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Solon’s heart leapt to his throat as Kaede strode forward She wore a purple saed in lace A crown of vines with ripe purple grapes oven through her long black hair It being her wedding, both of her breasts were bare, the nipples rouged, and beneath her navel her bare stoold skirt hung low on her hips, trailing slightly behind her, her wine-stained bare feet barely winking out Most worape is clothing enough for a wedding Apparently Kaede really did believe that a queen was a queen first and a woman sometime later But after a decade and a half in Midcyru, the ht of her here, like this, filled hi The skirt had neither buttons nor clasps nor ties, nor underclothes beneath it It was finished thewith the woroo charoom threw it out theIn ancient times and in some rural areas still, the skirt was alhite, and ripped open but not re was consummated Then the revelers would parade with the "proof" of the woinity, which as often as not was sheep’s blood Most hters with a vial of it, in case she had broken her hylad had ross, but also because he found it hard to ie with drunken screa on the walls

In the courtyard, Oshobi Takeda walked forward Solon felt a stab of hatred He should be walking forward now He should be the one who tore Kaede’s skirt tonight Oshobi Takeda caor and potency painted on the surface of a stomach so ed He too wore vines through his hair and a siold trousers that ended just below the knee

Oshobi ht he ard such beauty He turned and addressed the assembled nobles "I came here today to marry our empress It was in my heart to unite this land as it hasn’t been united for more than a decade I know all of us were dismayed e heard of Daune Wariyah it strained my family’s honor, I came here determined to wed"

From his position, Solon could see what the nobles below could not At every exit, arular ranks stood th was, so far, hidden, but they could move in on the assembled nobles inthis prologue to treason

He didn’t have to wait long

Kaede strode up onto the platform directly to Oshobi and slapped his face "If you speak treason, Oshobi Takeda, I will have your head," Kaede said in a clear, fearless voice

An older noble Solon recognized as Nori Oshibatu, long a friend of the Wariyamos, shot a look at Oshobi and stepped forward "My dear, Kaede, our beloved e Please, he only speaks" Nori pulled Kaede back into the crohere several other fa cat he was "I ca, I discovered so my honor could not countenance Daune Wariyamo had on her person letters from the late emperor’s brother Solon to Kaede In these letters, he spoke of his trysts with her in the castle and of a secret e"

"You lie!" Kaede shrieked

Solon’s heart sank The trysts in the castle had only been atte in on the Solon with a shoe It would have been worth it if she’d co e, of course, was a total fiction

But Oshobi was quick "I have the letters here!" he said, brandishing a sheaf "And this wo in the castle" A slave woman was thrust forward "I do so swear," she said in a tiny voice

"Louder," Oshobi demanded

"I swear it’s true!"

The nobles were in the predictable uproar, but Oshobi ise enough that he didn’t call his , but someone put a hand over herher

"So you see, even if we believe that Kaede wasn’t incestuous in her sluttish trysts in our nation’s very heart, we know that she e null and void because she was already married--to the emperor’s brother!"