Page 17 of Grave Flowers
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dark hair up close,” she mused, winding my locks up. I could understand. Acusan hair, bleached by the sun, tended to be blond or light brown.
“My mother was Fely,” I said.
“Oh, like the Brugens!” she said brightly, referencing another small population that was much more widespread than Felys and scattered in pockets across the kingdoms. Rigby had been a Brugen from Pingere. Father overlooked that due to his tremendous skill as a dance master. He was the only Brugen I’d personally known, but I forgot it the first moment he struck my shoulder. After that, I’d only seen him in terms of dance steps and ducking around his stick.
“Not Brugen,” I corrected. “Fely.”
“Certainly,” she replied without any note of certainty in her voice.
I turned back to the mirror and met my own gaze in the reflection, considering myself through an outsider’s eyes for the first time. To me, Brugens and Felys were as different as lost souls and moonmirrors. Both grave flowers but not the same.
Because I was the princess of Radix, few dared to comment on my appearance, and if they did, it was only to praise it. But now I evaluated my looks anew, wondering how Sindony and everyone else in Acus might see me. Fely features were distinct: flat cheekbones set high in a round face, flatter noses in alignment with the cheekbones, dark hair that reflected light like silk but slipped free from any pins. Radixan features were distinct as well: papery skin with blue veins, thinly pointed features reminiscent of rodents, pale gray or blue eyes from lack of sun exposure. Mother lived from beyond the grave in myface, where her Fely countenance mixed with Father’s Radixan one, the two existing in silent accord.
Meeting Sindony’s gaze in the mirror, I almost began to tell her about the Felys, but I caught myself. It would be lost on her, and for all I knew, she might share Queen Gertrude’s sentiments. I remained silent as she twisted my hair into a passable style and fixed it in place with an embroidered velvet headband. I adjusted it.
“The party isn’t for another hour,” Sindony said. “Would you like music while you wait? A harpist or a lute player, perhaps? Someone to read poetry or tell jokes?”
“I think I’ll rest in solitude,” I said. “You girls may go and take the trunk. Come back at the party hour.”
The girls hardly contained their glee while curtsying. Delightedly chattering, they descended on the heavy trunk and carried it off together like a brigade of ants with a hunk of bread twice their size. I watched with amusement and a bit of curiosity. They were giggly, young, and unversed in politics. Not one had batted an eye at my sudden switch from severity in firing Decima to kindness in offering them the trunk. They reeked of Acus. Of girls raised in safety and fresh air.
Once the door closed, I let out a sharp, panicked breath. I went into the room with the bathtub and twisted the knob connected to the faucet, just a bit. Beads of water struck the copper tub in a pattering succession. Water always dripped somewhere in the Radix palace, whether it was from pipes in the walls, cracks in the ceiling, or cornices jutting out around the windows. It was the palace’s blood, running weak and clear. Even with the water dripping into the tub, I couldn’t find ease. Light radiated from the candles. I blew out all but the one in the very farthest room. Dimness grew, the deep pockets of the rooms thickening in bands.
Abruptly, I sat on the chair where Sindony had done my hair. Even with the dripping water, drawn shades, and the single candle, I was unnerved. Radix had formed me to itself. It had taken things likesunshine and dresses not predicated on hiding weapons and turned them into threats. I missed Radix. I missed the salt, the decay—even its unpredictability and chaos.
I had to stay strong enough for only a month. Then I could go home.
Chapter
SIX
While the party started at the eighth night hour, I didn’t leave my quarters with my girls until the ninth hour, at my demand. I was entering a foreign court. I wished to prove I moved according to my own timeline while simultaneously making a dramatic appearance.
The ballroom had a main entrance for the guests and another exclusively for the royals, which was accessed by an interior balcony and had a set of stairs descending to the dance floor. I paused, staring down into the party.
Overwhelm beset me. The ballroom was huge. Fabric panels covered the walls in shimmering watery silk. Life-size glass figurines of dancers were suspended on ribbons from the ceiling. They were attired in translucent gowns colored by soft golds, the hand-cut edges so thin that they seemed to disappear.
Hundreds of people filled the ballroom. The party was at a fever pitch. Raucous laughter reverberated off the walls. Every hand clutcheda goblet of bright red wine, and couples danced either too fast or too slow for the music, though no one seemed to care.
Two chairs sat on a raised dais against the wall.
One chair was for Aeric, and the other was for me.
Both were empty.
“His Royal Highness. Where is he?” I asked Sindony.
She peered over my shoulder into the party and pointed. “Where those people are gathered.”
My eyes widened. Aeric, my soon-to-be betrothed and the reigning monarch of Minima’s most prosperous kingdom, looked like a wine-soaked cad. Not only did he hold a nearly drained goblet in one hand, but he clutched an entire bottle of wine in the other. It was also almost empty, indicated by his dramatic devastation as he tried to pour it directly into his mouth, bypassing the goblet altogether. His sleeveless shirt was untucked … and unbuttoned. It flapped open around him, revealing his torso. And, by the Family, what was that on his chest, beneath his pendant? A word was scrawled across it. I squinted and nearly gasped.
King.
It was written across Aeric’s chest in the way a title is written across a book. Never in my life had I anticipated such a thing. Half a dozen partiers gathered around him, goading him on and cheering and raising their goblets alongside him.
Confusion filled me, quickly followed by revulsion. Aeric didn’t bother to pretend at distress over Inessa’s death, which proved how little he thought of her and our country. Enemies surrounded him, first among them his own mother and uncle. His father had died under suspicious circumstances. He was on the cusp of being formally coronated—and here he was, drunk. The only thing to indicate he was the ruling monarch was the word smeared on his chest.
Shaking my head, I relieved my girls and stepped farther out onto the balcony. A royal announcer leaned against the railing, watching themerriment. When he saw me, he quickly straightened and pounded his rod on the floor. The party was much too loud, and no one heard him over the music and frivolity. I didn’t wait for a second attempt.
