3. Adelina #3
Marra and Vera lift the dress over me while Freya guides the fabric down, careful not to let the beaded sleeves drag over my shoulders.
The silk slides against me like water, cool and unsettlingly intimate.
The bodice molds to my shape. The skirt falls in layered panels that move softly around my legs, each step sending frost-patterned embroidery shifting like it is alive.
Freya turns me toward the mirror.
The woman staring back is pale and composed, her silver-blonde hair still loose around her shoulders, her eyes too bright in a face made delicate by exhaustion and cosmetics not yet applied.
The dress changes me. It makes me look less like something hidden away and more like something revealed.
The open neckline draws attention to the column of my throat, to the fine bones of my collar, to the curve of my breasts.
I look like an offering.
My stomach twists so sharply I almost reach for Freya, but I stop myself before my hand moves.
“You are very beautiful,” Marra whispers, then seems to regret speaking at all.
Freya gives her a warning look, not unkind.
I manage to nod. “Thank you.” The words sound distant.
Freya steps behind me and begins arranging my hair, drawing sections back from my face and weaving them with thin silver chains, leaving the rest to fall in long waves down my back.
The makeup takes longer than usual. Freya keeps it subtle, but not plain.
A faint shimmer at my eyes, a soft stain at my lips, color warmed into my cheeks so no one can accuse me of looking ill.
Every layer is another piece of armor I did not choose, and when she finishes, the face in the mirror looks calm enough to make my pulse quicken.
Freya fastens a necklace around my neck, the chain cold, the pendant resting just above the line of the dress.
It is a Dravaryn piece, silver and moonstone, old enough that it likely belonged to some queen whose name I was made to memorize and then forgot because names matter less than how women are used.
Matching earrings follow. Then a delicate circlet, more formal than anything I have worn in years, its center stone catching the light directly above my brow.
“There,” Freya says, though her voice is too soft.
I meet her eyes in the mirror. She smiles, but it doesn’t hold. For her sake, I pretend not to notice when it falters.
After that, there is nothing to do but wait. That is the worst part.
The skirt whispers around my ankles as I cross the room, each step measured, then turn near the window and cross back again.
Freya watches from the chair beside the hearth, hands folded over my sketchbook on the table in front of her.
She let me have it after they finished my hair, perhaps because she knew I needed something that belonged to me, but the lines I tried to draw came out wrong.
I had meant to sketch an orchid and somehow made the petals look like torn feathers.
I left the pencil on the table after that.
Now I pace.
The stone floor beneath the rugs is old and dark, worn smooth from generations of royal feet, though I suspect none have walked it with quite this much useless fear.
“You will wear a path through the stone,” Freya says at last.
I turn back toward the window. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“I know.”
“If I answer wrong, if I move wrong, if I misunderstand something they expect me to know…”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” The certainty in her voice should steady me, but she does not control the room I’m about to enter. She does not control my brother’s temper or the queen’s smile or the southern prince’s questions.
I press my fingers to my lips, then realize I’m biting the lower one and force myself to stop before the stain smears.
Freya sets the sketchbook aside and rises. “Adelina.”
My name, not my title.
I look at her, and the words come out smaller than I want them to. “If I mess this up, I’m afraid of what they’ll do.”
“Oh, child,” she whispers.
“I tried yesterday.” My throat tightens.
She crosses to me and takes my hands before I can fold them into the skirt. Her palms are warm, work-roughened, familiar.
“You did not fail,” she says.
“The king thinks I did.”
“The king sees what the queen tells him to see.”
I look toward the door instinctively, fear flashing sharp through me.
Freya’s grip tightens. “No one is listening.”
“Someone is always listening.”
The truth of it hangs between us.
Then Freya draws my hands up and presses them between both of hers. “Then let them hear this. You are prepared. You are intelligent, composed, and more gracious than anyone in this castle deserves. You will walk in there, do what they ask, and come back to me.”
I want to believe her so badly that it hurts.
By the time the summons comes, the day has crawled toward evening. Three firm sounds against the outer door.
My entire body goes cold.
Marra gasps quietly, then clamps her mouth shut. Vera steps back into place. Freya releases my hands only after squeezing them once, then turns toward the door.
“Enter.”
The guard who steps inside does not look at me directly at first. His gaze moves to Freya, then lowers as he bows. “Her Royal Highness is summoned to the meeting chamber.”