She didn't hear it. Or she heard it and chose to set it aside. She moved past me slowly, her eyes sweeping Valencia's room the way a commander surveys a battlefield — the untouched wedding gown, the flowers, the mirror reflecting an empty chair where a bride was supposed to have sat this morning. Her jaw tightened with each thing she saw.
"How many guests are downstairs?" she asked quietly.
The question made no sense to me. "What?"
"The guests, Celestria." She turned to face me, and the person looking back at me was not quite the mother I had grown up with. This woman had grief in her eyes, yes, bottomless, devastating grief but above it was something immovable. "How many have arrived?"
My stomach dropped before my mind had caught up to why.
"Most of them, I think. I don't…why are you asking me that? Why does it…" And then it hit me. The blood drained from my face so quickly I felt dizzy. "No."
"The King's people…"
"No."
