The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(71)
Thoroughly transformed, I made my way to the great hall where, one by one, we all gathered, drifting into the room like butterflies in a flower garden, a riot of color and sparkle. I saw that they’d draped Elka in sky blue again, the color that seemed to suit her best. She rolled her eyes when she saw me.
“Good thing we clean up all right,” she said. “I mean, if they’re going to keep fancying us up like this . . .”
I remembered the first time anyone had “fancied us up.” Right before Charon had sold us to my sister at the slave auctions in Rome. I glanced around, wondering where the two of them were . . . and then I saw them. And smiled. My fears from earlier that day vanished like smoke on a breeze. Charon was handsomely attired in a long, sweeping robe dyed a shade of midnight blue with wide sleeves and a broad, wrapped sash around his waist. With his beard trimmed and his dark hair swept back from his brow, he somehow looked more lordly and more roguish, at the same time. But he stood there proudly with Sorcha on his arm, and for a moment, I almost didn’t recognize her. The silvery, diaphanous gown she wore shifted and flowed like a cloud of mist all around her. At her throat, she wore a wide, jeweled collar, and instead of having her hair dressed up, she wore a wig in the Aegyptian style. Hundreds of tiny ebony braids, set with gold beads that shimmered and gleamed, swept past her shoulders and covered her forehead in a fringe, hiding the bandage that I knew must still be there, even after her visit to the Aegyptian doctors. Her eyes sparkled so brightly it was like looking up at a starry sky. They were rimmed with thick ebony kohl, and her lips and cheeks were dusted with carnelian and gold dust. But the most beautiful thing my sister wore that night was the smile on her face. And it shone mostly on the man at her side.
I shook my head, wondering that the Morrigan had seen fit to set Sorcha’s feet—and mine and Charon’s too—on such a strange, tangled, intertwined path. It was like one of the tortuous designs the tribes worked into our jewelry and art: knotted and twisted but ultimately—if one looked long enough—a thing of beauty.
“That frown clashes with your circlet,” Elka said, nudging me with a sharp elbow. “Stop thinking so much, little fox. We’re here for a party. A party thrown by the queen of Aegypt in our honor. If my wicked old mother could only see me now. I wonder what she’d think.”
“That she sold you for too low a price.”
Elka’s wintery gaze flashed fiercely, and she nodded once. “Ja,” she said. “Joke’s on her.”
Ajani wandered up to join us then, but her gaze shifted in the middle of a greeting, and her eyes went wide. “Oh . . .” she said. “Oh my . . .”
“What?” Elka asked.
“Would you look at that,” Ajani said, smiling as she nodded toward the main entrance to the hall.
I turned and saw Gratia standing there. She was draped in a turquoise gown that was pleated in such a way that it flowed like a waterfall whenever she took a step. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, held back off her face with peacock-feather embellished combs, and Cleopatra’s women had dusted shimmering powder over her eyelids and rouged her lips. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Gratia in anything other than a practice tunic and armor. As she walked toward us, I couldn’t stop staring in a combination of astonishment and frank admiration. Neither could Elka and Ajani.
“What?” she growled, glowering at us.
“I never realized how blue your eyes are,” Ajani said.
“Nobody ever really looks past my fists long enough to notice,” she said, raising them up in front of her face.
I reached up and grabbed her by the wrists. “You look spectacular,” I said, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Pff.” She gave me a little shove. “Go find your ex-decurion to play at kissing with. I’m going to go find Devana and arm wrestle her for a crack at those boatmen.”
Elka snorted in amusement and said, “I think there might have been enough for both of you.”
Gratia grinned at her. “I guess we’ll find out!”
And then she floated off, ethereal and dangerous all at once, and I shook my head in quiet amazement as I watched her go. But Gratia wasn’t the only one to draw stares and loosen jaws that night. When our menfolk finally appeared, some of the ludus girls actually whistled at them. Kronos arrived first, draped handsomely in a flowing robe that made him look more like a statesman and less like the hard-bitten ex-legionnaire fight master he was. But then Cai, Acheron, and Quint strode into the hall together. And I knew that I wasn’t the only one to feel a fluttering in my chest. Beside me, Elka made a little strangled sound in the back of her throat and grabbed a goblet off the tray of a passing slave.
The boys had divested themselves of anything remotely Roman-looking that night, and all three of them were dressed after the Aegyptian fashion. Cai was bare-chested, wearing sandals that strapped up to just below his knees and a pleated linen kilt, secured around his waist with a silver-and-coral-studded leather belt. He wore a wide, jeweled pectoral collar that rested on his shoulders in the shape of an eagle, wings outspread. His hair was brushed back from his face, and he was clean-shaven, looking freshly scrubbed and oiled from the baths. Quint and Acheron were dressed similarly, with subtle variations to their collars. Acheron’s coppery braids fell about his shoulders, freshly dressed with blue and gold faience beads. Quint’s military-short haircut was a bit jarring, perhaps, along with all the rest. But it was clear that the one person in the room whose opinion mattered to him couldn’t have cared less. Of course, I wasn’t sure Elka’s gaze had actually managed to drift above the bare legion-conditioned contours of his chest . . .