Chapter 5
Five
Marian shoos the other ladies into the dining room. Their giggles and excited chatter lessen but still carry through the space. I’m glad they’re happy, but it’s such a stark contrast to the rest of this place.
I wash my face and change into the day dress Marian set aside for me. It’s white and gray with a black ribbon around the waist. Thankfully, there’s no corset. Apparently, those are reserved for formal occasions. Color, on the other hand, is never permitted.
When I join the ladies in the dining room, I’m surprised to see breakfast arranged on the table. Bread, jam, fruit, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and potatoes. There’s a wide variety and, again, far more food than necessary.
The women are gathered in the dining chamber, their backs against the walls. All of them silent. Marian must have scolded them while I was dressing in the bathing chamber.
There’s enough food for all of us, but the women are standing there as if they’re going to watch me eat. “Join me for breakfast?” I gesture toward the table.
The ladies chirp with excited Thank-yous, then sit at the chairs, leaving the head spot, and the chair on the right open. I glance over at Marian, who gives a single nod, then I take the place at the end. Marian sits on my right.
“Please, eat. There’s so much food,” I say.
“You first,” Marian whispers.
I reach for a strawberry and set it on my plate, then add a biscuit and some jam and take a bite before setting it back on my plate. The others begin to serve themselves.
“I know things are different in Iskvaland,” Marian says as she reaches for a slice of bread. “You’ll learn how it works around here, and it won’t feel so different soon. I’m sorry you couldn’t bring any of your ladies. It must have been hard to leave them behind.”
“It was.” I think of my best friend Anya.
I left her a letter under her pillow saying goodbye.
I knew if I saw her in person, she’d have talked me out of it.
She’ll never forgive me for agreeing to this.
I hope I will see her again someday, but a lot of things will have to go perfectly for that to be a possibility.
“You said everyone here is from a noble house?” I ask.
“Are your ladies not nobles?” a younger woman with auburn hair asks. Then, she covers her mouth with her hand and looks over at Marian with wide eyes.
“Do I need to give you permission to talk?” I ask.
She nods.
“Please, please talk. All of you. You never need my permission.”
The ladies freeze, then look around at each other, and I swear I have not heard them this quiet once.
“That’s not really how it works around here,” Marian says.
“Can it, though? In my rooms at least?” I smile at them. “It would help make me less homesick.”
The others look to Marian, seeking her approval.
I notice how young they are compared to her.
Marian is probably in her late thirties.
The others in the room are closer to my age or younger.
At twenty-three, I am nearly the same age as the real princess was.
She would have been twenty-three at the winter solstice this year.
“In the princess’s rooms, we will do as she wishes but know that as she grows more used to our customs, she may change her mind,” Marian says.
The others beam, and the woman who spoke to me looks over expectantly. “Can you tell us about your court? What was it like? What is Iskvaland like?”
“What are the men like?” a brunette with tight curls asks. Her cheeks turn bright pink, and the others around the table laugh.
I don’t know how Iskvalandian men differ from those in the empire, but I figure they are likely similar in how they behave. I frown, then catch myself. The ladies are watching me expectantly. “They’re not much different from here. Though, they dress better.”
“Like your dress yesterday. All that color,” someone says wistfully.
“I miss color,” someone adds.
“Never anything besides black, white, and gray here?” I ask.
“They take their house colors far too seriously,” someone says.
I continue to converse with them and ask them their names and questions about their lives. Listening to them talk about what they enjoy and why their families sent them to court helps me understand more about the way things work around here.
There are rules that aren’t officially recorded anywhere.
About whom to talk to and who to avoid. They have guidance about which dances to sit out and tips on how to get past the legionnaires who guard the doors so you can get some fresh air at the stuffy official events.
They even share stories about sneaking into the city, but Marian shuts them down before I get too much information.
“Have any of you ever met the emperor?” I take a bite of my biscuit.
The room goes silent again.
I swallow. “Should I not ask about him?”
“It’s just that nobody really does,” Antonia, the brunette with the tight curls, says. “At least not publicly.”
“My father says he’s been away from the empire on a quest for the gods, but we’re not supposed to know.” Katherine stabs a mushroom with her fork.
“That’s ridiculous,” Genevieve says. “He was already anointed by the gods; he doesn’t need to curry any more favor by going on a quest for them.”
“Nobody’s seen him in a long while,” Marian says. “Sometimes, the crown prince will relay messages from him, but other than that, he sees very few visitors.”
“Why?” I ask. “Is he sick?”
All the ladies make the sign of the goddess of health by tapping two fingers to their chest. I quickly copy the gesture. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I was so hoping to meet him. I’ve heard such wonderful things.”
“I understand,” Marian says. “But you should know, it’s not wise to bring him up.
Even in here, it’s a risk. While I would like to think that every woman in your service is loyal to you, the first thing we learn in this court is that it’s a court of eyes and ears.
A court that is always watching. Always listening. ”
Everyone looks serious, and all thoughts of eating are abandoned.
“Thank you for the warning.” I am honestly grateful because I was feeling too comfortable with these women.
They seem nice and friendly. But they wouldn’t bat an eye at watching their emperor or his Night Legion level a town.
They weren’t selling the heavy jewels they wore to buy bread to help feed the starving or offering to take in an orphan child.
They were not my friends. They never could be.
I catch movement and see Brevan walking toward us. The women gasp and rush to smooth the wrinkled fabric of their dresses, pinch their cheeks, or adjust their hair. All of them watch him with hopeful expressions.
None of them said they were in court to find a husband, but I have a feeling that is their primary objective. But not for Marian. She didn’t even flinch when she noticed the legionnaire approach.
“Ladies,” Brevan says as he lowers his head in a slight bow. “Your Highness.” He drops the bow lower when he turns toward me.
“What a pleasant surprise, Enforcer,” Marian says.
Enforcer? Brevan is the emperor’s enforcer? He isn’t just a legionnaire. He is a hunter. An assassin. He is the one who finds fragments from the ancient temples and other relics that could be used to create magic, then destroys them.
Brevan is the man who ordered them to torch all the buildings in the Point. He burned my home to the ground. They burned with people still inside them until they were nothing more than rubble.
He was responsible for a hundred deaths in one night, but he’d only killed two personally.
Those two were my brothers.
The man who murdered the last of my family slept in my room last night. My hands ball into fists, and bile climbs up my throat. I glare at him with newfound hatred.
His orders and his power come from the emperor, but the stories say he is the one who chooses where to go and who to kill.
I open one hand and wrap my fingers around the knife at my place setting.
It would be so easy. He wouldn’t suspect a thing.
I could probably get to him in time. Just jam the knife into his throat where there’s no armor.
His pride would probably let me get up close before he even attempted to protect himself.
“…wouldn’t you, Your Highness?” Marian is staring at me, then her eyes dart down to where I’m holding the knife.
I release the cutlery—it probably isn’t sharp enough anyway—and turn to her with a false smile on my lips.
“Is that a yes?” she prods.
“Um, yes, of course,” I say.
“Alright. If you are ready, we can go now,” Brevan, the enforcer, says.
Go. Fuck. What did I agree to?
“Are you finished?” Marian asks.
“Yes.” I push my chair back and rise. All the ladies do the same. I smile at them. “Thank you for the lovely conversation.”
“We’ll be here when you return,” Marian says. “Now, let me get you a cloak. It’s chilly outside.”
Outside. I’m going outside. With the man who murdered my brothers.