Page 99 of The King is Dead
“Everyone stand back, we need to make sure it’s secure.”
I went still again as every hand left me and there was a sense of sudden isolation. The room went quiet.
“Your Majesty, could you turn a slow circle so we might see every angle?”
Bemused, I did as she asked.
“Good, good. And… do you mind… dancing a little? Just so we can be sure?”
My face heated—I knew exactly why she was asking. But I cleared my throat and took a few rolling steps as I’d been taught in my teens, letting my hands drift in the air.
“Oh good! I think… I think we’re ready for you to see!”
The blindfold fell away, and I blinked away the blur. Slowly the women were revealed, staring at me, hands over their mouths, all clearly beaming behind their fingers.
“Look over here,” Keesa murmured, nudging my shoulder to turn me.
I turned my body and my head at the same time, finding the three paneled mirror now behind me… and what I saw in the reflection dropped my jaw.
I’d known since I was young that when I turned thirty I would dance the night fire, either to call a mate, or to claim my mate and to encourage those who followed me to know their worth as well.
Because that was the heart of the night ritual—a woman standing before the ruling class and claiming her value.Demonstratingit. If she was unmarried, she let the men see what they had to earn if they presumed to court her. And if she was already married, her husband celebrated her and claimed her before all eyes.
It was rare, these days, for a noblewoman to wait until her thirtieth to marry. But I had dragged my feet whenever the issue of succession was raised. Losing my parents in my early twenties and taking the crown when we had expected decades more under their rule had given me a few years respite—our people had to be secure and I had to know what it was to rule before I could effectively identify the man to rule them for me. The stronger I was as a Queen, the stronger my King would be.
But in recent years, it had become a niggling question at Court, and my Advisors had pushed for a decision.
I’d decided on Turo because I trusted him, and knew he’d rule with integrity. He would make the succession simple because he was already known and trusted by the people as well. It had been an easy decision politically, though far more difficult personally.
I hadn’t beenexcitedto dance the night ritual for him, but I had hoped it might help awaken that side of myself that had always seemed so… numb.
Now… as I stared at what Keesa had made for me, I swallowed hard, my mind flashing on Melek and that fire he ignited in my blood.
My body had been wrapped in wide bands of sleek, black leather that must have been made from kidskin because it was so soft it felt like silk.
A wide band covered my breasts, pressing them high, then angled across my body to wrap my hips and cover the apex of my thighs. Yet, that dark shape was only implied, because my body had been draped in a single, long, semi-sheer fabric, so light it caught the air of even a breath. Keesa had fashioned a wide, flat neckline that ran from the point of one shoulder to the other, hugging my collarbones, then the fabric simply fell to my ankles at front and back. But that leather emerged from the gap at the side, slipping over my hip, and wrapping over the fabric, across my belly and under my breasts. The firm but flexible leather hugged the soft fabric to my skin, creating a loose, billowing curtain that covered me modestly, but hinted daringly of my skin and the very little covering me underneath.
When I turned in the mirror, the fabric rippled softly against my belly and thighs. The long slits at the sides were held together around my ribs, but openings above and below fluttered, suggesting that with the right movement I would be completely bare.
And yet, I wasn’t.
The dark bands of leather under the fabric covered my sacred places completely… and yet hugged them so perfectly, it left no room for imagination.
My form was lined in black, draped in blood red, teasing the eye. Yet the only visible skin was the strip left open at the sides of my thighs and waist.
“I don’t know how you did this,” I breathed. “But…thank you.”
The women laughed and clapped, joy bursting out of them like they’d been holding their collective breaths.
I turned, staring at myself in the mirror’s surface, a roiling conflict of emotions churning through me.
I would have given anything to stay here in this room, call Melek to me, andtormenthim with this…what?What was it? A dress? A nightgown? Underthings?
In my mind’s eye I could see his expression when he caught sight of me in this. See his big hands reaching for me, drawing lines along my skin, searching for the end of the leather to loosen it and free my body for his hands—
I swallowed hard and turned to Keesa. “It’s incredible. And I’mcovered.Thank you.”
Thisgownwas daring, yet hid more of me than most of the others I’d seen growing up.
