“Interesting choice of color for your gown, Jahna. It matches your…skin tone.”
Evaline had finally cornered her. Jahna was tempted to rush across the threshold and flee to her rooms, but logic kept her feet planted. Her persecutors would only follow, their lust for entertainment at the expense of her misery stoked to an even hotter fire by the chase.
Jahna schooled her face into an expressionless mask and slowly turned to face Evaline. As she expected, the girl stood flanked by her ever-present sycophants. They had shed their cloaks and hoods to reveal colorful dresses trimmed with ribbon and beads.
Evaline’s blue gown highlighted her blonde beauty, and she shimmered like a sapphire under the flickering light of the numerous torches and candles set in the walls and niches of the great hall. Nadel and Tefila likewise wore vivid gowns in shades of crimson and yellow. To Jahna, they looked like a cluster of jewels—beautifully faceted and hard through and through.
By contrast, Jahna wore dove gray, the hem and cuffs of her long sleeves decorated in silver and black embroidery. The seamstress had sewn a hood to the frock at Jahna’s request, and she wore it pinned to her loose hair Evaline’s remark that the gown matched Jahna’s skin tone might have stung if it hadn’t been so predictable.
Evaline raked her from head to toe with a withering gaze. “I hear your brother will learn the sword from an Ilinfan swordmaster. He’s handsome enough if you squint the right way, so why in the gods’ names is he talking to you?”
Jahna sighed inwardly. Please let them grow bored with this quickly. “I don’t know.”
Nadel’s toothy smile reminded Jahna of the mountain cats that stalked the forested cliffs surrounding her father’s estate. “Maybe he feels sorry for her.” She laughed at her own jibe and Tefila joined her.
Evaline didn’t laugh, and her blue eyes were cold enough to skate across as she stared at Jahna. “Not sorry enough. He didn’t invite you to dance with him.”
Jahna had observed Radimar Velus nearly the entire evening. He hadn’t asked anyone to dance with him. She knew she’d regret it, now or later, but she replied anyway. “He didn’t invite you either.”
Evaline’s snide expression froze. Her nostrils flared, and Jahna braced herself to dodge a slap that didn’t come. Lord Lacramor’s “whelp” clenched her teeth and curled her hands into fists. She breathed in audible pants.
Lord Uhlfrida was of higher status and greater importance than Lord Lacramor. Jahna knew it. So did Evaline. To outright physically attack Jahna where witnesses abounded carried repercussions on a grander scale than a juvenile spat between the young daughters of two powerful noblemen.
Jahna didn’t look away as a seething Evaline stared daggers at her before visibly wrestling her fury under control. She raised her head, nose in the air and gave a disdainful sniff. “What good would it do me to spend my valuable time with a lowly baron’s son?”
Was he a baron’s son? Jahna had never heard of the House of Wemerc and assumed it was one of the families awarded noble status for outstanding service in the Beladine army. Leave it to Evaline to waste no time in finding out where her object of interest stood in the hierarchy.
She arched an eyebrow, committed now to the foolhardy venture of antagonizing the viper. “You’re spending time with me, and I don’t intend to offer for your hand.”
“As I’m sure no one will offer for yours, though your father might be able to convince some desperate nobleman in need of coin.” Evaline almost spat the words at her.
“Only the king is that wealthy,” Tefila added.
The three laughed at her quip but finally moved on when Jahna’s deadpan expression didn’t alter. She watched them go, her stomach in knots, perspiration trickling down her back. She turned to look blindly at the crush of people filling the great hall, their bodies slowly blurring to watery outlines the longer she watched them. Jahna blinked hard and caught Sir Velus watching her from the other side of the room, his face grim. She forced a weak smile and gave a wave to signal all was well before fleeing the great hall in what she hoped was a dignified walk.
Once in the corridor, she raised the hem of her gown and ran, gasping for breath as her chest and throat tightened with the threat of tears. Her father’s suite of rooms was blessedly empty save for two maids who offered to help her change and bring her tea or wine. Jahna refused both, pleading an upset stomach from the food. They left her alone while she settled in a narrow bed placed in the sitting room with a screen erected for some semblance of privacy.
Beyond the screen, the fire in the hearth crackled, driving away some of the cold that managed to sneak under the tapestries hanging on the walls. Jahna huddled under her blankets, still clothed in her gown. She listened to the maids’ voices, their words soft and indistinct. Soothing.
Evaline’s insults were carefully crafted to cut, but it was Tefila’s that struck deepest. “Only a king is that wealthy.” Jahna closed her eyes and gave in to a bout of silent weeping until the bands squeezing her chest loosened, and her throat relaxed. She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling with its intricately painted murals. The last of her tears slid down her temples to tickle her ears.
A voice inside her assured her none of those vicious bitches was worth a single one of her tears, and there was far more to her than a disfiguring purple stain. Still, another voice refused to stay silent and wished she’d been born unmarked. She didn’t wish for beauty, just the acceptance that came with not being so noticeably different.
Jahna turned her thoughts to more cheerful things—her brother laughing as he danced a lively jig with a pretty brown-haired girl, the upcoming Firehound story brought to life by the king’s sorcerers, Dame Stalt’s invitation to join the student body of the Archives and train as a king’s chronicler. These things mattered, gave her joy. She closed her eyes and spooled out memories that made her smile and dried her tears. She fell asleep to the image of the Ilinfan swordmaster with his sunrise hair and sea-glass eyes.
She spent much of the following morning exploring the overgrown gardens that had once been the pride of the current king’s grandmother. When Rodan married, his queen had a new garden designed to her taste installed at the southern corner of the palace grounds. The old garden was left to run to seed and grow wild and unkempt. Jahna loved it, as much for its isolation as for the snow-encrusted climbing roses and ivy that grew in chaotic profusion, swallowing broken statues and choking stone walls in an intricate web of snaking vines.