Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Y ou look dazzling. All the stars in the sky will swoon over you this evening,” Jacinda gushed as she patted down the folds of my bright blue gown.
She was a short girl with dark curling hair that clung to her high cheekbones.
Her eyes were always wide and made her resemble a rabbit at the end of a hunter's arrow, something which I could admit to wishing she was from time to time when she got too enthusiastic with her constant praise. She hadn’t been working in the palace all that long, but her keen eye for detail had seen her climbing the ranks until she was placed at my side.
“No. Blue washes me out,” I stated, getting a little thrill of defiance from the simple act of making my own choice in a gown.
But it was all I really had to fight back with sometimes, and this small taste of independence made me feel a little better about my lot in life.
“But it's my favourite colour, and Magdor hates it on me.
And as I'm dining with her tonight, I thought it was a good opportunity to irk her.”
Jacinda gawped at me, frozen. She couldn't deny my words because I was the princess and so everything I said simply had to be true.
But if she didn't deny it, she was essentially confirming what I had said and agreeing that it washed me out, which would mean insulting me.
Not to mention the implied idea that she was taking part in a plan to anger the empress.
I watched her grapple with her dilemma for several seconds before taking pity on her and placing a hand on her arm.
“Relax, Jacinda. You don't have to shower me in compliments all the time.
It's really tiring.” I hoped she might take that on board this time, but I doubted it.
The girl was like a compliment farm, always growing brand new compliment vegetables to shove down my throat and choke me with. It was exhausting.
I turned away from my overly zealous maid to face Zira with a grin.
My favourite attendant, who was more of a friend to me than anyone in the kingdom.
Her eyes were penetratingly dark and her hair was pulled up into its usual bun with a few inky coils trailing free around the deep brown skin of her neck.
“I told you about the compliments,” Zira said airily to Jacinda who bowed her head.
“It is hard when she is so magnanimous,” Jacinda whispered.
“Was that another compliment?” I mused and Jacinda bowed her head lower as Zira and I laughed.
“Apologies, Your Highness. Send me to the yard to have me whipped, or tie me to the stocks in the public square, strip me bare and have the townsfolk throw rotten fruit at my unworthy flesh. Then maybe I will learn,” Jacinda gushed, and I moved before her with a pang of pity in my chest, sliding a hand under her chin and lifting it until she met my gaze.
“I’d never do that,” I promised. “I just want you to be comfortable around me. You don’t have to act as if rainbows come out of my rear end every time I use the latrine.”
Zira cracked a laugh and Jacinda bit her lip to hold one back, but my other attendant moved forward and tugged her lip free of her teeth.
“Laugh if you want to laugh,” she encouraged and Jacinda let out a small giggle, covering her hand with her mouth, her eyes fixing on Zira as I smiled in relief.
“Is it just you and Magdor tonight?” Zira asked me and I nodded, releasing a heavy sigh.
She had a knack for asking questions which pointed to her less than complimentary feelings about the empress while never actually insulting her.
It was quite impressive really and whenever the two of us were alone, she let loose a little more, especially whenever she managed to get her hands on some Cartlanna wine from the kitchens for us to drink.
We had rare opportunities for that, but the few times we had drunk together, we’d always ended up in fits of laughter doing impressions of the Maggot.
Zira was a year older than me and had been a daughter of one of the kitchen maids, allowed to play on the grounds with me when I was younger.
That was back when Father hadn’t had his mind addled by his new wife, before Magdor showed up and ensured no children were allowed on the grounds at all anymore.
So when Zira had gotten a job working at the palace when she was sixteen, I’d literally cried with joy at seeing her again.
I’d spent years without her in my life and I’d missed her terribly.
“She insisted on it. She’s probably planning to try and convince me of how great a match Kahn and I would be. But I’d rather cut all of my fingers off and eat them than marry her beastly son.” I balled my hands into fists and Zira frowned at my furious expression, sadness entering her eyes.
“You might not have a choice if the gargoyle wins the pageant,” Zira pointed out and Jacinda slapped a hand to her mouth in shock.
“It’s okay, Jacinda. He is a gargoyle, is he not?
” I said mischievously and Jacinda’s eyes darted to Zira, looking for reassurance as I left her floundering for an answer to that.
“Or perhaps a boiled turnip given legs?” I offered and Jacinda’s face starting turning red, the poor girl torn on how to respond to me insulting the empress’s son.
Jacinda opened and closed her mouth then a small voice left her. “He is rather…root vegetable-like.”
I snorted in surprise, gripping her arm. “Yes, he is.”
“I’ve always thought his nose looks like a half-dead chipmunk taped to his face,” she whispered and I bounced on my toes as I looked to Zira who was watching Jacinda with her head cocked to one side and a surprised grin on her lips.
“Sort of like this.” Jacinda cramped up her arms by her head and splayed her hands out while plastering a bewildered expression on her face.
It made zero sense but was funny as hell and the three of us fell apart as we each took it in turns to act out what we thought his nose looked like.
“I wish you didn’t have to marry him,” Zira said at last and instant regret crossed her features as my face fell at her words, my heart spiralling down into the base of my stomach.
She was right. When it came down to it, I had no choice at all.
I would be matched with whoever happened to win the damn contest, and I doubted there would be anyone among the competitors able to take Kahn on and win.
The man was a monster given Fae flesh. All of his Affinities made him perfectly suited for fighting and killing.
I would be an idiot to think anyone could beat him, but I’d rather be a fool than accept the gruesome fate of becoming his bride.
I wasn’t even going to consider what the alternative suitors might be like, only that they had to be better than him.
“I'll talk to Father again. Maybe he'll give me some say in this at least,” I said hopefully, though it hadn’t worked out the last time I’d spoken to him, so I had no real reason to think it might this time.
Still, I needed to hold onto threads of hope in life, or else I would fall into despair.
So I would try again. And again. Until somehow, something I did made a difference.
She nodded, but her eyes dimmed. We both knew the emperor was beyond granting me any requests of late unless it was for more pretty clothes or jewellery.
“It’s worth a shot,” she said weakly and I nodded, squeezing her hand for a moment before pulling down my veil and heading to the door.
I hated the thing, I could see out, but no one could see in.
It was woven from Ageshian silk, supposedly enchanted by a wood sprite and so rare it was worth a thousand kurus an inch.
But it was just an expensive cage, sewn to keep me locked away from the world and make me other .
I was both above all the rest of the Fae in the kingdom and less than all of them, because I couldn’t claim even the simplest of rights like showing my face or choosing where I went.
Sometimes I felt like I was worth nothing at all to anyone.
A figurehead hosting a womb which was required to produce a male heir for the emperor’s line of succession and nothing more.
Anything that went beyond that purpose held no value to anyone but me, and that was equally as depressing to know as it was heart-breaking to accept.
I had everything and nothing at once. And all I really wanted was to be seen.
I recalled Cassius Lazar’s eyes on me and the way time had seemed to still, like a small offering from a cruel god, letting me know how good it could feel to be truly present.
But then they had stolen it all away and Cassius’s fate had been sealed, proving my lack of power in this place.
It still cut me to ribbons whenever I thought of him.
Two guards awaited me outside my quarters, bowing low before escorting me down the hallways.
It was suffocating. I could barely walk two metres outside my rooms without guards hounding around after me.
But did they say a single thing to me? Not a peep.
I was above conversation with them whether I liked it or not and I got as little say in that fact as I did in my face being shrouded by the cloying fabric of the veil.
I wondered if Cassius was dead already or if he was being tortured in the royal dungeon. It made me sick, and despite trying to get information from Magdor about whether he was still breathing or not, she’d simply dismissed any attempt I made to discuss his freedom.
I didn’t see why the law was above me when it was my face it was about.
I didn’t give a damn that he’d seen me, in fact, it was often all I could think about.
His eyes on my bare flesh, looking at me in a way no one had ever looked at me before, with this intense kind of need that I didn’t understand but really, really wanted to.