Smoke and Mirrors (36)

Thirty-Six

The Kiss

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There were two nights in my life that were the worst nights I’d ever experienced.

The first was the night I had to spend alone in my apartment after my mother’s supposed death. I barely slept that night. Every time I tried, I dreamt only of her—saw her face, smelled her perfume, and my dreams fueled the hope that she was alive just long enough for me to wake up and realise differently.

The second was the night before my wedding, when I laid alone in my bed with only a mind full of fear, regret, and anger to keep me company.

Honestly, I can’t say which night was worse. Maybe that was selfish of me, but I didn’t care.

I paced the floor in front of my fireplace in a satin robe, my eyes fixed on the pale tile beneath my feet.

At least I had a real room now. It was quite the improvement from the prison cell of a room I’d stayed in the first time I’d ever slept at Sterling’s castle. There was an obvious lack of anything reflective in the room. Everything was a matte shade of either white or grey. The bed sheets, the thick blankets, even the metal posts to the bed frame. There was a large window that looked out across a lovely garden, full of plants that shimmered as the moon poured her light onto them.

This was likely the nicest room in Sterling’s castle. Of course, it was nothing at all like the rooms at my father’s palace, but these were nice. It would have made any Pinterest user happy.

I paced well into the morning, when a soft knock feathered its way past the door and into the room. I stopped pacing and opened the door quickly to keep the creaking hinges from being too loud.

Three young women curtsied and smiled. One of them carried a tray of food that smelled warm and buttery and lovely, while the other two held bags overflowing with hair products and tools.

I backed away from the door and motioned them in. “Come in.”

“Your Highness—we did not expect you to already be awake,” chirped one girl. They all looked very similar with their glassy skin and pale strands of hair. The only difference was their facial shapes.

I chuckled–a croaky, exhausted chuckle that made me realise how tired I was. “It’s easy to. . . get up early around here.”

She nodded as if that explained everything.

Another girl offered me the tray of food. “Sit down and eat something. You’ll need all your strength today.”

“Yes—we have a long way to go to get you looking pretty!” added the third girl.

I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged.

I half-heartedly ate my meal of eggs and some kind of slice of clear meat. It tasted just like ham, but looked pretty. . . well, clear.

As soon as I was finished eating, they began dressing me for the wedding. They called in a few helpers occasionally, but for the most part, these three women did all the work.

By evening, I couldn’t help looking at my reflection one last time. It would be the last time I saw myself as an unmarried woman.

My dress was the same red one I wore at the rehearsal. My hair was elegantly styled and pulled back to let my natural curls drape down my back, beneath the long veil that was tucked into it. This veil was lined with golden embellishments along the hem, dotted around embroidered flowers. My eyes were lined in dark makeup—which I’d been informed came from some kind of burnt, crushed root local to the Mirror kingdoms. Whatever it was, it worked, because my eyelids looked like they had real eyeliner on them.

My lips were a deep burgundy that matched my dress. One silver ribbon was tied around my left wrist, which I found during rehearsal was a part of Insider wedding traditions. Sterling had one as well, and the two would be tied together.

It was almost romantic until I realised that they seemed an awful lot like chains.

Was this my fate? To be alone forever, trapped in fake relationships with people who only loved me because they had to? In the end, even the relationship I had with my own mother was built on lies. I was tired of lies. In a moment, I would walk up the aisle and get married, but the vows we’d promise would be lies, the kiss we’d share would be a lie, and the bond we’d begin would be nothing more than that: A lie.

I had swallowed lies until I choked on them.

When the sun started to set over the gardens outside my window, bleeding onto the mirror leaves, a knock came from the door and I knew it was time.

I was escorted by my father, who’d arrived just a couple days before, and a few guards.

He seemed happy for me, but if he’d only known how much I was dreading this—that the smiling face I wore was only that, a face—he might have felt differently.

Then again, maybe he did know. Maybe he knew how much I hated this and played his part anyway, knowing full well that nothing he or I did would stop what the Fates had already decided.

I squeezed his arm tighter with my interlocked elbow to ground myself to reality. He mistook it as an act of affection and awkwardly patted my shoulder with his giant hand, but I didn’t mind it.

Father and the guards let me walk down the spiraling staircase to the throne room. My legs felt numb and all I could imagine doing was tripping.

Yinyue stood with a group of Music Talents in the corner of the room; their part was played beautifully. Instruments that sounded similar to the whine of a violin filled the room, mingled with falling rain from a waterfall in the corner, as well as a piano, and a few other instruments I didn’t recognise. The tune lightened the room dramatically-–almost enough to calm me.

However, when I saw Sterling there at the end of the aisle, his silvery tunic jacket exchanged for a deep blue suit, my nerves tripled. Until now, everything had almost felt dream-like, as if none of it was real. It was like the shock had slowly increased until I’d grown numb to it, but suddenly I was snapping out of the numbness.

The tune changed as I walked down the aisle. There were no flower girls here to prepare the way for me, but rather older women who sprinkled the path with handwritten notes, then took their stances on the left side of the room.

The crowd of people from every kingdom in the Inside world watched me.

I forced my feet to move and tried to focus my thoughts on anything else except what I was about to do.

Sterling wrapped my hand in his own as I moved to his side. My hand felt so awkward and small in his, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Rehearsals didn’t cover this part of things.

His face was as cold as stone. There was no expression as I glanced up at him and then looked away. He didn’t move, so neither did I.

The man behind us began to speak in another language. Several different languages, by the sound of it, then again in the language the Insiders were born using, which was the only one I knew from this side.

“This is a beautiful union granted by our Maker, and the Fates. May this union last forever, as long as both royals live.”

Sterling and I chorused the last part of his statement, just like we’d practiced, but there was something very biting to Sterling’s words as his eyes bored into mine. I somehow heard his words over my own.

As long as both royals live.

It was almost a promise. He would kill me when he had the chance to. He had to, if he wanted to keep his kingdom.

“I vow to–” I cut myself off and licked my lips, gathering the courage to utter the words. “I vow to cherish my duty to your people as the Queen of Soryn. May your heart reflect my own.” Those words tasted like poison on my lips. I’d never said them before, even during rehearsal.

He hesitated, flicking his gaze to the left of me, then looked deeply into my face as he replied, “I vow to rule our people with justice and mercy, with you at my side. May your heart reflect my own.”

I found it almost funny that both of us chose to say more about ruling than we did about our actual marriage.

“Tie your ribbons,” the man behind us said.

Sterling fumbled for the ribbon around my wrist and I reached for his. I watched the perfectly-tied ribbon fall as I yanked on the silk, tumbling apart as if it had been destroyed.

We knotted them together. Two pieces of fabric with no say over their own lives.

How familiar.

The crowd began to clap.

Suddenly, I felt my face grow hot. I knew what happened next, and I was not looking forward to it.

Quickly, suddenly, he leaned in to kiss me.

I closed my eyes instinctively.

I felt his warm breath fan across my cheeks. His skin smelled like apples.

But no kiss came.

I opened my eyes and saw his face hovering just slightly above mine. Our faces were turned away from the crowd, towards the man who led our wedding. To any onlookers from the crowd, it would appear that we had just kissed.

Sterling backed away and raised our hands up for the cheering crowd to see. The kiss was over before it began.