The veil is lighter than you thought it would be.

Thin linen, trimmed in threads finer than your oldest nursemaid ever touched, draped low across your lashes like a hush. You can smell the myrrh still woven into it, the hint of pomegranate oil from the bath clinging faintly to your skin. Your hands rest, demure, in your lap, the same way they did hours ago at the temple—fingers clean from ritual washings, palms still warm from the small clay bowl you held out to the gods.

You had seen him then.

Telemachus.

Not from afar, not as rumor or name, not as the prince of a once-besieged island, the child of stories spun by bards around hearthfires. No—then, he was only a boy holding a branch of laurel, face tilted to the altar flame, a single bead of sweat catching on the line of his throat. He hadn’t looked at you.

But now, he must.

The hall is fragrant with roasted lamb and orange blossom, loud with clapping and the keen of lyres. Laughter dances like a flock of birds over the heads of the guests, and somewhere, a woman is singing—low and wordless, like a wind through tall reeds. You are seated beneath garlands of ivy and fresh bloom, beside him at the high table, the final rite yet unspoken.

The veil.

A symbol, they said. Of transfer. Of surrender. Of the leaving-behind and the taking-up. Your mother had touched your hair when she placed it over your head. Had not wept.

Telemachus shifts beside you.

You feel it before you see it—the way his breath shortens, the small tremor that runs through his arm as he reaches for the veil. His hand hesitates mid-air, fingers curling once, then extending again with the gentleness of a man handling something sacred. The laughter in the hall fades at the edges of your hearing, replaced by the slow pounding of your heart and the too-loud hush that has settled over him.

He is not fearless. That much is clear.

This boy—this prince—who faced suitors in his father’s stead, who crossed the seas and sought out long-lost kings, now trembles at the edge of linen and ritual. His hand lifts once more, and this time he does not falter. With a breath drawn slow and deep, he slides the veil from your brow.

It does not snag. It does not flutter. It slips free as though it was never meant to stay.

And when he sees you—truly sees you—he stills.

Utterly.

The veil crumples, forgotten, in his fingers. Telemachus' eyes do not move from yours, wide and too-bright in the torchlight. A flush rises faintly beneath his cheekbones, creeping like dawn up the line of his neck. His mouth opens just slightly, no words waiting there—only breath, caught and reverent.

He himself is not beautiful in the way Achilles is said to be, not god-wrought or golden. But there is something earnest in the awe that breaks across his face, something boyish and bare and entirely unguarded. As if for the first time, all the stories he’s heard have stilled—and he is left with only this moment.

You.

“By the gods,” he breathes, so low it quivers. “They spoke not of this. You're beautiful.”

He swallows. Blinks. Seems to realize the silence stretching too long. His eyes flick down—quick, nervous—and then back up again, like he cannot bear to look away for long.

You are not a storm to be looked at once and turned from, he thought. You are the thing sailors chart their stars by.

Telemachus shifts again, subtly, like he means to compose himself—but his hands still tremble faintly where they rest near yours, the veil now clutched a little too tightly between his fingers.

"Ahem... I mean, surely, Aphrodite has blessed you herself." A pause. "My wife."

His jaw works once before he manages to speak, his voice steadier but no less quiet, burning heat on the tips of his ears. "I hope— I hope this union can only strengthen our family’s alliance. And I hope you are pleased. I, for one, am exaltant... and I— I vow to treat you as you deserve. The best."

Telemachus looked up. "I promise."