Demelza was not prepared for the alien grandeur of the mushroom residences, which were far larger on the inside than they appeared on the outside. The whole place looked as if it had been constructed of ice, marble and bone. Frosted candelabras floated through the air, sifting snowflakes along their path. Far above, a sky glass permitted the moon’s cold radiance.
Upon entering, Demelza was met with a grand dining hall. At the center was a marble table decorated with tall vases holding snow roses. A massive staircase spiraling from the main floor connected the residence’s various levels. Gilded railings blocked off each landing, so that it appeared as if the interior was constructed of ringed balconies allowing the contestants to peer at one another plainly and watch the goings on in the dining hall.
The main room was crowded with the contestants. Demelza had caught the names of a few of the girls when she had arrived in the welcome tent. They had been encouraged to change and refresh themselves and even get to know one another before the evening soireé but Demelza had allowed herself only a bath before following Angharad’s trail to the orangery.
Demelza had never been lonely. She had always had the company of her sisters or the wyvern. Or even Hush Manor itself. There had never been any need to make introductions or ingratiate herself anywhere…
Until now.
A girl with long, sharp teeth and sea-foam hair glanced in Demelza’s direction and recoiled. She whispered somethingto the girl next to her, pointing rather obviously at Demelza’s mud-caked hair before laughing. Demelza smiled. She pointed at her hair and laughed too, but the girls merely rolled their eyes and walked elsewhere.
“Showing up hideous to a bridal tournament is quite the strategy,” said a voice beside her.
Demelza turned and saw twin girls. They were clearly from the Famishing, for their skin had the nacreous shimmer of a pearl and scaled ears poked through the wild tangle of their hair. The twins wore ethereal blue gowns that floated around their bodies.
“Thalassa,” said one, pointing at the girl next to her.
“And that’s Pearl,” said the other.
Pearl eyed Demelza’s hair and clothes and sniffed. “This whole attire is a strategy, isn’t it?”
“It was my mother’s idea of a farewell gift,” said Demelza, scratching uselessly at the helmet of mud.
When Araminta had told Demelza to flee for Rathe Castle, Demelza had imagined that her mother would follow in the tradition of the fairy tales. Perhaps she would give her a walnut that held three dresses. One as beautiful as the sun, the next as lovely as the moon and the third as bright as the stars. But instead Araminta had smeared mud on her hair and face and sent her out onto the moors with nothing but a blade, her wits and a dress of weeds.
“This is to keep you hidden from your father’s sight,” Araminta had said. “He cannot see within his own land, and so that is what I shall cover you in. It is a temporary fix, but perhaps in that time it may give you a road to freedom. Anddon’t forget, my dear, the stones of Hush Manor and Rathe Castle are siblings… we may yet find a way to speak even though you will be far from us.”
Demelza understood that it was a loving gesture, though she wished it could be a less… smelly… gesture. The mud was impervious to soap. And despite plunging the dress of reeds into an enchanted cleaning solution, it still looked as drab as ever.
Thalassa’s eyes flashed. She tilted her head. It reminded Demelza of a shark scenting blood.
“And where did you say you’re from, my dear?” she asked.
Demelza smiled. “I didn’t.”
“Ooooh, this is fun!” said Pearl, clapping her hands. “Typically one tries to make an impression with beauty, but I applaud the one who does so with a display of grotesquerie instead.”
Her sister was not as amused. “A mud-splattered jewel is still a jewel, but sometimes mud has no mystery. Sometimes it’s just damp dirt.”
The twins smiled, curtsied and left. Demelza took a deep breath. The prince had not yet agreed to their arrangement, but she was confident that he would. Once that happened, it would be imperative for Demelza to fit in with the contestants…
This was not a promising start.
If Araminta had trained Demelza in the same courtly intrigues that she had taught her sisters, then perhaps she would have been better prepared. Instead, Demelza was—literally and figuratively—a mess.
Demelza had read plenty of historical texts on the way such bridal tournaments tended to progress. By now, a front-runner would have already emerged. Those who thought they had a chance of beating her would be surrounding her to observe, mimic and sabotage. Those who knew they would lose would play the role of admiring sycophants, for who wouldn’t want to be on the good side of a powerful queen? If she was to convince Arris of her usefulness then all Demelza had to do was observe. This was easier said than done, for the main room was swarming with ball gowns and towering hairstyles. Suffusing it all like a too strong cologne was an unmistakable whiff of restlessness. Not two steps from Demelza, a girl from the Ulva Wylds howled and pushed the girl behind her.
“Step on my tail again and I’ll claw your eyes out!” she snarled.
The girl she had pushed was startlingly beautiful. With her fall of onyx hair, full lips the color of rubies and small diamond piercings at her temples, she reminded Demelza of a jewel.
“Threaten me again, and I will be sure to remember the words and hang you when I am queen,” said the bejeweled maiden.
The wolf girl laughed. “As if he’d choose you.”
“We are destined to be together,” she said. “He knows it too. He could not keep his eyes off me. Tonight, he will whisper my name and perhaps you shall hear it in your dreams: Zoraya, Zoraya, Zoraya. You might think you’re a predator, but you’re nothing but a pest.”
The wolf-girl shook her head. Her eyes turned yellow and her pupils widened. She pulled back her lips and might have lunged at Zoraya, but she was shoved out of the way by a nearby commotion—
