We rode for Blackmoon before dawn.
Kael would not let me go without a night's sleep first, though I do not think either of us truly slept. I lay in the dark of the king's hall with the silver ring on my hand and the bond humming low and bright in my chest, and I thought about the hall I was riding toward, and the man who had rejected me in it, and the sister who had taken my place, and I felt none of the things I had expected to feel.
No fear. No grief. Only a cold, clear certainty, like the surface of a lake before the wind picks up.
Vael came to dress me herself, an hour before the horses. She stood me in front of a long mirror and put me in deep grey silk the colour of Ashenveil's banners, and she brushed out my hair with hard, sure strokes, and she did not speak until she was finish
