Nurse stepped back, a bristled hairbrush clutched in one hand like a battle standard. “A match like that, and you up and said, ‘No, thank you.’ ” She shook her head, and the brush quivered in her hand. “The Prince of Farthestshore, by all accounts the greatest and richest kingdom ever heard tell of, asks for your hand . . . and you refused him.”
Una rose from her stool. A feather still in her hair drifted around to tickle under her nose, and she brushed it aside. “He’s saying he loves me when we’ve hardly even spoken. That doesn’t make any sense!”
“It’s romantic.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Look who’s talking.”
Una frowned, considering the irony of role reversal. Then she shrugged. “I don’t even know him.”
“He’s prince of a mighty kingdom,” Nurse replied, pointing the hairbrush at Una’s nose. “And you, my dear, are a princess. What more knowing do you need?”
Una swept away, her dressing gown trailing behind, shedding more feathers as she went. Monster batted at them as they drifted by his nose. “I won’t marry him for his rank, and that’s that.”
“You are a princess. What else do princesses marry for?”
Una flung open her tall window door and stepped out onto the balcony. The spring breeze was cool, biting at her face, but she hardly cared. “I won’t marry that man, Nurse.” Her chin rose imperiously. “I won’t marry him, never, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise!”
She slammed the door, rattling the glass, and stepped to the rail of her balcony. Her chambers on the third floor of the palace overlooked the gardens, which were edged with the light of a bright crescent moon. She leaned against the rail and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Standing there in the quiet of the evening, she could almost imagine that she heard the murmur of the sea far below the hill. But when she opened her eyes again, it was not the ocean she saw but the dark expanse of Goldstone Wood, which began at the edge of the moonlit garden and swept its way down the hill and off into acres of impenetrable forest beyond.
“Meeaaa?” said Monster, sitting at her feet.
Una looked down at her cat. “I won’t marry him,” she whispered. The wind blew in her face, and she turned once more to gaze at the Wood.
The dark treetops swayed, rippling the moonlight across their leaves.
“It’s my choice. And I won’t.”
Goldstone Wood watched her in silence until at last she gathered up her cat and went back inside. A wood thrush, which long since should have been roosting, threw its voice to the moon.
–––––––
That night, the room was too hot. Una’s coverlet was heavy, and even with her bed-curtains open, the air suffocated.
Una lay in bed, staring up at her embroidered canopy. The embers in the fireplace cast a dull glow. The window curtains were drawn, but a tiny sliver of moon broke through, and by its silver light combined with the bloodred gleam of the embers, she could make out the picture above her.
Her mother had embroidered it soon after Una’s birth. She had made it especially for Una, and if only for that reason, Una loved it. Bold threads of gold, which picked up light from the fire, depicted the contours of Lord Lumé surrounded in a glowing aura. He wore robes like those worn by the old singer who sang at all royal christenings and weddings, though those in the embroidery were much grander and fanned out like flames.
Lord Lumé was the sun, and he sang the Melody.
Across from him, picked out in delicate silver threads, was his wife, Lady Hymlumé, the moon, and she sang the Harmony. She wore robes such as Una had never seen anywhere else, and she wondered how her mother had dreamed them up. Una thought she would much rather wear the silver garments of Hymlumé than all the brilliant fashions into which the royal tailors stuffed her.
Many sleepless nights throughout her childhood, Una had studied the faces of Lumé and Hymlumé as worked by her departed mother, and wondered about the songs they sang. The Sphere Songs, as they were called, had once been known in Parumvir, her tutor said. But that was long, long ago, back when people were foolish enough to believe in myths about the sun and his wife, the moon. They were pretty stories to be told and woven into tapestries, but nothing more.
Some nights, however, if the windows were left open wide and she heard the whisper of the Wood and the occasional song of an evening bird, Una could imagine that she heard the strains of a song, the faintest memory of a tune that suns and moons might sing.
Not tonight. Tonight Una stared at the embroidered faces, and her imagination could not dwell on songs or myths. It was too hot.
Monster heaved a heavy sigh. He slept on the pillow by her head, and she felt him twitch in his sleep. Suddenly his head popped up and he started grooming his paws. The movement annoyed her. She shoved him off the bed, counted to ten, and felt him hop back up again. He returned to the pillow, plopped down, and flicked his tail over her nose. She pinched the end of it. He tucked it around his body, and that battle ended for the night.
She stared again at the embroidered faces above her.