Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
RAE
“My lady!” Daria says, hurrying into my room.
“Where have you been? There’s almost no time…
” She stops, stares at me. Then obviously decides to not comment on my appearance.
“Gods below, it’s late, we have to rush.
Your gown. We need to call for the seamstress to adjust it, we need to decide on your shoes, your jewelry, your hair… And you need a bath.”
I laugh at her wrinkled nose. I bet I smell of blood, sweat, and sex. A bath sounds marvelous, especially now that my magic is finally awake. It’s bittersweet. I’d been hoping to get my powers back since I arrived here and now…
The look on his face when I said I was a dragon.
It bludgeoned me.
Of course he wouldn’t know. Of course he would be shocked.
But then he held me as if nothing had changed—or even better, as if it all made sense to him, as if he still found me desirable, beautiful… As if I haven’t changed in his eyes. He even said as much.
Can I trust it? I want to trust it.
My heart is pounding as if I’m the girl I used to be, back on the river shore, gazing at him, my eyes full of stars.
But the power ripples through me, coming awake in degrees. Reminding me of what I am. What if getting into water is a bad idea? It wouldn’t do for the maids to find a room filled with a sea dragon when they come to dress me.
Not to mention, I’m hoping to keep the news from the king for a while longer.
The tub is filled with steaming water, rose petals and jasmine blossoms floating on the surface. As I lower myself inside, I feel my magic flare. Small white scales appear on my inner thighs, on the inside of my arms, and I pray nobody notices.
I wrench the power back with all I have and hope it will be enough.
After long moments, I still haven’t turned into a giant serpent, breaking the tub and smashing up the room.
Thank the Gods. I’m still in human form.
But can I shift? The doubt suddenly hits me.
Closing my eyes, I sink briefly under the water—not too long, lest I frighten Daria again into thinking I’m drowning. Floating in the warmth, weightless, forgetting all my worries and all my pain…
No. I surface, blinking water from my lashes. I tried that. I hid from myself for a hundred years, from the memories and the sorrow. This time I’m back to seek revenge, to seek justice for my family and everyone who has suffered under the fae king’s rule.
I only wish Jai were here with me. He had seemed lost in thought earlier—in thought, memory, and a sort of controlled dread. I understand that he was never under a spell to suppress his magic, so I wonder how being linked to me is changing him.
His memories are returning, he said. That might explain the tension about his mouth and eyes as he’d held me, as well as the racing heartbeat in his broad chest.
But I will be seeing him soon enough.
The thought cheers me up. Daria comes over to scrub my back, and then I take over, using the sponge to soap my body, aware of every bruise and cut, every injury I’ve incurred in these past couple of weeks.
Then I think of Jai’s ruined back and my cheer leaves me.
The king will pay for this and all his past wrongdoing. He killed my parents, my brother, and my entire town. I can’t believe I let him convince me he was Mars for a while. That I thought of him kindly, trying to find excuses for what he’d done.
Just goes to show that the mind can’t be trusted. In my heart, I knew I didn’t love him.
Daria helps me out, wraps me in a bathing sheet, and the seamstress arrives, all business, bustling about and laying out my gown.
I finally take a look at what I’m supposed to wear to the ball tonight.
The gown is black and sleek, the weave reminiscent of scales. This isn’t one of my own. I’ve never seen it before.
Scales. I stare at it. It’s just like…
Just like me.
A coincidence? The king doesn’t know what I am, and look, the color is all wrong. After all like Jai said, I have been washed out by death. Washed clean of color, casting no shadow. No, he doesn’t know my true nature.
He must have other reasons for changing the pattern of his behavior tonight.
Tight-lipped, I let Daria and two other maids put me inside the gown, button the back, lace the glittering black corset that came separate—like an armored breastplate, I think—and fits over my chest. I smooth my hands over the silken skirt with the layers of black scale-like lace.
The seamstress immediately gets to work, fitting the gown to my frame. I wonder who may have worn it before me. A mistress of the king? It looks too expensive, too grand for that. The king’s mother?
I may have been vain once, when I was young—when I was alive—and had few real worries. But even so, the picture that meets my eye in the looking glass is fascinating.
Like a double image, a mirror in a mirror. Me now and me before, and all the versions of myself, separating and staring back at me.
Dizzy, I rub at my brow.
The seamstress grumbles something about me being too skinny and about the fabric ruining her fingers and bustles off, presumably to work on some other garment. I doubt she’s so busy with the survivors of the second trial when it’s only four of us.
“We’ll pull your hair up,” Daria says, demonstrating, leaving white tendrils to curl at my neck. “Like this. I’m sure the king will like it.”
“I don’t care if he likes it,” I mutter. A silence greets me. I glance at her and find her looking startled. “I wasn’t marked willingly by him, Daria.”
I don’t expect her to believe me, and she goes back to brushing out my hair. “That’s sad, my lady.”
“Indeed it is. Can you help me? Can you find me a weapon that will look like a jewel?”
“My lady?”
I meet her wide eyes in the mirror. “Something sharp but small enough that the king won’t notice it. Not until I’m very close to him.”
I’m taking a huge risk, and not only in hoping a small blade could do real damage. Daria has been open about her hatred of the fae, but at the same time she has seemed terrified of losing her position at the fae court.
Will she aid me? I need allies. My alliances with humans haven’t been a success, except for Mera—but I don’t know if I can trust her, either. But Daria…
“I’ll find something for you, my lady,” she says quietly. “After all, you never know when you may need to cut up some meat on your plate or stab someone for talking too much, right?”
“Right.” I hesitate before meeting her eyes again.
I find her faintly smiling.
Relieved, hoping I haven’t committed a grave error in sort of confiding to her, I let her sit me in a chair and fuss over my hair. Nothing important was ever gained without risks, I remind myself. And luck. I really need some good luck here.
The other maids join her, clipping black diamonds to my earlobes and slipping necklaces dripping onyx and rubies around my neck.
In my white hair, they place black glittering combs. On my fingers, they slip black rings.
All black, against the paleness of me.
The versions of me merge again. The girl in the mirror contains all the versions of me, the years on the shore, the decades in the deep, the innocence, the pain, the fury.
Inside I’m still my angry, broken human self, my armor made of the same fury, twisted up with old scars.
I will end this. I’ll take the risk that the king’s mark will end me if I kill him.
Is he counting on my love for Jai, or for my own life? Is he counting on Jai changing his plans because of me? He’s in for a surprise. At least, I hope I won’t lose my nerve in the last moment and hesitate.
And Jai…
I still have the ball, I think. And the entire night to be with him. Once, long ago, I’d have given anything, everything, to have one more hour with him. One more minute.
Perspective is important.
And so is memory. The memory of all I had, all I lost. The decision to stop the cycle and save everyone else from having to go through such pain again.