Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ASHLYN
Three women with vibrantly hued hair stood in the middle of the tent.
“It is an honor to receive you both today, Princess Novena and Princess Ashlyn,” a woman with violet hair said. “I’ve received instructions for you both.”
“Splendid. It is very important the purple be darker this time. The prince prefers it that way and the sun keeps lightening the color.” Novena tugged on her hair.
“We will see what we can do,” the woman replied. “And I have the list of colors that Prince Soren is considering for his bride to be.”
He truly did send a list of colors for me—like he was already staking his claim. I gripped the smooth fabric of my gown. “What are they?”
“Pale rose, white, or golden,” she said. “Which would interest you?”
Glass jars lined the wooden shelves set at the back of the tent. Petals of flowers and shriveled bits of fruit poked out of boldly colored powders.
A dreamy blue caught my eye. It was nearly the same shade as my gown. “This is what I want.” If they agreed, I would see how much he cared for my fire.
“It is a lovely blue, Your Highness, but the prince—”
“Will be surprised to see something even more magnificent.” No one could talk me out of it.
Novena fought the way her lips curved. “Ashlyn, he will have expectations when you return.”
“Let’s surpass them then.” I pointed to the jar I chose.
The woman with the violet hair pulled it from the shelf. “I’ve never used it on someone with such light hair before. It’s sure to be as bold as your gown.”
“I do like it when things match.” I pulled my waves to the front of my dress.
It was time I said goodbye to the color my mother and brother wore. The last bit of Bailoc’s history I could erase from myself.
“It sounds like there will be no talking her out of it. But when Soren asks, I will claim I had nothing to do with it.” Novena sat in a chair.
“If he is angry, only I will be to blame. I can’t imagine he’d be angry over something so simple as my hair.” I felt my lie the moment I said it.
My stomach tightened when I heard Fyn speak to the guard on the other side of the curtain.
He would make some comment the moment he saw it—maybe he’d even think I was foolish.
None of their opinions mattered to me now.
I would choose this for myself.
We sat for a while with a thick, colorful paste in our hair. I had asked to know every flower that made the hue. The process fascinated me.
Estlen felt alive in a way Nythrel, and Bailoc weren’t. As I sat amongst Novena and her friends, I felt like I was someone—like the past few months being the fae queen’s sister existed only in a dream.
I wasn’t even sure if I liked Novena or her friends. It almost didn’t even matter.
It felt so good to be seen again.
Water rinsed the leftover color from my locks. They carefully wrapped my hair in a black scarf. Novena’s hair was wrapped in one too.
Cerulean powder clung to the edges of the bowl that held my hair. Flower remnants swirled across the water.
My choice might reveal cracks that Soren had hidden. I was almost sure it would. I didn’t know if I was ready to live with it, but I didn’t know if I could let this future go.
“Do I get to see it?” I tugged at the towel, desperate to take a look.
“Later,” the woman with the violet hair said. “Let it dry first or the pigment will run onto your beautiful dress as it sets. Once a stain like that sets, nothing can undo it.”
I had never been so impatient for anything.
“Wait until you see it,” Lady Yvonne said. “It’s extremely vivid.”
“I am so interested to see Prince Soren’s reaction.” Novena stepped past me as they pulled the draped fabric back. “We should be getting back.”
“Thank you for everything.” I peered out into the thinning crowd, looking for Fyn as I followed her.
His ears and his messy waves made him impossible to miss. When he stepped closer to me I smelled the pickle’s stench still.
“Don’t worry—I got rid of the wretched cucumber,” Fyn said.
“It’s a pickle and you smell like it still.”
“I’ll have my jacket laundered.” He looked at me as if he thought I was impossible.
“Novena may make you walk outside the carriage when she gets a whiff of you.”
He tried his hardest to fight the smirk. “Why do they hide your hair after they change it?”
“So your heart doesn’t fail from shock.” I watched Novena carry on with her friends, without me.
Fyn scoffed. “Now I have to see it.” He reached for the wrap, but he adjusted the leather belt that lay across his chest instead.
It usually held his sword, but it was missing.
“Where is your sword?” I hadn’t even noticed when he stopped wearing it.
“I haven’t had it on me this entire time. They won’t let me carry it while I’m here.”
“Won’t let you?” I stopped walking.
“It’s a political visit. I half-expected it.” His voice lowered until no one else could hear it, but me. “Don’t worry, I can easily take one from someone if I need it.”
“That’s most reassuring.” I smoothed my skirt.
“Has he said anything about yours?” He hovered closer to me.
“No.” My lie struck me again. I couldn’t keep doing this. It had become too easy to utter a lie, but now I would pay for it.
He studied me as I flinched. “You haven’t told him, have you?”
The nearest guard nodded to another before he approached us. “It’s time we returned to the palace.”
I was grateful for a chance to escape to the solitude of my chambers. Fyn would never let it go if I had told him what Soren said.
Novena recounted every beautiful thing she laid eyes on as we rode back to the palace. I tried to hold onto every pleasant scent, even as the scent of Fyn’s pickle tormented us both. I waited for my hair to set in the solitude of my chambers.
When enough time had passed, Eva pulled back the wrap. She gestured me toward the mirror as the sky-blue waves fell forward.
I ran my fingers through it, my lips curving in a smile I couldn’t resist.
The color highlighted my skin and eyes in a way I had never seen them before.
It was me.
“I’ve never truly seen anything like it,” Eva said. “The ladies of the court will be so envious, but most won’t be able to achieve it.”
“For the first time, I’m grateful for my usual color.” I combed my fingers through it. The hue complemented the dress perfectly.
Eva pulled strands back, twisting them away from my face, until only a few tendrils hung freely.
A knock came at the door. Eva quickly pulled it back.
A man in armor stood waiting. “Prince Soren requests Princess Ashlyn’s presence in the garden. I am to escort her there now.”
I peered out past Eva into the otherwise empty hall. “And Lord Fyn?”
“He is in a trade meeting still, Your Highness. I am to chaperone,” the knight said.
I followed him. My heart thrummed, drowning out the clanging of metal that echoed beside me.
Fyn would have had far too much to say if he were walking beside me. He’d comment on the color I chose for my hair.
Maybe he’d even like it.
If I married Soren, I’d be summoned whenever my husband wanted me and met with silence whenever he didn’t.
I would have to learn how to handle stillness—perhaps someday I’d get used to it.
“Did the prince say why he wishes to see me?” I asked.
“No, Your Highness.” His armor was louder than his words.
We walked a stone path that led from the slender wooden door. The last of the lingering sunshine washed over me.
Mountains embraced the land beyond the palace. A pink and purple sky clung to the peaks that prodded the clouds.
Their etched edges were barely visible on the ride, even when the fog lifted. This view rivaled any glimpse I had before.
Thick green hedges trailed the path’s edge. It looked like a maze I didn’t care to get lost in. With each sharp turn, I felt my breath catch.
When I was younger, I romanticized a moment like this in my daydreams. But now approaching Soren left me with a nagging feeling I couldn’t ignore.
If I gave it time, eventually we would learn each other’s ways. My parents had to learn how to navigate one another when they married.
It didn’t help that I knew they had failed at it.
Soren stood next to rose bushes that rivaled my mother’s.
“Princess Ashlyn is here, Your Highness,” the knight said.
Soren’s gaze remained fixated on the mountains.
I clasped my hands together waiting for him to turn around.
“You may leave us.” Soren slowly pivoted toward me when the knight bowed without protest.
“I am to have a chaperone,” I said.
“You can’t be alone with me?” Soren’s brow raised as he assessed my hair.
“I thought appearances were important here.” I wanted to call for the guard—to bring him back. But I only stood staring back at Soren, watching the sunlight illuminate the shades of blue in his eyes that I had barely seen before.
“They are.” He took my hand in his, lifting it to his lips. Slowly he kissed it. “But we can steal a single moment. No one will think badly of you for it.”
I tried to resist the urge to pull back from him.
He ran his fingers over my hair. “The color is different than I expected it.”
I held my breath, bracing for whatever he’d say next.
“It does bring out the color of your eyes,” he said.
My lungs ached when I forced myself to breathe. “I am pleased with how it turned out.”
“You don’t care to adhere to expectations, do you?” The way he said it was as if he were testing me.
I hated to be tested. “I don’t understand.” If he was going to hint at his truth, I would make him say it.
“I was fully prepared for it.” It seemed like he hadn’t been. He mentioned my brother once. Whatever information was relayed to him, he seemed to feel as if he knew truths about me and was quickly piecing them together.
“Agan must have written quite the letter,” I said.
“I was in Bailoc a few weeks ago with our emissary, negotiating trade. The first of any attempts between both sides since well before the war.”
Nothing in his invitation had stated any of this. The history between our kingdoms didn’t leave me expecting it either. “How is my brother?”
“He and his queen are well.” He sat on a nearby bench, watching me carefully as I sat beside him. “She is expecting a child in the coming months.”
The thought of my brother’s wife as a mother was chilling to me. Reina only spoke in cursed riddles. “What a wonderful surprise.”
“You truly knew nothing of it?”
“I haven’t spoken to him since well before the war.” There was no way to speak to him. And even if there was, I hadn’t cared to. “And my people?”
After the first war, just after my sister was born, a blight had spread through our lands, ravaging crops that grew in its path. The palace and its surrounding grounds had barely been affected, but I could still recall the scent of decay that found us when the winds were strongest.
“They are managing. The destruction hasn’t increased.” It was a relief to hear him say it wasn’t spreading. “The need for food throughout the outer villages is still dire.”
A bone-numbing chill clung to me. If they were trading again, I needed to know how far I was embedded in their plans. “Your newly established trade, is it dependent on us marrying?”
“It was set in motion far before we were,” he said.
I waited for the starlight to strike me.
It didn’t.
“You have my gratitude for it.” Bailoc’s situation was a problem I couldn’t truly solve, but it didn’t make me feel any less responsible for it.
“Now that the threat of war and the rebellion have ceased and the gate to Nythrel is open, maybe the realms can finally know peace.” The sharp lines around his eyes softened as he looked at me.
We had exactly one thing in common—the weight of political decisions on our shoulders. It wouldn’t be enough to make me love him, but I could respect him.
“We would all be better for it,” I said.
“I am relieved to find that you understand the necessity, Ashlyn. My role has me heavily embedded in politics and the relationships between our kingdoms. I require a bride who will stand beside me.”
“I understand.”
Soren settled his hand on mine. “I wish to know you fully.”
I didn’t know what that meant. “Whatever you want to know, you may ask.”
“I’d like to kiss you.”
In Bailoc, my people believed a kiss was a sacred claim. Women didn’t kiss men unless they were marrying them. My time with the fae saw a different world, where a kiss was much more freely given.
There was beauty in the way the fae lived. It was as if they knew how easily those moments could be taken from them.
I wasn’t ready to kiss him.
“Do you fear me?” His hand lingered near my waist.
“I don’t.” I could hear my heart race as if it were fighting the starlight sensation before it even emerged. It would be so easy to lie—to tell him anything that covered up the truth that was festering inside of me.
One I didn’t wish to face at all.
“What is it then?” he asked.
“We need time to get to know each other.” I wasn’t ready for him to touch me. “Don’t you want me to take my time and decide not in haste?” I asked.
“Of course.”
The starlight burned.
“I need to know that you respect me despite the fact that I don’t know yet.” I had been in the palace for less than two days.
“I do.”
There was nothing in his voice or in how he held himself that signaled he was lying, but still the starlight flared within me.
If I were to give myself a life here, I would have to play the part he expected of me.
“So much could be decided with a kiss,” he said. “Will you allow it?”
He wasn’t going to accept me saying no. I would need to keep him close so that I could decide on my terms—so that he could develop patience for the time I needed.
It was only a kiss. If I did it, it wouldn’t seal my future to his.
Maybe kissing him would make me feel something for him—it would make it easier to pick this life. “You may kiss me.”
Footsteps echoed from down the path as Soren leaned in.
His hand trailed my cheek and settled beneath my chin, drawing it toward him. I closed my eyes as his lips slid over mine. Gently he pressed a kiss upon them.
Nothing flared within me. No spark. No starlight.
Only the awkward feeling of his lips on mine remained.
When Soren pulled back, Fyn stepped closer.
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” When Fyn pivoted from us, the color in his face drained. “One of your guards informed me the princess was here.”
The look in Fyn’s eyes—the unmistakable way his chest heaved—it broke me.
I forced myself to look up at Soren the way a woman who had just kissed a man should.
Pretending was never my strength. Soren might see through the facade if I didn’t try.
“That single stolen moment was worth it.” Soren spoke as if Fyn said nothing at all—as if he wasn’t there.
“Prince Soren,” a man called from down the path. “The king requires your presence immediately. He awaits you in his study.”
Soren kissed me again, his hands finding my jaw quicker than I wanted. “I will be busy most of the rest of the day, but I will see you tomorrow.”
I nodded as the muscles in my shoulders tensed.