Chapter Five
When I wake up I’m pulled out of bed almost immediately by one of the palace aides, and dragged into a massive room with racks of clothing and a hairstyling station.
I’m no stranger to having my hair colored, cut and otherwise experimented on. After all, my mom and sister often had to have a guinea pig for new techniques they were trying to learn. But I find that I’m anxious about turning my hair over to someone I’ve never met.
Yet, it’s only hair, and on the long and vast list of concerns I have right now, my hair shouldn’t be one of them.
I can’t figure out my future husband. I have no idea what he intends to do with me, or what my life will look like once he assumes control of it.
Once he does? He already has.
I let that truth sit and turn over in my stomach. I don’t like it, but I can’t deny it.
“The king has tasked us with overseeing your look for the wedding celebration in the coming days.”
“Oh,” I say. I have no idea what the wedding celebration is.
If it’s the wedding itself, I actually don’t even know when we are supposed to be getting married.
It’s tempting to sit there, asking no questions.
Because I’m not entirely sure that I want the answers.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned from science it’s that inquiry is the only way to learn.
Trying, failing, finding answers you don’t like is all a part of reality.
And the truth doesn’t change just because you don’t know it. Facts truly don’t care about your feelings. And so if I want facts I can’t afford to care overmuch about my feelings either.
“And what exactly is the wedding celebration?”
The woman looks at me just as I feared she would.
She’s a very beautiful woman, and probably feels that she’s more sophisticated than I am.
Certainly prettier. She would be correct.
I wonder if she thinks that she would be a better candidate for queen than I am.
All of that is probably true. But still, I don’t like being the object of somebody’s petty jealousy when I don’t even especially want to be in the position that I’m in.
But then, perversely, that makes me want to lean into my ignorance here.
Because it will only make her think that I’m all the more unsuitable, and that will likely make her angry.
“There will be a party the day before the wedding. A time for all of the foreign dignitaries to come and celebrate your upcoming union.”
“When would that be?”
She stares at me. “You don’t know?”
“Yes. Our great and glorious king likes to keep me in suspense about everything. But most of all my fate.”
I can tell that she’s shocked that I would say something so dry about the man himself. But surely everybody who deals with him on a daily basis can see what a mercurial and difficult person he is.
Even if he isn’t a murderer, and I’m still withholding judgment on that, he doesn’t do anything to make his movements clear. To make his intentions transparent. If anything, he seems to delight in his own opacity.
“The wedding will be Sunday,” she says.
“I see. You must know then, that there was another bride intended for this wedding originally.”
She nods. “Yes. I was given an entirely different color profile, and I had to change everything. Also, your measurements are different.”
I laughed. “Oh, I know. The original bride was my sister.”
I can tell that she’s curious. Her curiosity is warring with her irritation at my existence. “My sister is in love with someone else,” I say. “I stepped in because I’m not in love with anyone.”
“And you get to be the queen.”
“I didn’t want to be queen either.”
This gags her. I’m amused. I can’t tell if she likes me less or more after the admission. But she proceeds to show me clothing on a rack, dresses of so many different colors, and I confess that I have no idea what color suits me the most. I’ve never thought about it.
“You’ve never thought about what color looks best on you?” She is incredulous.
“Yes. At no point in my life has that mattered. It has never gotten me anything. My sister is a great beauty. And in order for beauty to provide you with some sort of privilege or upward mobility, it must be a great and terrible beauty indeed. You possess beauty like that,” I say to her.
That makes her almost angry. “And yet, you are to be queen, and I am a stylist.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She laughs. “Oh. No. He’s terrifying.”
“Yes,” I agree. “What’s your name?”
She frowns. “Allison.”
“Well, Allison, if you would like to ask the king if he would approve of the two of us switching places, I really don’t mind.”
I’m sort of kidding. Except, after the words exit my mouth I realize I’m not. Maybe I can keep switching queens in and out, and eventually we’ll find someone who actually wants the position. Not someone who is simply doing it because they were commanded to, or to help someone else.
“I…”
“Oh, you don’t actually want to marry him.”
“He’s…beautiful. And powerful, rich. Those are all interesting things, I grant you. But…”
“Less envious at the idea of me marrying him when you have to actually imagine what that would look like.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t realize that my attitude was so apparent. I apologize. It’s an interesting fantasy. The idea that your whole life could change overnight because the king wants to marry one of his common citizens. But I guess it’s only good in theory.”
“I’m hoping that it won’t be horrible in practice. But I won’t know until after.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
I think about it. About everything I’ve seen of him since I’ve arrived. “I think anyone would be foolish to not be afraid of him in some capacity. He’s an extremely intimidating man.”
“Men like him are either fantastic in bed, or terrible.” She laughs. “There’s no in between. He is horrendously arrogant, but also, he has those scars. He has that sort of rough, distorted beauty, which sometimes gives a man a bit of humility, but doesn’t make him any less good in the sheets.”
I stare at her like everything she’s said is in a foreign language. To me, it might as well be. Because I don’t understand any of that. Not really.
Liar. You don’t want to.
“I confess to you that is the least of my concern.”
“Well, it’s not a small concern,” she says. “Though I assume he’s proportional.”
I am caught on that statement while different dresses are taken off of me and put back on, as I am twirled and twisted in front of a mirror.
“Your eyes are very nearly green,” she says. “Blue and green clothes seem to bring that out.”
I stare at myself, wrapped in blue silk currently.
I do see something a bit mossy in my eyes, versus the typical indistinct mud I would normally claim to have.
It’s also surprising to me how nicely the dress highlights what little I have in terms of curves.
Again, nothing I’ve spent much time thinking about, but the reality is, someone is now going to see them.
Not just someone. Him.
Do I want him to be good in bed? That is actually the key question. Not whether or not he is. But do I want to derive any pleasure from the union at all?
My disinterest in the topic won’t help me. Because he’s intent on having children with me.
“Are you all right?” Allison asks me.
“I have been significantly better,” I respond.
“Should I choose the dress for you?”
While I end up adding several pieces in green and blue to my wardrobe, the dress that she chooses for the night of the wedding party is gold.
It makes my skin look warm, my hair look more like honey, rather than a dull dishwater sort of color.
And after that, I sit down with the stylist, who enhances all that gold, and eliminates the dishwater altogether.
I receive facial treatments that make me glow, and when I try everything on at the end, complete with makeup—left subtle at my request—I hardly recognize the woman in the mirror.
“Beauty,” Allison says, looking at me, “is often a reflection of effort. And money.”
“I was too poor to be beautiful before,” I quip.
“You were always beautiful,” she says. We’re friends now; I’m not quite sure how that happened.
“This just makes it clear to everyone, before you had the kind of beauty that someone has to look for. I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment.
I just mean that people are always looking for something flashy.
And that definitely wasn’t you. But it can be. You’re shimmering now.”
I’m completely uncomfortable with both the statement and with my appearance.
And when she dresses me in a pair of extremely expensive jeans, and a white cashmere sweater, a simple gold bracelet and a necklace with a single string of diamonds all the way around, I am discomfited by how much I like what I see.
Because it looks so simple, effortless. And yet I know how much effort went into it.
Even the ponytail my hair is styled in is artful in a way that I’m not sure I could ever replicate.
Except, I don’t have to, because I can have my hair done every day if I want to. But I still can’t go to university. That’s an extremely strange realization.
“The king wishes to see you in your quarters.”
I turn and face the king’s aide, who is standing in the doorway, unable to hide the shock on his face when he sees me. Okay. I do look much improved.
It’s so strange to feel a small amount of pleasure in that, when I never cared before.
“All right,” I say, and I allow him to lead me from the room. I say goodbye to Allison, who I know I will see again, because I have no intention of ever choosing clothing again without her expertise.
A strange feeling of worry begins to chew its way through my stomach. Is this going to change me?
There’s already so much for me to grapple with that adding that to my list of concerns is something I really don’t want to do.
“We can take the elevator,” he says.
I laugh, but I don’t tell him why. Of course, Lucian seems opposed to the elevator.