*Cait*
My bedchamber smells faintly of lavender and lye soap, and the rushes on the floor have been freshly changed. Maisy stands behind me, fastening the last row of delicate buttons on the back of my velvet gown.
“I can’t believe this day has come,” she says excitedly.
I meet her gaze in the polished metal mirror propped on the table. “Neither can I.”
She smooths the fabric over my shoulders, then brushes a curl back from my cheek. “You look beautiful, Cait.”
We had invited the healer Mairen to the wedding, of course, and she’d arrived just before I began dressing with a bundle of freshly cut lilacs in her arms, their scent sweet and sharp in the morning air. “Every bride needs a bit of bloom,” she’d said.
Maisy weaves the lilac blossoms into my hair with those careful, clever
