Page 69 of Kingdom of Flames & Flowers
“What? Why?” I hated the whine in my voice, but it was comfortable here. It was warm and cozy. I didn’t have to worry about who was trying to kill me next. I could just be … me.
“The ball is in seven hours. You need to get ready.” He quickly shucked on his clothes, sitting on the side of the bed to tie his boots.
“Seven hours? How much time does it take to get ready for a ball?” I asked in abject horror.
He laughed at me. I used his distraction to grab the scroll from under the mattress and shove it down my bosom.
ChapterTwenty
He walked me back to my room and left.
After what felt like only minutes later, primas came knocking on my door. I couldn’t help the twist of my face as I glared at the two of them standing in my doorway. The last time I’d seen one had been when they’d been actively trying to drown me and any other girl who couldn’t swim.
“Come with us, princess,” one intoned. She appeared a little older than me, if at all. Her hair was covered by a long headdress, and her body by the prima’s long, flowing black robes.
“Princess? Quite an upgrade from dead girl,” I muttered to them, but they either didn’t hear me or didn’t react. We marched in stoic silence down the palace, taking a long, stretching corridor that seemed to connect to another building that was outside the castle itself.
“You’d better not be taking me back to the bathing chambers, because—”
My mouth shut as we came out into the large marble halls of the same bathing chambers where two of the girls had died. Anger boiled in my gut, and I opened my mouth to refuse, and demand to be taken back to my chambers where there was a perfectly good working bath.
“Mari! Oh, it’s really you!”
My head whipped to the side as a voice called my name and nearly bowled me over. The two primas at my side tutted with disapproval as the figure hugged me around my middle, then withdrew to get a good look at me.
“Leilani!” I gasped, recognizing the small blonde instantly. “I—What are you doing here?”
She giggled against me and waved the two primas away. They frowned, but obeyed. I’d have to remember that.
“We’re here for the same reason you are—to get ready for the ball! Apparently, it’s a big tradition that all the noble ladies get ready together. Isn’t that fun?”
I didn’t see the queen skulking about, but that was probably for the best. I looked across the bathing halls, packed with about two dozen other girls. Freesia was already in a bathing pool, being supported by primas as she floated on her back while a third massaged oil into her hair. Her eyes were closed and relaxed.
“Mari!”
Azalea called out and waved to me from across the room, and Leilani and I made our way over to her pool. Each was big enough for ten people, so I didn’t see why the three of us couldn’t share.
I looked around in awe as Azalea and Leilani unhooked their long robes, completely unbothered by getting nude in front of everyone. There were so many girls here … more than had competed. I spotted Heather and Hyacinthe three pools down from us, clinging to each other and refusing to go any further in the water than their knees. “Where did all these girls come from? They weren’t picked up from the quarters like we were.…”
“Oh, they’re all noble daughters. They’re to be given to the primas. That’s what my prima said, anyway.” Leilani seemed unbothered by this, though Azalea’s smile seemed forced.
“Why? Wouldn’t they want to marry into the noble families like you are?”Like we all are,my brain corrected.
“They can’t. Too many of them are related, I guess? Something about bloodlines and birth defects. I don’t know.” Leilani waved away my concerns and stepped into the pool until the water came up to the tops of her breasts. “Ooh, it feels so nice!”
I shot Azalea a look. She looked as unsure as I did.
“It’s really not our business, I guess,” she offered quietly. “We will be provided for here. Our families back home will be provided for. It’s a good calling.”
I highly doubted anyone would be back to the mud quarter to give my mother anything. I tried to imagine any of the mud girls back home surviving in this cold palace with its gleaming surfaces, and couldn’t. Not Shava, not the lost little girl clinging to her mother’s hand, and certainly not me. No one here had troubles or imperfections. I wondered again about Oleria, burned all over her body from Zariah’s heat in the throne room. Would they cast her aside? Send her back to her quarter? Had Zariah tried to save me the pain and embarrassment of the examination, and Oleria had just been collateral damage?
It made my head hurt.
“But why can’t the nobles marry their own girls? What are the specifics?” I insisted, shooting a prima a dirty look as she gestured at me to get on with it, and get into the tub. I quickly shucked my clothes and jumped in with a large splash to the horror of the watching primas.
Leilani shrieked with laughter, and Azalea cracked a small grin. I popped up close to the edge, but I needn’t have bothered—this pool wasn’t full to the top, so I could easily touch the bottom. No need to kill us now, I guess.
To keep the primas away, we had to scrub every inch of our bodies to perfection—first with a porous stone, and then with a soap that smelled like honey. Next, we had to massage the oil into our hair, then wash everything off. The worst part was when the primas lined us all up in a single row, naked. It reminded me of the reaping time in the mud quarter. And when the queen had watched as Vession ‘inspected’ everyone.
