“I-Indira! Is th-that—” Father stammers when I join him and Mother in the courtyard for the funeral procession.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t wish to know the answer to,” I breezily reply, which sends him into an even louder fit of dithering.
“What’s come over you? You’ve always been…”
Passive. Biddable. Weak.
No more.
Not now that I’m living for Rowenna too.
I channel her brash confidence as we march down High Street, holding my chin high and waving my bagrava-stained hands. During Father Alonzo’s bland graveside liturgy, I shake my head so the dark juice flies from my cheeks and speckles the ground around King Soren and his son. They haven’t taken their beady eyes off of me since I joined the procession. My painted face is a relatively small defiance. But there’sno denying it’s that: defiance. A needling reminder they’re not fully in control, because they don’t have a clue what I might do next.
Obviously, I know better than to attack them outright like Haddesh, but there are other ways to unsettle and agitate them. Slow, calculated ways to poke them and retreat.
Prince Alaric stands opposite the grave from me, wearing the flashiest jacket I’ve seen yet—red velvet held together with pewter chains that crisscross his bare chest. It would be inappropriate for any occasion, let alone his wife’s funeral. As Father Alonzo speaks, Alaric jabs his knuckles into his eyes to produce the appearance of tears, but they refuse to come because he isn’t sorry my sister is dead. I’d wager our entire crop of bagrava he pushed Ro off that cliff.
It’s always the husband.
Alaric glances up, as if he can feel my gaze drilling into his skull. His eyes are stone gray, and his dark hair hangs in loose waves across his forehead, reminding me of the twisted innards of the voles that nibble on our crops. The ones that meet their end on the sharp edge of my shovel.
I narrow my eyes at him.I know what you did.
He stares back, not with defensiveness or outrage, but boredom. He’s so assured in his superiority—inVanzador’ssuperiority—he doesn’t fear retaliation. He knows there’s nothing we can do.
I have the sudden urge to throw myself across the open grave and claw the demeaning expression off his face, but Mother grabs my wrist, sinking her fingernails into my skin. Proof she’s still in there somewhere, fighting the crushing winds of grief.
Father looks immediately to King Soren, more worried about egos and appearances than his own family’s pain.
Soren, for his part, notices none of it. He drums his fingers against his crossed arms and glares at the sun, as if willing it to hurry its arc across the sky.
Father Alonzo closes the services and invites us all to return to the hillock palace for the mourning feast. For the first time all day, Sorenlooks attentive. He even licks his lips.
“I hope he chokes on the honey-roasted squash,” I grumble as we trudge back to the palace behind the Vanzadorians, who are practically sprinting to reach the banquet.
Father holds out a stiff arm and stops me. “You cannot say such things. I know you’re grieving, but—”
“Didn’t you teach me to always tell the truth?” I fire back.
“I also taught you to use your head. Just cooperate and get through today.”
“Then what?” I snap. “We continue being the Vanzadorians’ slaves and pretend they didn’t murder Rowenna?”
“What other choice do we have? You know my hands are tied.”
Father looks to Mother for support, but she’s floated away again, back into her cocoon of grief. She stares blankly as we shuffle into the atrium under the hill, oblivious to the breathtaking decorations the servants arranged while we were at the burial.
Fairy lights weave through the flowering shrubberies, and vibrant blue wisteria dangles overhead like a canopy, filling the air with its heady perfume. The irrigation troughs have even been rerouted from the fields to create tinkling waterfalls and still reflecting pools.
It’s all so right…and so horrifically wrong. Rowenna deserves a celebration like this, but it should have been for her coronation. Or her wedding—to anyone other than Alaric Alaverdi. Not her funeral.
There’s also the glaring fact that we can’t afford any of this. The panels of chiffon draped between each pillar were supposed to be saved formywedding wrap someday. And our people have only been permitted to bathe once a week for the better part of this year—the crops must always come first. But now a month’s worth of wash water is dribbling into a puddle for nothing but the Vanzadorians’ enjoyment.
Luxury is what Soren expects, so that’s what Father gives him. No matter the cost to the rest of us.
I snatch the nearest panel of chiffon and tear it down. “I don’t think your hands are truly tied, Father. I think they’re just trembling too hard to do anything useful.”
Father gapes at me and then the shred of fabric. “Stop this, Indira! I do not appreciate this…this…side of you.”
