Chapter 4
Four
All of Tashir gathers for Rowenna’s burial two days later.
Instead of fruit stands and vegetable carts, High Street teems with white-clad mourners from the farthest planting fields all the way to the courtyard of the hillock palace.
The grieving faces of our people are painted a myriad of colors—beet red, saffron yellow, and deepest blackberry—as is customary when there’s a death in the royal family.
Each gardener makes a pulp of their finest produce and streaks their face with color, which runs off their chin and drips onto their spotless garments throughout the funeral.
Tears made of the earth, returning to the earth.
Most faces are painted orange with barberry, because it is widely known as Ro’s favorite color. Lewis even had the nerve to show up outside my bedroom window this morning clutching a bowl of thick orange paste.
“I-I think Rowenna would want us to paint each other,” he said through sniffles. As if he’d meant anything to her. “Rowenna always looked so lovely in orange…” he continued, gazing into the bowl as if he could see her reflection in the dye.
Without a word, I rotated the circular window and slammed it shut.
Then I crossed my chamber to the vanity and dipped my fingers into the mortar bowl of crushed bagrava I’d illegally harvested before sunrise.
The juice is a deep purple-red, like blood.
Actual blood, not the garish red of beetroot like the stories would have you believe.
The bagrava pulp was even warm like blood as I painted thin vertical stripes down my face.
Everyone would be wearing orange in Ro’s honor, which is why it would mean nothing.
No one else would be bold enough, or reckless enough, to wear bagrava purple.
Every tiny seed, and even the rind of the fruit, was allocated either for the Vanzadorians’ tribute or our fields, and still there was never close to enough—let alone extra to use as face paint.
Which was precisely why I chose it.
Bagrava may have been the most precious commodity to the rest of them, but Rowenna would always be the most precious to me.
That’s why I let the lifeblood of Soren’s power drip down my face—to show him how little I respected them, how easily I saw through their lies.
And to show Rowenna I was good on my word.
I would do everything in my power to ruin them and avenge her.
“I-Indira! Is th-that—” Father stammers when I join him and Mother in the courtyard for the funeral procession.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t wish to know the answer to,” I breezily reply, which sends him into an even louder fit of dithering.
“What’s come over you? You’ve always been…”
Passive. Biddable. Weak.
No more.
Not now that I’m living for Rowenna too.
I channel her brash confidence as we march down High Street, holding my chin high and waving my bagrava-stained hands.
During Father Alonzo’s bland graveside liturgy, I shake my head so the dark juice flies from my cheeks and speckles the ground around King Soren and his son.
They haven’t taken their beady eyes off of me since I joined the procession.
My painted face is a relatively small defiance.
But there’s no denying it’s that: defiance.
A needling reminder they’re not fully in control, because they don’t have a clue what I might do next.
Obviously, I know better than to attack them outright like Haddesh, but there are other ways to unsettle and agitate them. Slow, calculated ways to poke them and retreat.
Prince Alaric stands opposite the grave from me, wearing the flashiest jacket I’ve seen yet—red velvet held together with pewter chains that crisscross his bare chest. It would be inappropriate for any occasion, let alone his wife’s funeral.
As Father Alonzo speaks, Alaric jabs his knuckles into his eyes to produce the appearance of tears, but they refuse to come because he isn’t sorry my sister is dead.
I’d wager our entire crop of bagrava he pushed Ro off that cliff.
It’s always the husband.
Alaric glances up, as if he can feel my gaze drilling into his skull. His eyes are stone gray, and his dark hair hangs in loose waves across his forehead, reminding me of the twisted innards of the voles that nibble on our crops. The ones that meet their end on the sharp edge of my shovel.
I narrow my eyes at him. I know what you did.
He stares back, not with defensiveness or outrage, but boredom. He’s so assured in his superiority—in Vanzador’s superiority—he doesn’t fear retaliation. He knows there’s nothing we can do.
I have the sudden urge to throw myself across the open grave and claw the demeaning expression off his face, but Mother grabs my wrist, sinking her fingernails into my skin. Proof she’s still in there somewhere, fighting the crushing winds of grief.
Father looks immediately to King Soren, more worried about egos and appearances than his own family’s pain.
Soren, for his part, notices none of it. He drums his fingers against his crossed arms and glares at the sun, as if willing it to hurry its arc across the sky.
Father Alonzo closes the services and invites us all to return to the hillock palace for the mourning feast. For the first time all day, Soren looks attentive. He even licks his lips.
“I hope he chokes on the honey-roasted squash,” I grumble as we trudge back to the palace behind the Vanzadorians, who are practically sprinting to reach the banquet.
Father holds out a stiff arm and stops me. “You cannot say such things. I know you’re grieving, but—”
“Didn’t you teach me to always tell the truth?” I fire back.
“I also taught you to use your head. Just cooperate and get through today.”
“Then what?” I snap. “We continue being the Vanzadorians’ slaves and pretend they didn’t murder Rowenna?”
“What other choice do we have? You know my hands are tied.”
Father looks to Mother for support, but she’s floated away again, back into her cocoon of grief. She stares blankly as we shuffle into the atrium under the hill, oblivious to the breathtaking decorations the servants arranged while we were at the burial.
Fairy lights weave through the flowering shrubberies, and vibrant blue wisteria dangles overhead like a canopy, filling the air with its heady perfume. The irrigation troughs have even been rerouted from the fields to create tinkling waterfalls and still reflecting pools.
It’s all so right…and so horrifically wrong. Rowenna deserves a celebration like this, but it should have been for her coronation. Or her wedding—to anyone other than Alaric Alaverdi. Not her funeral.
There’s also the glaring fact that we can’t afford any of this.
The panels of chiffon draped between each pillar were supposed to be saved for my wedding wrap someday.
And our people have only been permitted to bathe once a week for the better part of this year—the crops must always come first. But now a month’s worth of wash water is dribbling into a puddle for nothing but the Vanzadorians’ enjoyment.
Luxury is what Soren expects, so that’s what Father gives him. No matter the cost to the rest of us.
I snatch the nearest panel of chiffon and tear it down. “I don’t think your hands are truly tied, Father. I think they’re just trembling too hard to do anything useful.”
Father gapes at me and then the shred of fabric. “Stop this, Indira! I do not appreciate this…this…side of you.”
“Unfortunately, it’s all that’s left. The best parts of me are in the ground—with Rowenna.”
I toss the fabric in his face, turn on my heel, and march to the nearest banquet table.
It’s heaped high with fried squash blossoms, fresh pomegranate wine, and basil-encrusted cheese, all of it artfully arranged with flowers, herbs, and berries, creating a feast for the eyes that rivals the feast for the belly.
I scowl at it all, even as my mouth waters, because, once again, these are luxuries we can’t afford
The line of Tashiri mourners knows this, and they respectfully fill their plates, admiring the exquisiteness of the meal and remarking on the freshness of the beans and the sweetness of the tomatoes.
The Vanzadorians, on the other hand, dig into the spread like the wild boars that tromp through the woods and flatten our mushrooms. They take one bite of the sweet, speckled corn before tossing it to the ground and pour mead down their chins instead of into their mouths.
They chomp, slurp, and toast amongst themselves, as if this isn’t a somber occasion.
As if the rest of us aren’t present and deserve no acknowledgment for the feast.
Fury wavers at the edges of my vision like heat rising from a pot.
Rowenna told me all about the Vanzadorians’ disgusting food, and even more disgusting manners, in her letters.
She said their water tastes foul due to minerals and sediment, and they gnaw on massive slabs of overcooked, unseasoned meat that’s as bland and gray as their mountains.
reparation or pride in the presentation.
But they clearly aren’t struggling to enjoy themselves now.
One of the prince’s attendants lets out a juicy belch, garnering raucous cheers from his comrades.
“Couldn’t you have poisoned their dishes?” I mutter as Birdie bustles by with a tray of cheese-stuffed dates.
She snorts indignantly. “And lose my reputation as the finest cook in Tashir, not to mention my head?”
“You could have done it discreetly.”
“And then what? Watch the mountains crumble?” Birdie blows a lock of hair out of her sweaty face. “Be patient, love. The rockheads’ll be gone soon enough. I did cut the cantaloupe slightly larger than usual—due to running out of time—but if we have any manner of luck, one of them will choke.”
She bustles away with a dark chuckle, and I move among the tables, filling my plate with all of Ro’s favorites. Then I look for a place to sit.