"Where am I?" the girl asked.
"You are in the palace," Akasha returned gently, watching emerald eyes go wide in panic.
"The prince?" the girl breathed. "He is here?"
Gasps loud at her back, Akasha felt the ears of the palace close in upon them as she stepped closer to the girl, looking for signs of fever, though it was
hard to see anything beneath the sopping dress and flop of hair, which the girl finally, thankfully, pushed back, revealing a lightly tinted face and
streaks of pale color mixed amongst her red tresses, as if she had been born into one color and worked into another with many hours in the sun.
As a child, Akasha had similar streaks through her dark hair, and, for an instant, she envied the girl.
"The prince is dead," Akasha scarcely whispered, afraid just saying the words. The king did not like reminders of his son, it had been told to them several
times, and he would take any tongue that dared utter them.
"Dead?" the girl returned far too loudly, and Akasha glanced toward the door, expecting the sentry to rush back in at any moment. "Prince Friedrich is
dead?"
Head spinning back toward the girl, Akasha squinted. "Who is Friedrich?" she asked.
"The prince," the girl countered quietly, catching on to the need for secrecy.
Moving closer to the newcomer, mouth inches from her ear, Akasha dropped her voice to a breath. "It is Prince Salimen who is dead."
"Who?" the girl returned instantly, and Akasha watched confusion come over her face, heartbreaking in its sincerity.
"She is mad," a woman on the verge of making the transition from life in the harem to a life of palace servitude spoke up from the gathering around them.
"No, I am not," the girl said at once, standing taller against the accusation. "I am not mad."
"Confused then," the older woman argued. "She needs out of those wet clothes."
Not sure if the woman was right in regard to the girl's mental state, Akasha knew she was right, at least, in regards to the gown. Reaching out, Akasha's
hands came to an abrupt stop when, with a well-trained flinch, the girl pulled away from her touch.
"Let us help you," Akasha said carefully, reaching more slowly for the girl, and the stranger let her help with trepidation. Akasha could see it unguarded
in the girl's eyes, hear it in her anxious breaths, as the other girls moved to help when the removal of the dress proved too difficult for her alone with
so much water weighing its many skirts down.
Layer upon layer removed, the girl was left in nothing but a thin slip that clung sheer against her skin, exposing a body that could be beautiful but for
protruding bones that made it look as if she had never eaten a proper meal. An unexpected find beneath such luxurious fabrics, it was a reminder of what
might have been Akasha's fate had she survived the great flood, and she shivered at the sight.
"Make sure they are hidden," she heard the older woman instruct the younger girls, and the stranger anxiously watched her fine clothes disappear.
One of her friends stepping forward with a blanket, Akasha watched the girl carefully accept it, as if she expected a trick to the offering. "Thank you,"
she whispered, pulling the blanket around her, her eyes taking in the room, from its arched, painted ceiling to the berths in which they slept to the girls
themselves, who awaited the fall of night when they were dedicated to serve the kingdom.
Finally returning to Akasha, the girl's eyes turned sharp. "Your hand," she stated, and Akasha glanced to the fresh blood on her palm, moving to the
bathtub to wash it away again, withholding her gasp at the pain, before wrapping it in a drying cloth.
"All is well," she said, turning to meet the girl's gaze, which looked so lost, Akasha lost her breath.
Hand reaching out gingerly to the stranger, Akasha was surprised when the girl let it land without recoil. "What is your name?" she asked.
"Cinderella," the girl replied.
"Cinderella," Akasha repeated, and the name sounded as foreign as the girl's voice. "I am Akasha. Come sit with me."
"Wait," Cinderella shook her head, breaking from Akasha's hold and wandering off.
Trailing her across the room, Akasha could feel the nervous eyes of the girls still waiting to turn on them at a moment's notice.
At the only low window, Cinderella came to a stop, looking out past the bars, meant more to keep people in than out, and gave such a violent shudder at
what she saw, Akasha took a step back, fearing she truly was mad.
"Are you unwell?" she asked when the stranger continued to stare, her eyes unblinking, as if they could not accept what they saw.
When she turned to Akasha, Cinderella's face was in flux, fear and wonder, each as real as the other, flashing in rapid succession.
"This is not my kingdom," she replied at last.
T
he servants of the palace worked with the diligence of ants, hurrying to and fro, turning the grand hall into a mockery of good taste. With every fabric
streamer wrapped around a banister, every white candle replaced by waxes died pink and yellow, every gaudy centerpiece bursting candied flowers and
brightly-colored beads along the table, the hall came more garishly to life.
Perched on the balcony above, Queen Ino watched the preparations with undisguised disdain. It had been the whim of the king to hold his daughter's party at
the same moment she came into the world - two forty-two at the start of day - with no concern for the disruption to the lives of everyone in the kingdom,
as her mother had been disrupted in the wee hours to give birth to her.
"It is here, Your Highness." The weak voice pulled Queen Ino's attention to the corridor.
Turning from the railing, she stalked past her handmaiden Lemi without acknowledgment, hearing the harried footsteps of the maid falling into line at her
back.
Halfway down the hall, through the boudoir door, the droll sounds of peasant excitement faded as Queen Ino waited for Lemi to shut them into peace and
reveal her night's costume. The woman's hands taking longer than they used to in their unwrapping of the package, the queen wondered, yet again, if it was
time to retire her to another position within the castle, where the burden of the woman's age would fall upon someone else.
Pulling the tie free after much effort, Lemi slid the dress from the box, raising it into the air for the queen to see. An artisan delight that might have
normally brought the queen a moment of joy, no matter what task was to follow, the spectacle only added to her ill humor.
"I am told it is exactly the color of Snow White's," Lemi declared. "Made of the same swatch of fabric even."
"So is my luck," Queen Ino uttered, stepping closer. The brightness of the color making her eyes ache, she knew she would start the night with the pain in
her head she had anticipated only by its end. "Put it up."
Without hesitation, Lemi followed the command, pulling the wooden dress form from the corner of the room with difficulty and heaving the heavy material
onto it.
Perfect at the breast, Queen Ino acknowledged, down to the flowing skirts, even the stitching at the waistline was unmatched, each thread in perfect
alignment with the next. If not for the fact that she was being made by an overreaching brat to masquerade as a bright pink rose in the dead of winter,
Queen Ino might have thought it one of Santine's finer creations. As it was, Queen Ino continued her inspection, until, at last, tucked at the juncture
where sleeve met bodice, she found a snag.
"There is a mistake," she declared.
"A mistake?" Lemi said worriedly. "I see none."
"It is here." The queen pointed the defect out with a long finger.
"Oh, it is well-hidden, Your Highness," Lemi said in relief. "No one shall notice."
"I notice," Queen Ino returned, casting a gaze toward Lemi that withered her instantly. "Tell the king. He should not be made to pay full price for an
imperfect garment."
And, perhaps, Queen Ino thought, the next time she told Santine to lie to the king that no dye in such a hideous shade was presently available, Santine
would be less concerned with pleasing Snow White's vulgar color sensibilities and more apt to mind her suggestion.
"Of course, Ma'am," Lemi replied, hands wringing together before her.
The knock on the door seemingly a relief to the woman, Lemi cast a grateful look to it before rushing to give the visitor access to the boudoir.
In the doorway, the page of the eastern wing stood at attention, greeting Lemi with a curt nod, before turning his address to the queen. "King Kardon says
you shall make your entrance in one hour's time, Your Majesty."
"Tell the king I shall be indisposed in one hour's time," the queen uttered, watching the face of the page blanch. "Tell the king I shall be ready on the
hour," she returned the color to his face, before he nodded and went to his duty.
Shaking her head, Queen Ino turned once more to the dress, too glaring to be ignored. For those who lived behind fortified walls, and donned
sharply-pointed accoutrements as part of their daily-wear, there was an unacceptable level of fear amongst the inhabitants of the palace.
Closing the door after the page's retreat, it was fear that shown on Lemi's face as well as she turned to face the queen.
"Get me ready," Queen Ino ordered, and Lemi hurried to do her job, movements suddenly too clipped, too quick, too perfect as she unbuttoned the fasteners
with haste beyond her failing fingers. "Why are you acting so strangely?" the queen demanded.
"Am I acting strangely, Ma'am?" Lemi asked in return, the question increasing the queen's ire.
Watching Lemi's hands tremble against the garment, Queen Ino knew there was something the handmaiden had not revealed. The snag was nothing. Scanning the
boudoir, she searched for signs of that which was amiss.
"Where are my colors?" she asked upon the realization that Lemi had come to her with only half of what she had been sent to fetch.
When Lemi went arrow-straight at the question, Queen Ino knew she had hit upon the source of the woman's anxiousness. "The curist had a bad delivery of
pigments, Ma'am," Lemi rushed. "He says they would harm your skin. He knew you would not want them as such."
Displeasure rolling through her, Queen Ino's eyes narrowed, and Lemi further shriveled from her gaze. "So, Santine could find the color for this
monstrosity." She fingered the sleeve of the dress with repugnance. "But the curist could not find the colors for my face?"
"He did apologize," Lemi said quietly.
"Oh, I am sure he did," Queen Ino replied, taking a step toward Lemi, watching the woman struggle not to run away. "I thought he came highly recommended."
"He did, Ma'am," Lemi's voice shook, worry etching new lines into her already overly-wrinkled countenance.
Another step closer, and Lemi looked as if she had been beaten before the queen raised a hand to her.
"Well, I am sure I will think of something," Queen Ino declared, watching the frightened swallow travel down Lemi's throat. "Now, get me dressed," she said
again, and Lemi's fingers fumbled once more at the appalling costume.
The agreed upon time brought another knock upon the door, and Lemi was again most eager to meet the caller. Where the page had stood humbly before, King
Kardon graced the doorway with assurance, a sight to be seen in his fine whites, offset hideously by a cravat and silk waist tie in the same eye-damaging
pink as the queen's dress.
"You look glorious," King Kardon said, and Queen Ino could only endure the compliment from within the confines of the endless supply of ruffles and
too-tight bodice.
"Only the best for our daughter's special day," she returned, watching her husband beam.
"It is near time for our entrance," he reminded her unnecessarily, for the queen was always where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there.
It was part of the position.
"There is just one more thing I must do," Queen Ino said, and King Kardon nodded, turning his back to the door, always a gentleman, giving a lady privacy
in which to make her final adjustments.
When it came to these particular embellishments, the queen never could tell if King Kardon turned a blind-eye, or if his eyes truly were blind to them,
but, on occasion that called for it, his ignorance was the queen's bliss.
"Lemi," Queen Ino said quietly, and Lemi came to her without fail, fear tempered into expectation. Holding out a hand, Queen Ino waited for Lemi's to
settle atop it.
Marred with old scars, the suffering of Lemi's hands was readily apparent. Hand gentling beneath the older woman's, it occurred to Queen Ino that Lemi's
hands worked harder with each passing year, the woman driving herself toward her own grave for no other reason than that she didn't know what else to do.
The notion most unbidden, the queen's hand tightened with a growl, as she wondered why she had suffered such a thought. Reaching beneath the low fall of
her dress, she pulled the antique silver dagger from the band at her calf, slicing across Lemi's palm without pause, and the old woman's mouth barely
opened on a puff of air where there should have been a scream.
Blood coming fresh and red to the surface, Queen Ino felt the familiar surge through her veins, her own blood pressing at her skin, yearning for communion.
Denying it as always she had, her own scars, hidden in secret places all over her body, ached in response.
Dipping a finger into the crimson liquid, Queen Ino watched it gather toward the tip, as anxious to be a part of her as she was of it. Releasing Lemi to
return to the mirror, the spell broke, and the queen's hand trembled as much as the servant's as she rubbed the substance into her cheeks, the color
perfect on her skin, the sole reason Lemi had earned the position as her personal maid over other anxious applicants, and the only reason she remained in
the job so many years later.
Drawing more blood from Lemi's waiting hand, the queen rubbed it across her lips, red smile staring back at her from the looking glass. With casual regard,
she pulled open the drawer at her dressing table and handed Lemi a handkerchief, watching the white fabric turn red in the woman's hand. "That is the last
time I shall trust your cousin for my colors," Queen Ino turned the almost-kind gesture into threat. "Find someone whose shipments always come in."