Elena stared, hands trembling.Jasmine. Meet me at your tea shop.
The old woman at the tea shop had operated the business for many suns, for as long as her father was king. Elena remembered she had told Jasmine to call her Aahnah, when she had gone there for her meeting with Varun. Jasmine had flinched at that name, as if hearing a ghost.
She knew my mother.Elena ran her hands over Aahnah’s note. The handwriting was beautiful with its elegant curves. A familiar ache tightened her throat. She wished her mother was here now. Wished Aahnah could answer her questions. Wished she could teach her how to find peace with her father.
Her pod pinged. Diya, calling her to get dressed.
Elena slowly rose, rolling up the scroll, the ache thrumming through her bones. It was always there, lurking, but here in this library, Elena felt it grab her.
She touched the chest. She had the urge to say something grand, like the hymns the priests sang, like the ones Aahnah had sung to her; or something intimate, like the diary entries she couldn’t read, lost to all but the writer and her thoughts. But as Elena looked at the chest, bones weary, throat suddenly threatening to burst, the words fled her.
She leaned forward and kissed the wooden top.
“I miss you” was all she could say.
Elena raised her arms as Diya wrapped an amber sari around her hips and then up over her shoulder, revealing the delicate curve of her waist. The handmaid withdrew a golden brooch set with rubies and pinned the fabric right below Elena’s shoulder blade. With a delicate flick of her wrist, she draped the pallu down Elena’s arm, the fabric floating and then falling like the wings of a desert eagle.
Elena touched her neck, where a delicate array of gold and diamond insets lay, a gift from Samson. Its singular jade teardrop rested just above her breasts.
Diya smoothed back her hair and clipped on the matching earrings.
“Beautiful,” she said.
Elena did not return her smile.
Ferma had come by, but she had not said a word to Elena. She spoke only with the handmaid. At one point, she had glanced over, her eyes tired and strained. Elena had pretended to busy herself with a set of bangles, and when she looked up again, the Yumi was gone. Still, she could feel the Spear’s presence outside her door like a cloud’s shadow over a dune.
“The Spear wanted me to give this to you,” Diya said as she tidied the end of the sari into symmetrical pleats. From her pocket, she withdrew a holopod. “She said it has the list of names of the protestors in the park. For your speech.”
Elena took it. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Will you bring me some tea, Diya?”
When she was alone, Elena reached inside the drawer of her vanity and withdrew Aahnah’s letter and the fire dance scroll. She tucked the letter into her waistband but hesitated over the scroll. The delicate paper rustled against her fingertips. The corners curled up. Slowly, Elena traced the dancer as she progressed through the forms.
Empty your mind. See nothing but the fire, for that is all that matters.
She ran her hands over the words, allowing them to sink in and take root in her mind. She wondered about the scroll’s author; if she had a name, a family. Perhaps the author was the dancer. Perhaps this was a map of her life.
“Your Highness,” Diya said as she carried in a tray of tea and cloud cookies. Elena quickly rolled up the scroll and slipped it underneath the sash of her sari.
“Thank you, Diya,” Elena said.
She took a sip of tea as Diya filled a stone bowl with rosehip oil. The handmaid withdrew a chip of sandalwood from her waistband and set it aflame with a match. The wood began to smoke, and Diya slipped off the clutch that held Elena’s hair.
Elena breathed in the smell of sandalwood and jasmine as Diya carefully lifted her hair and let the steam warm her neck. Layers of smoke coiled around her, tickling her ears. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
She looked beautiful.
She looked monstrous.
A deadly queen who knew how to trap criminals and deliver justice. But as Diya added more sandalwood into the stone bowl, Elena understood that the reflection was only a mirage.
“There,” Diya said. She sealed the bowl, suffocating the smoke. Her hands brushed Elena’s neck as she began to braid her hair, her fingers swift and deft. She pinned the braids into the shape of a crown and adorned them with jeweled leaves.
“Perfect,” she said.
The door opened, and Yassen and Ferma stood waiting.
“The hoverpod is here,” Ferma announced.
