Chapter 1
Now
“Fucking shit,” I muttered before immediately clapping my hand over my mouth and glancing up to my tutor. Marita’s eyes narrowed as she stared down her nose at me. “Apologies,” I offered, raising my eyebrows. I could have sworn that the guard who stood alert by the door let slip an almost imperceptible laugh.Almost.
I watched Marita’s embroidery needle continue its journey through the fabric, rounding out the butter-yellow petal of a foreign flower I didn’t recognize. “You do know that kind of language will not be tolerated by the Board, Petra.”
My head dropped back to my task while I rolled my eyes. “I know, Marita, I just–”
“Ah,” Marita cut in. “LadyMarita. You must be conscious of titles. You know what will happen if you’re not. You have only two weeks left.”
“I know,LadyMarita,” I sneered. She returned the eye roll and added a sigh. “I’m trying to kick the habit.” Certain parts of my upbringing were harder to let go of than others. The language was one of them.
She placed her embroidery hoop in her lap and leaned forward in her chair, hooking a finger under my chin and tilting my face to hers. “I’ve watched many young women walk into that throne room and say goodbye to their families for the last time. You are already older than the other girls in your Initiation class and even though you are now a Castemont, it does not mean you are safe.” Marita’s tone was sharp, though the edges were softened by good intentions.
I watched her gray eyes turn to solid ice, the worry emanating from her gaze enough to pin me where I sat on the pristine floor. I felt as if I were seeing Marita for the first time, the planes of her cheekbones, the pleasant angle of her eyes. Marita was actually…beautiful. I didn’t think she had seen more than forty-five years by the absence of deep lines in her face. Since she had been assigned as my tutor three months ago, she was always clad in a veil. I had assumed the hair beneath was as gray as her eyes. Today, a single coarse hair had escaped her bonnet, resting almost invisibly across her forehead. Blonde. I was almost taken aback by the normalcy of it.
“I’ll befine.”
Though I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince more, Marita or myself.
On paper, my family name was Castemont, but that wouldn’t do me any favors with the Board of Blood. The blood in my veins was far from royal. The Board of Blood declined the invitation to the wedding of my mother and Lord Castemont just three months ago. “The Board will be indisposed,” the messenger said. They weren’t indisposed, though. The reason they didn’t come was that they vehemently disapproved of a marriage between a Royal and a commoner.
Which meant their opinion of me was set in stone.
The disapproval of the Board did nothing to quell the love between my mother and Lord Castemont though, and I sat behind them in the Grand Cathedral as the Benevolent Saints watched over their union. My mother took her vows with her love for her Lord evident in every word. Lord Castemont returned the sentiment, quietly promising to love and protect my mother, and in turn, me, at all costs.
That protection, however, did not extend to my dealings with the Board of Blood.
I slipped the final pin through my dress pattern, assessing the blank canvas that would soon exhibit the disgustingly gaudy traditional features of a pure white Eserenian Initiation gown. I relished the grounding feeling of the cool marble floor beneath my thighs, the same marble that covered the walls in the drawing room attached to my bedroom. It was too bright and rigid for a room that was supposed to evoke quiet comfort. Everything in this room was too…formal. An uncomfortable set of chairs and a matching settee in powder blue, baroque art in heavy gold frames, a crystal chandelier the size of my old bedroom.
Things had changed rapidly over the past four years. I often had to find reminders in the little things that this was real. ThatIwas real. That I was okay.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that making my own dress for this Saints damned Initiation was its own punishment,” I remarked as I rose from the floor.
“Petra!” Marita barked.
“It was either ‘Saints damned’ or ‘fucking.’ I chose the lesser of two evils,” I answered, palms raised in the air. Marita rolled her eyes. It had only taken about a week of her constant company to see the spirited spitfire that lurked just beneath the hard exterior of a royal tutor. I was able to coax more of her personality out the longer we spent together, and I enjoyed the little glimpses I got of the real Marita. She coaxed my personality from me too, my distrustful exterior falling away quickly.
“I’m not going to be there to defend you, you know,” she replied, turning her eyes back down to her embroidery. Every time my squalid upbringing was evident in the company of the Royals, Marita had defended me, explaining away my slip in language, in behavior, in appearance. She had been firm with me, stressing the importance of the task ahead, yet always acted as a soft place to land. She was my…friend? Yes, I’d call her my friend. As close to a friend as I’d had since Larka was taken from me. “No one but the Initiates and the Board of Blood are allowed in the throne room that day. Not even your mother and father.”
“Mystep-father,” I corrected her quickly, the same way she had corrected me. “Besides, I can defend myself.”
Her eyes were rimmed with concern. The same concern pooled in the pit of my stomach, cold and sour. I felt the slight tang of acid in the back of my throat. I hadn’t yet come to terms with what lay ahead of me. “I have no doubt in my mind that you areableto defend yourself, girl. However, you will not be allowed to. You understand that, right?”
I took a deep breath, walking toward the cupboard that held the needles and thread. I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not my goal was to survive Initiation, because the Royal Court did not sound like anything I wanted to be a part of. Death did not scare me the way it should have. “Sure fuckin’ do.”
???
I covered half my plate with creamy potatoes. Lord Castemont let us do away with the servants when it was just the three of us at dinner. My mother had expressed the awkwardness she felt being served a meal she didn’t cook and sitting idly by while the table was cleared and the dishes cleaned by hands that weren’t hers.
It hadn’t seemed to bother her in the past.
“Two weeks to go, Petra,” my mother remarked while refilling her wine glass. My mother only indulged in more than one glass when she was nervous. She had two glasses the night before her wedding and two the night before she was sworn in as a Lady of the Court.
This was her third.
I nodded absentmindedly, my mind preoccupied by the height of my heels that I tapped under the table. Marita ordered me to wear these heels every waking moment of every day. I was to learn to walk on these ridiculous fucking sticks before my Initiation. As if the gargantuan ruffles and jewels were not enough. My feetached.