Chapter 3
It all began, as most things seem to in your life, with a letter.
Actually, “a letter” isn’t quite right. “A thousand letters” would be more accurate, or maybe even “infinite letters,” because God forbid you send out any wedding invitations before considering every possible combination of colors, fonts, and paper thicknesses known to man.
It began with the letters, then moves to the envelopes, and of course the guest list. Then the decorations; curtains and tablecloths and place settings and favors. You’ve been through a lot in the past few years. A new life. A new identity. Multiple attempts on your life, both somehow averted with little more than a fish fork. And yet at times you wondered, every time you saw yet another stack of napkin options waiting for you to muse over before breakfast, if this (that is, wedding planning) wasn’t your biggest challenge yet.
But in spite of all that, the year has flown by. A lot has changed since that conversation you had after the interview, all those months ago.
“Jesus Christ, I’d forgotten how suffocating these things are.”
At least you have the comfort of knowing that Rosa has stayed the same.
“Hold still.” You can’t see them from your spot behind the changing screen, but you’re guessing Irina is doing the same thing to Rosa that Meg is doing to you—tightening the laces on her bridesmaid dress.
“And you couldn’t have picked anyother color?”
Her tone is clearly teasing. “I thought you would have liked this,” you call back playfully. “Why, would you have preferred something green?”
That stirs up a series of groans from all three girls.
“Never again,” Irina declares. “I’m not wearing anything in green for the next decade, at least.”
“You’re telling me,” Rosa scoffs. “Absolutely terrible for my complexion. I don’t know how your fiance pulls it off.”
Even after a year of being engaged, the word still brings a warmth to your cheeks. “Shut up, Rosa.”
(But even as you say the words, you’re grinning.)
You round the corner of the screen with Meg by your side, coming into view of the two others. The room is quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
“(Y/N).” Irina presses a hand to her mouth, and you can see from this distance that even Rosa’s eyes are watering up a bit.
“Well?” You shuffle a bit, smoothing your hands along the smooth ivory skirts. “What do you think?”
As they rush forward to embrace you, you try to lean into the joy of the moment, rather than the sense that something is missing. You’d always just assumed that, when you were fitted for your wedding dress, your mom would be there. Carlie, too.
But you’d rather not think about that right now.
“And I have one last surprise!”
“What?” You turn to watch as she runs off in the direction of the closet. “Meg, what surprise?”
She comes back beaming, with her hands held behind her back. “Close your eyes.”
You oblige, and feel a light weight atop your head. When at last your allowed to open them and look in the mirror, you see a veil, draping down from a silver tiara. “Oh my gosh, Meg.”
Your maid-of-honor blushes. “You hardly let me help with any of the planning, so this felt like the least I could do.”
“This needlework, Meg.” Irina shakes her head, running a thumb reverently along one edge of the veil. Upon closer inspection, you can see the intricacy of the design—small seed pearls sewn together in gorgeous interweaving patterns. “It’s unreal.”
“You want to talk about unreal? Four years ago none of us had so much as met each other, and now…” Rosa grabs your hand. “Well. Less than twenty-four hours to go.”
“Oh, shush,” you say dismissively, before shooting her a look. “It’s not like I’m the first one to be married since we left.”
Rosa wasn’t the first to be married since the end of the competition, either—that honor went to Juliette, you’re fairly certain. But a few months ago she did in fact replace the ring she wore around her neck with one on her finger, and as far as you can tell, her ex-fiance is nothing more than a distant memory.
It’s good, seeing her like this. The other ladies will be attending the wedding, but none of them know you quite as well as Rosa and Irina—and even the two of them don’t know you as well as Meg. The three of them have been a godsend over the past year, as you’ve tried to make sense of your new life.
And what a new life it has been.
For starters, you needed to find a way to repurpose the palace. There were so many rooms, so many acres of land, that it seemed wasteful to leave them all empty. So, after some months of work, you welcomed the first incoming class of Lady Amara’s new academy. A few dozen young men and women, allowed to live on the grounds, rent and tuition free, and study the various arts of diplomacy, etiquette—all the things you spent the last three years learning, in addition to more traditional courses like history and math and whatnot. Most of the pupils are without family—older foster children, orphans, kids with nowhere else to go.
You must admit, it made you feel good to set this up. It’s given Lady Amara something to do, which has helped to mostly keep her off your back with regards to wedding planning. And beyond the initial hiring of teachers, there wasn’t very much for you to do—all those rooms were just waiting, empty.
Although you do generally maintain a bit of distance between you and the students, keeping your rooms in a separate wing of the palace. It feels weird to see them—some of them eighteen, nineteen—and remember how you are simultaneously so close to them in age, and yet worlds and worlds apart in life experience.
You’ve been ruminating on this more and more, recently. How one stroke of chance turned your entire life on its head. The odds of you being Chosen were at least a billion to one; the odds of you being the last one standing were even slimmer. And yet that one moment—
“(FN) (LN), sixteen, of the United States of America!”
That moment changed everything.
You missed out on your last few years of adolescence. No, you didn’t just miss out on them: they were taken from you. Up until the tail end of the competition, you had no say in the matter.
And regardless of how happy you are now, those years as a normal teenager are something you’ll never get back.
If your name had never been called, who knows where you would be right now?
“(Y/N)?” Rosa squeezes your hand. “Hello? Anyone home?”
You’re shaken from your train of thought. “Sorry, I just...would you help me change back into my normal clothes? I just remembered, I need to talk to Loki about something.”
“Isn’t that bad luck?”
Meg chuckles as she unlaces the back. “I don’t believe there are any superstitions about the bride seeing the groom the day before the wedding.” The dress pools cloud-like at your feet, and as you step out of it, she nudges your arm. “You aren’t getting cold feet, are you?”
You laugh. “No, that’s not it, I just…” Your cheeks warm as you dress hastily. This is a conversation you need to have with Loki before you go spilling secrets to anyone else. “I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”
And before they can ask any further questions you take off out of the room and down the hall, heart pounding all the way.