The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(97)
“Court?” Nok repeated. “So, Lu will be there, right?”
“Yes,” Jin affirmed. “Would you like to come? It just occurred to me that Princess Lu will have no one seated in her corner of the audience, and your support would look . . . ,” he hesitated, gesturing limply toward Nok.
Nok looked down at the crinkled gray robes the healers had provided him, the obvious hitch in his step, the way he favored his left side. He was certain his face was a mess—dark circles running beneath his eyes, cheeks hollowed out with hunger and pain.
“Better than nothing?” he suggested.
“Possibly,” Prince Jin said charitably.
Nok had never been in a court hall before, but it was hard to imagine that any in the world could be grander than the one he stood in now.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, but when they did he saw that, like the hospital, the hall was cut into the side of the mountain. The ceilings here were even taller though, and lavished with vast, deliriously colorful murals. The murals were interspersed with hundreds of massive stalactites, each as tall as a grown man, stabbing down toward the floor. A closer look revealed that the stalactites were covered in carved patterns—each line chiseled away by careful, uniquely skilled hands.
As he and Nasan followed Jin down the central aisle, Nok realized that a soft, orange glow was rising from within the stalactites, turning each into a lantern. By the time they reached the end of the aisle, the hall was cheerfully lit. Nok wondered how it would compare in Lu’s eyes to the court she had grown up with.
“The section there on the left is the guests’ gallery,” Jin said, interrupting his thoughts. Nok followed the direction of his nod and saw a slightly raised, gated box within which stood three empty tiered stone benches.
“I wish I could join you, but I must take my spot on the dais.” The prince gave him a friendly, apologetic pat on the shoulder, then left them. Nok looked around at the slow-filling hall, its stone walls beginning to radiate back the heat and buzz of several hundred bodies and voices. A wave of nausea hit him, and he grasped at Nasan’s arm instinctively.
“You all right?” she murmured. “We can go if you want—I’ll take you back to the apartments they have us in.”
“No, I want to be here for this.” Righting himself, he made his way to the guest gallery and took a seat beside his sister.
Nok felt rather than saw Lu enter the hall. The noise of the gathered crowd pitched in volume—a flurry of hisses and whispers to “look, look!”—and just as abruptly, it fell ringingly quiet. He turned with the rest of them and there she was in the doorway, resplendent in red robes. A white fur mantle hung over her shoulders and was cinched about the waist with a heavy pendant of jewels. She looked like fire and snow, a sole flare of color against the uniform pale gray of Yunis.
A guardsman at the door stamped his cane and announced, “Princess Lu of the Empire of the First Flame.” The crowd stood in unison.
A small smile played across Lu’s red-painted lips, and she nodded graciously before stepping down the central aisle, accompanied by a trio of Yunian handmaidens. She looked as tall and strong as ever, but the size of the hall shrunk her—a princess, yes, but also an outsider amid a sea of strangers, very far from home.
When she reached the foot of the dais, Nok saw her hesitate before stooping upon the cushioned kneeler placed there for her comfort. The handmaidens came forward to fix the drape of her robes. Nok shifted, uncomfortable. She felt somehow far away, as though the regal trappings had built a wall around her.
“Your princess cleans up nice,” Nasan whispered.
“She’s not my—”
The guardsman stamped his cane again. “Rise for the Triarch of Yunis!” he called, his voice filling the hall. “Prince Jin, the Warrior, our Steel Star. Mother Vrea, the Oracle, our Silver Star. Prince Shen, the Steward, our Gold Star!”
Everyone around them stood instantly, heads bowed in reverence. It took Nok a moment to catch his bearings, but he scrambled to his feet, pulling a somewhat more reluctant Nasan up with him.
At the front of the hall stood Prince Jin, and behind him, a woman and a man.
Both were tall and stately, and both struck him as far more otherworldly than Jin. The woman in particular, Vrea, seemed to float. Draped in hooded robes of silvery-gray that swept the aisle in her wake—the slightest whisper of silk against stone—she looked like a slow-moving rainstorm. As she ascended the dais, she lowered her hood, revealing a serene, tawny oval face with deep-set eyes, a flat nose, and wide, pleasant mouth. Her hair was shorn close to the scalp.
Behind her, the Steward-King, Prince Shen, followed. Tall and regal, he drew the gaze with intelligent, searching dark eyes. His night-black hair was combed severely back from his face and tied into a plait that fell down his back. His features were strong and even, but there was something so stern about them that it made one shy away from thinking him handsome. His beauty was an objective one, neither sensuous nor pleasant. Awesome like that of a mountain, and just as impassive.
“That Shen’s going to take some convincing,” Nasan murmured in Nok’s ear as Shen passed. “Hope your princess has more charm in her than she’s shown so far.”
“Lu’s perfectly charming when she’s not being antagonized at every turn,” he shot back. “And she’s not my princess.”