Chapter 3 The Decree

(Gwen's pov)

The decree went up on the village notice board two days after we left Morwen's house, and by noon every wolf in the pack had read it.

I heard about it from my father, who came through the front door so fast that he forgot to take off his boots, something my mother would normally have scolded him for. He held the parchment in both hands as if it were made of gold.

"The king is choosing a wife," he said.

"What?" My mother put down her spoon. "Since when?"

"Since this morning, darling. Every daughter who has come of age is invited to the capital for the selection." He spread the page across the table and tapped the wax seal at the bottom. "Every one of them, darling, whatever her rank."

I looked down at the black mark on the back of my hand, hidden under a lace glove my mother had made me wear, and my stomach turned over. "Papa, no."

"Listen to me, Gwen." He crouched in front of my chair, which he hadn't done since I was small. "You have two years. The king hasn't looked at a single woman since he took the crown, so where else would you ever get close enough to him?"

"I can't just walk up and ask a king to kiss me."

"You don't have to ask him anything. You only have to be in the room." My mother came around the table and took my free hand. "This is the one door that's open, sweetheart, and I won't watch it close."

"And if he doesn't choose me? Then I've embarrassed the whole family in front of the entire kingdom."

"Then you come home and we think of something else." Her eyes were shining. "But we are not going to lose you without trying."

I looked from one of them to the other and understood that there was no version of this conversation where I said no.

They spent the next two days getting me ready. My mother let down the hem of a pale green dress she had been saving for my wedding, and I tried not to think about that while she pinned it.

She brushed my hair until it shone and wove tiny white flowers into a braid, and my father hovered in the doorway with his arms crossed, clearing his throat every few minutes as though something were stuck in it.

On the morning the carriage came, the house was too quiet than I had ever heard it.

"Do you have your gloves?" my mother asked.

"Yes, Mama."

"And the little pouch with the-"

"Yes, I have it."

She straightened my collar even though it was already straight. "You'll be polite, you'll eat something, and you will not slap anyone."

I laughed, and then my face crumpled. "I'm scared."

"I know." She pulled me against her, and I breathed in lavender and bread and every safe thing I had ever known. "You're my daughter, and you are stronger than you think."

"I don't feel strong."

My father laid his big rough hand on top of my head the way he used to when I was little. His voice cracked on the first try. "Come home to us, Gwen."

"I will, Papa. I promise."

I hugged them both until the driver coughed outside, then I climbed into the carriage so blinded by tears that I missed the step and nearly fell.

Through the little back window I watched them stand together in the doorway, my mother's hand pressed over her mouth, until the road curved and the trees covered them.

The journey took the whole day. I watched the forest give way to fields and the fields to wide stone roads, and when the sun began to sink the capital rose ahead of me, all gray towers and dark red banners snapping in the wind.

I pressed my gloved hand to my chest and told myself I could do this, over and over, like a prayer.

The carriage stopped in a courtyard so large that my entire village could have fit inside it, and when I stepped down I forgot how to breathe.

There were girls everywhere. Fifty at least, in silk and velvet and jewel colors, with glossy hair and loud, easy laughter, and every one of them was taller than me.

Their gowns hugged curves I had never had, and I looked down at my plain green dress, my flat chest and narrow hips, and felt plain and unfinished.

"Goddess," I whispered. "He'll never even see me."

The king would appear on the raised platform at the end of the courtyard, and the girls in front had already formed a wall of perfume and shoulders.

I had to be seen to be chosen, and I had to be chosen to get anywhere near him. I squared my shoulders and started pushing through.

"Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me."

Nobody moved. A girl in red shifted, and her elbow caught my ribs. Another stepped back onto my foot without so much as a glance. Every gap I found closed before I could reach it, and I felt like a leaf trying to cross a river.

"Please, I just need to get to the front."

"The front is taken," someone said.

I turned. The girl who had spoken was taller than the rest, honey-skinned, with gold threaded through her dark hair and a smile that never reached her eyes. Her friends drifted closer, one on each side of her, like guards.

"I only want to be where the king can see me," I said.

"Oh, sweetie." She looked me over slowly, from my braid to my shoes, and her friends giggled.

Then she planted two fingers against my shoulder and pushed, hard enough that I stumbled back into someone's skirts. "You think you'll be selected, girl? Just go back home and wait for your soulmate."

Heat flooded my face. A dozen sharp replies crowded into my mouth, and the wolf in me wanted nothing more than to say every one of them, the way I had to a witch nights ago and look where that had gotten me.

I pressed my lips together and swallowed it all down, though it burned the whole way.

"Nothing to say?" she asked, amused, and the girls around her laughed. "Good. Know your place."

The sound of boots on stone cut through the laughter.

A woman strode across the courtyard in dark warrior's armor, her hair cropped short and a sword at her hip, and the chatter died as if someone had shut a door.

"You will all gather in two lines," she said, her voice carrying without any effort, "and get ready for selection."

The courtyard erupted. Girls hurried into place in a rustle of silk, smoothing their skirts and checking their hair, and I darted toward the nearest line only to be bumped aside by a hip. I tried the second line and was shoved again.

"Excuse me, I was-"

"Move, little mouse," someone muttered, and a firm butt knocked me sideways.

Another followed, then another, nudging me down the row and past it, until I was standing at the very end of the last line with nothing behind me but cold stone wall and the sound of fifty girls whispering.

I stared straight ahead, my gloved hand clenched around the mark, and told myself it didn't matter where I stood. I would make sure the king saw me anyway.