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Within was a bundle of red-brown silk with a pattern of brilliant yellow flowers. Cassia laid the garment upon her lap with great care, only to discover there were more in the bag. She felt the urge to wash her hands before touching them. “These can’t all be for me.”
“I think it’s enough to get you started. I’m quite relieved I finished them in time. I started selecting the fibers as soon as Apollon and Komnena asked me to be the Ritual mother for the son she was carrying, but I didn’t finish the sewing until Lio’s entry into diplomatic service. I was starting to think you would arrive earlier than I expected, but it turns out tonight’s schedule prevailed.”
Cassia caressed the flawless fabric with reverent fingers. “Elder Firstblood Kassandra, that means you started these…ninety years ago?”
“You must call me Kassandra. Silk holds up well in Orthros.”
Cassia could not fathom this bag full of luxuries had been nearly a century in the making—for her. “I am humbled that you would make something like this with me in mind.”
“Well, go ahead. Shake them out and tell me if you like them.”
Cassia stood and carefully unfolded Kassandra’s first gift. It was a robe in the Imperial style, with a high collar and a front that unfastened all the way to the hem.
“It’s the perfect size and length for me.” Cassia held the robe up to herself.
Kassandra grinned. “I always did have an eye for a person’s measurements.”
“It’s a masterpiece.”
“It owes its beauty to the nature that inspired it. Do you know what kind of flowers those are?”
Cassia nodded. “They are the blossoms that appear on cassia trees. I don’t know what to say. I have never had anything like this.”
“You need something more Hesperine to wear on special occasions.”
Cassia should fold it up and hand it back to her right now. But she stood there with the robe laid over Solia’s Tenebran dress, looking down at herself.
Kassandra examined the hem of Solia’s dress, testing the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. “Our eagerness to trade in Tenebran textiles is no flattery, you know. There is a substantial beauty in craftsmanship that is achieved despite adversity.” She flipped the hem up an inch to study its stitches. “Tenebran velvet. A luxurious nap. For a part of the world lacking the sea snails that produce Imperial purple, this violet dye is quite exceptional. Strong seams, too. This has lasted through some travails.”
“It was part of a gown that once belonged to my sister,” Cassia explained, “although it was since reworked for a queen, then for me.”
“This is a fine piece, but heavy to wear. Once you’ve worn silk and felt its weightlessness for yourself, you never want to wear anything else.” Kassandra smoothed Cassia’s hem into place once more and sat back. “I used to enjoy long walks in the Imperial cassia groves with my sister.”
“You had a sister in your mortal life? Before you were the Queens’ sister?”
“Yes. My sister and I loved one another as you and Solia will.”
Cassia began to understand the longing and even jealousy she heard in others’ voices when they spoke of Kassandra’s prophecies. Cassia, too, would like to live in a state of mind in which Solia was a part of her future, not her past. “If I may ask, your sister did not come to Orthros with you?”
“She exiled me here to secure her claim to the throne over mine. Such was her love for me, that she bargained with the Queens for my eternal future, and kept for herself forty years as the Empress.”
“You are a member of the Empire’s royal family? I…forgive me, I did not know.”
“I am Kassandra, the Imperial elder firstblood of Orthros, and you need not apologize for anything, my dear. Sit down and let me pour you a cup of coffee.”
Cassia sank down onto the cushions, still holding the robe to her.
Kassandra set a steaming cup of coffee before Cassia. “Have a look at the rest.”
Cassia returned to the bag and discovered yellow silk dancing shoes and a pair of those comfortable-looking trousers in red-brown silk. Beneath them waited a set of practical cotton work robes. Then a green veil hours robe the exact shade of her gardening dress. Cassia sat back. She could not bear to look any further.
Kassandra had made her an entire wardrobe fit for a new Hesperine. After she had given her a banner fit for an upstart queen. What was Cassia supposed to make of all this?
“My gifts and my prophecies are two different things.”
Cassia blinked and shook her head. “I was given to understand your power is foresight, not mind magery.”
“There was a possibility of this conversation in which you said more of your thoughts aloud. It was a shape your present might have taken that would have made you more forthright with me tonight. But I think your thoughts are the same, although you are more hesitant to speak them than you would have been.”
