Regina had no experience with weddings.

  Most of her cousins had died before they were old enough to wed and the elders had not wanted to risk younger Sheridans escaping at the weddings of the ones who did marry into other families.

  This meant that Regina truly had no idea what entertainment would be provided at a ceremony where every member of the wedding party looked like they had survived a small massacre.

  Since so much of what she had been hastily taught to perform at the wedding ceremony had been about blood and bleeding and blood that had been bled, she wondered if they were about to bring in a giant fountain of blood so that everyone could frolic around it with Artem.

  Fortunately, the truth was much less exciting.

  The music that had been playing ominously in the background came to a sudden, abrupt halt as the orphans rose as a single unit.

  Before Regina could even determine what was happening, a small group of orphans had appeared in front of her, marching determinedly towards her with two chairs and a…

  …Duck?

  “Reginette!” said Artem in obvious delight.

  Regina tried not to gawk as Artem beamed at the children before him.

  “You chose well,” he said warmly to the violet-eyed orphan girl carrying the surprisingly docile duck.

  “She’s the only one who didn’t try to bite me,” said the orphan girl with a shrug.

  Before Regina could understand any of this, there were two chairs placed firmly behind both her and Artem and she had been pressed into a surprisingly comfortable seat.

  With building dread, Regina watched as the orphan marched towards her…

  …and deposited Reginette directly on her lap.

  As Regina desperately tried to find a safe place for a duck on her partially uncovered legs, Reginette calmly settled herself into place and the orphan girl watched them both with an unreadable expression.

  “I hope,” said the orphan, as the others gathered around her, “that you’ll do the small stuff and not just the big stuff.”

  Regina blinked.

  “I hope,” said Regina, not fully understanding, but realizing that these were children who had been living in her house, that she had not fully taken care of since their arrival, “that I can avoid the mistakes of the past and only make new mistakes.”

  When she was considering what she had just said, Regina realized that this was perhaps not the reassurance she had intended to give.

  However, surprisingly, the children all smiled and seemed much happier at her words.

  “Enjoy the show,” said the little girl, her dark skin flushed with excitement.

  Then all the orphans were marching away and Regina wondered what, exactly, Artem had planned.

  Before Regina could spend much longer contemplating Artem’s duck-focused idea of entertainment, she saw both her parents and Artem’s own marching toward her with surprisingly blank faces.

  Yet before she could stand to greet them, they moved behind her and Artem’s seated selves with military precision.

  “You need not stand,” Artem told the startled Regina with a chuckle. “In fact, after tonight, you need not stand for anybody. As power shifts, so do the seating arrangements.”

  Though Regina managed a smile in the face of Artem’s clear jubilance, she could only wonder what the monarchs behind her thought.

  She assumed her own parents could at least take some joy out of her continued survival, however ridiculous her newfound station was. Yet were the current king and queen not rattled by the thought that they would soon be replaced?

  Still, there was nothing but calm resignation on both of their faces… not even a reprimand for how bedraggled and ridiculous Regina and Artem currently were.

  At her first engagement party to then-Crown-Prince-Aaron, Regina recalled that she had been dressed in all the finery of a queen. Her parents must have spent a year’s worth of earnings on making her seem fit to be part of the royal family.

  Even so, she had ended her vision of that life in chains, dragged away by the palace guards despite her yards of lace and jewelry.

  However, in this life…

  In this life, despite looking like a bloodstained beggar, she had the King and Queen of Carcosa standing behind her… even as a line of eager nobles stood prepared to kiss the figurative hem of her non-existent robe.

  Regina realized with both dread and anticipation that she had risen far in the world after all… and it was all she could do not to fall from the heights she had achieved.

  It was no surprise that the first in line to kiss the hem of her invisible robe was the majestic Marquess La Belle, who immediately took Regina’s hand in his own to kiss it.

  After he finished and Regina had to fight not to wipe her wet hand on the dregs of her dress, the nobleman all but genuflected at her feet.

  “My darling princess!” Marquess La Belle cried. “From the first time I met you, I knew the Alpins had a treasure on their hands – which is why I supported you thoroughly! You saved my life in the theatre and so, I place not just my life but my children’s own in your hands. When my wife and I have our first-born daughter, we beg that you take her in as a bride for your own son. After all, your family line could do with a little more beauty!”

  Regina stared at the red-headed marquess for a long moment.

  He was a very attractive man.

  He was also a man who seemed as if he would rather woo a mirror than another human being.

  It made Regina wonder if her grandchildren would be unable to speak to other people without accidentally insulting them should she allow his La Belle blood to mix with the social awkwardness of the Sheridans.

  “Duly noted,” Regina finally said, horrified by the visions of what might come. “May I greet the next in line, please?”

  As it turned out, the line of subsequent La Belles just confirmed all her worst fears.

  Regina was unsure how such delicate beauties had managed to physically force their way in front of much stronger and burlier guests. She also made a mental note to never underestimate the power of a family of people who loved themselves and their own voices more than anything else in the world.

  By the tenth La Belle, Regina was wondering if she had seriously underestimated which family was the most dangerous in Carcosa.

  “You know,” said a very attractive older woman in a very earnest voice, “you would almost be pretty if you used sufficient rouge on your face. Why, it is amazing what a little powder can do to make you look like a different person!”

  Regina stared at her, even as she felt Artem’s hand tightening on her own.

  “It is very helpful for dazzling an enemy long enough,” said an even older woman with a sweet smile, “to reach into their chest and tear out their he-”

  “I think,” said a voice that Regina had never thought she would welcome, “that it would be best to allow other families their chance to speak to the new crown prince and princess.”

  The older ladies looked as if they would rebel, but apparently a shirtless Prince Erin was too much even for them.

  “Now he,” said the oldest loudly as she passed, “looks like he could dazzle in-”

  “-Fishing situations,” said the Marquess Poisson… and Regina was torn between being grateful for and living in fear of the fish-based favors that would soon replace the insults to her charm.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  However, at that particular moment, Marquess Poisson’s words were interrupted by the former crown prince Aaron-turned-Erin moving from his place beside Marquess Poissson…

  To stand beside his seated younger brother in a show of support that sent a ripple of shocked exclamations through the entire room.

  After all, barring writing the words I Have Abdicated the Throne for My Brother’s Sake on his bare abdomen, Erin could not have more clearly signalled his acceptance of his brother’s new status as crown prince.

  Even though Regina’s mutual understanding of Erin largely consisted of their shared loathing for one another, she was touched by his public support… especially when it was followed by a bruised Henrietta coming to stand next to her.

  “If you want,” Henrietta whispered, “I could have some of those La Belles killed in bed. After all, you would merely need to place a mirror on the ceiling above the bed to distract them.”

  “Be good,” Regina whispered back, even as she fought against a not-so-regal laugh. “We are still in public.”

  Even so, she was relieved when Erin managed to dismiss the La Belles before they could find yet another creative way to insult her again.

  “I believe,” the shirtless Erin said, even as Regina tried her hardest to look only above his neck, “that the La Belles have thoroughly finished their greetings. Would you not agree, Artem?”

  That was when Regina finally turned to Artem… only to see a strange, recurring twitch she had never seen at the corner of his mouth.

  “Agreed,” Artem said, and the smile on his face looked unnervingly like Erin’s smile when he was near Regina.

  “Perhaps,” Regina said, uneasy though not sure why she felt that way, “we ought to hear what the Poissons have to say before our… dear brother Erin shares his blessings with me again?”

  She still remembered his blessings from an hour back and would not mind more time before she had to endure them again, even if that time came with a side-order of fish-based obsession.

  Looking more agreeable than before, Erin nodded and moved firmly behind Artem in a very pointed display of even further support.

  The line moved forward to reveal that Marquess Poisson was accompanied by his daughter, Lady Paloma, who only briefly stared at Henrietta’s cleavage before addressing Regina.

  “My princess,” Lady Paloma said, in hushed reverent tones. “I see that your great and wise benevolence toward fish has brought you to the pinnacle of power after all.”

  “Yes,” Regina said, resigned to the eccentricities of the family that Henrietta had somehow embraced. “Obviously, the climactic moment in which I saved Princess Pissmiss heralded the greatness to come.”

  “Princess Pisces,” Lady Paloma primly corrected, “is a true harbinger of power indeed. For anyone who knows the glory of fish and the wealth they can bring, will know that fish are the most important of investments.”

  Lady Paloma and her father then smiled, looking oddly like the strange deep-sea creature they called an angler fish.

  (Regina still had nightmares about staring at that mounted fish on the wall of their manor).

  “Do remember,” Henrietta softly said from behind Regina, “that I would not fall in love with an idiot… or even someone impoverished.”

  That was when Regina remembered the great wealth and power that the Poissons wielded despite, or perhaps because of, their fishy obsessions.

  As the future queen of Carcosa, she would need to keep in mind that great strangeness did not preclude great power… or great ways of impeding her.

  “I will remember,” said Regina, both as a promise and a reminder, “where power truly lies.”

  It was a reminder to herself as well.

  Though Artem was silently letting her be the recipient of the greetings and promises of the nobles, Regina was well aware of where her power truly lay.

  She was equally sure that the nobles themselves knew that pleasing her was the best way to please their new Crown Prince… and could take none of these pleasantries as anything but the shrewd politics that they were.

  It was not as if there was a single noble in this hall that would wish to be sincere to her –

  “So you did,” said Duke Ihsan Kuzey, “realize the truth in the end.”

  Regina almost fell off her seat at the unexpected sound of his voice before looking up at the unfairly handsome man in front of her.

  How had the Duke of the North somehow made his way past dozens of nobles to stand in front of her without her noticing?

  Also, why did he look… pleased?

  As though aware of her surprise, the Duke of the North gently smiled.

  “The forest is dark and deep,” said the Duke, “but trees can always be burned.”

  Regina froze, even as she felt Artem start to shift beside her, could almost feel his anger rising.

  The Duke of the North had known.

  Somehow, Duke Ihsan had known about the Nevilles trying to murder her. As Regina thought about the last time he had spoken to her about forests when they had danced at her engagement ball…

  The Duke had warned her about the Nevilles at that ball.

  She had just never realized it… until this moment.

  The Duke held up a hand, his smile still friendly, almost harmless.

  “I come in peace,” he said. “Have I not proven that already… to both of you?”

  “You have,” said Artem, almost in wonder, speaking for the first time since the line began. “You Kuzeys made your choices very early.”

  “My father was very good at determining who could stand before a feet fish,” the Duke blandly responded.

  Regina started again.

  The Kuzeys had given the abandoned Prince Artem the feet fish mask as a child.

  Artem had claimed it helped expand his power.

  Only… only that was not how magic was supposed to work!

  Everyone knew that a Carcosan mage’s magic lay within their blood and from the generations of mages that came before them.

  It was what the entirety of Carcosa was based upon and how the noble families claimed their land, authority, and power over their magicless common workers.

  However, if the Duke was correct –

  “Your mask,” said Artem, equally blandly, “could have killed me.”

  Even the Duke’s shrug was elegant.

  “The most valuable thing in the world is-” the Duke said, still in that calm, even tone.

  “A way to defeat feet fish?” said Regina, resigned to where this was going.

  “No,” Duke Ihsan Kuzey softly said. “A chance.”

  The Duke had never helped either of them directly, but if what he was saying was true…

  “We will remember the chances you provided,” said Artem, even as the crowd seemed genuinely startled that he was speaking and what it meant that the Kuzeys were the only family he acknowledged.

  “My wife will be glad to hear that,” said the Duke, with a strange twist on his mouth.

  Regina furrowed her brow.

  The Duke had not been married the last time they had met. Even now, he did not wear a wedding ring or have a wife standing with him.

  “Should she not tell us that herself?” said Artem and there was an undertone to his voice that Regina did not care to think on for too long.

  She suspected that he had eyes as good as hers to see that Duke Ihsan was the only Kuzey present in the hall.

  It was very nearly… disrespectful, especially since all the other nobles had shown up with every important member of their family.

  “My wife does not care for the… Capital,” said Duke Kuzey blandly. “She prefers the North.”

  Regina had never heard of a single noblewoman who preferred the fearsome North to the lively capital city. She could only wonder when and who the Duke had married.

  “I do not know much of the North,” said Regina, trying to find some way to salvage the conversation, “but I wish you and your wife every happiness.”

  “Not knowing,” said Duke Ihsan Kuzey almost musingly.

  Then, something passed over his face as if he had made up his mind about a difficult problem.

  “Even if,” said Duke Kuzey, “you have discovered the enemy in the woods, there is far worse you have to face.”

  “What do you mean?” said Regina, her gaze caught by the intensity in his eyes.

  “The real enemy is your own ignorance,” said Duke Kuzey and it took all of Regina’s strength to grab Artem’s arm and keep him from doing something she suspected would start a Carcosan civil war.

  “Sometimes,” said the Duke, shifting that intense gaze to Artem, “fear can create worse danger than the actual root of the fear.”

  “Do you,” said Artem, and his voice would have frozen ice, “have something worthwhile to say?”

  “You have chosen a different mask than the one we gave you,” said Duke Kuzey. “Do not forget what lies beneath the masks on your path forward. The feet fish are always waiting.”

  For a brief moment, something passed in front of Regina’s vision, as if she could see another dark-haired woman in a torn red dress staring back at her, bloodied and defiant, and Regina could feel herself falling into this other woman’s gaze as-

  “QUACK,” said Reginette, who had been sitting so quietly that Regina had almost forgotten her.

  “Or maybe,” said Duke Ihsan Kuzey, “you can just breed a lot of ducks.”

  last normal chapter coming this Friday.

  killer idea brewing...

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