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“Who are you?” I asked desperately, searching their eyes for any hint, any sign of kindness. But I found none.
They gave no answer, but one by one left the room, until only a single attendant remained. She wrenched my hair out of its braid and brushed it ruthlessly, with an awful sharp-tooth brush that made my scalp feel like it was starting to bleed. I shoved her away from me, snatching the brush from her hand.
She eyed me with a worrisome, empty coldness. “Your Grace,” she said, her voice raspy and hollow, “I’ve been ordered to do your hair.”
I clenched the brush hard in my hand, readying myself to hit her in the face with the back side.
Even through my panic and exhaustion, I realized I was not completely powerless. She had called me Your Grace. That meant she recognized my title; she knew who I was. Which meant she very well might recognize my authority. And so for the first time in my entire life, I decided to pull rank.
In the grand scheme of Praquean royalty, I was nobody of any importance at all. But as my father had often told me, there was royal blood in my veins. And for the first time ever, I was proud of it.
“Get out,” I said, pointing at the door.
In her eyes, there was a momentary hesitation. An impasse. An uncertainty. A doubt.
“Out,” I repeated. “Unless the King himself ordered you to do my hair, it’s my word you’re bound to obey. So get the hell out of this room before I have you stoned for disobedience. Or hanged for mistreatment of a royal. Petre is not royalty, he holds no power. I do.”
The words felt like they were coming from some other woman’s mouth, but whoever she was, I was damned grateful to have her inside me. The attendant dropped her head and did a quick curtsy, then scurried to the door.
I needed to be alone. I wasn’t some show horse and if I walked down that aisle, I was going to do it with messy hair and dirt on my cheeks.
As the thought of Vasile once again had me on the verge of tears, the door flew open behind me.
Spinning around in surprise, I was confronted with a ghostly but familiar face.
“Natasha! Thank God!” I said, my heart leaping at the sight of my roommate and friend. “I don’t know what to do.”
But she was different. Frailer. And the look in her eyes was vacant, like she wasn’t quite sure where she was and then I saw the ugly purple bruises wrapping around her neck.
“What happened to you?” I asked, backing up.
“Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” Natasha said, looking wild-eyed and strange. Her glances kept darting to me and then away, like she couldn’t focus on any one thing for more than a second at once. “How dare you, Valeria? Running away like that! And with Petre’s own brother. You put your own mother and father in mortal danger. You are selfish.”
Her voice was trembling, high and unsure, and the words came out in strange little rushes, like she’d memorized tiny chunks of a script but couldn’t remember the whole sentence.
I held her arm, as I had done so many times before, to try to calm her. But she snatched her wrist back from me, gripping it tightly. That gesture drew my attention the exactly place she was trying to hide, I realized. Beneath her bony fingers I saw more angry purple bruises.
“Who hurt you?” I said, trying to pull her into me again.
“No one!” she shrieked. “It’s just like you, isn’t it? Being handed everything and then pissing all over it? You do not know how lucky you are. You have family and you are putting them in the worst sort of jeopardy with your games!”
I was horrified and stunned. I had long suspected that something was going on with her, but never had she been so unpredictable.
Then, it dawned on me. An explanation that made sense. And I knew who had to be behind it.
Of course, Petre would want eyes close to me, and who better than my roommate? He had drugged her. He had forced her to work for him in order to keep getting them. But had he…
Oh, God, the thought made me sick. The rumors about how Petre treated his women, about how he used them up and cast them aside when he was done. But not Natasha? Not the sweet girl I’d been friends with all these years?
“Let’s just sit down for a second,” I said, taking a seat on the window bench. “Please. Sit here with me.”
Natasha hovered there, staring at me, wobbling like a hanging marionette. I didn’t know if she was going to start screaming at me again or collapse to the floor, but before I had a chance to find out, the door swung open, and my so-called “bridesmaids” returned in a silky rush.
