“All right, Brienna,” Oriana said, straightening with the breastplate in her hands. “Please let me draw you as a Maevan warrior.”
They all three waited, Oriana with the armor, Abree with the sword, Ciri with the cloak. They looked at me, expectant and hopeful. And I found that my heart had quieted, thrilled by the thought, my Maevan blood stirring.
“Very well. But this cannot take all day,” I insisted, and Abree victoriously whooped and Oriana smiled and Ciri rolled her eyes.
I stood still and patient as they dressed me. The portrait would only be from the waist up, so it did not matter that I still wore my arden dress. The breastplate enclosed about my chest, vambraces about my forearms. A blue cloak was draped about my shoulders, which made my stomach clench as I inevitably thought of my passion cloak, and Ciri must have read my mind.
She stood and liberated my hair from its bun, braided a small plait, and said, “I told Abree to choose a blue cloak. You should wear your color. Our color.” Ciri stepped back, pleased with how she had arranged my hair.
When an arden became impassioned, their master or mistress would present them with a cloak. The color of the cloak depended on the passion. Art received a red cloak, dramatics black, music purple, wit green, knowledge blue. But it wasn’t a mere marker of achievement and equality, that the arden was now on the same level as their master or mistress. It was a unique commemoration, a symbol of the relationship between the master and the arden.
But before my thoughts could become too entangled with cloaks, Sibylle rushed into the studio, drenched from the rain. A jubilant smile was on her face as she held up a crown of white flowers. “Here!” she cried, slinging water and attracting our attention. “This is the most starlike crown I could make before the rain came!”
Indeed, all five of my arden-sisters must have been in on this portrait ambush. But Merei, my roommate, was the only one missing, and I felt her absence like a shadow had fallen upon the chamber.
“Where is Merei?” I inquired as Sibylle brought her flower crown to me.
Sibylle, graceful, buxom, and coy, set the crown upon my brow. “You look like you could take off a man’s head,” she said, her rosebud lips opening with a wide, satisfied smile.
“Can’t you hear her?” Abree responded to my inquiry, and held up a finger. We all fell silent, and over the tickling of rain on the windowpanes, we could hear the faint, determined song of a violin. “Merei said she is furiously working on some new composition, but she’ll come as soon as she can.”
“Now, Brienna, take up the sword and sit on the stool,” Oriana requested as she held a shell of blue paint.
I watched her, warily, as I eased myself to the stool, 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?”