My wedding dress was hideous. To many a bride, a dress studded with enough diamonds to pay a king's ransom would have been something to covet, but all I saw when I looked at the gaudy thing was how heavy it would be and how difficult it would be to run in. Perhaps that was the whole point behind Demetria's selection. The dress would act as a weight to keep me firmly planted at my groom's side.

"This thing is awful." I whined, almost grunting with the effort it took simply to lift my skirt out of the way of my feet so I could walk to the stool my hairdresser was shooing me towards. "My muscles are going to be sore by the time this night is through."

"That's not the only thing that's going to be sore." I heard some of the servant women giggle, whispering between themselves even more filthy things. I shot them my most Demetria-like glare which silenced them back into sullen mouses as they scurried around me and my Sisters, decorating us from scalp to smallest toe with more diamonds.

"I'm already sweating." Daffodil clenched her hands in her lap while one of the servants slowly and carefully glued small diamonds to her lash line.

"I need to pee, but it'll take me three years just to find my ass under all these skirts." Dahlia said making even quiet Hyacinth laugh. It felt good to laugh with them. For a moment this was like any other time we'd been prepared for an event. However, the feel alone of the gown's silk lining against my bare skin reminded me how different this event would be. I did not have my armor or weapons hidden beneath my dress. Given the nature of my task, I could not risk Narcissus finding weapons on me. I felt as if I were wearing nothing without them.

"Are you nervous?" Hyacinth asked, almost whispering.

I nodded shallowly, not wanting to dishevel the hairdresser's work as she continued to curl and pin locks of auburn hair into place. "Isn't every bride though?" I swallowed against a growing lump in my throat. My Sisters looked at me with such concern and affection it made my eyes sting. "I am most worried about making it back here after my mission is done. It will be no small feat, but I will try my best. I must. I will have what is owed me and then all of us can retire in luxury. Live in grand mansions and grow fat on the rarest of wines. Get married if we wish, have some children, all that nonsense. Personally, I'd be happy to have a little hermit's cottage I can fill with cats. I've always wanted a cat."

"You don't honestly want to become a crazy cat lady, do you?" The servant working on Daffodil's eyelid diamonds swatted her for smiling.

"It's always sounded like a blissful fate to me. What about you? What would you want to do with your freedom?" I replied.

Daffodil quieted and that smile faded quickly. "Honestly, I don't know if I want freedom. I've been a Sister for so long I don't know what I would do with my life otherwise. I could make a simple life for myself, become a wife and mother and all of that, but I would always be wondering about the Sisters that take our places, wonder if they were getting along or if they squabbled, if they needed more training in certain areas or comfort after a particularly bad day. I think I would ask the Queen to either let me remain as a Sister or keep me as a teacher here."

"Even if you were given the chance to do anything else you would stay as her meat shield?" I could not help the bite of anger in my voice nor the burn of it in my chest. "You would remain her slave?" Hyacinth and Dahlia both gestured wildly at me to shut up, pressing their fingers against their lips harder and harder. I ignored them even as Demetria waltzed into the room. "How many more girls do you need to watch die before you realize that she doesn't care about you or any of us." I said as loudly as I dared to raise my voice in Demetria's presence.

Daffodil echoed my angry growling. "Whether I am a Sister or not I am still a subject of Rhea and she is still my queen."

"I suggest you listen to Sister Daffodil, Sunflower." Demetria said in her low, stern queen's voice. "No matter where you go or what titles you might be given, you must remember what land you came from and who you are being sent to protect. It is not only my life you are risking yours for, but that of your Sisters and every soul that calls Rhea their home." She moved around the room to stand before us all, the train of her matching wedding dress slithering across the floor with a sound that reminded me of a snake moving through tall grass. "Our groom has been spotted outside our walls. We must make haste to the outer gate. Say your goodbyes now. There will be no time once we meet with Narcissus."

I ground my teeth together as I hugged and kissed the cheeks of each of my Sisters. Dahlia let some tears fall during our farewells and I could feel Hyacinth quivering against me while we embraced. They gave me a simple goodbye, saying only that and nothing else though the way they clutched onto me like little children spoke more to me than anything could have put into words. When it was Daffodil's turn, however, she clutched me tight and breathed into my ear. "Do not forget yourself over there. Remember us and return well and whole. No matter what, success or failure, return to us. That is an order from your eldest Sister."

I smiled against her shoulder, blinking away the only tears I would allow myself to shed that day. I hadn't the heart to the tell her the truth, that I would likely die either way, either killed by my new husband and his people, or my own master should I fail in my task. She had never voiced such threats, but I knew the conditions of such a high stakes mission without Demetria having to remind me, for I alone knew what became of Sister Jasmine. After all, I was the one that buried what was left of her after Demetria's hounds had eaten their fill.

Each Sister traveled in a separate carriage. Each made of gold, each pulled by white horses and driven by men that covered their bodies and faces with dark cloaks and scarves. We wore veils over our heads that we could see out of, but no one could see through from outside. Our identities were completely lost within a sea of glittering fabric. The carriages drove towards the outer walls in a straight line, one hot on the heels of another, but wove around each other, constantly changing positions in the line in hopes of confusing any would-be assassins lying in wait for the queen. Even though Narcissus had agreed to peace for this marriage, there was still no guarantee that he intended to uphold his promises.

Finally, I felt my carriage roll to a stop and heard the strike of the driver's boots landing heavily on the cobblestones. The archer sitting in the seat across from me, cloaked similarly to my driver, readied his crossbow. My door opened and the driver peaked his head inside. His dark eyes squinted at me for a moment as they looked me over. Though his face was hidden, I could see the question there. He was trying to figure out if he had the real queen in his carriage or just another Sister. Truth be told, I wasn't sure what I was anymore. I was not the real Queen Demetria, but I was the correct bride and soon I would be the queen of our enemy. "He hasn't arrived yet. Stay inside. I'll hit the carriage's side three times once I see him at the gate." The driver said gruffly.

I nodded in understanding and the door shut once again. Time seemed to drag on after that. The silence and the anticipation congealed together into a deafening madness. My knee anxiously bounced up and down and I'd bitten the inside of my lips bloody. The longer I waited, my anxiety only grew. A thousand possibilities for his delay raced through my mind. Few of them good.

Then, just as the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, I heard the driver's three strikes against the carriage's side. I smoothed my heavy skirt as I stood and took the hand the driver offered as he helped me down to the city street. Before me loomed the tallest outer wall of Rhea. Her gates were opened wide and where the cobblestones ended, a desert of black sand began. Ancient volcanic ash from thousands upon thousands of Mt. Zygora's eruptions had left behind a sea of black char, rivers of cold molten earth and scattered bits of pulverized earth.

Atop the largest of the desert's dunes, I spotted my new husband along with two other deathless men of Cronos. They rode in chariots led by snorting, snarling creatures. At a glance, they looked like horses, but their faces were wrong, their eyes were too predator-like, their mouths full of teeth meant for tearing meat from bone. Blue flames engulfed their hooves and when their riders slapped their reins against their black hides and the beasts charged forward, they appeared to fly over the black sand without stirring even the smallest grains.

"Steel spines." Demetria commanded from beneath her veil. She stood to my left with her back straight and head held up in defiance even as the giants descended on us, smoke fuming from their beast's flared nostrils, their bronze breastplates silvered in the day's fading light. I mirrored her posture, mimicking her with perfected skill, and our Sisters did the same until there was again no differences between us.

The three Crononites barked something to their animals in their harsh tongue and came to an abrupt stop before us. They wore helms over their heads beaten from the same bronze metal as their breastplates. It covered their heads from the bridges of their noses upward, curving around their eyes and rising to a crest of gruesome spikes that raked down the middle of their skulls like the fin of a great fish. Rows of thin chains hung over the lower parts of their faces from their cheeks like a veil. Their armor was identical. Their heights and builds were identical. Even their beasts and chariots were all the same. The finer hairs at the nape of my neck began to rise like the hackles of a dog. The king, it seemed, was hiding his identity among these others as well.

The Priest, Calabrim, stepped forward with the marriage contract in one hand and our holy book in another. "We give thanks to the gods that you have arrived safely, King Narcissus. Queen Demetria is pleased to have finally made a way for peace between our two nations." He said in his kind, soothing voice, bowing his balding sunburnt head.

I swallowed as I took in the sight of the three grown Crononites before me. Thomas truly must've been young for these three made him seem like a child. I was of average height, not extremely tall but not petite either and yet I scarcely reached the bottom of their rib cages. Not only were they tall but their bodies were built purely of muscle, each possessing the strength to snap me in half without any effort at all.

One of the giants leaned towards another. He spoke again in their mother tongue, making the other laugh. The syllables guttural and quick. Their words left their tongues quickly, each one flowing into another. It sounded like nonsense to my ignorant ears. "May I ask what is so amusing to you?" I asked. Daffodil gave the back of my veil a swift tug in warning.

The one that up until now had been silently watching us spoke up then in a voice so low I could hear the rumble of it in my bones. "My King was wondering if he was being given five brides for the price of one." He said in a strangely accented Rhean.

"You speak our tongue?" Demetria asked, her voice high with surprise.

"Some of us have bothered to learn over the centuries we've fought with you." He replied. "My King is young and still learning and our other friend here knows none at all. I am here to act as your translator."

King Narcissus spoke again, pointing in our direction. His voice was noticeably lighter than that of the translator, perhaps due to his youth.

"My King would like to know which of the women is Demetria." Said the translator as all six molten gold eyes of the Crononite men, glowing from within the shade cast by their helms in the dying light, scanned across the five brides before them.

We brides turned our heads in unison towards Priest Calabrim. He gave us the nod he'd been instructed to give when all was ready, and our archers had their crossbows discretely aimed out of the windows of our carriages. Then and only then did I step away from my Sisters. For so small a step, my stomach lurched as if it were a plunge. "I am." I greeted, lifting my veil from my face. The Crononites' coal-rimmed eyes twitched, widening slightly.

The other man that had come with the king and his translator stepped towards me suddenly and grabbed me about the face. My finger twitched, giving the small indication to the archers not to fire for the man's hold on me was firm yet not harmful. With him so close, I noted that his eyes were slightly lighter than that of the others, more yellow than gold, and a long curling beard hung from his face to nearly the same length of the chain veil. He turned my head in different directions and even opened my mouth, inspecting my teeth as if I were a mare at auction. I watched his yellow eyes shift towards the translator as he spoke to him in a voice even gruffer and lower than his own. There was the sound of laughter in it and the skin around his eyes crinkled with a smile that hid beneath a veil of chains.

"I do not care for being mocked at the border of my own empire, least of all by a Crononite that reeks of fish and sweat," I hissed at him my voice muffled by the squeeze of his fingers on my cheeks. He released me with a hoarse laugh and turned to King Narcissus, giving him an approving thumbs up.

"He said, that after all our squabbles, he was not expecting a doe-eyed maiden. You look no bigger than his half-grown daughter. He checked your teeth to be sure you were grown, and they had not thrown a child into our king's marriage bed." The translator explained, glaring at me with those fire eyes.

My stomach twisted. "I would never."

"Yet you employ young girls as your Sisters, correct? How were we to be sure that you would not? How many children have sacrificed their bodies for you?" I could faintly make out the curve of his lips and the shadow of a beard beneath the translator's veil. The expression on those lips was like that of a dog just beginning to snarl. A curling lip. The slightest showing of teeth.

I suppressed the urge to glance back at Demetria even as a sharp pain went through me at the memory of little Primrose and the heat of her blood on my skin. "Twenty-seven." I answered with only the briefest of pauses. I had kept count of each that I had buried, each life lost while I awaited my turn. This was only the number I personally had counted. I was not sure if it was the whole number of losses in the entirety of the Sisters' service.

The translator's teeth flashed as if he were about to shout at me, but King Narcissus called to him. A word that sounded like it may be his name. It silenced him and he bowed his head, muttering an apology, more to himself than to anyone around him. "We must hurry back to Cronos. The night won't last forever. Please, let us sign the contracts so we may make our return. The King has much still to do." He said through clenched teeth.

Silently, Narcissus and I were given quills and ink that looked nearly the color of Jade in the dark. Our only light came from the fire at the hooves of the Crononite's beasts and the lamps of the city behind us. I went first, signing Demetria's name with a fluid, easy motion. Then my new husband stepped forward and when he wrote his name there was a brief hesitation in the middle of his first stroke that left a puddle of ink at the center of the upward line. He readjusted his grip on the quill, obviously having trouble holding it with his larger hand. This new hold seemed better fit for him, and he finished signing his name. Reading was even more difficult than hearing it. It didn't even look like a name at all.

The translator and the bearded one returned to their chariots, and I realized with a cold feeling in my gut that it was all over. I would have no wedding here. All the pomp and ceremony still awaited me in Cronos. King Narcissus pressed his massive hand against my back, guiding me towards his own chariot. I gave my Sisters one final glance and a weak smile before climbing aboard it with him. He stood at my back, caging me within the chariot with his bulk behind me and his arms around me holding the reigns. Gods, his hands! One alone could nearly wrap around my middle. With one snap of the reins and a shout, all three chariots charged away, flying over the dunes and leaving Rhea and my Sisters far behind.