She crossed the room to where the resistance woman sat on her own stool. “You, my dear, will be a Safflower. But let me give you a few words of warning about …”
“I think Mama Momo is too harsh,” Moon Orchid whispered, diverting my attention. “You could pass as an Orchid.” She smiled and handed me a long strip of cloth. “Please pull your hair back, my lady, and we’ll get started.”
I wrapped the cloth around my head, tucking in the loose strands of hair.
“You should take off your pendant, too, or it may get paint on it.”
I lifted the leather thong over my head, pulling Kygo’s amulet from under the edge of the drying cloth. For a moment, Moon Orchid’s eyes fixed on the swinging gold ring. Her long throat convulsed in a hard swallow.
“Kygo’s — I mean, His Majesty’s blood ring,” she said. “Why do you have it? Is he all right?”
I pulled it back from her avid gaze. “He gave it to me,” I said.
How did she know it was Kygo’s ring? The obvious answer was like a slap across the face. We stared at each other, her beauty sending another pang through me, discordant and sour.
“Is he well?” she asked.
“He was this morning.” I closed my fingers around the ring.
Moon Orchid turned and pressed a brush into the white face paint, her smooth brow creased. Even a frown did not detract from her beauty. She took a deeper breath, withdrew the brush, and wiped the excess on the side of the pot. When she turned back to me, her face was once again serene. She placed the brush alongside my nose and gently stroked the cool paint onto my skin.
“The ring is very important to him,” she said. Her eyes flicked up from her task. “He must think highly of you.”
No doubt she saw my cheeks redden.
“It is to protect us on the mission,” I said.
“Yes, of course.” She smiled and charged the brush again. A small silence settled as she painted the other side of my face and my forehead in broad strokes.
I wet my lips. “How long have you known him?”
She looked up from under her long lashes. “I have not seen him since Her Majesty, the Empress Cela, walked the golden path to her ancestors.”
She had not answered my question, but something narroweyed within me was pleased that she had not seen him for a year.
Moon Orchid turned from the paint pot again. “He is a very handsome man.” Another long stroke ended at my chin. “Although his heavenly rank creates tension for his earthly body.”
I pulled back from the brush. Its white tip hung between us, pointed like her comment.
“How is that?” I finally asked, curiosity overwhelming my unease.
“To be so sacred that one cannot be touched. It builds both a hunger and a restraint.” The soft brush followed the shape of my mouth. “A conflict that is mirrored in his spirit.” She stopped painting, her face polite. “Or perhaps you disagree, my lady?”
For a searing moment, I felt Kygo’s hand around my wrist again and saw the strong line of his jaw as his head strained back, fighting for control. I drew in a breath, meeting Moon Orchid’s watchful gaze. “You know him well, then.”
A small shrug, and the brush swirled through the paint again. “Well enough to know that he has given you more than just a god’s protection with that ring.”
I opened my hand and we both looked down at the thick band. I knew it meant more — it had been in the touch of his hand and the soft urgency of his voice — but I still wanted to know what she thought he had given me.
There was no need for me to ask: Moon Orchid was a practiced reader of desire. She put down the brush, her dark eyes suddenly much older than the smooth beauty of her face.
“He has given you his blood, and the moment when he crossed into manhood,” she said, and pressed my fingers around the ring again. Her smile was as tight as my heart.
For a moment I felt victorious, as though I had won some silent battle between us. Then I looked down at her hand enclosing my own, and in my mind all I could see were those long, pale fingers moving slowly across Kygo’s sacred skin.
I had not even stepped into the arena.
After what seemed an age, Mama Momo circled me again, Dela by her side.
“You have done a beautiful job, my dear,” she said to Moon Orchid. “Do you not agree, Lady Dela?”
Dela smiled her agreement, although her face was troubled. She had joined us early in the preparations, like a moth drawn to the flame of femininity in the room. She had sat beside me as Moon Orchid finished painting my face, and I had watched her large-knuckled hands hover over the brushes and paint, her eyes judging the deft darkening of my lashes and reddening of my lips. I could almost feel the ache in her to shave off her stubble and paint back the contours of her true self.
“Are you all right?” I whispered, when Moon Orchid had stepped away for a moment.
Dela had put down the pot she was holding, her lip caught between her teeth. “Every day, Ryko sees me in this man’s garb. It is difficult enough for me, let alone him.”
I touched her arm. “It does not matter. He knows who you really are.”
“Then why do I see him withdrawing from me?” she asked.
“I don’t think it is you,” I had said grimly. “I think it is me.”
Across the room, Vida stared at her completed Safflower reflection in a large mirror that stood against the wall. She touched the glass, pulling back as her finger met the hard surface. I remembered my own shock at seeing the whole length of my body for the first time in the arena mirror; the sudden shift from living within flesh to viewing it, a collection of form and contour that was myself, but at the same time outside myself. Quickly, Vida averted her eyes from those in the precious glass; perhaps she did not want to see her spirit in its depths. She watched her reflected hand trace the curve of her waist. Her body was swathed in diaphanous blue cloth that in some places was only one layer thick, showing the sheen of oiled skin, and in others, three or four layers, hiding everything but shape. She frowned and stepped back, her cheeks flushed.
“It will be hard to fight in this,” she said. “It is very tight. And I cannot hide a weapon.”
“You would not get one past the guards anyway,” Momo said. “Come, Lady Eona.” She beckoned me over to the mirror. “See yourself transformed.”
I gathered the skirt of my pink and green gown and walked over to the mirror, both eager and afraid to see my reflection.
A fine-boned woman watched me warily from the smooth glass, her large eyes made larger by the charcoal definition of lashes and brows. Her thick hair, braided into three crown coils and pinned with a beautiful fall of gold flowers, added height to her small frame. Her mouth was painted into a stylized flower bud that was oddly melancholy, its natural upward curve hidden in the white paint that softened a stubborn chin and created an elegant length of throat.
I blinked, bringing the separate parts of my face into a whole. The woman before me was pretty, but not beautiful like Moon Orchid. My eyes followed the downward sweep of white paint to the hollow of my throat. It had been left unpainted, a jewel of smooth, natural skin that hinted at what lay beneath the clinging sheath of pink and green silk and the tight binding of the embroidered sash.
“Although she is completely covered, the message is still very obvious,” Dela said wryly.
“That is our art,” Momo said.
I shook my head. “I cannot do this.” I stepped away from the mirror. “I am not feminine enough. I will walk like a boy and give us away.”
“Nonsense. You were skilled enough to fool everyone into believing you were a boy for years. I’m sure you can now manage a Peony.” Momo led me back to the mirror and stood me in front of it again. “Look at yourself. You are a beautiful Peony, a highly skilled artist whose company is reserved for the rich and powerful. Every other man will be busy unwrapping you with his eyes. They will not see anything beyond that.”
I pressed my lips together, tasting the waxy red ocher of the paint. I knew Momo was right: the soldiers would not see anything beyond the promise of my body. Not at first, anyway. Even Kygo’s gaze had changed when I
