Chapter 323

IN THE CLEARED, DRESSED, AND opened rooms Alek waited for Cat to round the corner in the ceremony rehearsal. With the walls of the ballrooms, plus the throne room and several other estate rooms all opened they would be able to fit almost twenty thousand guests, slotted in carefully. Elena had considered having it as standing space only, but the three-hour ceremony was too long to expect most of their guests to manage standing. Vesbel and her large team of workers scurried about, winding enormous lengths of flowers up the support pillars in the various rooms, decorating the chairs that lined the path to the altar with fresh boughs in crimson with accents of white and green. Several meadow sprites hovered about, chatting to the blooms, asking them to last the next couple of days.

A trumpet rang out.

Straightening where he stood at the discreetly marked position near where normally the door to the first ballroom was, Alek shifted restlessly against a growing unpleasantness in his gut. P