Chapter 18
ARLET
Three arduous mornings pass. Or perhaps, it’s four.
Time turns thin and shiny and slippery like the fibers of gold thread that I used to weave with at the loom.
I rise when my ladies-in-waiting clap, sleep when they leave to attend to their regular lives, and in between, I am arranged, adjusted, and appraised.
No one else tries to kill me.
Exhaustion becomes my constant companion, and every day, every hour, every minute, I must make peace with its existence. This is my life now. I must make it to my wedding, and then…endure until death.
The elves teach me moves beyond walking, turning me into something as refined as the brushed silk I wear. On polished floors, I am a hinge, opening and closing at the exact angle Kiala Fereleaf dictates.
I practice smiling with my eyes unlit and my mouth untrusting—trying to master the cold, aloof ability all the court elves possess.
They weave my hair into braids and then in coils and then, to test my neck, in a heavy knot decorated with chains, gems, and polished wood.
It drags at the base of my skull until my spine complains.
Thorne comes to my room every night, as promised, and forces me to drink that dreadful tea. I do it willingly, noting that there are already changes happening in my body. I bled yesterday, for the first time in many years.
In the morning, before my lessons, there are health checks, just as the pale-haired elf had promised. The physician weighs me, takes samples of my urine, and feeds me tonics based on the results. The first time, my palms sweated, and I nearly doubled over from nervous dry heaving.
But it was fine. He didn’t say he suspected anything about my fertility and…I’m not dead yet.
I try not to think any more of babies, or pregnancy, or blood. I just do what I am told.
Hunger also follows me around, taking turns tormenting me.
I once ate slop from large pots reserved for human use.
But my food is measured to the last gram and presented as if it’s a delicate gift and not a light form of starvation.
When my belly growls, I look at the ceiling, waiting for the noise to quiet so I can exist in a sort of empty silence, devoid of the pleasure and satisfaction food can bring.
The lack of food can’t be good for my health. I have to trust in Thorne’s herbalists.
While I learn about their cultures and customs, I learn a new sort of hunger, too. Not just for food, but for stillness. Satisfaction. True rest and the sweetness of doing nothing.
Between drills, I am taken past more of their elven amusements.
One day, I see a contortionist painted in frost colors who bends until she stops breathing, a falconer whose bird snatches rings from boys’ fingers with expert precision, a game where two ladies balance knives on the bridges of their slippers and try to tilt the blades into bowls without letting them fall.
The crowd claps when the knives miss and the porcelain shatters.
I hate their laughter. I hate everything about this, and I stuff it all down into the deepest depths of my soul.
“Look pleasant,” Merlina says when my mouth looks wrong—either too smiley or too somber. “You were educated, were you not?”
After particularly rough days, Eslina presses salves into my arms—cool, then stinging, then cool again. “This will keep the skin even,” she murmurs. “We don’t want you marked up by bruises.”
Bruises they’ve given me during these lessons.
Kiala times my breath to steps. “On the third count, you speak. On the fifth, you laugh softly. On the seventh, you aim your eyes two degrees left, away from those you speak to, so it appears you do not crave being seen.”
I nod.
Every day, I feel more like a tamed beast. Like the bears and moose they ride through the valley.
Then one morning, three days before the masked ball and six days before my wedding, when I have learned how to bow without feeling my ribs rip at my skin from the inside, the door to my room opens again without warning. Thorne steps in. He does not bow.
No one does. Not yet. Maybe not ever without the presence of my future husband. I am merely a human consort—I will never be a queen.
Kiala’s mouth flattens. Merlina’s eyebrows lift, wary. Eslina sets her brush down so carefully that it makes no sound at all.
“Arlet,” Thorne says to me without giving a title. Since the night I asked about Arion’s last wife, he has withdrawn. He is cruel in front of others and indifferent in private. I resent both versions. “A decision has been reached regarding your Fuegorra.”
The room cools. My hand goes to the stone on reflex—as if I could shield it by thinking. “What?”
I’m transported back to that moment in the bathing rooms, when my ladies-in-waiting had talked about it last. I thought then that I would just be given extra jewelry or glamour. What kind of decision could’ve possibly been made?
“Don’t act stupid, my dear,” he says, already turning, already certain I will follow. “It will be removed. The court may tolerate a foreign bride. It will not tolerate a foreign god set in the center of her chest.”
“I—” The word breaks apart on my tongue.
“Enough,” Thorne bites.
“What of the Curse Mark?” I demand, trying to change the subject. “You put it there. It is an imperfection that refuses to heal, might I add.”
His green eyes narrow. “That is a mark that binds you to His Majesty. Without your troll stone, it will likely finally heal and remain until the day you die. ”
Lucky me, Cursed One chirps as I try to think of something else to make them stop.
You could have a worse host body, I retort.
“Dress her,” Thorne tells my attendants. “We are expected below.”
“Wait—”
Merlina pivots as if she has been waiting for the order all morning. “Another high-neck for now,” she decides. “Kiala, fetch the cloak. Eslina—powder.”
I resist them. Pulling my arm out of Merlina’s grasp. “No!”
They move around me in a practiced dance. Eslina’s fingers are gentle where the others are not. “It will be quick,” she murmurs softly.
How the hell does she know?
“The trolls told me it would kill me if I took it out,” I blurt out. In truth, I think that’s what they said, but I can’t remember.
My eyes burn, and I back away from all of them. My mind is weak, and I am just so fucking hungry. I know Mother Liana had said something about survival, but perhaps that was just under the mountain? “You can’t do this!”
Thorne freezes with that same predatory grace he used when he cut me open on the boat. This is the traitor, the one I wish I could scratch the face off of with my manicured nails.
“Can’t? This is the elven empire. I have authority from the king, your future husband and master. We will do what we want, or as a wedding gift, we will start bringing children from that asinine school in Enduvida and sacrifice them for the wolves. I’ll give you the front row seat.”
What the hell? He’s never been this bad toward me. I recoil, shaking. My maternal instinct comes to me, lashing out like a bear cornered by hunters. This is too far. I don’t care if he has to exaggerate in the company of others.
“Fuck you, half-blood,” I spit.
His eyes snap to me with instant white-hot fury, and I am afraid. That is the face of Mrath’s assassin.
Then he spits in my face as my attendants watch. On instinct, my hand goes up to clear the viscous wetness from my skin. The others do nothing to step in. Nothing to help.
Not even Eslina.
“You wish, human,” he snarls. Then snaps his fingers.
Time’s up.
What is happening? Why is he acting like this?
“Scream, and I’ll make you watch them skin one of your kind alive,” he says over his shoulder.
The three attendants hurry to get me dressed and moving.
They fasten the cloak as we go—Thorne’s stride a rhythm no one dares to break.
The corridors funnel us down into stone that smells of damp earth.
Past a set of carved doors, past a pair of guards who watch me as if I might try to sprout wings and flee.
The chamber is quiet. A long stone table is in the middle of the room with a linen laid over it.
There is a single brazier that breathes sweet smoke, and shelves lined with phials where liquid sighs when disturbed.
A woman waits there, dressed in gray. She is not old, not young, the kind of face that would vanish into a crowd.
I begin to tremble, despite knowing how much they hate it. I just can’t bring myself to do better.
She bows to Thorne first, then to me as one bows to a tool that will be used. “I am Sayerel,” she says. “I will perform the harmonizing.”
“Harmonizing,” I echo. It’s acid on my tongue. “You mean removal.”
“Your presence must be brought into accord with our rites,” she says serenely. “It will spare you suffering in the long term.”
I would laugh if I remembered how. “Spare me?”
Thorne’s impatience frays, and he points to the table. “Begin.”
Sayerel gestures to the table. “Lie back. We will numb the margin. Your attendants may remain if they are quiet.”
The women stand near the entrance, not touching me, just…staring. Despite my best efforts, they have made it very clear that we are not friends, and they are not loyal to me. But it stings to watch them look on, knowing that what comes next will hurt and they simply do not care.
I cross the room alone.
Dear gods, I pray silently. Ashra or Endu or Grutabela or whoever listens, if you are there, help me. Help me, for I cannot help myself.
My chest heats, and my eyes burn with unshed tears provoked by fear, but I notice the linen is very clean. The torchlight gives it a kiss of gold along each thread. When I lower myself onto it, a chill runs up my spine like a thought come too late.