The Marriage Decree

THALIA POV 

My bare feet hit stone slick with dew, and I didn't slow down. My heart kept thundering in my chest; I could hear the shouts of the wizards closing in.

I didn't expect my cover to be blown this early. I didn't bother checking how close they were; my eyes were trained on the east gate, the ivy-covered gate from here, the one the guards always forgot to check twice a night. I had snuck out to the orchard over a hundred times through that gate as a young girl.

My lungs burned as the gust of wind left my nose raw and tingly. My blueprint was still folded against my chest, tucked into the front of my nightrobe like it mattered more than my own feet digging through the raw, wooden stones.

Behind me, the torchlights closed in even more as I moved along the upper terrace. They started shouting my name.

“Thalia, stop right there!” My heart skipped as my brain processed the implications; no guard would call me by my name, it only meant they woke my parents.

I kept on running, my robe snagging on thornscraps against my skin. But I genuinely felt even more hopeful. The gate was just fifty feet away; slipping past that gate meant they wouldn't ever be able to find me.

I bit my lower lip to keep from whimpering. My wrist sigil started pulsating.

“No, no, no…” I said, trying to ignore the sigil, but I knew it was almost impossible to cover the last ten feet.

“Under the command of my voice. By the power of blood magic, THALIA ASHWYNN, stop right where you are!” My father's voice thundered.

“No!” A wail tore through me, “please, Father, let me go.” My knees buckled into a stop as I suddenly had no control over my limbs.

I tried scrambling to stand, but it was of no use. I simply lay back, defeated and unable to move.

“It's over,” I whispered, my voice breaking, and tears finally slipped from my eyes.

“I don't want to get married,” I whispered again, a sob racking through my entire body.

As I listened to the approaching footsteps, I tried to force my magic again; maybe it would come this time, but just like it had since I was young, it came with just an old ache that flared whenever the magic surged too close to the surface.

The same feeling like something was sealed away when all physicians had already proved I was simply imagining things. I couldn't explain that I was just different, different from Ophelia's magic that obeyed her like a trained hound. Mine was more like I was smuggling something.

The magic that had always failed me led to all of this, lying useless on the ground, waiting for the final section.

The night started lovely, like a table surrounded by people who loved me, then it ended with a marriage alliance with the family's worst enemy. From the least impressive daughter to the sacrificial lamb isn't the most impressive downgrade, but I guess that's my life from now on.

I stayed locked on the floor, avoiding movement like the restraint on my throat.

"Did you really think," my mother's voice said, somewhere behind me, closer than it should have been able to get without me hearing footsteps other than the guards, "that I wouldn't ward the one gate you always run to?"

I couldn't turn my head. I couldn't do anything but lay there, frozen, tears burning hot and humiliating down a face I couldn't even lift a hand to wipe.

"Let me go." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

"You know I can't."

"You mean you won't."

She was quiet for a moment. Long enough that some small, stupid part of me hoped.

"They'll be here within the hour," she said instead. "The wedding party. You need to be dressed and composed before they arrive."

“You mean the handing-over party,” I said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in my voice as it trembled at the thought of something unknown coming soon.

Using her power of control, she made me stand at will, watching my face with so much care I would have assumed she was trying to see if I was hurt because I was her daughter, but I knew better.

The hold on my body released all at once, and I nearly went down, catching myself hard against the gate I'd almost escaped through. My knees hit stone. My blueprint slipped from my robe and landed open in the dirt, three years of work face-down in the dew.

I stayed there a moment, staring at the mark on my wrist instead of picking it up. It had started aching the second the wedding was mentioned at dinner, days ago now, a low persistent throb like a bruise that never quite healed. None of my siblings had one like it. My tutors had never had an explanation beyond a shrug and a mark of old blood, as if that settled anything.

I used to think it made me interesting. But now, I knew I could be compelled through it; it didn't sound like my favorite feature anymore.

"They tear people apart," I said quietly, to no one, to the dirt, to the mark. "That's what the stories say. Wolves who take witches for wives and leave nothing behind by the second week."

My mother didn't correct me. She didn't comfort me either. She simply held out her hand, waiting for me to take it, waiting for me to be a good daughter one more time before she handed me to whatever waited tomorrow. I stared down at the hand for a long moment.

Then I picked up my ruined blueprint instead, dirt smudged across three years of playful ink, and stood on my own.

If they wanted to send me into a den of monsters, they would not get the satisfaction of sending someone broken.

I would survive this. Whatever it cost me. Whatever waited for me on the other side of that border, I intended to still be standing when it was through with me.

And if anything happened, I shut my eyes quickly at the thought of the things that might go wrong, inhaling sharply. I would tear them first before they tore me completely. And I knew I would die knowing I fought for freedom, but my parents simply couldn't save me.

I walked back toward the palace without her hand, and I did not look back at the gate again.