LITMIR.BIZ

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the sword awkwardly blooming from my grip. With my hand coaxed to my right thigh, the sword crossed my chest, its dull point near my left ear. The armor was pliant but still felt odd on my body, like a set of unfamiliar arms had come about my chest, embracing me.

      “Ciri, will you hold the illustration up next to Brienna’s face? I want to make sure I do this perfectly.” Oriana waved Ciri closer.

      “Do what perfectly?” I stammered.

      “The woad. Hold still, Bri.”

      I had no choice; I held myself still as Oriana’s eyes flitted from the illustration to my face, back to the illustration. I watched as she dipped her fingertips into her blue paint, and then closed my eyes as she dragged her fingers diagonally across my face, from my brow to my chin, and felt as if she was opening up some secret part of me. A place that was supposed to lie hidden and quiet was waking.

      “You can open your eyes.”

      My eyes fluttered open, my gaze anxiously meeting my sisters’ as they looked me over with pride and approval.

      “I think we are ready.” Oriana reached for a rag to wipe the paint from her fingers.

      “But what about that stone?” Sibylle asked as she braided her honey-brown hair away from her eyes.

      “What stone?” Abree frowned, upset that she’d missed a prop.

      “That stone about the queen’s neck.”

      “The evening stone, I think,” Ciri said, examining the illustration.

      “No, that would be the Stone of Eventide,” I corrected.

      Ciri’s milk white face blushed—she hated to be corrected—but she cleared her throat. “Ah yes. Of course you would know Maevan history better, Brienna. You have a reason to listen when Master Cartier drones on and on about it.”

      Oriana dragged a second stool before mine, her parchment and pencil ready. “Try to hold still, Brienna.”

      I nodded, feeling the blue paint begin to dry on my face.

      “I wish I held dual citizenship,” Abree murmured, stretching her arms. “Are you ever going to cross the channel and see Maevana? Because you absolutely should, Brienna. And take me with you.”

      “Perhaps one day,” I said as Oriana began to sketch upon her paper. “And I would love for you to come with me, Abree.”

      “My father says Maevana is very, very different from Valenia,” Ciri remarked, and I could hear the pinch in her voice, like she was still upset that I had corrected her. She set Cartier’s book down and leaned against a table, her gaze wandering back to mine. Her blond hair looked like moonlight spilling over her shoulder. “My father used to visit once a year, in the fall, when some of the Maevan lords opened their castles for us Valenians to come stay for the hunt of the white hart. My father enjoyed it whenever he went, said there was always good ale and food, epic stories and entertainment, but of course would never let me go with him. He claimed that the land was too wild, too dangerous for a Valenian girl like me.”

      Sibylle snorted, unbuttoning the high collar of her dress to rub her neck. “Don’t all fathers say such, if only to leave their daughters ‘safe’ at home?”

      “Well, you know what they say about Maevan men,” I said, helplessly quoting Grandpapa.

      “What?” Sibylle was quick to demand, her interest suddenly burning as stars in her hazel eyes. I forgot that Francis’s letter to her was still in my wet arden dress, which I had left discarded on the floor of my room. That poor letter was most likely drenched through and smeared.

      “They are smooth-talking, skilled, dastardly lovers,” I said, using my best imitation of Grandpapa’s scratchy voice.

      Sibylle burst into laughter—she was the most confident with the opposite sex—and Abree covered her mouth, like she didn’t know if she should be embarrassed or not. Ciri made no response, although I could tell she was trying not to smile.

      “That’s enough talk,” Oriana playfully scolded, waving her pencil at me. “If one of the mistresses happened to walk by and hear that, you’d be given kitchen duty for the final week, Brienna.”

      “They would have to be skilled, dastardly lovers to be worthy of women who look like that!” Sibylle continued, pointing to the illustration of the queen. “By the saints, whatever happened to Maevana? Why is there now a king on her throne?”

      I exchanged a glance with Ciri. We had both had this lesson, two years ago. It was a long, tangled story.

      “You would have to ask Master Cartier,” Ciri finally responded with a shrug. “He could tell you, as he knows the entire history of every land that ever was.”

      “How cumbersome,” Abree lamented.

      Ciri’s gaze sharpened. “You do recall, Abree, that Brienna and I are about to become passions of knowledge.” She was offended, yet again.

      Abree took a step back. “Pardon, Ciri. Of course, I meant to say how enthralled I am by your capacity to hold so much knowledge.”

      Ciri snorted, still not appeased, but thankfully left it at that as she looked back at me.

      “Are you ever going to meet your father, Bri?” Sibylle asked.

      “No, I do not think so,” I answered honestly. It was ironic to me that on the day I vowed to never inquire of him again I would be dressed as a Maevan queen.

      “That is very sad,” Abree commented.

      Of course it would be sad to her, to all my sisters. They all came from noble families, from fathers and mothers who were in some measure involved in their lives.

      So I claimed, “It truly doesn’t matter to me.”

      A lull settled in the room. I listened to the rain, to Merei’s distant music mellowing the corridor, to the scratch of Oriana’s pencil as she replicated me on parchment.

      “Well,” Sibylle said brightly, to smooth away the wrinkles of discomfort. She was an arden of wit, and was skilled to handle any manner of conversation. “You should see the portrait Oriana drew of me, Brienna. It is the exact opposite of yours.” She retrieved it from Oriana’s portfolio, held it up so I could get a good glimpse of it.

      Sibylle had been staged as the perfect Valenian noblewoman. I gazed, surprised at all the props Abree had scrounged for this one. Sibylle had worn a daring, low-cut red dress studded with pearls, a necklace of cheap jewels, and a voluptuous white wig. She even had a perfect star mole on her cheek, the marker of feminine nobility. She was beautifully polished, Valenia incarnate. She was etiquette, poise, grace.

      And then here was mine, the portrait of a queen who wielded magic and wore blue woad, who lived in armor, whose constant companion was not a man but a sword and a stone.

      It was the stark difference between Maevana and Valenia, two countries that I was broken between. I wanted to feel comfortable in the fancy dress and the star mole, but I also wanted to find my heritage in the armor and the woad. I wanted to wield passion, but I also wanted to know how to hold a sword.

      “You should hang Brienna’s and Sibylle’s portraits side by side,” Abree suggested to Oriana. “They can teach future ardens a good history lesson.”

      “Yes,” Ciri concurred. “A lesson as to who you should never offend.”

      “If you offend a Valenian, you lose your reputation,” Sibylle chirped, picking dirt from beneath her nails. “But if you offend a Maevan … then you lose your head.”

      

      It took Oriana another hour to complete

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