Franklyn says nothing, but when he looks up at me I know.
The bullet fired found a new home.
My brother is dead.
My brother is dead and I am now the heir to a tarnished crown.
Everything has changed.
June
three months before
I know well that the June rains just fall -Onitsura
Chapter One
Someone chose blue. A dark - almost black - blue. It’s silk and it feels cool against my skin that has been buffed and polished by hands that aren’t paid enough. In the mirror I see the reflection of a woman who doesn’t look much more than a girl, maybe too thin, too pale, too innocent. Everything istoo.
Too much.
Alina is my make-up artist, because despite being twenty-nine, I apparently can’t paint my own face. I sit in rooms being prepped and coloured in, any desirable feature enhanced, any blemish erased temporarily. But I’m not allowed to do it myself.
I sit and smile, close my eyes, feel the kohl being applied, open them, see the dress that will cling to my breasts, illuminate the slightness of my waist. Bring out the blue of my eyes.
“You’re going to look beautiful in that dress.” Alina sees me staring at the fabric, following my eyes to the gown.
She’s probably right. Because I’m being made to. I’m being prepared to look beautiful in the dress because tonight that’s my role: the pretty princess who will speak intelligently and gracefully with the representatives who are here from England trying to deliver something called peace.
I’ve forgotten what peace is. There are fairy tales about when we used to be one country, back in some long forgotten time. Now we are in a ‘peace process’, trying to agree the terms between Scotland and England. There is nothing peaceful about it. When the union between the countries was broken, back when my Grandfather was around, it was decided that Scotland should be ruled by a monarchy, like it used to be. For the history and the pomp and the circumstance. And the crown.
Alina stands back and lets me step to the dress, a hanging headless corpse decorating a wardrobe. The material is heavier than it looks, the decadent skirt decorated with gems sewn in by calloused fingers, strained eyes seeking minute details. Somewhere there will be a speck of blood from a needle, the sewer not able to fall asleep.
“I think we should leave your hair down.”
I turn to the doorway and see my mother, already made up with her hair in an elaborate style. She has left the grey alone, allowing it to filter through the light brown locks that she’s never touched. Her accent is softer when we’re alone, alone apart from our staff. Here she isn’t on display or duty.
“Really?” Usually, for formal occasions such as these, it would be up, tidy. In keeping with the agenda.
She shrugs. “It’s a change. It will suit the dress. Lennox matches with his tie.”
“He’s my brother. Dressing us the same makes us look like we’re together.”
There’s a laugh, bells tinkle. “Or twins.”
Which was probably her aim. I’d been a twin. My sister was stillborn. Rayne. Rayne and Blair we were named; two little princesses. Rayne: just like the tears I know my mother still sheds for her baby she never got to hold.
“Is Lennox taking a date?”
I feel my shoulders tense enough to be almost painful. Elise is my best friend, allegedly, and I know she’s seeking the company of an heir to a throne. I know she’s had the company in her room already.
My brother can be a fool.
“Not as far as I know, but it’s Lennox. You know what Lennox is like.”
Three years older, a future king, allowed to choose his own suits and shirts and bed mates. That was what Lennox was like.
I’d never had those privileges. It wasn’t my job.
