Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(81)
It looked like a vast, scorching vat of jealousy.
When she was done I looked like I’d crawled naked through the world’s primordial forest, dressing myself only with what I could pick or pluck. Gossamer-green folds wound strategically around me, as if a spider had spun a web of silk and leaves, laced together with curls of ivy. My hair was braided loosely up and away from my face, beneath a crown of purple morning glories and their heart-shaped leaves, with wicked little berry sprigs tucked in here and there. Torques of thorns surrounded my biceps and my wrists, and something like barbed corn silk twined around my calves, like the straps of the gladiator sandals I’d worn in what felt like someone else’s life.
And my eyes were blackened with such a dense, matte liner that my irises all but glowed, like something that crept silent and hungry behind the night-rustle of leaves. Even my lips glistened a diluted red, as if I’d licked them with blood still lingering in my mouth.
It was the most beautiful I’d ever been, everything so tailored to me I might have grown it from my body, but I couldn’t quite tell why it all felt so wrong.
“There,” Ylessia said flatly, stepping away from me. “As lovely as you’ll ever be, if we can call it that.”
I reached up to touch the deceptively simple tangle of my hair; my hand sparkled violet and green where it caught the light, from the shimmering minerals in the lotion she’d rubbed on me. It smelled too sweet for something just meant to moisturize; curious, I brought the back of my hand to my mouth and gave it a little lick. It tasted like the candied violets Mama used to make as a garnish for her spring sunset sorbets.
“You sugared me?” I demanded. Somehow this was infinitely more terrifying than anything had been so far, this proof on my tongue that I wasn’t myself any longer, but an offering. And that was the fount of all the dissonance, I abruptly understood. They may have decked me out like something that could sting or prick, but that was purely for show. I wasn’t meant as a thorned rose but as a lychee fruit, all tender sweetness once the spikes peeled back.
And I had not just volunteered, but fought so hard for this.
It would be better, I reminded myself. It would be worth it. Whatever happened, it would be to me and not to my sister.
“Not to worry, Lisarah,” Ylessia replied tartly. “Nothing can truly sweeten all those years of brine beneath. I assure you it will not sink in too deep.”
I held her eyes in the mirror until she dropped her gaze. “Is there any particular reason,” I began, girding my voice with steel, “that you’ve now decided to be such a spectacular bitch? It’s not really the quality one hopes for in a great-great-great however-many-times grandmother. Especially not when getting ready to step willingly off a cliff.”
Her face softened a measure, and she opened her mouth as if to say something before closing it with a neat click of her teeth. “It isn’t your fault,” she finally said, low. “You’re right, you don’t deserve this from me. Especially not now.”
“So, what is it, enlighten me. It might be my last request.”
She shook her head once, and turned away. “It’ll be another few hours yet,” she said quietly. “Sorai must ready herself for the ritual, as well, along with the rest of us. Enjoy what you can until then. Enjoy all of it.”
I sank onto the ottoman as she left, feeling more desperately alone and scared than I had ever been.
I COULDN’T THINK what else to do, so I made myself eat as dusk gathered outside, dousing the mountain peaks that had burned bloody with the force of a high-altitude sunset. I wasn’t really hungry, even with six days of barely considering food since all of this had begun, but if I did it—if I won—who knew if eating was something I’d ever get to do again.
And if I lost, I couldn’t see how I would want to ever eat. Or live. Even though the choice wouldn’t be mine by then.
They’d left me a silver catering cart loaded with delicacies, like some sort of decadent prisoner’s last meal. There were fat strawberries, hollowed out and filled with white chocolate cream; I ate those first, swallowing them nearly whole. Then tiny glazed doughnuts spread with foie gras and sweet, gritty fig; beef tartare topped with a trembling orange yolk and spicy buttered toast points; miniature brownies with truffle shells tucked inside that burst and bled hazelnut cream when prodded with a fork.
After what felt like a lifetime of refusing Mama’s food to make the most pointless point, once I got going I couldn’t get enough. I washed all of it down with whole glasses of cold water, flavored sweet and tart with an elderflower cordial.
I might have eaten myself to bursting if one of the wrought-iron inlays in the wall hadn’t shuddered, then swung open like a seamless panel to let my sister in, and Naisha right behind her.
Lina and I gaped at each other for a silent moment. Her hair was pinned up in elaborate curls, beneath a slim, gleaming circlet like a halo. She wore a gown cut low over her creamy spill of cleavage, a metallic black bodice above a full skirt like chain mail—if every link were a perfect feather worked intricately from platinum. Bracelets shaped like feathers circled each wrist, too, and though her eyes were lined as mine, it was precise, the black swooping into curlicues toward her temples. Her cheeks were dramatically flushed, and her lips gilded.
“Are you meant to be channeling a bird?” I said, just as she asked, “What even is that, like sexier Poison Ivy?”