Father silenced him with a gesture. I’d never seen him look so angry. Usually, a smile from me was all it took to melt the sternness in his eyes, but not today.
“Your nurse has informed us that you are unharmed,” he said. “That, I am relieved to hear. But what you have done today is utterly inexcusable.”
His voice, so low the wooden frame of my bed hummed, shook with fury—and disappointment. I kept my head bowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You will prepare a proper apology to Lord Bushian and his son,” he interrupted. “Your stepmother has proposed that you embroider a tapestry to reverse the shame you have brought to his family.”
Now I looked up. “But, Father! That could take weeks.”
“Have you somewhere else to be?”
“What about my lessons?” I asked, desperate. “My duties, my afternoon prayers at the temple—”
Father was unmoved. “You have never once given a care about your duties before. They will be suspended until you have finished the tapestry. You will begin work on it immediately, under your stepmother’s supervision, and you will not leave the palace until it is complete.”
“But—” I saw Hasho shaking his head. I hesitated, knowing he was right. I shouldn’t argue, shouldn’t protest….Unwisely the words spilled from my lips anyway: “But the Summer Festival is in two weeks—”
One of my brothers nudged me from behind. This time, the warning worked. I clamped my mouth shut.
For an instant, Father’s eyes softened, but when he spoke, his voice was hard. “The Summer Festival comes every year, Shiori. It would do you good to learn the consequences of your behavior.”
“Yes, Father,” I whispered through the ache in my chest.
It was true that the Summer Festival came every year, but this would be the last with my brothers before I turned seventeen and was married—no,cast offto live with my future husband.
And I’d ruined it.
Father observed my silence, waiting for me to beg for leniency, to make excuses and do my best to change his mind. But Kiki’s fluttering wings under my palm compelled me to stay silent. I knew what the consequences would be if she were found out, and they were far worse than missing the festival.
“I have been too soft on you, Shiori,” Father said quietly. “Because you are the youngest of my children, I have given you many liberties and let you run wild among your brothers. But you are no longer a child. You are the Princess of Kiata, theonlyprincess of the realm. It is time you behaved like a lady worthy of your title. Your stepmother has agreed to helpyou.”
Dread curdled in my stomach as my eyes flew to my stepmother, who hadn’t moved from her position in front of the windows. I’d forgotten she was there, which seemed impossible once I looked at her.
Her beauty was extraordinary, the kind that poets immortalized into legend. My own mother had been acknowledged the most beautiful woman in Kiata, and from the paintings that I’d seen of her, that was no exaggeration. But my stepmother was quite possibly the most beautiful woman in the world.
Striking opalescent eyes, a rosebud mouth, and ebony hair so lustrous it fell in a long satin sheet against her back. But what made her truly memorable was the diagonal scar across her face. On anyone else, it might have looked alarming, and anyone else might have tried to hide it. Not my stepmother, and somehow that added to her allure. She did not even powder her face, as was the fashion, or put wax in her hair to make it shine. Though her maids grumbled that she never wore cosmetics, no one could disagree that my stepmother’s natural beauty was radiant.
Raikama, everyone called her behind her back.The Nameless Queen.She’d had a name once, back in her home south of Kiata, but only Father and a handful of his most trusted officials knew it. She never spoke of it or of the life she’d led before becoming the emperor’s consort.
I avoided her gaze and stared at my hands. “I am truly sorry if I have shamed you, Father. And you, Stepmother. It was not my intent.”
Father touched my shoulder. “I don’t want you going near the lake again. The physician says you nearly drowned. What were you thinking, running off outside the palace in the first place?”
“I…” My mouth went dry. Kiki fluttered under my palm, as if warning me not to tell the truth. “Yes, I…thought I saw a sna—”
“She said she saw a dragon inside,” Andahai said in a tone that made it clear he didn’t believe me.
“Not inside the palace,” I cried. “In the Sacred Lake.”
My stepmother, who had been so still and silent until now, suddenly stiffened. “You saw a dragon?”
I blinked, startled by her curiosity. “I…yes, yes I did.”
“What did it look like?”
Something about her pale, stony eyes made it hard for me, a natural liar, to lie. “He was small,” I began, “with emerald scales and eyes like the red sun.” The next words were hard for me to utter: “I’m sure I imagined it.”
Ever so slightly, Raikama’s shoulders dropped, then a careful composure settled over her face again, like a mask that she’d inadvertently taken off for an instant.
