her in the mirror.
Amber flashed magnificent rich gold against the green of her gown, its chain so fine that it seemed to hover at her throat unsupported. The dressmaker-Pierre; he had never bothered to give Belinda his name-huffed a sound she took as approval, evidently satisfied that the jewel enhanced his creation.
“Thank you,” Belinda said a second time, peculiarly aware that those were not words that often crossed her lips. “It’s astonishing, and I shall indeed remember from whence it came.”
Akilina smiled with more pleasure than necessary, as if hearing more in the words than was obviously there. “You’re expected in the courtroom at the midday Angelus bells. I’d best go there myself; Her Majesty wants no one to distract from your arrival.”
Colour built in Belinda’s cheeks, less artifice than she might wish, and Akilina laughed as she excused herself, leaving Belinda alone with the dressmaker. “Thank you,” she said to him as well, and his customary dour expression reasserted itself. Belinda fought back another laugh and turned to look at herself a final time before drawing a careful deep breath. “I suppose I should go. I’m to wait in the audience chambers.”
“Wait here until the bells are closer to ringing,” Pierre said abruptly. “Had the woman not been a countess and bearing a gift, I wouldn’t have let her in. No one should see you, my lady. The effect is all the greater that way.”
Belinda blinked at him, startled and then not, at his sudden opinion. He’d had them by the bucketload when it came to her gown, that he should have them in how to best show it off should be no surprise. “All right.” She took another careful breath, dizziness spilling through her, and asked, “Could I perhaps have some wine, then? I’m light-headed.”
He fetched some, and, unexpectedly, a croissant with jam, then stood by with a napkin dangling from his fingertips and a glower set onto his face. “I won’t wipe my fingers on the dress,” Belinda promised, and he looked increasingly dour that she’d even spoken the idea aloud.
Food, more than the drink, helped to steady her head, though with having done no more than stand and turn, Belinda knew she would be desperately glad to rid herself of the corsets when the time came. The idea of curtseying before Sandalia made her dizzy all over again, and she walked carefully to a chair, leaning awkwardly against its cushions; the corsets had far too little give to allow her to bend at hip or waist so she might sit properly. Still, the change of weight seemed to help for a few moments, even if Pierre scowled at the possibility of his creation being wrinkled by her carelessness.
He could not have made a better dress if his plan had been to forbid her any chance of stealing Sandalia’s keys in the bare moments they would be that close to each other. Moving quickly enough, subtly enough, to pick the queen’s pocket was unlikely even if she’d been graced with the chance to wear one of Eliza’s gowns; doing it in the rigid contraption she now wore would be an impossibility.
She would have to risk the poisoned darts and damaging Sandalia’s desk. It lacked any degree of delicacy, but perhaps there was someone she could hang for it, some servant who could be made out as a spy. An Aulunian spy, no less, though the idea brought on a laugh so breathless it could be called a giggle, escaped her. Pierre, disapproving of levity, turned a ferocious glare on her, and Belinda subsided, nibbling her croissant and sipping at the wine. Her heartbeat was too quick, and stillness kept slipping away from her, even when she ought to have held it close and let it help her forget the discomfort of too-tight corsets. It had seen her through a day and a half of Pierre’s ministrations; to find it deserting her now was an irritation.
“The bells will ring the hour in some ten minutes.” Pierre’s voice cut through her reverie and Belinda shook herself, looking up. Her wine was finished, the croissant gone, and the napkin Pierre had offered was caught in her fingertips. She cast her thoughts back, recalling finishing the food and asking for the napkin, but it was a hazy memory, as if breathing shallowly had fogged her mind. She would be glad indeed to shed the dress, even if it made her regal.
“Thank you,” she said yet again, and took the dressmaker’s hand to let him help her rise; without it she feared she may well have been doomed to an afternoon of uncomfortable lounging, unable to rise or sit without some drastic change of state.
Breathing seemed to come more easily again once she stood; movement appeared to be the trigger, the changes of pressure tricking her into thinking she could draw more breath. She curtsied to Pierre, a small thing- the most she dared, and probably more than his station could ever aspire to-and left her chambers in a slow, stately glide that had far more to do with being unable to move more quickly than any particular need for the dramatically slow pace.
The corridors were empty, servants working to prepare a dinner feast and courtiers already in attendance in the audience hall. After five weeks of being watched, Belinda was finally alone in the palace, and completely unable to make use of that private time. Even if she dared slip through shadows to search Sandalia’s chambers again, there was no way to do it in the dress she wore. Better to follow what plan she had, and make her careful way to the audience hall to accept the gift Sandalia had in mind for her. It was as well she was a woman, and not a man come to be knighted. Bad enough to have the chamber hall doors swung open slowly in front of her, ponderously, with the rush of wind they made heralding her arrival even before a crier could shout out her name. Not since childhood, not since she’d bowed for the first time before the queen of Aulun, had Belinda felt the weight of so many gazes upon her.
Then, they had been tolerant, disinterested, amused. Now they judged, and not kindly: she was their prince’s intended, she was backwater and without connections, and she was loathed by many for those things alone.
That she was also, this one day, beautiful, softened some hearts toward her and hardened others. Even uncalled for, the witchpower stretched out, tasting emotion and bringing it back to her in powerful waves. She was prepared for that, braced for it; the stillness held a cool calm centre against which admiration and dislike and envy broke and fell around her. Out of the cacophony she could pick out individuals whom she knew well: Marius, a bastion of regret, his pain a lonely note in the mass of broader sentiment. Sacha, full of smoldering rage tempered by a sense of intent that Belinda couldn’t define.
Sandalia, nearly as cool as Belinda herself, as if she, too, had drawn stillness around her and did only what she must. Viktor, unexpectedly, his hunger and lust pounding through Belinda’s control to bring the faintest heat to her cheeks. Akilina, whose easy laughter felt spiked, as if she had a delicious secret no one else shared. And Javier, whose pride in Belinda’s appearance was softened by a heart-filling joy that Belinda could not, or dared not, name.
Below it all she felt a rumbling anger so thick and murky it seemed familiar; a human predilection toward violence, perhaps, the thin line that kept a group from being a mob near to being crossed over. She was not loved here, though with the thought her gaze skittered back to Javier. She was not loved here, save, perhaps, by one. Her slow footsteps measured the length of the hall with ear-shattering sound, no voices raised in murmurs to discuss her, even after she’d passed.
She curtsied before Sandalia, dropping straight down and inclining her head; there would be no forward bow from the waist to deepen her obsequiescence, not in that dress. For the second time she thought it was as well she wasn’t a man coming to be knighted; the prospect of kneeling in the gown she’d been sewn into was absurd to the point of bringing a smile to her heart, though she didn’t dare let one curve her mouth. She held the pose an achingly long time, the breath gone from her body before Sandalia finally murmured, “You may rise.”
She may, Belinda thought, but whether she could was entirely another question. Concentrated effort pushed into her legs helped her to straighten, so slowly she knew others would call it grace, so long as they didn’t see the tremble that suffused her body. She flickered her glance up once in thanks, then lowered it again, waiting for Sandalia’s words.
They came, soaring over her head to reach the back of the audience hall; Belinda was merely a tool in a showcase; none of this was for her. “Today we have the pleasure of granting a noble title to one who has done this court great service. We have lands in Brittany to our north that are ripe and wooded, well-made for hunting and, we are told, for planting. We regret that there are no living quarters yet on these lands, but we have arranged for a generous allowance so suitable quarters might be built.”
Delight sparked off Javier, boyish excitement at the prospect of overseeing the creation of a new retreat suitable for royalty. Sandalia, in marked contrast, remained wonderfully neutral; Belinda thought she herself could not do better. “We shall recommend artisans,” the queen went on, “and perhaps it will be our honour to visit when building is complete.
“We shall provide a stipend for five years,” she continued, “long enough that the fertile earth should begin to
