Page 4 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

A squeal left Cally’s mouth as she clapped her hands together. “Yes! Em, of course. Deal. I can’t wait!” She squealed again, like an over-excited child. “You are going to look amazing, I can just tell!” Cally seemed accomplished with her fashion suggestion as she looked it over before handing it to Emara.

Emara took it, feeling the delicate, intricate fabric in her hand and sighed.

After all, what else was there to do in the boring town of Mossgrave before a full moon?

Before Cally could negotiate another item to try on that barely covered any skin, Emara dragged herself to the bathing chamber with the lacey underwear balled up in her fist. She closed the door, flung the undergarment onto the cabinet - where the sink lay low in a white ceramic bowl - and scowled at herself in the mirror.

As she looked at herself, her mother’s eyes stared back.

They were very unusual, changing frequently depending on her mood; sometimes they were green that would morph into blue, sometimes hazel, on occasion they looked grey. They had rarely even been as dark as black oil. But they were a peculiar mixture of her very own.

Her grandmother had described her mother’s eyes during bedtime stories as a child, making them sound like beautiful magic mood stones that flickered and changed into different colours and hues depending on how she felt. For Emara, this had normalised the fact that, growing up, she had never seen anyone’s eyes change colour.

Not like hers.

She took some comfort to know that her mothers had too. That someone was like her. The lighting in the bathroom was so dull it almost made them look closer to a dreary grey than blue tonight.

Anxious? They were usually greyish when she worried.

She shook off that thought. There was no reason to be anxious.

Her skin was a tan colour, which was another standout point on her body. The locals of Mossgrave were typically pale with light-coloured hair and fair features, totally contrasting with her own. She’d hated standing out in the village as a child, and she often dreamed of having hair and skin like Cally’s, pale like homemade vanilla ice cream, with gleaming light hair and forever sea blue eyes. Callyn was a true picture of sunshine and warmth.

She couldn’t change her tanned skin or her straight, midnight dark hair that draped down her back, or her unusual eyes that changed like the weather. She was stuck with it all.

And not to forget the curves that rounded her body, making her a little more self-conscious than she would like to be. She knew Cally was thin, but she couldn’t help but compare her muscular legs to hers or the fact that her rear was rounder.

And bigger.

How could she not compare herself to the only close friend she had ever had?

She sighed.

Fed up with scrutinizing herself and picking herself apart in front of the mirror, she braced the lace.

As she walked back through to her room, she noticed Cally had unloaded a couple of bottles of dark wine from her bag and was lazing along the bed reading a journal.

Emara waited until her traitorous best friend sipped the dark liquid from her glass before shouting, “Callyn Greymore, that better not be my diary!”

Startled, Cally choked on the ruby liquid that had filled her mouth, as if she hadn’t been expecting to hear a voice for some time yet. Swallowing the remainder of the wine that hadn’t spilled from her mouth to the bed, she sat up, tossing the diary to the side.

“Oh, Emara, look at you!” Her mouth fell open wide. “You look sensational. Taymir Solden would be crawling on his knees at the sight of you in that garment,” Cally continued before pouring out another glass of wine for each of them. She handed one to Emara and the silence settled into the room as she drank from her glass.

Taymir Solden.

The Solden Dynasty.

Emara chewed her lip as the blush from Cally’s compliment died on her skin.

“Actually, I’m not going to be seeing Taymir anymore,” she said softly, looking out the window to avoid making eye contact with Cally. “It’s not what I want. I don’t feel like it’s going anywhere. So, I ended things with him.”

“Emara?” She paused, searching over her face with her questioning eyes. “He’s drop-dead gorgeous, incredibly rich, and he treats you…nice-ish. He could give you a good life, you know.” She took a swig of wine. “Village girls don’t always get the opportunity to socialise with an elite man, let alone have one swoon over her. Think about your rich little children, running around in silk diapers,” she entertained, swirling the liquid around in her glass like a scarlet whirlpool. “Think about the diamonds, the dresses, the fabrics...”

“I don’t care about what material things he can provide, Callyn.” Emara’s tone was a little shorter than she had meant it to be. She cleared her throat. “We don’t want the same things.”

“What do you mean?” Cally rolled onto her side, obviously noticing the tone in Emara’s voice.

“I can’t stand the thought of it all.” Emara wrapped an arm around her bare midriff. “I don’t want to be a little elite wife, stuck inside a massive mansion house with no one to talk to but the maid or the butler who is probably too scared to even look at me the wrong way. I am just a girl from the village. Not a girl who is going to be married to someone whose coin practically runs the kingdom. Do you know how close he is to all of the powerful men that make the important decisions of the continent?”

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