Squashing my own petty joy at the thought of Simin getting a much-needed comeuppance, I consider the other Cobanite women who received invitations. Fatima, a strong, fierce brunette, is the granddaughter of one of the House of Antares’s aldermen. Parvi is our local beauty, with dark auburn hair, jewel-bright eyes, and a face all the local men drool over. It’s no surprise they were selected. But I’m hardly in the same sphere.
“Why me, though?” I blurt out.
“Whynotyou?”
I shrug, unable to come up with an answer that makes any kind of sense. Alliances, money, beauty, and house affiliation have always been the cornerstones of female worth in Oryndhr. The royal family wouldnevervoluntarily pick someone like me to marry the crown prince. I have zero connections and no dowry to offer. My features are too bold to be pretty like Parvi’s; my body is not as strong as an ox like Fatima’s, although I enjoy my aunt’s cooking way too much to claim otherwise. My brain is arguably bigger than a walnut, and my breasts, well, the melon gods were clearly having an off day when it came to me.
“It’s a mistake. It has to be.”
“Stop selling yourself short, Sura,” Laleh insists. “That’s your name on the invitation. Out of thousands of girls, you were invited. Not Simin, not me. You.”
I chew on my lip. She’s right; itismy name, but it still doesn’t make sense. I’m a nobody. My gaze slides back to the dagger. I’m a nobody, and technically, I’m a lawbreaker. I should beavoidingthe crown’s notice instead of soliciting it. My stomach roils and tumbles... but I can’t decide if it’s from excitement or from something a little more sinister, like the tingle that comes before disaster strikes.
Because if something is too good to be true, it might be exactly that.
A lie.
Chapter Two
Laleh wrenches the scroll from me and sighs. “Be leery all you want, but most Oryndhrian women would kill for this chance, including me. And Iknowyou. Even if you don’t want to marry, you’d sell your obsessed little soul to get inside that palace, admit it!”
I can’t hold back my smile. Laleh does know me, much too well. With a fond look at my mother’s painting, I try to flatten the waves of apprehension and anticipation threatening to sweep me up in their chaotic wake and focus on the positive. “What do you think it’s like inside?”
“That’s more like it!” Laleh laughs and hugs me, brown eyes lighting up with excitement. “Gold floors inlaid with precious stones. Furs on every surface. Rich carpets so thick that your feet sink into them like luxurious padded slippers. Beautiful fabrics and tapestries hanging from the walls. And servantseverywhere!”
Grinning, I jump wholeheartedly into our game. “My chamber would be a hundred times the size of this one, with a bed that could sleep ten people, and blankets so fine, they would be made of handspun cashmere.”
Laleh matches my enthusiasm. “And a bath so large you couldn’t hold your breath swimming from one end to the other.”
I sigh with absurd pleasure at that thought. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d sell my soul to Prince Javed just for the baths. If I’m chosen as his bride, he won’t be able to tear me from at least a half dozen baths a day.”
“You’d be the cleanest princess in all of Oryndhr,” Laleh says, smirking. “Perhaps that will be enough for you to finally decide upon a husband. Get some of that slag and soot off you.”
“Hey! I’m not that dirty.”
She mimes an erotic sex act with her fist, pumping it toward her mouth while moving her tongue into her opposite cheek. “Not dirty enough, in my opinion.”
I blush hot, but we collapse into a fit of laughter as delight unfurls inside me. “Do you think the palace has a library?”
Laleh winks. “I bet it has anenormous,thick, overflowing library.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.” I snicker.
She waggles her perfectly threaded eyebrows and holds her hands apart the length of something much too large for any person to take comfortably. “I thinkthickis exactly the word I mean. Or maybe eventurgid, throbbing, tumescent, thunderous.”
“You are fixated on sex!”
“And you need to follow my lead to clear out the cobwebs before you start hatching an army of spiders down there.”
Clasping a hand to my breast, I fake an insulted gasp. “Mydown thereis free of all vermin, thank you very much.” I throw a cushion at her, and we giggle some more as my father’s voice filters through the doors of the shed from the tavern across the way.
“Suraya!”
“Shit, I should go home soon,” Laleh says, hopping up and pulling a face. “By the maker, I can’t wait to see Simin’s face when she finds out.”
“Laleh, maybe we should keep this quiet,” I say. “Between us for now.”
She looks at me as if she wants to argue, but then clamps her lips shut and nods.
