The grandest wedding she will ever attend and one of the most extravagant that Tantervale will ever host is primed to end in total disaster.
Lord and Lady Trevelyan had spent months preparing the estate for the event; remodeling the dining hall, landscaping the garden, renovating the entrance- all for this one evening that will see their eldest daughter married off to the Lord Chancellor's son.
As she occupies herself by picking apart flowers in her lap, the Chantry service takes a small eternity, not helping the fact that she finds the groom pompous and his bride even more so, taking into account that the apparently lucky girl is her older sister.
The only victory of the day is that Alera Trevelyan Calzada can justifiably dare to suggest that her dress outrivals even the bride's- a form-fitting long gown in a misty sky blue with silver accents that shimmer when she walks in the sunlight. She had insisted on commissioning the dress despite the disapproving fury that had increasingly built in her Lady mother's eyes in the months and then days leading up to the wedding.
"Not a dress for a proper Antivan girl," her mother would extensively complain throughout each fitting with the dressmaker. "Too low cut in the front, too sheer over the back, nontraditional shade of blue," Lady Trevelyan had made sure to grumble in her thick accent, watching Alera over her embroidery. Alera had only smiled as she admired her reflection, the light blue gown complementing her tanned Antivan complexion and black curls.
Lady Trevelyan had passed on the Calzada family veil to Viana for the occasion, a lace wedding veil that her mother and her grandmother and her grandmother's mother and so on had all worn to their weddings decades before.
All good Antivan girls, the lot of them, Alera supposes, as Viana's husband lifts the veil to kiss his new wife.
With a light scowl decorating her darkened lips, Alera hopes she'll never have to wear the horrid thing.
Luckily or unluckily enough, within 24 hours, she will get undeniable assurance of that wish.
That morning, Alera's grandmother had imparted an old Antivan fishwives' saying to her second oldest granddaughter, despite the fact that the old woman had never had to set foot in Rialto's fish market even one day of her life. Regardless, the elderly matriarch, wearing elegant diamond earrings paid for by the Caldaza family vineyard outside Rialto, had eyed Alera's chiffon gown and commented that those who dared try to outshine an Antivan bride on her wedding day would be forever cursed with bad luck in love and doomed never to marry.
Then again, just last week Lady Caldaza had lectured her young granddaughter, Idalia, about the dangers of opening a parasol indoors.
Hesitant belief in old-fashioned Antivan superstitions aside, if such a curse didn't exist, it would certainly render what would happen that night a strange coincidence.
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A ten course meal featuring multiple entrees and desserts of Antivan and Free Marcher delicacies alike served by the household servants finds Alera seated in between her younger sisters and across from her grandmother's disappointed gaze, made twice as piercing by the fact that Lady Calzada's eyes reflect the exact same shade of green back at Alera.
Antivan musicians of renown begin to perform light melodies during dinner to continue for dancing after dessert, getting progressively livelier throughout the night.
Tired of avoiding her grandmother's eyes, Alera spends most of dinner attempting to catch the gaze of her new brother-in-law's younger sibling. As the final dessert plates are taken away, his eyes meet hers and she sends a smile his way, tilting her head just slightly enough to look at him through her eyelashes as she sips her wine.
An hour later, Alera tugs him along by the hand, narrowly avoiding the estate guards as they sneak upstairs into the family quarters.
She will never recall his name- Bryen or Drylen, or something similarly insignificant of the sort, a full head taller than Alera, with auburn hair and movements guided by deliberate grace that intone years of training with an expensive swordsmaster. Whatever his name, the younger son of the Lord Chancellor is built with sinewy musculature, the proof she can feel as he presses her against the wall of her bedroom with hurried passion.
His hands wander intermittently over her dress, softly squeezing her curves and tugging impatiently at the fine fabric until she swats his hands away in annoyance so that she can remove it herself without risk of tearing the expensive garment.
She soon forgets the dress and time altogether, as her lover is more experienced than she presumes.
Her eyes snap open at the abrupt sensation of cold air in the room and goosebumps prickling her bare skin as soon as they finish.
"You- you're an apostate!" he exclaims, panting for breath as he scrambles away from her and off the bed, stumbling over the blankets in attempts to locate his clothes.
"I'm not…" Alera haughtily begins to defend herself, even as her eyes take in the sheet of ice clinging to the bed and their skin alike. She sees frost sprinkled on top of his hair while he haphazardly redresses himself. "No…"
She recalls the week before, when Viana had made her angry over some trivial matter she doesn't recall, when the crystal goblets behind her had seemingly tumbled off the table of their own accord, how she'd found amusement in Viana's panic in the moments that followed… and that being only one of the insignificant incidents that had been intermittently occurring around her these past few weeks.
Her face is wet with tears before she realizes her chest is heaving with sobs and the Lord Chancellor's son has gone.
She clumsily attempts to lace herself back into her dress with no servants or sisters there to help, part of her mind still foggy from pleasure and the other parts simply frightened and confused. Meanwhile, the groom's brother storms into the reception hall downstairs, shirt half-unbuttoned and shouting about how Alera had almost killed him.
She quickly pulls a robe over her dress and hurries down the corridor, startled by the guards that bar her from the stairs leading down to the main part of the estate.
"We're to escort you back to your quarters, m'lady," one of the three informs her grimly.
"Let me pass," she demands, glaring. "I need to speak with Mother and Father." They exchange an awkward glance with each other before turning their impassive gazes back to her. Her eyes dart between the three guards, heart stuttering wildly.
"The Lord and Lady Trevelyan instructed us themselves that you are not to leave your rooms," the female guard insists, albeit hesitantly.
She feels a rush of anger surging through her blood and one of the guard's eyes widen as he takes a hesitant step back. She looks down to see the corridor freezing over and she gives a startled cry. She clenches her fists and her eyes shut in an attempt to stop the accidental frost.
"My lady..."
Alera's eyes open to meet the glint of three longswords pointed at her. She swallows dryly, more tears threatening to fall from the corners of her eyes. The guard who speaks for the three takes a slow step towards her, point of her steel falling just half an arm's length from Alera's chest.
"Go back to your quarters and we won't need to hurt you," she states calmly, though her hazel eyes betray a desperate desire that silently beg Alera not to give her a reason. "We're to guard you until the templars arrive."
"The templars…" Alera repeats, abruptly sick with realization. She backs away from the guards and runs back to her room, face wet with silent tears. The carefully even thud of three sets of boots follow her back and after she slams the door behind herself, she hears the scraping of wood against stone as the guards barricade her only escape.
Desperately, she goes to her window, peering down into the darkness. The drop into the garden below would surely kill her from the height itself.
With her current luck, she'd most likely fall through the rose bush with the sharpest thorns just before she broke her neck.
At the moment, she finds it difficult to think of more than a couple fates worse than death or the templars.
Demons pouring from a break in the sky, for instance.
Days later, her Antivan aunts and Lady Calzada lament the fact that Alera had chosen to outdo Viana on her wedding day, shaking their heads and wondering why she couldn't have been a good Antivan girl like her older sister. Why else would Alera have been cursed so suddenly with magic? Had she not gotten the attention for the night like she'd wanted? To Lord and Lady Trevelyan, Lady Calzada suggests taking Idalia along to Antiva to ensure the second youngest Trevelyan daughter won't end up like her sister.
In the following weeks and months, Idalia pens letters to Alera attached with Emmia's childish drawings and gives them to Lord and Lady Trevelyan to post. Alera never receives them, as her mother and father never send them, believing that all good Antivan girls should learn to pay the consequences for their mistakes. And when Idalia begins to act too much like her sister, she is rewarded with a full year living with her grandmother and aunts in Rialto in addition to the usual month during Satinalia season.
The morning after the wedding, the templar escort arrives to accompany Alera to Ostwick.
Though the templars allow it, Lord and Lady Trevelyan do not see her off, nor do they give permission to their remaining daughters to do so.
The templars permit Alera to bring as many personal belongings as her parents bribe them to: among these few items are her Trevelyan signet ring and a locket bearing the Calzada sigil, tastefully embedded with tiny diamonds.
They do not allow her to bring the dress.