Page 14 of A Game of Veils

With a few measured breaths, I dismiss my uncertainties. I still have my purpose here, even if a few more obstacles have been thrown in my way.

I return to my trunks and paw through the folded dresses for a suitable gown for dinner—something not at all soiled by travel.

Something that’ll illustrate the attitude I want to convey.

I settle on a dress of layered white silk with a draping of lace like snowflakes tumbling across its gauzy surface. White is my godlen’s color. The color of healing and peace.

It also sets off my lightly tanned skin and the bronze luster in my hair. I might not be aiming to hop straight into the imperial heir’s bed, but stirring up a little desire certainly can’t hurt my chances of seeing our marriage through.

I tug the sleeves to make sure they completely cover the splatter of scars on my forearms, purple as bruises that have never quite faded. As I consider myself in the gold-framed mirror, my hand rises so I can run my thumb over my ring.

I look down at it, tracing the shallow grooves that weave through the gold like currents in a stream. They frame a glinting sapphire that’s cool to my touch. It’s almost the same deep hue as my father’s eyes, which I inherited.

I’ve carried my family here with me—the hopes and needs of our kingdom. They’re watching over me even from all the way up in Accasy.

This is what I was raised for. I can do this, no matter what Emperor Tarquin throws at me.

Chapter Five

Aurelia

As temple bells peal the seventh hour of the evening, Melisse arrives to lead the way to dinner as promised. We travel along a couple of sprawling hallways and down a sweeping staircase to a room nearly as large and grand as the one where I met the emperor earlier this afternoon.

A line of gold-and-crystal chandeliers glisten overhead amid a ceiling painted with animals in elegant outfits frolicking across clouds. And they literally do frolic. My breath catches when I realize they’ve been enchanted to twirl and dip in their fanciful dance.

Tapestries and paintings of hunting scenes adorn the walls between gilded panels, blessed with more illusionary magic. Animals poke their heads from around trees; hounds run in place amid horses’ clopping hooves.

Several sturdy but gleaming wooden tables stand in a couple of rows at the nearer end of the room, each capable of holding a dozen diners. A massive banquet table twice the size dominates the farther end, with a throne-like chair at both the head and the foot.

Those two seats are currently empty, but it’s easy to guess who’ll be sitting in them. I recognize several other faces around the table: women who were called to compete for Marclinus’s hand, nobles from the crowd who are perhaps relatives of theirs… and the four foster princes.

Keeping Melisse’s comments in mind as I approach, I attach names to their faces.

Prince Raul, the tall, brawny one with his cocoa-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, sits a couple of seats over from one of the throne-like chairs, flashing a smile at the noblewoman seated next to him.

Leaning back in his seat at the opposite end of the table is Prince Lorenzo, the well-built but not quite as massive man with the rich brown skin, intense dark eyes, and apparently no tongue. He has Prince Bastien—hair the reddish brown of cinnamon, pale and slender and missing a lung—as a neighbor.

I can only see the back of Prince Neven’s white-blond head and wide shoulders, but his teenage gangliness sets him a little apart from the figures around him.

Prince Bastien’s gaze flicks my way briefly. His dark green eyes seem to harden before he tugs his attention away.

Each of the place settings with their gold-rimmed plates and polished silverware appears to have been assigned. Melisse directs me to one specific chair, with a woman whose name I think was Lady Iseppa at my left and Lady Rochelle with her cloud of pale curls at my right.

I’m a little relieved not to directly face any of the princes’ glowers, understandable or not. Across from me sits a woman I haven’t met yet, perhaps in her late twenties, with her black hair arranged in sleek, coiled braids. The upswept style tells me she’s married.

She’s an odd pairing with the flame-haired Lady Fausta next to her—as voluptuous as Fausta is slim, her smooth brown skin contrasting with Fausta’s porcelain pallor.

When I looked at myself in the mirror a couple of hours ago, I was decently satisfied with what I saw. Across from these contrasting beauties, it’s hard to imagine I’ll catch the imperial heir’s eye. In comparison with their striking coloring, I’m a much drabber alternative. My figure is neither as gracefully delicate as Fausta’s nor as impressively curvaceous as her neighbor’s.

But both Marclinus and his father made it clear that looks are hardly the only factor that matters.

The unfamiliar woman cocks her head at a coy angle, studying me through her eyelashes. “And here’s the wild princess in our midst.”

There’s nothing outright insulting about her words. Accasy is often referred to as the “wild north” even among those of us who live there, if more tongue-in-cheek when speaking of our home. But her arch tone suggests she means it as a subtle jab.

Lady Fausta gives her neighbor a teasing nudge with her elbow, a familiar enough gesture for me to gather that they’re friends. “Let’s not nag at the poor thing, Bianca. She’ll have little enough time to appreciate the splendor of the palace before she’s gone.”

My competitor’s smirk leaves no doubt about how exactly she imagines I’ll depart: with my throat slit in a pool of blood.

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