Chapter 102 Capitulations Ii

• Judge’s [POV]
• I see him the instant we step outside. Through the happy chaos of our wedding, as bells ring in this late hour and the inky blue sky sparkles, he is here, lost among the witnesses collected in the courtyard for this next part of the ceremony. The placing of my mark on the back of my wife’s neck in that space I’ve known, on some level, was for me. Was always for me.
• Mercedes feels the shift in me. I sense it in how her back stiffens. Don’t the others see him? But the scene is confusing; too many people here to watch the wedding that I swore would never be, the gates less well-guarded in the rushed mess of it. And Vincent Douglas standing in a borrowed or more likely stolen, ill-fitting cloak, his shoes too loud, his hatred too palpable.