The Queen's Rising (Untitled Trilogy #1)(23)

“Yes, Master Cartier.” I curtsied, the movement ingrained within me.

I watched him open the front door; the sunshine and warm air swelled around us, laced with scents of meadows and distant mountains, stirring my hair and my longings.

He paused on the threshold, half in the sun, half in the shadows. I thought he would turn back around—it seemed like there was more he wanted to say to me. But he was just as good at swallowing words as I was. He continued on his way, passion cloak fluttering, his satchel of books swinging as he moved to the stables to fetch his horse.

I didn’t watch him ride away.

But I felt it.

I felt the distance that widened between us as I stood in the foyer shadows, as he rode recklessly beneath the oaks.





SEVEN


EAVESDROPPER



The summer solstice descended upon us like a storm. The patrons were to lodge in the western quarters of the grand house, and every time one of their coaches pulled into the courtyard, Sibylle shouted for us to rush to her room window so we could catch a glimpse of the guests.

There were fifteen of them in all—men and women of varying ages, some who were passions, some who were not.

I became so nervous that I couldn’t bear to watch them arrive. I tried to slip from Sibylle and Abree’s room, but Sibylle caught my hand before I could vanish, drawing me back around to face her.

“What’s wrong, Brienna?” she whispered. “This is one of the most exciting nights of our lives, and you look like you are about to go to a funeral.”

That coaxed a little laugh from me. “I’m only anxious, Sibylle. You know that I am not as prepared as you and our sisters.”

Sibylle glanced to the sheen of the window, where we could hear yet another patron arrive to the courtyard, and then she returned her gaze to me. “Don’t you remember the first lesson Mistress Therese gave you when you were an arden of wit?”

“I try to block all such memories from my mind,” I said drily.

Sibylle squeezed my fingers with an exasperated smile. “Then let me refresh your memory. You and I were sitting on the divan, and it was storming outside, and Mistress Therese said ‘to become a mistress of wit, you must learn how to wear a mask. Inside your heart, you may rage as the storm beyond the walls, but no one must see such in your face. No one must hear such in your voice. . . .’”

Slowly, I began to remember.

To be a mistress of wit, one must have perfect command over their expressions, over their aura, over what they concealed and what they revealed. It truly was like donning a mask, to hide what actually lay beneath the surface.

“Perhaps that is why I did so poorly in wit,” I said, thinking of how Cartier could always read my face, as if I wrote my feelings on my skin.

Sibylle smiled, tugging on my fingers to regain my attention. “If you remember anything of wit, remember the mask. Wear confidence instead of worry tonight.”

Her suggestion was comforting, and she kissed my cheeks before letting me go.

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.”