“One of the seamstresses you had killed,” Merlina says, as if naming a stain.
“The human?”
Merlina sneers. “Theelf.”
Without thinking, I start to defend myself again, despite my chastisement last night. “No one told me choosing meant?—”
Eslina grabs my shoulder. “Don’t.”
But it’s already too late.
“Ah.” The man who spoke before is suddenly much closer to me.He cuts in, following us. “Intentions. How sweet. It must be very comforting to own them when outcomes are so unfortunate.”
Across the gallery, a younger lord, face soft with the kind of beauty that is more mirror than marrow, waves his spoon lazily. “Do you remember when the last wife was given a choice?” he asks his cluster of doting male friends. “She cried for nearly an hour, and then finally pointed at the middle one because she could not stand the waiting. Less weeping this time. I respect that.”
Another mention of the wife before me. The one that wasn’t human. I’m dying to know more about her. “This same test was used before?” I ask, ignoring the glares from those accompanying me.
“Oh yes. His first wife, a sniveling young thing from the Earlbear family, refused to do it. She didn’t last long.”
Ice coats my skin. “And the wife before me?” I ask, my voice quieter. “Who was she?”
Merlina clears her throat, and another begins to speak.
“I think the human did it best,” another offers, and the thread of admiration in it shocks me. “If you must dispose of two to keep one, keep the finest. It honors the craft.”
I blink. I hadn’t chosen the one with the best craft—I had simply chosen the one that I thought Arion would approve of.
“Craft,” the pearl-eared woman echoes, musing. “You’re right. It is not about death. It is about standards.”
No one argues about whether the dead should have remained alive. Their grievance is that the dead had been useful to them, and this will create problems for them in the near future.
We pass them, and the current of talk slides over and beyond me. “Her jaw isn’t bad,” someone says. “With the right cosmetics, she might look almost elven.”
“But you are a short thing, Human Arlet. Aren’t you? Stout. Your shoulders are broad,” another replies. I don’t like that they know my name and I don’t know theirs. “We’ll need to soften your frame with sleeves.”
“Her tits are large enough for his hands. She’ll be fine in his bedroom,” a third says, and laughter follows us like burrs. “Though, she did live with the trolls before. I’ve heard they rut like animals—from behind.”
“Perhaps the king would like that,” another says with a laugh.
My face burns at their crudeness. Another fucking comment about my breasts. What’s the expectation? That they be larger? I suppose that fertility is usually associated with large breasts, but don’t these people know that breasts will grow after the child is born? I look at the women around me, seeing their own chests pushed up, and I wonder if any of them use padding.
And then the comment about the Enduares. I’m supposed to be a virgin, but these people have no idea how wrong they are. When I was with?—
I cut myself off.
The last person I’d slept with hadn’t been that long ago. But, like it or not, now I am thinking about sex, and with that comes worries about my new world as a married woman.
After being placed in the king’s chamber, I would be expected to take off my clothes and please him. The thought of baring myself to another makes me sick. The idea of lying down and letting Arion come on top of me is unbearable.
It would be the first time after being with Va—him. Dread curls in my gut, and I try to let the image fade quickly.
Kiala steers me into a room washed with pale light. Carved screens make patterns of shadow along the floor. A long table gleams with steel instruments and glass pots. Basins smoke gently. Cushions are arranged around a high-backed chair as if for a ritual.
“We will prepare you here. Get used to this place,” Merlina announces.
“It couldn’t be closer to my room?” I grumble, though I am ignored.
The servants close the screens with a snap, and a person emerges from the shadows. The seamstress that I chose. She nods to me, and a new hush forms, thrumming like the breath held before a knife goes in.