chapter 4

TAYLOR'S POV

The three men looked at me and nobody said anything for a moment and the robed man with the open book looked between all of us like he was unsure whether to continue or quietly disappear.

"Our bride," the one in the middle repeated slowly. "You are our fated bride Seraphina."

"Who is Seraphina?" I asked.

Complete silence fell over the entire hall and I mean the entire hall.

I became aware all at once that there were people seated behind me, rows and rows of them, all dressed in elaborate ceremonial clothing with markings on their skin that glowed faintly in the candlelight, all watching this altar with expressions that had shifted from solemn anticipation to something much closer to stunned disbelief. Nobody was whispering. Nobody was moving. They were just watching me stand on this sacred altar and tell three kings that I did not know who I was supposed to be.

I turned back to face the three men and dropped my voice. "Can we maybe not do this here?"

"You started it here," the silver eyed one said, not dropping his voice at all.

"Zed," the one in the middle said quietly.

"She asked who Seraphina was in front of the entire sacred gathering Caius," Zed said. "Every elder, every high priest, every noble family in this kingdom is sitting behind her right now."

"I am aware," Caius said through what I was beginning to suspect were slightly gritted teeth.

I glanced back at the hall full of people watching us and felt the very specific discomfort of being the most confusing person in a room full of strangers in a world I did not belong to.

"You are Seraphina," Caius said again, turning back to me with the careful tone of someone trying to manage a situation that was rapidly escaping him. "You fainted during the opening of the ceremony. Perhaps the fall affected your memory."

"I did not faint," I said, keeping my voice as low as I could manage. "I died. On a pavement. In a place called Colorado and before that I signed divorce papers and before that my husband called me an illiterate bar girl and brought his girlfriend into my house and I am standing here in a dress that does not belong to me being called someone else's name and I need someone to explain what is happening right now."

Caius stared at me.

"Colorado," Zed repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word and finding it deeply suspicious.

"Yes," I said.

"And you signed divorce papers," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Tonight."

"Yes tonight," I said. "Before I was stabbed on the pavement. It has been a very full evening."

Zed looked at Caius with an expression that said quite clearly that he had many thoughts and was choosing to keep all of them behind his teeth for now.

Behind me another ripple of murmuring moved through the sacred gathering, louder this time, and I heard the word Seraphina pass through the crowd like a stone skipping across water.

"They are talking about me," I said.

"They are talking about the situation," Ryun said from behind the other two, his first words since I had woken up at this altar.

"What is the situation exactly?" I asked, turning to look at him properly for the first time. He was tall and still and dark eyed and looked like a man who had assessed every possible outcome of this evening and was not pleased with any of them.

"The situation," he said carefully, "is that you are not who you are supposed to be."

"I have been saying that since I opened my eyes," I said.

"And the entire sacred gathering has now heard you say it," Zed added unhelpfully.

"Zed," Caius said again, sharper this time.

"I am simply noting the facts," Zed said.

"Can one of you please just tell me what is actually happening?" I asked, looking between all three of them. "Because I died tonight. A woman who looked exactly like me appeared and told me to live the life she could not and then I woke up here. And you three clearly know something about that so can someone please just say it out loud."

The three of them exchanged a look that lasted longer than any look I had ever seen three people share and whatever passed between them in that silence was significant enough that when it ended Caius exhaled slowly and said, "The woman you saw had gold eyes, pointed ears and your face right?"

"Yes," I said.

"That was Seraphina," he said quietly. "Our original bride and what she did is called a soul exchange. She surrendered her place willingly and pulled you here to take it and it has not happened in this kingdom in over a thousand years."

I stood very still and let that settle.

"So she is gone," I said.

"Yes," Caius said.

"And I am here in her place."

"Yes," he said.

"And the wedding," I said slowly, "still has to happen."

"The bond does not distinguish between souls," Ryun said. "It recognises the body. The body is here. The ceremony must continue."

I looked at all three of them. "You are telling me I have to marry all three of you because of what a body is doing."

"Essentially yes," Zed said.

"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard and I was married to Flynn Ashville for one and a half years so that is genuinely saying something," I said. "I am not marrying anyone tonight. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not any day until I understand every single thing about what I have just walked into."

The murmuring behind me had grown steadily louder and I heard something shift in the tone of it, something that felt less like curiosity and more like unease spreading through the rows of glowing marked people row by row.

"Come with us," Ryun said, and it was not a question.

"Where?" I asked.

"Somewhere that is not in front of every sacred elder and high priest in the Wolfric Kingdom," he said.

"Fine," I said. "But this conversation is not finished."

"Believe me," Zed said, already turning toward a door to the side of the altar, "nobody in this hall thinks it is."

I followed them and as I stepped off the sacred altar every single person in that gathering watched me go in absolute silence.

Then the robed man spoke behind us, addressing the gathering in that language I did not understand, and whatever he said made the woman in the front row press both hands over her mouth, made the elder beside her grip his ceremonial staff so tightly his knuckles changed colour, and made a young girl three rows back grab the arm of the person beside her like she needed something solid to hold onto.

I stopped walking.

"What did he just say?" I asked.

"Keep moving," Zed said.

"What did he say?" I asked again, looking between the three of them.

Caius glanced back at the gathering then at me. "He told them the sacred bond has been broken and a stranger now walks in the bride's body."

I stared at him. "And that is bad."

"Walk faster," Ryun said quietly.

I walked faster.