt to soothe her. She did not wish to be soothed. She wished to wallow in misery for a while longer.

  Their voices were low but carried well; too well as those voices rose slightly. She didn’t try to listen, that would be rude, but a word caught her attention, and the knife she’d been wielding stopped moving mid-slice.

  Baby.

  Lyssa didn’t move for a moment as her hand clenched on the handle of the knife. Her bare toes curled on the smooth wooden floor. Perhaps one of their friends was going to have a child, she reasoned. Sinmora was a few years younger than her husband and she had several younger acquaintances who had many children. Though it wasn’t a subject they discussed openly with their daughter, Lyssa knew they had always wanted babies. It simply hadn’t happened. Sinmora was nearly forty years old, far too old to have another child. Far too old.

  More words drifted her way.

  “Maybe it’s a boy. You always wanted a son.”

  “You must be careful. I’m worried.”

  “When will we tell Lyssa?”

  “Let’s wait. She’s had a difficult day, and this news will come as quite a shock.”

  Lyssa didn’t breathe for a long moment.

  “Cyrus, we must find her a proper husband.”

  Lyssa’s knees went weak. She could no longer fool herself into thinking that they were talking about someone else. This house was about to become a bit crowded. Would she be sharing a room with the new baby, or would the child stay in the room where her parents slept? If the baby was a boy, her father would finally have a son to carry on his trade. She’d never realized that her father wanted a son so badly, that she was undoubtedly a disappointment simply because she was a girl. She should have known. Men always wanted sons.

  Her already horrid day took an abrupt turn for the worse. She would be nothing but a burden, a daughter long past marriageable age who continued to live at home. Another mouth to feed, an old maid, an embarrassment to the family. No man would have her after four failed attempts at becoming a bride, and if the witch had been right, her window for marriage would close in mere hours. A nunnery was beginning to seem like a good idea.

  In the near distance, bells rang, counting down the hours of the day. Each peal shot through her, and she held her breath as she silently counted. How many hours until she turned twenty-three? The peals ended and she held her breath. Two hours until midnight. Two hours until she turned twenty-three and all hope was lost.

  Her heart leapt; her hands trembled. The witch had said her path was her own, that her future was in her hands. Did that mean there was something she could do about her current predicament? Could she save herself from a life of loneliness instead of feeling sorry for herself and waiting for someone else to save her?

  Two hours to find a husband and take her vows. Two hours to become a wife, well and true. Wedded and bedded. Eight years ago she hadn’t understood exactly what that meant. She was older now, and she even though she had not been well-instructed when it came to marital relations, she understood well enough.

  A fresh thought occurred to her. She was to be married by twenty-three. There was nothing in the witch’s prediction that said the husband she took before twenty-three would be her only husband. Maybe the who didn’t matter at all, simply the time and date. Di
ssolution ceremonies were rare, but not unheard of. If she took a man as husband tonight strictly to fulfill the obligation to be a wife before her twenty-third birthday, maybe it would buy her some time to find the right man.

  If the right man for her was out there. Somewhere.

  Lyssa ran toward her bedchamber to dress. She had two hours to find a man and convince him to marry her. More accurately, two hours to marry and consummate the marriage. Vellance had been clear enough about that. She had to be a real wife before midnight.

  All she needed was a willing man. Fortunately for her, any man would do.

  Chapter Three

  The roar of the tavern surrounded and engulfed Blade, drowned out his thoughts and dulled the pain a little, much as the whisky he’d consumed earlier this evening had done. Wearing a stolen sentinel’s uniform, sitting alone in the corner of the tavern, he waited for someone to realize that he was the man who’d tried to walk into the palace hours earlier, even though he was almost certain no one in this tavern would look twice at a solitary sentinel.

  The afternoon had not gone as planned. He hadn’t bargained on the inquisitive guard at the palace gate, the battery of questions or the young and annoyingly vigilant sentinel who had given chase when Blade’s answers to those questions had proven unsatisfactory.

  It had not been his finest moment.

  Fortunately for him, the other patrons in this less than fine establishment were as drunk as he—most were drunker, in fact—and cared nothing for the emperor’s security. Not tonight. Things might look different by the light of day. He would have to ditch the stolen uniform, perhaps shave the beard and cut his hair. But not tonight. Tonight was for drowning his sorrows and frustration in mediocre whisky. He might also ease his frustration in the arms of a woman—it was certainly well past time—but those women who worked here laughed too harshly, painted their faces garishly, and were not at all indiscriminate about who shared their beds. They were too scantily dressed, and too sweetly perfumed in an attempt to hide the fact that they did not care for bathing regularly. While he did on occasion miss a woman’s touch and give over to his natural urges, not just any woman would do.