Chapter 8 Arezoo
AREZOO
The dress was stunning.
It made Arezoo feel like she had wandered into someone else's life, someone glamorous, and at any moment she would be discovered for the fraud she was and asked to leave.
She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom and stared at her reflection, trying to reconcile the woman looking back at her with the girl who had arrived at the village barely able to speak above a whisper.
The dress was red. Not a shy, muted red that could be mistaken for dark pink if the lighting cooperated, but a deep, unapologetic, look-at-me red that announced itself from across a room.
The bodice was structured like a corset, with thin boning visible through sheer fabric that hugged her torso and made her waist look impossibly small.
The thin spaghetti straps were so delicate that she was afraid a strong exhale might snap them, and the neckline was the lowest she'd ever worn.
The skirt, however, was where the dress became truly dramatic.
Layer upon layer of tulle cascaded from the waist in asymmetric tiers, each one slightly longer than the last, creating a waterfall effect that seemed ethereal.
It moved when she moved. The layers shifted and floated around her, creating an impression of something that had been designed for a movie star walking the red carpet rather than someone like her, who until recently hadn't dared to leave the house without covering her hair.
"Dear Fates, Arezoo," Donya said with a gasp from the bed, where she was sitting cross-legged with a pillow clutched to her chest. "Dear merciful Fates."
Both her sisters had embraced the clan's belief in the Fates, but Donya was overdoing it, perhaps because it was new, or because it rattled their mother, who wasn't ready to adopt any new belief system to replace the old.
"Stop saying that," Arezoo said.
"I can't. You look like a movie star."
"I look like someone who is impersonating one. This is not me."
"But you want it to be you," Laleh said. "So just play the role and get comfortable in it. When will you have another chance to wear a dress this spectacular?"
"Never."
"Exactly."
Laleh tilted her head, studying the dress with the critical eye of a sixteen-year-old fashionista who considered herself an authority on all matters sartorial.
"The color is perfect on you. You have the skin tone for it.
Most people can't wear that shade of red without looking washed out or like they're trying too hard, but on you it just works. "
"Ruvon said the same thing."
"Ruvon has an excellent eye," Donya said. "He picked you, and you are the best."
Arezoo felt a blush creep up her cheeks, and it wasn't because her sister was complimenting her more than she deserved. It was Donya mentioning Ruvon's feelings for her as if they were a self-evident fact rather than an ongoing marvel.
"He convinced me to get this dress," she said, smoothing her hands over the tulle. "I told him it was too much, too expensive, too grandiose, and too revealing. He said it was stunning on me and that I needed to stop arguing and let him buy it."
"I'm glad that he put his foot down," Laleh said approvingly. "He's been letting Maman boss him around, and I was starting to think that he was a pushover."
"He's not a pushover. He just likes being helpful, but he can be persuasive when he needs to."
"Good." Donya unfolded herself from the bed and walked over to stand behind Arezoo, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
At seventeen, Donya was already as tall as her and had the same dark eyes, but where Arezoo's features were soft and a little rounded, Donya's were sharper and more defined, as if the same genetic material had been assembled with more confidence.
"When Ruvon sees you in this dress tomorrow," Donya said, "he is going to lose his mind."
"He already saw me in the dress, remember? He was there when I tried it on."
Donya waved a dismissive hand. "Trying on a dress in a store with bad lighting and your hair in a ponytail is completely different from wearing the dress at a party with your hair done, makeup on, and high heels.
That's the difference between looking like you are impersonating a movie star and actually acting like one.
Trust me. He's going to take one look at you and forget how to form sentences. "
Arezoo chuckled. "You forget that he's not as young as he looks. I don't think a dress is going to render him speechless."
"The dress by itself might not, but you in it and all decked out will," Laleh said with absolute certainty.
Arezoo shifted to the side and looked at her back in the mirror. The straps crossed in a low V that revealed more of her spine than she had ever shown in public before, and the tiered skirt had just enough movement to suggest the presence of legs underneath without actually revealing them.
It was elegant and dramatic and unlike anything she had ever owned or even dreamt of owning.
She loved it, but she was not comfortable in it, and since the cocktail party was tomorrow, she didn't have much time to get used to the idea of being seen in something so extravagant.
The butterflies in her stomach were performing their acrobatics, intensifying their wing-flapping with every passing day that brought her closer to next Saturday. The cocktail party tomorrow was the pre-wedding celebration, and after that, the wedding itself, and after that, the wedding night.
Arezoo's stomach clenched and then twisted, the complicated maneuver a metaphor for the excitement and anticipation on one hand and anxiety on the other.
She wanted it.
She wanted Ruvon with intense yearning, which was surprising given her past and the association of physical intimacy with violence and pain.
But Ruvon was gentle and patient and had respected her decision to wait without a single complaint, even though the waiting was difficult for him.
He had never pushed, never pressured, never made her feel guilty for needing more time.
He had simply loved her and let her set the pace, which was the most attractive thing any man had ever done in the history of the world, as far as she was concerned.
She was ready.
She was pretty sure she was ready.
She was at least eighty percent sure she was ready, and the remaining twenty percent was the residue of her past that was not going to get any smaller by waiting longer. It would only shrink by being replaced with a different experience, a better one, and Ruvon would make sure of that.
Fates, how she wished Drova were here.
Her best friend was such a badass warrior that Arezoo felt braver by association.
Drova also had a habit of quoting passages from the smutty romance novels she devoured and practically forced Arezoo to read, and the blush-inducing exposure was doing wonders for Arezoo's desire to finally experience those pleasures herself.
Their little book club of two was the best remedy for her pre-wedding jitters.
Drova's approach to Arezoo's virginal anxiety included a breakdown of what to expect based on fictional sources of questionable accuracy, and commentary so inappropriate that Arezoo would be too busy being scandalized to remember she was nervous.
But Drova was in Safe Harbor, and she wasn't scheduled to arrive until tomorrow. She'd probably come straight to the cocktail party from the clan's airstrip, which meant Arezoo wouldn't get any private time with her before the event.
"Are you freaking out again?" Laleh asked.
Arezoo blinked. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you are staring into the middle distance and your face does this." Laleh scrunched her features into an expression that was supposed to look contemplative but actually looked constipated. "You're thinking about the wedding night and getting scared."
"I am not."
"Your cheeks are doing that blotchy thing they do when you're embarrassed, which means you are thinking about sex."
"My cheeks are not blotchy."
"They're a little blotchy," Donya confirmed.
"I hate both of you."
"No, you don't. You love us, and you're going to miss us horribly when you move into Ruvon's place after the wedding, and you'll probably cry about it at least three times a day."
Arezoo chuckled. "I'm not moving across town. I will see you every day at the store, and knowing Maman, she will insist on Ruvon and me coming to dinner every evening."
Laleh scrambled off the bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. "I'm taking a picture."
"No."
"Yes. You look incredible, and the process of your transformation needs to be documented." Laleh positioned herself at the foot of the bed, angling the phone. "Turn a little. No, the other way. Chin up. Not that much. There."
The phone's shutter sound clicked, and Laleh examined the result with a critical squint before turning the screen toward Arezoo.
The woman in the photo looked like someone Arezoo might admire from a distance and assume she had nothing in common with.
Laleh had caught the tiered tulle mid-movement, and Arezoo's expression was a combination of surprise and uncertainty, partly due to the lingering blush but mostly the look in her eyes.
"Forward it to me," she said. "I'll send it to Drova."
Laleh pulled the phone back. "Wait until she sees you tomorrow at the party and her jaw drops to the floor."
The idea had merit. Seeing Drova's surprise would be more entertaining in person, especially because Kra-ell's facial expressions were so different from human or immortal ones.
Arezoo could envision the widening of Drova's already enormous eyes and a compression of her lips that made her look severe or even dangerous to anyone who didn't know her as well as Arezoo did.
On the other hand, Drova would be furious if she found out that Arezoo had gotten a spectacular dress worthy of a princess and had not sent her a photo.
"She'll kill me if I don't send it," Arezoo said. "Forward it to me."