Page 73 of Grave Flowers
“It’s your wedding gown, Your Highness. The sewists wish to fit it for you. Prince Lambert put it on your agenda for the day.”
“Very well.” I fought off a shudder. Father would be enraged at Prince Lambert’s actions. I hoped he wouldn’t think I was responsible. No matter what, he wouldn’t agree to Prince Lambert’s terms, and neither would our people. Would Prince Lambert resort to violence? If he did, Radix would rise to meet him, but I knew the calculus: Thesuperior Acusan military would quickly crush us. If Father at all sensed I was complicit with Prince Lambert, I wouldn’t be alive to see it.
“I’ll let them in, but, Your Highness …”
“Yes?”
“Would you like me to draw some water first?”
Confused, I glanced at my reflection in one of the wall-hanging mirrors. I hardly recognized myself. My face was so sickly white that it was almost blue. Blood crusted the corner of my mouth from when I’d struck my face against the wall. I’d been so distraught over Yorick that I hadn’t wiped it off. Prince Lambert thought I was mad—and it might serve me to let him continue thinking so. If he thought things were just as he assumed, it would make him less fixated upon me as I figured out what to tell Father and how to still save Inessa.
“Whatever for?” I asked Evi. Her eyes widened and she nodded, though uncertain. Hopefully, she’d tell Decima and Sindony, and they’d take the information straight to Prince Lambert. “Let them in.”
The sewists bustled into the dressing area. They were old women with white hair and long gnarled fingers. Two servants followed behind them, carefully holding a mannequin in what I could only presume was my wedding gown. Several more trailed along and held the train aloft. The leafy, fresh scent of silk filled the room. They set it down with care.
“I’m Gwenllian, Your Highness,” the head sewist said. Her own gown was a masterful display of embroidery. Every inch featured a different technique or pattern, captured in hues of wine, crimson, and burgundy against gold silk. It reflected in her white hair, giving it a red sheen. She frowned. “It’s much too dark in here. Whatever is this, a cave?” She snapped her fingers at one of the servants to pull back the drapes. As I always requested, they had been drawn, and only a few candle flames fluttered against the shadows.
“I like it that way,” I said, regarding them as another set of people who might gossip about my eccentricity to Prince Lambert.
Gwenllian was undeterred. A sewing needle was suddenly in her fingers, and she lifted it high. The servants fell quiet, as though she held a holy relic. “Art requires light, as does beauty,” she declared. “Let it in!”
The servants nodded enthusiastically and spread out, pulling the curtains back. My girls and I squinted as light streamed into the chambers. It cast stars onto the brass fixtures and made Gwenllian’s dress shimmer. She smiled at herself in one of my mirrors and then turned to me. “Now, time for your fitting.”
I stared at the wedding gown, half with awe, half with wariness. It was a dreamy concoction, so ethereal and airy that I wouldn’t be surprised if it started floating. This was what I’d wear to wed Aeric, the garment meant to symbolize a new beginning, even though death would follow soon after. Slowly, I reached out to touch it, as though its beauty might transport me away from everything.
“Your Highness!” Gwenllian gasped, throwing herself between me and the gown. “If you don’t mind—I’m not certain how things are done in Radix—but please! This dress is an expression of the faith and requires reverence. Only us sewists in our later years have been allowed to touch it, and we say prayers over it to the Daughter every day before we begin. Once a sewing needle has been used on it, it is bent so it may never be used on any other gown.”
“I appreciate the care … but if I’m not supposed to touch it, how shall I try it on?”
“Simply stay where you are,” Gwenllian said with annoyance, as though it were a hindrance to her that I, the bride, was part of the equation. “We will dress you.”
In short order, my dressing gown was whisked away. The blood at my mouth was wiped lest I sully the silk, and I was put into a shift and laced into a corset. A hoop skirt dropped over my head and settled at my waist. Intriguingly, it didn’t close in front, leaving my legs exposed. Intricate lace stockings were pulled up to my thighs and then, finally, the gown was taken off the form and carefully lowered onto my body.
I almost didn’t recognize myself as I stared into the mirror. The dress had a scoop neckline that rose up at the sides. Delicate lace trimmed it, peeking up like tender new sprouts. Lace cut away at my thighs, while a translucent overlay hung down to my toes, showing the outline of my legs. Coils of elaborately embroidered cords cupped my shoulders and crawled upward to encircle my neck, creating a choker while leaving my chest exposed. Gwenllian buttoned it in place. The choker tightened. My scar burned, and I swallowed, thinking of Father’s drapery cord and the fact it was traveling in his pocket with him toward Acus.
Suddenly, there was a wisp behind my head. I started, thinking it was Inessa. Instead, a veil draped over me, as delicate as mist. It covered my face and waterfalled behind me. Words were embroidered in script across the part that trailed past the skirt.
Marriage Eternal,it said. I wondered if the term applied once you murdered your husband. Gwenllian’s wizened hands grasped the veil to lift it off my face. It tipped back, and I raised my gaze.
Black holes filled Gwenllian’s face where her eyeballs should be, and her face shriveled and twisted like a cloth being violently wrung.
I stepped back, horror choking me. Everyone around me kept chatting. Before me, the figure of Gwenllian continued to transform, slowly assuming Inessa’s features.
“Your Highness, please stand still. You’re wrinkling the gown.”
I glanced to the side.
Gwenllian was there, healthy and whole.
I dared to look back. Inessa stood before me in a state I’d never seen. Her eyeballs were gone, and her hands clawed forward. Her nose was missing as well. Only empty pockets where eyeballs and nostrils would be remained. Black sludge oozed from every orifice, dripping out of her ears, mouth, eyes, and nose sockets. Blindly, she reached out, groping through emptiness. I couldn’t help it. I grabbed both her hands, stabilizing her. Around me, surprised murmurs ran through the room. I imagined I looked strange, holding on to nothing, but I didn’t care. Ihad to help her. Immediately, pain riddled my scar, turning it into an agonizing ribbon of fire.
Through the sludge on her face, Inessa’s mouth lifted in a smile of recognition. Slowly, she blinked furiously, and her eyeballs rolled up into place, as though they’d been lurking just below the sockets. Her nose, though, didn’t return. She was becoming worse. Much worse.
Focusing on me, gratitude filled her gaze, apparent even through the grotesque sludge. Immediately, questions filled me. What was her plan? Why did she hide the fact she could travel at will from me? Another burning desire followed. The desire to tell her everything, from Prince Lambert’s forced marriage proposal to Yorick. Despite everything, she was the only one I could talk to plainly, just like a true sister.
“I wore it best,” she said, voice so gritty and raw that I could hardly understand her.
“What?”
