The morning of the wedding brought no relief from the heat, but the lower palace was a whirlwind of frantic, chaotic preparation. The Orontes valley baked beneath a merciless, cloudless sky, the sun beating down on the cracked masonry, the shattered siege towers, and the blood-soaked plains until the very air seemed to waver and distort. It had been weeks since the Vanguard had broken the great army of Kerbogha, weeks since they had gorged themselves on captured Seljuk grain and finally slept wi