Page 8 of Her Dark Reflection

‘Wonderful,’ he hissed, placing his other hand over the top of our clasped two. ‘We have a deal.’

Iranmyhandsdown the blush pink silk taffeta of my gown, marvelling at the way the fabric flowed beneath my fingertips like water in a stream. My petticoats washed around my legs in layers, bathing my skin with fine satin.

‘Here, these will suit.’ Draven tossed a pale blue box at me from across the room. I snatched it out of the air and opened it to reveal a pair of fat pearl-drop earrings displayed against white velvet, a perfect complement to the multi-strand pearl choker already wrapping my neck. Lace ruffles decorated my sleeve cuffs, a sheer fichu draped my shoulders in fine gauze and black silk bracelets accentuated my slim wrists. I was used to dressing up, given my profession, but the quality of these clothes was far beyond anything I’d ever laid my hands on. I was beginning to feel giddy with the luxury of it all.

‘I thought the king’s chamberlain was coming to select maisera,’ I murmured as I secured the earrings in place and turned my head to watch them bob about my exquisite new face. Anyone looking into the room might have wondered why I favoured the small, oval mirror on my dresser—big enough only to show parts of my face at a time—over the large one in an ornate gold frame suspended above the fireplace. I hated standing before that particular mirror now.

Draven appeared behind me and the image of his dark-clothed form so close made the skin on my arms and back quiver with awareness, though I was sure to keep my expression impassive. His hand briefly touched the pearls, tracing them with his fingertips. I hoped he hadn’t detected the hitch in my breathing.

‘He is,’ he said, addressing my comment, his breath stirring the hair around my shoulders ever so slightly.

‘Then why am I dressing like this? These stays are so stiff I can hardly move.’ I loathed to point it out, given how enamoured I was with the clothes, but Madam always encouraged us to shun the restrictive fashions currently in vogue in favour of more provocative styles.

He leaned in a little so that I could see his eyes, stormy and endless, considering me in the mirror. ‘Eyes on the prize. If you want to be a queen, you need to dress like one.’

‘Fine.’ I walked towards the window, feigning an interest in the street below, when really, I needed to put some distance between us. His proximity lured sensations out of my body that I had thought long dead, slaughtered by my indifference to the hands and eyes of paying clients on my skin. When he was close to me, adrenaline raced through my veins. It was disorientating. I pulled my thoughts to heel, focusing on the window, and frowned when I fixed on the thick grime coating the glass. ‘This room is filthy.’

This room was the first I’d ever occupied outside of the Trough, Lee Helse’s poorest neighbourhood, named for its sunken, swampy position in the city. I’d been disappointed to find that the boarding houses higher up the hill could still be dank and grubby. I’d placed a bunch of tulips on the windowsill that I’d bought from a woman in the street, but the splash of red made the sad little room look even more washed out. At least the window looked out onto a neat, busy street. The occasional beggar wandered down it to whine at shop keepers, but they were moved on before I could sink too deeply into memories of how close I’d come to being one of them.

Across the street stood an establishment called The Snow White that was clearly a cut above the drab, seedy taverns I knew. It had been christened after a nickname given to the king’s fifteen-year-old daughter, and a silhouette of a skipping girl was painted in bright ivory on the sign. It was one of the more upmarket establishments in the city, but I found it distasteful for the king’s chamberlain to be selecting maisera in a place named after the princess.

Draven had taken my mirror and left me in the street after we made our deal, but a key had appeared on my windowsill only a few days later, along with forged identity papers and a note scrawled with the address of this room. Madam had accepted my departure without protest; it was clear she had been on the verge of asking me to leave. She was not a charity.

He had appeared twice since. The first time had been to take me to visit a swishy seamstress far out of the price range I usually dallied in. He had picked fabrics and styles with a discerning eye and an attitude not to be argued with, issuing instructions from his position leaning against the wall with folded arms. He had ignored most of my suggestions and preferences, and I only bore it because he was the one paying for the privilege of an opinion, and because the way his gaze sat against my skin made me feel like I was stark naked anyway.

The second time had been to deliver the mirror.

‘After today, you’ll be living in the palace,’ he said, eating up the sensible distance I had just erected with a few steps. ‘Are you ready?’

I turned to him, looking up at him from under my lashes. By the time Draven had knocked on my door an hour earlier, his arms full of boxes of clothes, I had long since made up my mind to seduce him. I had flushed as I’d pulled on the clocked stockings and white chemise that I sported beneath the gown I now wore, wondering if he’d imagined what I would look like in them.

I traded in desire, but usually not my own. I had felt it before, of course, but this was disconcertingly intense. I felt like there was too much blood in my body, keeping my skin perpetually flushed and sensitive. It was inconvenient, especially since everything about him suggested that I needed to be on my guard. Fortunately, the solution to lust was usually a tumble between the sheets, and once my curiosity was sated, the desire usually went with it. I would have him, and then my head would clear.

He held my gaze and leaned forward a little. I tilted my head, my breath coming faster. The smell of him was heady, rattling my senses like a stiff drink.

Then, he smirked. ‘Get your head on straight. Enchantment or no, you’re about to enter a den of vipers. Your wits need to be sharp.’

I let out my breath in a huff, flushing scarlet as I stormed away from him, heading straight for the door, mentally chastising myself as I did. Stupid little idiot. I wasn’t some maiden to be played by a cunning knave.

‘Rhiandra,’ he called as I placed my hand on the doorknob. I looked back at him, schooling my expression into one of blasé detachment.

‘Yes?’

‘Have you forgotten something?’ He gestured at the mirror over the fireplace, and I scowled at it for a few moments, hating it, before slowly walking over to it. I gritted my teeth and braced myself as I stepped before the glass.

The beautiful girl in the small mirror on the dressing table was not the one that greeted me now. Staring back at me was my ruined face, the one that haunted my nightmares. All I wanted to do was get away from the sight, to run from this heinous reminder of what had happened to me, but I stood waiting. The feeling of phantom fingers brushed over me, over my scars, and my skin went strangely numb, then flushed ice cold. As soon as the sensation had faded, I backed away from the fireplace, glancing at the regular mirror on the dressing table to make sure I was still whole and gleaming. It seemed a particular kind of cruelty that the enchantment now woven into my mother’s mirror revealed my true face even as it hid it. I would be forced to look on my scars whenever I refreshed the glamour, and I wondered whether it was an intentional cruelty.

‘You can’t forget while you’re in the palace.’ Draven was still, his gaze sharp as he watched me. ‘Don’t wait until your time is almost up before you refresh the glamour.’

‘My, how lucky I am to have your sage wisdom supplementing my poor feminine brain,’ I snapped, my lip curled with sarcasm, begging for a rise, but he remained as impassive as a stone wall. ‘What happens if I meet a druthi? Won’t they see the glamour?’

‘You’ve nothing to fear from druthi. You could crack one over the head with your mirror and he wouldn’t understand what it is. A bunch of incompetent parasites.’ There was something in the way he said this, a simmering anger that drew my attention.

‘How can you be sure?’ I said. ‘They burn people every month for unsanctioned magic use. If they catch me—’

‘They won’t.’ He sounded irritated now. ‘Trustme, Rhiandra.’

‘I don’t trust you.’

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