Chapter 85 The Wedding Of Necessity

• The wedding took place in the castle's repaired great hall, under skies that still showed faint traces of dimensional scarring.
• I stood before the assembled nobility of both kingdoms, wearing a gown of midnight blue silk that complemented the skull relics around my neck. The dress had been specially designed to accommodate my new status—not just as a princess being married for political alliance, but as a queen who had earned her crown through battle and sacrifice.
• Beside me, Aldric looked every inch the prince he had been born to be, but I could see the weight of recent revelations in his eyes. Learning that his father had been manipulated by the same forces that had killed his uncle had shaken him deeply, but it had also strengthened his resolve to be a better leader than those who had come before.