Instead, he would use cleverness to elicit answers. "I wanted Lynx to accompany me to dinner last night, but I . . . couldn't find her. She wasn't with you, was she?"
Axel turned flinty eyes on him. "As if I'd tell you."
Lukan snorted. He had his answer. The Axel he knew and hated would have no problem gloating if Lynx had spent the night with him.
A low hiss of voices had him-and Axel-turning toward the doorway. Tao, holding Kestrel's arm, followed by Lynx, stepped into the room.
"I met them in the hallway," Tao explained, but Lukan hardly heard him.
Like steel to a magnet, his eyes locked onto Lynx. Shimmering like liquid gold, she glided slowly across the room. Folds of fabric stretched out behind her like golden lava. Her silky blond hair tumbled in gentle waves, softening her face. But it was her eyes that struck him. Rimmed with kohl, he could see forever in their crystal depths. Someone had worked hard to ensure that she looked every inch an empress.
Just as well because today we will both ascend to the throne.
He found his tongue and was about to speak when Axel stepped up to greet her. Lukan scowled as she smiled up at Axel, her face soulful with emotion.
Speaking softly, she said, "Honor. You understand that, don't you?"
Axel nodded. "It's what I love about you." He gestured to Lynx's wedding gown. "Go with Malika and Stefan. Afterward."
Offended by Axel's declaration, Lukan elbowed past his cousin to claim his bride. "If you and Axel are quite finished, perhaps we can get on with the day? It would not do to keep our subjects waiting."
"Since when have you cared about keeping people waiting?" Tao murmured.
For the first time since Tao and Kestrel appeared, Lukan looked at his brother and his betrothed. Lukan couldn't resist a small smile of relief. For once, Kestrel's eyes weren't locked on him. As used to being admired by women as he was, Kestrel's attentions had been almost unnerving; he empathized with the voles her namesake hunted. Today, the princess's rapacious eyes were fixed on Lynx's gown, far more spectacular than her own silver dress.
Her jealousy didn't concern him. Lukan clasped Lynx's arm and set off toward the main doors to the great hall. Tao and Kestrel followed, with Axel bringing up the rear.
The great hall was festive, with huge garlands of red roses spilling between black and gold bunting. An army of low-born waited in the kitchen to clear the chairs away and set up tables for a wedding feast Lukan knew would never happen.
Not after the death of his father.
The moment the guardsman at the door spotted their procession, he blasted his trumpet, and every knee-apart from the emperor's-bent.
Gliding slowly, as only a crown prince moments away from claiming the throne could, Lukan led Lynx up an aisle set between rows of seats lining both sides of the hall. Although years of practice ensured he could appear serene-majestic even-under the most trying of circumstances, the back of his neck burned, and rivulets of sweat trickled down his tunic.
Morass lurked in a hidden spy cubicle at the far end of the hall, divided by a wall from the crowds of guardsmen and priestesses jamming the gallery. Lukan longed to look back, but years of discipline kept his eyes focused on Mother Saskia.
The priestess waited at an altar below the dais, where his father sat on his throne, surveying the crowd.
At last, the long walk was over, and he and Lynx reached the altar. His wedding ceremony was about to start. For good or for ill, Lynx the Norin raider would be his wife.
The trumpet blared again, and the assembled throng rose to their feet, the high-born to sit on their cushioned seats, the rest of the observers to stand. Guardsmen and priestesses in the gallery would carry stories of his wedding into the homes of Cian. From there, rumor would spread throughout the empire, embellishing the simple announcement each town crier would have been commanded to make.
Mother Saskia started to speak, but Lukan hardly heard her.
How would his subjects greet the news of Mott's death? Would they welcome him as their new emperor? How would his announcement to the high-born that their stones were a fraud change the lot of the nameless millions he would command? Despite the heat from the burning torches and the mass of bodies packed into the hall, he shivered. With everything else going on, he had given no thought to the shape his new government would take. All he knew was that both his father and his uncle had to die.
Today.
As the priestess's voice droned on, he glanced up at Felix, sitting on a smaller throne below Mott's.
Lukan smiled in anticipation of shouting to Morass to shoot his uncle instead of Lynx. Let Felix suffer the agonizingly slow death of the Norin poison.
And the consequences?
What did it matter whom he killed today if the whole palace was in an uproar with rampaging high-born out for revenge? The Fifteen would praise him as a hero for freeing them from Avanov suppression.
Someone nudged Lukan's arm.
Axel.
His cousin glowered at him, rings on a black velvet cushion shoved at his chest. Lukan swallowed hard, looking around. Was it possible he had missed the entire ceremony? Axel's expression suggested he had. He cleared his throat, gave Lynx a tentative smile, and took the smaller ring off the cushion. Lynx took the other.
Facing Lynx, together with her, he repeated the Chenayan vows Mother Saskia chanted. "With this ring, I thee wed. With this ring, I thee troth. Mine to hold. Mine to have. Mine to keep until death us do part."
With shaking hands, Lukan slipped his ring onto the finger Lynx held out to him.
Face expressionless, eyes frozen, she took his hand and fumbled to get her ring on his thumb. Task done, she turned to face Mother Saskia, as if nothing momentous had just happened between them.
That rankled. The least the girl could do was smile for the crowds. Was that too much to ask? Face like stone, he turned to Mother Saskia.
Holding her hands to the heavens, the priestess declared, "By the power vested in me by His Magnificence, Emperor Mott, Supreme Ruler of All Chenaya and the Conquered Territories, I declare His Imperial Highness, Crown Prince Lukan Avanov, and Her Highness, Princess Lynx of Norin, husband and wife." She picked up a gavel and hit the altar. "So be it."
It was time for him and his new wife to face their subjects.
"Wave and smile, and then we must kiss," Lukan hissed under his breath as he took Lynx's arm. Aware of her rigid body, he smiled and waved. Hopefully, all eyes would be on him, so no one would notice Lynx's fake upturned lips and icy eyes.
The crowd burst into roars of applause, which he took as a sign to kiss his bride.
Heart racing, he turned to her. She was shaking, her whole body trembling as if she were gripped with fever, and her face was bleached white.
"Do it. Quickly," she whispered, her voice pleading.
A frisson of anger mixed with sorrow coursed through Lukan. She was his wife, the woman he'd just vowed to spend the rest of his life with, but she didn't want him. Yet, he still wanted her with an ache that threatened to crush him.
He took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm him. Sensing the anticipation-every person in the hall seemed to lean forward for a better view-Lukan forced his hand up to cup Lynx's face. Next to him, Axel stiffened. Hating Axel, and his father, and Thurban, and Dmitri-everyone who had ever wronged him-Lukan closed his eyes and kissed his wife on her perfect, irresistible lips.
Lynx did not kiss him back. Then she placed her hand on his wrist and kissed him lightly on his lips.
Need, so strong it almost laid him low, gripped him. He reached out a hand to steady himself on the altar.
His movement broke the kiss.
Without meeting his eyes, Lynx stepped away from him and smiled out at the crowd.
Lips burning from her touch, one thing was crystal clear: He wanted Lynx more than anything else in the world. And after his speech to the high-born, he could have her. That night he would make love to her, consummating their marriage and binding her to him until death them did part.
Mother Saskia cleared her throat, a gentle reminder, perhaps, that Tao and Kestrel needed their time at the altar. After a last smile at the crowd, Lukan led Lynx to a double throne off to the side.
The moment his brother and Kestrel were married, Emperor Mott stood and began his descent from the dais.
Lukan's insides turned to water. Any minute now, Morass would strike.
* * *
Mott was almost at the base of the stairs. Nervously twirling her wedding band, Lynx kept her eyes on Axel. It was only his presence here, sharing her pain and despair, that stopped her from shouting out to Mott and the crowd that she despised Lukan and had married him only to fulfill a pledge to her father. An oath that now no longer bound her.