I retreated to my room, pacing around Merei’s instruments and my piles of books, reciting over and over the three approaches I had diligently prepared. By the time the maids came to dress us, I was sweating.
I knew that every noble and passionate Valenian woman wore a corset.
Even so, I was not prepared to shed the comfortable innocence of my arden dress for a cage of whalebone and complicated laces.
Neither was Merei.
We stood facing each other as our corsets were laced, the maids tugging and pulling on us. I could see the pain on Merei’s face as she readjusted her breathing, her posture, trying to find symbiosis with it. I mirrored her—she knew better how to hold herself from all those years of playing instruments. My posture had always been poor, stooped by books and writing.
There is no passion without pain, Cartier had once told me when I had complained of a headache during lessons.
And so I embraced it that night, the agony that was married to the glory.
I was, not surprisingly, short of breath by the time my solstice dress emerged from its parcel in three elaborate pieces.
The first was the petticoats, layered in lace. Then came the kirtle, which was low-cut and spun from silver fabric, and last, the actual gown, a steel-blue silk that opened up to reveal coy glimpses of the kirtle.
Merei’s kirtle was a rosy shade of gold, overlaid by a mauve gown. I realized that she was wearing her color—the purple of musical passion—and I was wearing mine—the blue depths of knowledge. Obviously, this was arranged so the patrons would know who we were by the colors of our gowns.
I gazed at her, her brown skin glistening in the warmth of early evening, the maids brushing the last of the wrinkles from our skirts. My roommate, the friend of my heart, was stunning, her passion as light radiating from her.
She met my gaze, and it was in her eyes as well; she was looking at me, seeing me as if I had just taken my first breath. And when she smiled, I relaxed and settled into the dusk of summer, for I was about to passion with her, a moment that had taken seven years in the making.
While Merei’s hair was intricately braided with tendrils of gold ribbon, I was surprised when one of the maids brought me a laurel of wildflowers. It was a whimsical array of red and yellow blossoms, a few shy pink petals, and a brave ring of blue cornflowers.
“Your master had this made for you,” the chambermaid said, setting the flowers as a crown in my hair. “And he has requested your hair remain down.”
My hair remain down.
It was untraditional and a bit perplexing. I looked to my blue-and-silver dress, to the long brown waves of my hair, and wondered why he would make such a request.
I moved to stand before the window and waited for Merei, forcing myself not to think of Cartier but to mentally recite my chosen lineage again. I was whispering the ninth-born son when the maids departed from our room and I heard Merei sigh.
“I feel like I should be ten,” she said, and I turned to look at her. “Or eleven, or even twelve. Is this truly our seventeenth summer, Bri?”
It was strange to think of, how slowly time had moved until we had reached a certain point. And then the days had flowed as water, rushing us along to this night. I still didn’t feel wholly prepared. . . .
“Where did the time go?” she asked, glancing to where her lute sat on the bed. Her voice was sad, for come Tuesday, we would both leave this place. She might to be pulled to the west, me to the east, and we might not ever see each other again.
It bruised my heart, made a knot well in my throat. I could not think of such possibilities, of the good-byes that loomed on our horizon. So I walked to stand before her and took her hands in mine. I wanted to say something, but if I did, I might shatter.
And she understood. Gently, she squeezed my fingers, her dimples kissing her cheeks as she smiled at me.
“I think we are probably late,” she whispered, for the house around us was quiet.
We held our breath, listening. I could hear the faded sounds of the party melt through the windows, a party that was flourishing outside on the back lawn, beneath the stars. Punctures of laughter, the hum of conversations, the clink of glasses.
“We should go,” I said, clearing the aches from my throat.
Together, Merei and I left our room only to discover we were not the last ardens to the solstice. Abree stood at the top of the stairs, her dress as a cloud of midnight, her red hair piled up high on her head with curls and jeweled barrettes. She clutched the railing in a white-knuckled grip and looked at us in relief.
“Thank the saints,” she panted, her hand clawing at the corset. “I thought I was the last one. This dress is horrid. I can’t breathe.”
“Here, let me help you,” Merei offered, easing Abree’s hand from her waist.
I was just as inclined to fall down the stairs as Abree, so I took my time behind them, familiarizing myself with the wide arc of my petticoats as I descended. My sisters reached the foyer and turned into the corridor, their footsteps fading as they walked through the shadows to the back doors.
I would have caught up to them, but my hem snagged on the last iron rung of the balustrade and it took me a good minute to untether myself. By then, I was annoyed by the dress and shaky with hunger, a few stars dancing in the corners of my sight.
Slowly, I turned into the corridor, moving down its long passage to the back doors, when I heard Ciri’s voice. She sounded upset, her words muffled until I walked closer, realizing she was standing just inside the Dowager’s study, speaking to someone. . . .
“I don’t understand! I was your arden first.”
“What don’t you understand?” Cartier. His voice was low, a rumble of thunder in the shadows. I stopped walking, just before the study doors, which were cracked.
“Are you going to hold her hand all evening and forget about me?”
“Of course not, Ciri.”
“It’s not fair, Master.”
“Is anything in life fair? Look at me, Ciri.”
“I have mastered everything you have ever asked of me,” she hissed. “And you act as if . . . as if . . .”
“As if what?” He was becoming impatient. “As if you have not passioned?”
She fell quiet.
“I do not want us to quarrel,” Cartier said in a softer tone. “You have done exceedingly well, Ciri. You are by far the most accomplished of all my ardens. Because of that, I will simply stand back and watch you passion tonight.”
“And what of Brienna?”
“And what of her?” he responded. “You should not worry about Brienna. If I see you compete with her, you will wish that I had never been your master.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath. Or perhaps it was my own. My fingers curled into the wall, into the carvings of the wainscoting; I felt my nails bend as I tried to hold on to something solid, something reassuring.
“You may be my master for one more night,” she said in a dark tone. “But if the patron I want is interested in her . . .”