Page 37 of Her Dark Reflection

Leela also had a sharp ear for gossip and quickly earned herself a tidy sum by bringing me all sorts of stories, including whatever she heard about me. And just as I requested, she spared me nothing.

‘You’re the talk of the court, ma’am,’ she said one morning as she was arranging my hair. ‘It seems all the ladies are sizing you up. Their maids are always whispering about you.’

‘And what assessments have they made? I assume they all hate me.’

‘Oh, they loathe you.’ There was no inflection in her tone. This was how she delivered all her gossip, like a report on rainfall. ‘They say you’re slime from the bottom of the Trough. That you’re uncouth and the king will be done with you in a month, though they admit that you’ve a talented seamstress.’

I arched an eyebrow in the mirror. ‘They admit that, do they?’

A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. ‘Does my lack of modesty displease you, ma’am?’

I laughed. ‘Honesty over modesty, always. Besides, the praise is well earned. So, they think I’m scum and no great threat to them.’

The eyes of her reflection met mine. ‘Won’t it be grand to prove them wrong?’

Aside from my worries about Senafae, I rather enjoyed being the king’s mistress. The days swam past in a haze of late mornings, sumptuous meals, dress fittings, and visits from Linus. I was granted a title along with my new suite, and suddenly I was being referred to asLadyRhiandra Beaufort. It was a title without lands attached, which was likely how Linus was able to grant it to me based on the forged papers bearing my false name, but it was a title, nonetheless. He was eager to give meeverythingI asked for and plied me with a hoard of exotic and expensive gifts. Sugared fruits from Creatia, perfume and fine silks from the across the Capricious Sea, enchanted face creams that promised eternal youth, though of course I didn’t touch the creams.

With the new title cameinvitations.Hawking, high tea, art reveals, musical soirees—the ladies of the court invited me to all sorts of events, but they hardly spoke to me beyond superficial pleasantries and the polite inquiries into my health. Once they’d completed this duty, they would retreat behind their fans to whisper and shoot narrow-eyed glares. But I could wear their scorn. After all, I’d been invited. It was enough to know I was in so powerful a position that they couldn’t afford to snub me.

There was one invitation I dreaded above all others and as the moon cycle ended, I tried to fathom a reason to be excused from attending. But it was no good. As the king’s mistress, I was suddenly visible. People would notice if I didn’t appear at the Burnings, and it would raise some uncomfortable questions that I couldn’t afford to have anyone asking.

The whole court had been dumped in the square by a procession of carriages ferrying courtiers from the palace to the gates. The only person I knew of who wasn’t in attendance was Senafae. I had pleaded with her to come with me, and she had responded with cynical laughter.

You wanted to be mistress. Wear your consequences.

I seethed about that as I waited in the square with the rest of the courtiers. I knew what she was going through was affecting her in a way I couldn’t truly understand, but there was no need to take it out on me. After all, I’d done the best I could for her. She was comfortable and cared for, living in the palace with a reasonable wage for doing very little. She had a lot to be thankful for. And privileges could be taken away as easily as they’d been given.

The wind tore at me with an energy fierce and bitter. All around me, cheeks were wind-bitten and hair flew loose and tangled as it escaped from beneath hats and wigs. I rubbed my hands together, cold even in my kidskin gloves, and eyed the pyres with trepidation. There were six of them spread across the square, each standing stark and sombre in the shifting grey light, spectres of death looming before us. The anonymity of each pyre taunted me. Though I knew I hadn’t been discovered, hadn’t been tried before a court and sentenced, I couldn’t rid myself of the squirming fear that one of them was meant for me.

The thought made me queasy with terror.

I tried to focus on my surroundings instead of picturing the heat and fury of the flames that were to come, craning my neck to peer beyond the soldiers that ringed the courtiers to separate the jostling crowds of city folk beyond. Even here there was an obvious split between commoners and courtiers. We stood palace-side, before the walls and the gates, facing the crowds who fought for standing space on the city side of the square. And between us, space, soldiers, pyres, and the heads of the three great institutions of Brimordia’s governance on a raised wooden platform: the Grand Paptich, the Grand Weaver, and King Linus.

Perhaps I should have been most interested in watching my lover so that any eyes on me would see a girl besotted and report as much back to Linus and anyone else with an interest in my intentions at court. But I kept being drawn by the crowd. I’d been separated from the rabble of Lee Helse for more than a month now, had been swathed in the luxury of the palace, in three hearty meals a day, a warm room, and a soft bed. Here I stood in furs and layers of fine cloth to keep out the cold, but being outside now reminded me what it was like to be on the other side of that line of soldiers.

Directly opposite me, a gaunt, dirty boy clutched the hands of his bony mother, whose clothes were grey and thin with wear. A man with a back so stooped he was bent almost double held out a pleading palm, and a youth with skin still stained from coal dust frowned at the gathered courtiers with an expression that I might have read as hatred if I’d been standing any closer. A cluster of street children shivered together as they whined at a soldier for food or coin, but the soldier looked on impassively. With the merchant class citizens watching from nearby balconies and the gentry huddled together around me, the sight of Lee Helse’s poor undiluted by its rich was unsettling. As I watched the crowd, I picked out a line of thick, twisted rope just behind the feet of the soldiers, and the sight unnerved me. Surely, for the king to have ordered a barrier woven, he must be expecting trouble. But he hadn’t said as much to me. What else was he keeping from me?

If the Grand Paptich hadn’t raised his arms, I wouldn’t have known the proceedings had begun. The wind whipped his words away, even with a circlet of enchanted weave amplifying his voice. The crowd began to stir as a wagon entered the square and the soldiers closed the ring behind it. From the wagon, six figures were led forth in heavy chains to stand before the platform for their sentencing. As was the case every moon cycle, the sentencing was only a formality. Once convicted of unsanctioned magic use, there was only one outcome. The waiting pyres could attest to that.

I scanned the bowed heads of the prisoners, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone I recognised. I’d been lucky so far in that no one I knew had wound up on a pyre, but with Cotus dealing swoon and snatching enchanted plant life from the Yawn, it was only a matter of time before someone from the Winking Nymphfound their way into this square.

There were four women and two men, and none of them seemed familiar, but my attention was caught by the tattered robes of the youngest man. He looked maybe fourteen or fifteen, and the robes, while dirty and torn now from what might have been months of imprisonment, were clearly the robes of a druthi initiate. Stupid boy. What had he been doing, spilling the secrets of the guild when he had such a comfortable future laid out for him? He could have completed his training and worked at weaving enchantment for sale, or he could have gone into the employ of some rich estate. Either way, he would have been well paid, well fed, respected, and feared. Now, his life would end in flames. It was an uncomfortable reminder: If they would do that to one of their own, what would they do to me if I was ever caught?

The Grand Paptich must have finished his sentencing, for the prisoners were led or dragged towards their pyres. I felt as though the air had grown thin, as though there wasn’t enough of it to feed my body as I rolled my shoulders back and tried to suck in a big lungful. The boy was weeping. I could see his shoulders shaking as his knees buckled, and the soldiers had to drag him across the cobblestones. They carried and dragged him up the steps of the pyre, where he was held firm against the central post as an executioner chained his shackles in place.

The smell of smoke undid me. I couldn’t stay and watch it.

I pushed through the crowd of courtiers, gasping for air, and trying to find a place to breathe. Expressions of shock and disapproval blurred past me as my elbows and hands met the bodies of strangers, but I ignored them all as I barrelled through. The square was empty of anything except damn people, and with the crowd and the soldiers cutting off entry to the shadowy alleys beyond, there was nowhere to go.

I caught sight of a row of shapes slumbering against the palace wall and scampered towards them. Darting around a snorting and stomping horse, I threw myself to the ground behind one of the carriages that had carried members of the court to the square. Secure from the eyes of the crowd, I pressed my back against the cold stone of the palace wall and hugged my knees to my chest as I tried to suck air into my lungs.

Wind rushed around me, rattling the carriage and ripping any unendurable sounds and smells away to the east. It was a wonder I heard the quiet voice that said, ‘I hate the Burnings, too. But Father always insists I come. He wants me to be seen being supportive.’

I blinked away the spots of darkness that had been consuming my vision until I could see that I wasn’t the only one hiding here. Princess Gwinellyn mirrored my posture with her arms around her legs, and her pale skin looked grey.

‘Funny,’ I said, ‘that’s exactly what he said to me.’

She smiled faintly. ‘I know it’s important and keeps everyone safe from bad magic, but I just wish…’ Her voice trailed off as the wind slackened and wisps of screams reached us. Her face shut down, her eyes glazed over, and I thought she might be sick. On instinct, I grabbed her hand.

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