I froze.
Her hand was still on my skin, but her mind had drifted … far past the mirror and the rouge and what was waiting outside this room. She wasn’t thinking of crowns or Amyklai’s ambitions. Not of queens or of victory.
She was thinking ofme.
Her gaze held mine, and in it I saw every version of me she’d tried to shape—blade, siren, shadow—and underneath that, the child I’d once been. The one she’d bathed and dressed and disciplined. The one she’d loved.
“I thought if we used it right,” she whispered, “it might keep you alive.”
“It will,” I reassured her. “And when I win, it will be because of you. Because you helped me prepare for this day.”
Like it hurt to let go, she dropped her hand. “I—” Calismae began.
Bang. Bang.
The knock came hard and the door groaned open a heartbeat later without permission. A girl crept inside, eyes wide, shoulders hunched like she expected to be slapped for her intrusion.
“What do you think you’re doing, girl?” Calismae snapped, her sorrow vanishing so fast I almost doubted I’d seen it. Any grief was gone as her mask locked back in place. The sharp voice I’d grown up under cracked through the air, clipped and scolding.
“I—I’m sorry, mistress,” the girl stammered, staring at the floor like it might open up and save her. “My lady is waiting. She says you’re late. You must hasten.”
Calismae let out a sigh through her nose, a sound like wind over crushed stone. The lines on her face, so soft with pain a moment ago, creased into something harder, something that reminded me of the trenches left in dry earth after the rains stopped.
She turned to me with a flick of her hand, quick and dismissive. “Well? What are you waiting for? Move.”
“Yes, Nana,” I said, the word catching in my throat, strained and unwelcome as I grabbed my cloak and slipped it over my shoulders.
For half a second, her expression faltered again. A twitch at the corner of her mouth. A breath that didn’t come. Then she turned on her heel, robes flaring like a banner unfurling, and swept from the room with the clipped, battle-ready stride of a woman who’d survived too much to let emotion weigh her down.
I followed.
But my steps were slower … heavier. They didn’t echo, they thudded. A dull, dragging rhythm, like the beat of a funeral march muffled by distance. Or maybe just disquiet.
I wouldn’t walk these halls as this version of me ever again.
I would either become a queen, or return a failure.
The air was filled with the scent of oil and old incense, clinging to the walls like breath trapped in stone. The red limestone beneath my feet had been scrubbed raw this morning—three times, I’d bet, judging by the broom strokes still etched into the dust. Precise little grooves. As if order could be swept into permanence.
Fine crimson grains puffed up around my ankles as I passed though, reaching for me. Hungry things, desperate to cling to skin and silk, to leave their mark. They tried to catch the hem of my dress, to stain me, claim me … keep me here.
But not today.
I rounded the final column, and there it was—ourokhèmawaiting at the end of the walkway. Its twin wheels stood still, lacquered wood catching the light. And beside it …her.
My mother.
Straight-backed. Unmoving. A statue created not to honor, but to unnerve. Intimidation shaped in flesh and bone.
Apprehension curled in my gut and bit down hard … with teeth. One look at her silhouette, and I could always count on feeling sick.
A grating growl shattered the stillness, followed by a loud, wheezing snort.
One of the servants flinched as a jergin yanked against its harness. Red dirt exploded up beneath its clawed feet, swallowing the boy in a plume. When it cleared, he looked like he’d been dipped in blood-wine and left to dry … his formerly golden hair now a dull russet crown of grit.
I winced on his behalf, but some small, irreverent part of me noted that if nothing else, he looked like a cautionary tale painted in red.
Calismae didn’t have to speak. Her disapproval rolled off her like a thunderclap no one else seemed to hear, loud and invisible and meant for me alone. She hated when I let anything slip in front of others, especially in front of the servants. Emotion was weakness, even if it was mirth. And weakness had no place in a weapon.
