Sunday came blessedly quickly. 

Felix's family, or at least most of it, gathered in the parlor of the Salazar parlor, helping Felix get ready for the wedding. Felix had spent the entirety of his morning having his mother fuss over his appearance, clucking and pecking at him at every spot or perceived blemish. He'd only been awake for a few short hours and already he felt like laying down for the night.

It was a relief to finally be wearing the white suit. His cousin wasn't his preferred tailor but he'd done well enough. The suit fit him well. It complemented Felix's broad shoulders and small waist, giving him a sharp silhouette. The fabric was soft against his fingers, the buttons shiny in the dim lighting of the chandelier above their heads. It did feel a little odd not to be wearing black in front of his family. There was a lingering feeling of wrongness to it even though he knew it was expected of him. Today he was a groom.

"Remember to have her hold onto your arm when you go to walk down the aisle," Marcel whispered as he helped Felix with his tie. Serafina had Valentina distracted with fixing her hair upstairs and the two brothers finally had a few moments alone in wondrous silence. "She won't be able to see very well through her veil." Marcel reminded him for the third time.

"I won't forget." Felix sighed. "I've been to a wedding before. I know how it works." 

"I know how you get when you're nervous. Everything will fly out of your head the minute you get flustered."

"Me? Flustered? Never. Have you forgotten what my line of work is?" Felix said.

"You might be as confident as a peacock around a bunch of horny middle-aged women who don't know who you are but not around family." Marcel snickered, a crooked grin bringing out a dimple in his cheek. "Around our lot, you're as scared shitless as I am." 

"Are you laughing, Marcel?" Felix smiled, his chest warming. "That hasn't happened in a while."

The smile withered as quickly as it bloomed. "I'm sorry I broke my promise. She kept asking and I..." A flicker of fear flashed in Marcel's eyes, which darted toward the staircase.

Felix grasped his trembling hand, stopping its fidgeting with his tie. "Forget it, Marcel. I was going to have to quit anyway." He whispered. He pulled Marcel into a firm embrace while their mother wasn't in the room. It was a rare, but welcomed hug. "I understand. I understand better than anyone why you told her. I'm sorry I put you in that predicament." 

Marcel pulled away from him after a moment, slipping his still shaking hands in his pockets. He cleared his throat. "Just...uh...don't step on her dress whatever you do. You'll never hear the end of it."

"I'll do my best." Felix laughed. 

Marcel nodded softly, his eyes shining, noticeably wet. "I wish Father could see you. He'd be so happy for you."

The mention of their father made Felix's chest ached with the same intense pain it always did. He longed to see him as he used to be, that easy charismatic smile and strong imposing figure that ruled every room he entered. To share just one embrace like the one he and Marcel just did would've been the bright spot of an otherwise stressful day. 

The doorbell chimed. The familiar tune seemed to ricochet around the house's high ceilings.

"Who could that be?" Felix asked aloud. Only the Salazars were invited to the wedding and his preparations. Not even Marcel's wife and younger children were allowed to come. 

Marcel went to open the door and Felix heard the stairs creak under his mother and niece's quick footsteps. The two women rushed down the staircase in their finest black satin and lace dresses. Valentina slowed and stilled at the bottom step as a very pale Marcel returned with a woman in red trailing behind him.

The woman was tall and lovely, for her age. Her greying blond hair was up off her neck in a coifed style beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She wore it tilted and roses spilled over the brim. Leaves brushed the shoulder of her satin gown. She didn't hide her wrinkles as his mother did, yet somehow they suited her, adding to the air of superiority that hung about her. 

"Charlotte. I wasn't aware you were coming by for a visit." Valentina stiffened and raised her head. The two matriarchs eyed each other like lionesses from warring prides, sizing each other up. 

"Come now, Valentina, What sort of mother-in-law would I be if I didn't stop by to wish the groom luck?" The Prime Minister's blue eyes found Felix and her bright red lips stretched into a wide closed smile. "My, my, what a handsome young man." She walked towards Felix with loud, purposeful steps. 

Felix painted on one of his most charming smiles, the one that brought his dimples out. "Why is that always the first thing anyone says about me?" He asked, fidgeting with a cufflink.

Charlotte laughed. "And funny? I didn't think Salazars possessed a sense of humor. What a rare find." Stopping in front of him, she took his chin between her thumb and pointer finger, tilting it a bit so they were eye to eye. "Shame about his ability. I might've suggested him to Eleonora sooner. He's certainly got good genes otherwise." 

"Thank...you?" Felix honestly didn't know what else to say. His comment about being used as a stud horse was starting to feel less like a joke and more a real possibility. 

"Of course. He is my son, after all." Valentina said sharply. "I wouldn't allow him to be anything else but the pinnacle of Auroraian masculinity. "

Charlotte ignored her. "I would've preferred someone with more potential, but for some unknown reason, Eleonora would only consider you. I suppose you'll suffice. The Salazars are known more for their beauty than their power, which is partly why I didn't argue with Eleonora further about her choice. You'll at least make pretty children." Charlotte finally released him and folded her hands over her corset. "Have you been intimate with women before, Felix? I trust you know what you're doing."

"I know my way around," Felix replied awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. It seemed like the best answer to give her. 

"Good. My daughter is...squeamish about such...skinship. She may need some convincing on the matter. It's important to the family that she produces an heir as quickly as possible. I cannot stress that enough. You must do everything you can to warm her to the idea." She said, her entire being seeming to burn with light amid the black void around her. Valentina, Marcel and Serafina all melted into the background, leaving Charlotte Van Brandt and Felix in his white wedding clothes as the only points of color within the Salazars' dark world. Charlotte tilted her head, hiding one eye behind a cascade of flowers. "With that face, I'm sure you'll have no problem with that." She giggled lightly. Something about her laugh struck Felix as strangely familiar. It was odd. He didn't think he'd met her before. He was sure he would've remembered someone that off-putting. 

So that was why they agreed to the match. He may not have understood why Eleonora would choose him out of all the eligible bachelors available to her, but her parents' motivation for allowing it was clear. Eleonora had rebuffed her first husband's advances and they thought Felix might be able to seduce her where his predecessor had failed. 

What Robin had said about Eleonora's mother was starting to make some sense. She wasn't his mother's equal, but she was her own form of awfulness. A controlling nature seemed to be a shared trait among matriarchs. Knowing that his future bride was supposed to become the next matriarch of the Van Brandt family suddenly made Felix feel a bit uneasy. 

"I'll do my best," Felix answered stiffly, forcing himself to keep smiling.

"Good boy." Charlotte patted his cheek with a red gloved hand. "I'll see you at the wedding." She turned to Valentina, looking down on her like one might a splash of mud on new white shoes. "Is that what you're wearing, Valentina?" She asked with a cruel curl to her lip. "Don't you think it's a little casual for a wedding? It hardly looks any different from what you normally wear." 

As awful as Charlotte was, the look of sheer mortification that crossed Valentina's face was positively beautiful. 

Felix's bride was forty-five minutes late. 

The chapel practically shook with the thunderous song of the organ. Felix stood out in the foyer, a single set of double doors between him and the sanctuary. He opened the door a little and peaked out. He supposed it was a relatively small affair compared to what her first wedding was, but to Felix, the chapel was dauntingly packed. All of the pews on the left side were packed with Salazars in black suits and gowns. On the right, the pews were overflowing with Van Brandts in their bright cardinal red.

The sanctuary was entirely white from the marble on the floor to the rafters high overhead. Huge windows of mosaiced clear glass took up the majority of the walls, letting in the sunlight and bathing the chamber in a golden glow. 

Down the center aisle, lay the alter, on which the Empress, Alexandra, lay, her mummified remains layered in pure white fabrics and exposed skin covered with a thick layer of clay and glamours to hide the rot. It still couldn't quite hide her deadness, Encased in glass and laying on her opulent bed as she was, there was no doubt that it was a glorified coffin. The Novikov Cathedral was her tomb. 

An annoyed sigh caught Felix's attention. With a glance to his right, he realized with a start that his bride had finally arrived. He did a doubletake, unable to believe at first that she could appear so suddenly and so silently in such a grand wedding dress.

Eleonora Van Brandt was drowning in red lace. Sleeves flowed down her arms to her wrists from big poofs at her shoulders. The bodice was synched tight and the skirt clung to her hips before ballooning outward around her feet. Her face was completely obscured by the red mesh and lace of her veil, which trailed behind her like a river of blood all the way to the chapel's front door.

"You're late. I was starting to think you were leaving me at the altar." Felix chuckled awkwardly at her lack of response. He bent forward, tilting his head in hopes of seeing a glimpse of her face through the veil. "It's nice to meet you," Felix said. He was thoroughly disappointed by how thick her veil was. So far the only thing he could tell about his wife was that she was of an average height and had a surprisingly good figure. "Love the dress." He added with just a hint of a flirtatious purr. Perhaps that would get some sort of response.

Eleonora looked at him with a swish of her veil. He squinted to try to decipher something about her, but the only thing he could make out through the red haze of her veil was the shine of her eyes. She nodded her head in recognition but said nothing. He noticed her hands tighten into fists at her sides and Felix suddenly remembered Robin's warning. 

"She hasn't spoken much since it happened. Don't feel too bad if she gives you the cold shoulder at first. She saw too much that night."

What had she seen, he wondered. He'd expected the lady to be on the quiet side, but he'd assumed she might at least spare him a few words. Concerned, he questioned if Robin had truly told him the whole truth as to the effect her first husband's death had on her. There was a strong difference between being quiet and being mute, after all. Was it horror that stilled her tongue? Grief? Or was she simply so angry at being made to remarry that she was choosing to ignore him out of spite? 

He wished she would at least say hello. It would be strange not to know her voice before she became his wife. 

Finally, the organ changed tune, beginning the Aurorian wedding march. "Afraid that's our queue," Felix whispered. The doors swung open and the pair stiffly began their journey down the aisle. Felix could feel everyone's eyes on him, cutting through the skin of his face like his mother's magic all those years ago. The scars ached beneath his family's dark gaze. 

Valentina sat on the first pew on his side of the chapel with Marcel and Serafina. She looked over her shoulder at him, her face pinched with disapproval. The sight made Felix's mind race anxiously. Was he walking too quickly? Too slowly? Was his hair not fixed right? Was there a loose thread hanging from his jacket?

He saw Eleonora stumble out of the corner of his eye and catch herself. It was then that it finally dawned on him. He hadn't offered his arm!

Quickly, Felix snatched Eleonora's hand and wrapped it around the bend of his arm. Eleonora looked up at him again, probably as mortified at his blunder as he was beneath her veil as they took two more steps and reached the end of the aisle. 

The priest, a woman draped in fine white robes and her head capped with a strange hat that rose up from her crown to form the shape of a prism stood to the side of the alter by Alexandra's head. Felix and Eleonora turned to face one another as she neared, holding a large crystal in her hands. The crystal was cut like a multifaceted prism. The crystal itself was clear, but a multitude of colors lived within it in the light, a different color to each facet. 

"You may now look upon your groom." The priest smiled at Eleonora, giving her the go-ahead to remove her veil. 

Eleonora pulled back her veil and batted it down off her face. At last, Felix got to see her clearly.

He felt a small pang of disappointment. He'd been imagining someone more in keeping with the Van Brandt brand. The women, like Charlotte, were all tall, blond, and quite well endowed, but that wasn't who Eleonora was. Her hair was a darker blond than the majority of her kin, neither brown nor golden. Her eyes were hazel, undecided whether they wished to be closer to blue or green or brown.  Her oval-shaped face with its unremarkable features wasn't what Felix would call beautiful, but she wasn't plain either. Pretty, that was a good word. He did find her pretty. He smiled at her in relief, feeling he could have done a great deal worse. 

Meanwhile, Eleonora was doing her own appraisal. Her eyes flickered up and down his frame briefly before her face scrunched and her lip curled in a thoroughly unimpressed grimace. Felix's little vain heart stung. 

That was one reaction his face had never garnered.

The priest ordered them to kneel and the ceremony went by at a snail's pace after that. They kneeled at the altar and bowed their heads while the priest prayed and blessed their union. She held the prism overhead. The sunlight poured through it, scattering light over the sanctuary in a kaleidoscope pattern. Colors swirled and shifted across wood, marble, skin, and cloth. Only the white of Felix's suit remained unchanged and untouched by it, the fabric saturated in a glamour to keep it pure. 

They were supposed to pray along or at least keep their eyes shut and pretend but Felix wasn't convinced God existed. She'd certainly never done him any favors. Nor did he have the patience to pretend. Instead, he found himself staring at the Empress Alexandra's dead face. 

The numerous masks she wore, both that of clay and magic seemed somehow too thin. A faint shadow remained of her skull. It bled through like old paint coming through the new. He'd never seen Empress Alexandra's body up close before. He'd only been to the cathedral a handful of times before in his life. Even with the magic, the fine clothing, tiara, and jewels, she was still a rotting corpse, just one wrapped up in nice trappings and bathed in perfume to hide the stench. There was one strange thing of note, however. 

In every painting Felix had ever seen of her, Alexandra's hair had been dark brown. Her corpse's long, flowing locks were now colorless to the point it was nearly translucent. It flowed in soft waves, lovingly laid over each shoulder, and darted with white diamond-studded pins. Her skin too was too pale. Perhaps it was simply the effects of a hundred years of decay but it was almost like the color had been bleached out of her, like it had seeped from her body like blood, leaving only a pale husk behind.

Felix glanced toward Eleonora. She was knelt before Alexandra's slippered feet but she was looking sidelong toward her face, transfixed by it as Felix had been. Her eyes shifted slightly and caught on his own for a split second before they both snapped their heads back to a bowed position, downcasting their still wide-open eyes. 

"May God in all her mercies bless this union of these two great Houses and may the children born of them come into the world vibrant with power. Amen."

"Amen," Felix and Eleonora echoed her along with the rest of the wedding guests. 

The priest lowered her prism to her chest. "Rise."

Eleonora and Felix stood and faced each other once more. They raised their hands between them and under the priest's direction held the prism between them locked in interwoven fingers.

Eleonora's fingers were like ice against Felix's own. She stared at him with little emotion, repeating vows after the priest in a mumbled breath he could scarcely hear over the organ playing in the background.

"I promise to love and honor you all the days of my life."

"I promise to put the needs of my family always before myself."

"I promise you and our children that I will commit my God-given power to the service of the Empire. May she prosper and return to the glory of the old age."

They recited the vows together, or at least he assumed that they did. He couldn't hear her very well, because of that horrific organ, but he could see her red-painted lips move to form each syllable. Her voice was so faint it was nothing but a low hum beneath the drone of the priest's prayers. In the echo of the enormous sanctuary, all sound seemed to blend together into a singular monogamous drone. 

At the finishing of the vows, the Priest gave them a nod of affirmation, indicating that they could move on to the next and final step of the ceremony. Eleonora met Felix's gaze from over the top of the prism cradled between them. Her shoulders rose and fell in a quick and full breath. Felix found himself doing the same, following her lead. 

The prism beneath his fingers warmed as did Eleonora's touch. Her skin heated, her cheeks blushing red as she strained to fill the prism with her power. Normally, both of them would be filling the prism, trying to change its color from clear to that of the House to which they now both belonged, but as Felix was magicless, it was all her. She struggled with it, her brows furrowing with intense concentration. The colors reflected in the facets of the prison twinkled, each one changing in rapid blinks. Eleonora's lips pulled back from her teeth, baring them as a soft growl rumbled in her throat. Alarmingly, Felix started to smell smoke. 

"Uh, Eleonora, careful not to burn the church down," Felix whispered nervously. The prism was starting to burn his fingertips, but he resisted the urge to yank his hand away, knowing it would be the death of him if he dropped it and broke the ancient relic. 

Eleonora's eyes snapped up to him in a glare that could cut glass and the prism suddenly flashed to bright red, casting the entire chapel and everyone in it in a red glow. She lunged forward and pressed her lips against the surface of the crystal and after too long a pause, Felix followed suit, kissing the prism now burning the skin from his lips. It burned with that red light, his new family color. Van Brandt red.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife." The priest smiled and clapped, her wrinkled cheeks like overly ripe peaches in the red lighting still bathing the room. She took the prism from them, allowing the two newlyweds to turn to face their families both old and new.

A new wife.

A new family.

A new color.

A new name.

Felix Van Brandt. 

He tested the new name in his mind, finding he liked the sound. It felt so strange to be free of that heavy banner the name Salazar had become. Felix felt relieved, but also a small part of him missed that weight. He felt naked without it. His gaze swept over his family, moving quickly past the unfamiliar, yet similar faces of countless cousins he'd never met, ignoring Valentina, and finding the only kin to him that mattered. 

Serafina clapped happily for them along with the Van Brandt's, grinning ear to ear, even while the rest of their family stood stoically. Marcel didn't clap, but his lips curved in a soft smile at his brother. His dark eyes held a hint of the sadness Felix himself could feel creeping through his chest. 

If their father was there Serafina wouldn't be the only one of the Salazars clapping.