She arches an eyebrow and nods. “But I can fix it. Let me work my kind of magic.”
A gust of wind chases me inside the ceremonial dressing chamber, making the drapes flap. Mim tsks and pulls the wooden doors to the balcony shut. When I’m the Valtia, I’ll be able to do the same thing with a mere thought. The most powerful Valtia who ever existed, Kauko whispers in my memory.
I shiver as Mim guides me to the cushioned stool in front of the wide copper plate that serves as our mirror. “Do you need a blanket for your legs?” she asks.
I shake my head, warmer already because of her attention. She places a cup of water in my hands. “I know you get so thirsty on these ceremony days.”
I lift the hammered copper mug to my lips and moan softly at the relief of cold water in my mouth. “You’re a jewel.”
She chuckles. “I’m a stone. You’re a jewel. The people will be in awe when they see you.” She gives my shoulders a little squeeze and begins to work on my hair. “Lovely. Like burnished copper,” she says, drawing the brush through my straight, thick locks.
I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of the bristles against my scalp, inhaling Mim’s warm cinnamon scent. Before long, though, my thoughts drift back to where they’ve been since my conversation with Elder Kauko. Has he really known this thing about me all these years? I became the Saadella so young that I have almost no memory of what came before, but I know it was not special or remarkable, not until the red flame mark on my left leg erupted.
“Your thoughts are far away,” says Mim.
“I was thinking of the day I was chosen.”
“I was only eight, but it’s as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday,” she says as she starts to braid my hair. “I would have been screaming for my mother, but you looked as serious as an elder as you were placed on the paarit. Your little fingers clutched the chair so tightly as the acolytes lifted you into the air! A four-year-old with filthy feet and a torn tunic, but my father said he could tell you were the true future queen.”
This part, I remember. I wasn’t screaming because I was numb. I’ve long since forgotten my mother’s face, but I remember being paralyzed with the knowledge that she had given me to these strange men and allowed them to carry me away. I had no idea yet what I’d gained. “It’s amazing how much one day can change everything,” I murmur.
Mim pins a coil of my hair into position and stares at my reflection in the copper plate. “More change is coming,” she says quietly.
My eyes meet hers. “It won’t happen for many years.”
“The Valtia is finishing her third decade of life. The apprentices whisper about it in the kitchens. They say she’s looking pale these days. Some of them wonder how many years she has left.”
“You shouldn’t speak of our queen’s death in such a casual way, Mim.” Knowing that one day another handmaiden will be telling my young Saadella that I will die soon makes my tone sharper than it should be.
Mim bows her head. “You’re so right, my Saadella.” There’s a pang in my chest—she rarely calls me by my title unless we’re in public, and her doing so now, with her hands in my hair and her body close enough to feel her warmth, makes loneliness bubble up inside me.
I clear my throat and try to think of a safe place to steer our conversation, but voices in the corridor bring it to a complete halt. Mim’s fingers go still, mid-plait.
“—that it’s time to intervene,” Elder Aleksi is saying, his hard-edged voice sending a chill up my back. “The miners need access immediately.”
“Immediately? I don’t see the harm in taking the time to negotiate,” comes my Valtia’s reply as she’s carried into the chamber in her veiled sedan chair. Tiny beads of sweat glisten on the bald heads of the four black-robed male acolytes who bear the poles. My toes curl and my hands fist in my skirt as they set the chair down in the center of the chamber. I want to throw myself into the Valtia’s arms, but I stay where I am, because I don’t want to embarrass her in any way.
Aleksi, clad in his black priest’s robe, stands beside the copper-inlaid sedan. “Negotiate? My queen, remember who we’re dealing with.”
“Human beings, I assume,” says the Valtia.
Aleksi looks as if he’s harboring a thousand angry words in that swell of flesh beneath his chin. Judging by the way his thin lips are pressed tight together, he’s fighting to hold them inside. He gives me a cursory bow.
“My Saadella,” he says as he straightens. “Forgive me for intruding on your preparations.” He turns to the Valtia’s chair and addresses one of the veiled windows. “The raids have made the farmers restless, and now the miners—”
“Tell them to mine somewhere else for the time being.”
Though his jowls quiver, his mouth barely moves as he speaks. “My Valtia, they claim there is nowhere else.”