Chapter 65: Know Her Place
"What arrangement?"
"Don’t play dumb with me," Orion growled. "Why has the King placed you in charge of the wedding preparations?"
"How was I supposed to know that I would have the honor of such a task?" Soleia retorted with a roll of her eyes. "You think I want to help plan your wedding? When I had no hand in planning my own?"
She could never forget her wedding day― she hadn’t even known she would be married twenty-four hours before she actually stood at the altar, a wilting bouquet in hand, donned in her sisters’ rejected gown. The grand hall was loosely decorated and the only people who attended her wedding were nobility already present in the capital.
On the other hand, Elowyn and Orion’s wedding had invited guests from all across the world and the seas. Nobilities from all across Vramid were attending, and judging by the reaction her sisters gave her, Soleia bet that most of them probably thought that the one marrying Orion was the Princess.
Feelings of injustice quickly flooded Soleia’s chest, making it clench painfully. Her eyes watered even though she desperately tried to stamp it down, even biting down on her bottom lip in an attempt to refrain from crying, but she failed miserably.
"You may not remember our wedding day anymore but it was done in haste," Soleia bitterly said. "I didn’t want to marry you as much as you didn’t want to marry me, but I agreed to save your life. And this is what I get as repayment― watching as my own husband marries another despite promising me the exact opposite!"
Soleia spat out the words with venom coating every syllable, so much so that Orion visibly reeled back a little in shock. But Soleia wasn’t done. She was far from it.
"Elowyn used an amethyst to control you," she murmured, her voice breathless and filled with exhaustion. "I thought breaking the necklace would release you from her spell, but it didn’t work. Why didn’t it work?" she asked rhetorically, searching for the answers in Orion’s eyes for she knew he wouldn’t be able to provide her an answer.