Page 129 of House of Dusk
Yeneris didn’t know what to say. She wanted to stick around. Wanted to stand beside this glimmering creature to the end of her days.Careful what you wish for,she told herself. That end might well come today, if they failed.
“You’re just spoiled by all that poetry.” That was better. If they were teasing each other, if she could make Sinoe smile, she could pretend that there would be another day, and another, and another. That today was not so fraught with danger and disaster. That it might not radically alter everything in her life.
“Give it a chance, Yen. It might grow on you. Like me.” The trailing hem of her gown whispered across the floor as she padded over to take Yeneris’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Are you worried what your people will say? When you bring them the kore, but not me?”
“No.”
Sinoe squeezed her hand. “Will you be safe?”
“I doubt they’ll attack me. They’ll want to get the kore’s bones to safety.”
“But they’ll be angry.”
Yeneris shrugged. “I’ll tell them there were too many guards, that it wasn’t possible.”
Sinoe frowned, creasing the heavy white face paint. Yeneris smoothed her thumb across the crack without even thinking. Because it was only natural, now. “You’re going to ruin your makeup,” she said.
Sinoe huffed. “And wouldn’t that be a shame? The Fates don’t care what I look like. This is all for Father’s sake.” She shook her head. “I used to love getting dressed up, you know. Before—before my visions started. I used to sneak into my mother’s dressing room when she was preparing for feasts and watch her do her braids. She had the most beautiful hair. Red-gold, like copper.”
Her somber gaze had shifted to the window. Now it swung back to Yeneris. “Come here.” She tugged her toward the dressing table that was still littered with pots of face paint and brushes. “Turn round.”
Yeneris turned. Then sat, as Sinoe’s small hands pressed her down onto the stool. Fingers ran through her hair, pulling free the cord she used to tie it back into a neat ponytail.
“No, don’t move.” Sinoe slapped her lightly on the shoulder when she started to turn, to ask what she was doing. “Or I’ll have to start over. I’m not sure I remember the trick. Ah! There.”
Soft fingers bumped against Yeneris’s scalp as Sinoe separated out sections of hair, then began weaving them together. “Scarthians have all sorts of braids, you know. They mean different things. There’s one pattern you only ever useoncein your life, on the day you ride your first horse. They braid the horse’s tails and manes, too. Something to do with the endless cycle of life and death, I think. I’m not exactly sure. I wish...I wish I’d asked.”
Yeneris closed her eyes, and for one brief moment she was six again, Mother’s hands guiding her own, showing her how to weave the hyacinth stems into a garland to offer the kore.Just as your grandma taught me, Ris. And maybe one day you’ll teach your own daughter.
“You’ll see her again,” said Yeneris, and felt the echoes of those words. Would there be a daughter, someday? Yeneris could almost see her: a fierce little girl who would learn to ride horses and braid hair and swim in the azure sea and weave garlands of hyacinth. Fates. It was too dear a dream even to whisper.
Sinoe worked silently for a moment. Then she cleared her throat. “I hope so. And...and I hope that you’ll meet her too. Someday.”
A lump filled Yeneris’s throat. “Someday,” she agreed. “Everything will be different, after today.”
Sinoe’s fingers stilled. “Yes,” she breathed, like a prayer. “One way or another. Fates, you really do have lovely hair, Yen. I’m not sure why you insist on keeping it tied back all the time.”
“That would be because of the palace regulations.”
“Pff. Well, this is much better. See? Not bad, if I do say so myself.”
Yeneris stood, patted her head gingerly to feel Sinoe’s work. The princess had interwoven a dozen smaller braids into an intricate knot at the back of her skull, the tail ends hanging loose down her spine.
“Wait!” Sinoe cried, spinning away to root through one of the baskets of trinkets nearby. “One last touch. Aha!”
She turned back, something glimmering gold in her hand. It was the hair ornament her mother had sent. She bounced up onto the balls of her feet, sliding it into the knot. “There! Perfect.”
Yeneris coiled her fingers through the loose braids. “What does it mean?” she asked. “You said the braids meant different things. What do these mean?”
Sinoe cleared her throat. “It’s...a sort of blessing. Or an invocation to the spirits of the winds. To keep a loved one safe.” She fussed at a loose tendril. Yeneris reached for her hand, stilling it, and wished that she would never need to let go.
But it was time. They had a holy relict to save, and an apocalypse to avert.
• • •
Everything was going according to plan. It made Yeneris nervous. True, they had the voice of the Fates on their side, but still. It was too easy.
Eight soldiers had accompanied the royal palanquin from the palace, with Sinoe tucked inside, accompanying the corpse bride, now decked in gilt finery, her veil spangled thickly with golden disks. Yeneris wondered if it was deliberate, an acknowledgment by Hierax that his people might find the sight of a skeleton bride unwholesome, for all that they believed the myth of the Faithful Maiden.
