She held in a sigh, exhaling heavily through her nose. I held still as she selected a golden pin, a northern whale carved on the end in what I recognized immediately as whalebone. Rather than pulling my hair back into a tail, she twisted it in a complicated manner, managing to pin it in something resembling a knot on the back of my head.
Stepping back, she tilted her head. “Well, no one in court is going to mistake you for an imperial, but it will do for now.”
I sat, my stomach rumbling as soon as I put the first vegetable in my mouth. Ravenously, I sampled everything before consuming the entire plate full of fried delicacies, each one bursting with a fatty meat that coated my tongue. Then, I moved on to the salted meats and finished on the crisp vegetables.
Footsteps mounted the stairs slowly, and when they reached the top, I saw three women loaded down with fabrics and silks. Lord Sotonam followed, eyes narrowed on me.
“I told you to fetch me when he was done,” he snapped at Nuti.
“I’m sorry, my lord.” She bowed low but without the triangle of fingers denoting respect. Her eyes cut to mine, and I realized she had been keeping him away while I bathed, giving me a break from him.
I looked at her again, seeing her this time as a potential ally. Anyone willing to risk Lord Sotonam’s wrath was someone I needed to be friends with.
The seamstresses were efficient, making me stand and take off my robe, taking my measurements with long, knotted strings. The eldest, a woman older than the midwife who had overseen our birth, shouted numbers to the youngest, who wrote them down on a scrap of paper. Lord Sotonam sat on one of the other cushions, frowning as he looked over what was left of my meal.
When they were done with measurements, the eldest seamstress walked over to the stock of fabrics, drawing out four or five jackets. Talking to each other in a shorthand I couldn’t understand even with my fluent Imperial, they decided on the colors best suited to me.
“Would you be wearing paint? Or just powders?” the seamstress asked me.
“He’ll have to paint himself, obviously. No one would mistake him for Imperial otherwise.” Lord Sotonam picked up one of the few remaining vegetables, making a face before eating it.
“I will not be painting my skin. Or applying powders.” When Lord Sotonam looked up sharply, opening his mouth, I bared my teeth in something like a smile. “No one will mistake me for anything but a northerner. I appreciate how much you care about whether I fit in with the court and your thoughtful advice, but I will be leaving my skin bare.”
Sotonam’s mouth shut. He frowned. “Well, if you’re willing to risk the court’s mockery, of course I will stand by you, Prince Airón.”
“In that case, we should use more muted fabrics so that his natural colors show more appealingly.” The seamstress picked out three jackets and helped me into one. “Yes, this one. We can send the others to his residence, and the custom ones should be available within a week.”
Bland grays, so matte and dull that I looked nearly like a wall. A wall that even the architect who had designed it didn’t care for. They found different shades of cloth, each more flat-looking than the last.
Even the Emperor’s Dogs had a texture to their grays to better match the shadows they hid in. This was simply flat.
The seamstress helped me back out of the jacket, then into the complicated undergarments the imperials wore. The first layer was underwear that fit snugly enough I barely saw the purpose of it. A pale gray shirt on top had the option of being snug or loose, and after a discussion, the seamstresses decided on snug, the lacing at the neck left partially undone to show off my collarbones. The shirt was tucked into a pair of darker pants that fit tight from the knee down, while the upper thigh fit more loosely. The waist wrapped tightly in a series of broad strips of cloth up past my navel that emphasized my flat stomach, the narrow line of my hips.
When I had everything on, she refastened the dull gray jacket, letting the front hang loose while the back was tied to the waist of the pants. I had seen Lord Fuyii fasten his own clothes often enough that it was familiar. Mother had even bought a set of women’s imperial wear for Eonaî to practice with. It had been what Eonaî had worn when presented to the court.
Lord Sotonam shook his head. When I turned to look at him, he smiled, the corners of his eyes showing only a viciouspleasure. “Such beautiful fabric for you. You look truly royal in it.”
Fast footsteps came up the stairs, and an out-of-breath messenger appeared at the top. His bronze skin was gleaming from sweat rather than powders.
The sunlight was fading quickly, electric lamps lighting the area where we all stood. The messenger panted, “The emperor wants to see Prince Airón.”
“Now?” Lord Sotonam started, straightening and looking at me, eyes calculating. Was I about to send him back to whatever banishment Lord Fuyii had implied he’d escaped from?
Slow footsteps mounted the stairs, so softly that I barely heard them, and Lord Sotonam clearly didn’t hear them at all. When the emperor appeared at the top of the stairs, four bodyguards standing around him, Lord Sotonam practically fell into a bow.
“Yes,” Emperor Tallu said. “Now.”
Four
The room was suddenly very still. No one spoke as the emperor approached. He was taller than me. Unsurprising, given that I took after my mother in height instead of my father.
Tallu had changed his robes, although the rich, imperial purple was the same. The circlet on his brow glinted and his eyes were sharp enough to take in the scene with one glance. His plush lips pulled unhappily, as though the man who had been given everything his entire life had any reason for unhappiness.
I had to look up, raising my chin to see the emperor as he got closer. It gave me more of a defiant look than I thought I should use with him, but I couldn’t look away, not once I saw those red-brown eyes, the sharpness in them similar to a hunting hawk who sighted prey.
The smart move would be to continue to let him see me as a field mouse, nothing more than a small, helpless thing that needed to be cared for. But I wanted to look him in the eye. I wanted to see the man I was going to kill and take his measure.
And I needed for him to see me with desire, towantme. Towantme enough to be willing to send away his guards and give me a chance at his throat.
