The New Star: Interlude 9
She was a Dragon-Blooded of good breeding; he was a patrician of impeccable pedigree. Despite this, the wedding was arranged surprisingly quickly. This caused some tongues to wag, but never within earshot of the bride or groom, lest the tongue be removed to wag no more. The most scandalous rumour, and in the society they moved in this was shocking indeed, was that it was to cover up her being impregnated by another man. Not just any old ‘other man’, of course, as that kind of indiscretion would scarcely raise an eyebrow, but that the ‘other man’ in question was one of the senior clerics of the Immaculate Faith.
But this rumour was never voiced above a whisper, because she was powerful. A sorceress she was, trained at the Heptagram, but much more besides. In recent years she had left the School of Magic to pursue a new career as a Wyld Huntswoman, one of the hunters of the hated Anathema. In that capacity she had risen to become the lieutenant of the famous Ledaal Aia.
Her husband-to-be was, as far as most knew, an unremarkable young administrator who had fallen in with the Wyld Hunt because they needed somebody to handle the logistics. The tongue-waggers felt on safer ground discussing her reasons for choosing him: “breeding, good looks and charm,” they said; “in that order,” they usually added. But she had chosen him for a different reason, a secret reason – literally: he was good at finding out secrets.
But, as it turned out on their wedding night, he had a secret or two of his own. In the middle of the night she found him absent from their bed, and curiously traced him to the bathroom where she saw he was desperately clawing and scrubbing at his own forehead.
“What are you doing, my love?” she asked, more than a little concerned at this strange behaviour. He made no response, and she finally had to physically take his hands from his face. Together they looked at his reflection in the mirror. There was an empty, golden band blazing there; the mark of the Wretched Anathema.
“Oh dear,” she sighed, “this could be a problem.”