Even if Nahali wasn’t First Daughter, she would still have been born to be Queen. More clever than the best professors of physiks, perfectly controlled in every action, and beautiful besides. Her future-king husband sat by her side, laughing and drinking in every word that fell from her lips. He was the son of a nobleman in the Queen’s cabinet and ridiculously handsome—the Queen would have arranged a marriage for Nahali had she not found someone quite so suitable to love. Today, Nahali wore a loose fitting dress of emerald green silk that swamped the cushion where she sat, artfully concealing that her sister was with child. Married four years and already working on providing the Queendom with an heir: Nahali’s life was perfectly planned and on schedule, as always.
Seledri’s light laughter drew Aniri’s gaze to her second sister, the one who had been forced into an arranged marriage just two years earlier. Aniri had always thought Seledri was the most beautiful of the three of them. Her deep black hair had its own light, outshining her midnight-colored silk-on-silk brocade dress. Seledri’s high cheeks seemed sculpted by an artist in love with his subject, too beautiful to be quite real. And her brown eyes were so deeply warm that looking into them was to feel instantly at ease, as if nothing in the world could go wrong when such kindness looked into your soul.
Aniri had no doubt her Samirian prince was madly in love with Seledri.
She lived in Samir now, and her severely corseted, high-collared dress, the height of Samirian fashion, just reminded Aniri that her sister no longer belonged to Dharia. One day, when the Samirian Queen-mother stepped aside, she would rule. Aniri wondered if she had yet found love in her arranged marriage—or if duty had exacted a horrible price from her beautiful, soft-hearted sister. But that thought faded as Aniri approached the head table: Seledri’s beautiful face was closer to gray than her normal delicate brown.
“Are you all right?” her husband asked. His bronzed hand rested softly on hers, which had fallen palm up on her tightly fitting skirt. His gaze searched her face, but she stared at nothing across the expanse of the tearoom.
“I’m not entirely well.” Her voice trembled.
Aniri’s stomach clenched as she knelt by her sister’s side. “Seledri, what’s wrong?”
Seledri’s eyes came into focus, and she smiled—a sickly look—then raised a fine-fingered hand to touch Aniri’s cheek. “Aniri! You’re here. I’ve been waiting for you to show.”
Aniri glanced at the Queen, who was occupied with Janak whispering in her ear. “Well, I try to be fashionably late.”
“You’ve never been fashionably anything in your life, little sister.” Seledri laughed… only it also was sickly. Aniri took her sister’s hand. It was clammy and shook slightly in hers.
“You’re not well, Seledri.” Alarm was starting to build in Aniri’s chest.
“I think I’m just tired.”
Aniri looked to Seledri’s Samirian-Prince husband. “I’m going to take her to my room for a short while. So she can rest.”
He nodded his approval and rose to help Seledri get up from her cushion. She wobbled and Aniri was afraid she might fall, but she righted herself.
Her rising drew the attention of the Queen, which quickly fell on them with a scowl. “Are you going somewhere, Aniri?”
“Seledri is unwell, Mother.” Aniri dropped her voice because the chatter of the room had suddenly dimmed, every face drawn to the drama at the head table. “I’m taking her to my room to rest.” Aniri tried to keep the bristle out of her voice.
“Seledri has her own room and her husband to attend her,” the Queen said, and Aniri’s bristle turned into a rising of the hairs at the back of her neck. “And you have an appointment with Prince Malik at the close of tea.”
“I will take care not to be late, then.” Aniri grasped her sister’s cold hand between the two of hers. She turned her back on the Queen, fully aware of the held breaths that followed, and gently guided her sister from the table. Her husband trailed behind, then quickly caught Seledri’s other arm.
When they had rounded the corner of the table, Seledri whispered to her, “I see you haven’t changed in my absence, little sister.”
Aniri smiled. “I do my best.”
Seledri smiled in return and let Aniri and her husband lead her from the Grand Chamber. Aniri didn’t dare glance back to Devesh, to see his reaction to her little scene, but he surely heard the Queen’s unsubtle announcement that she had an appointment with the barbarian prince. She only hoped he wouldn’t leap to conclusions about a decision she hadn’t even made herself.
Seledri’s color was starting to come back.
Aniri had loosened the tightly-bound Samirian-style corset, wondering how her sister could breathe at all when so tightly wrapped, as if she were a package bound for rough passages over the sea from Samir. Aniri had fed Seledri some crackers Priya had brought, but now her sister lay with her eyes closed on Aniri’s bed. Her beauty was more deathly than angelic, her skin having paled against the black embroidered silk, like it was funeral clothing. Aniri had banished Seledri’s husband, mostly because she wanted to talk to her sister privately, although guilt wormed its way into her chest with the pained look on his face as she shoved him out the door.
“He’s a good man, you know,” Seledri said, her eyes still closed, a damp cloth resting on her forehead. “He’ll worry about me. He’s no doubt sitting outside the door right now.”
“He’ll survive.” Aniri gently unbuckled her sister’s silk slippers and worked them from her slender feet, one at a time. “I’m more concerned about you. Was the journey from Samir rough? Or is there more to it? Do I need to summon the doctor?”
“The doctor will only find out what I already know,” Seledri said. “I’m with child, Aniri.”
Aniri’s fingers froze. “You’re what?”
“You do understand how that works, don’t you? First you get married, then—”
Aniri smacked her sister’s arm with the feather-light slipper, and Seledri laughed in a way that lifted Aniri’s heart. She swept her dress to the side so she could fold her legs underneath and sit closer to Seledri. They hadn’t been alone like this, the two of them, since Seledri had married and left Dharia.
“I understood the mechanics before you,” Aniri said with derision.
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Aniri arched her eyebrow. “We clearly need to discuss that further.” She laid her hand softly on her sister’s arm. “But first I want to hear about this baby of yours.” Somehow Seledri’s pregnancy hit her more forcefully than Nahali’s baby-to-be. “Are you... are you happy about it?”
Seledri pulled the cloth from her forehead and eased up to sitting. Suddenly Aniri could see it: the achiness with which she moved, the small bump where her sister’s stomach had always been flat, the care she took to sit just right on Aniri’s bed.
“I have a wonderful husband, an heir on the way, and a Queendom which will one day be mine.” Seledri drew in a deep breath. “It is not a bad life.”
Aniri let her shoulders relax. “Your husband must be beside himself with happiness.”
“He does not know.” At Aniri’s questioning look, Seledri elaborated, “My handsome Samirian prince has wished for a baby from the moment we were wed. I’ll tell him soon. I’m waiting until I can be as filled with joy as he would want.”
Aniri’s heart clenched, and tears threatened to spring out. “Oh, Seledri.”
“Hey, I’m the one who is supposed to be weepy, not you.” Seledri’s beautiful face drew into a frown. “Is it so bad to become Aunt Aniri? The sea between Dharia and Samir is not so broad. You will have to come visit. And bring food! The Samirians have no idea how to cook.”
Aniri grinned through the tears that threatened to spill anew. That had been her plan all along. Run away with Devesh to Samir. Visit her beautiful sister. And now her new baby. “I would like nothing more than that. Tell me, what’s it like living in Samir? Are all the men as ridiculously handsome as your husband?
” And Devesh, she couldn’t help thinking.
“The men are very fine to look at, the women are very stuffy, and the scenery is spectacular until the rains come. Then it’s unbearably damp.” Seledri paused, studying her. “What’s wrong, Aniri? This isn’t about the baby, is it?”
Aniri studied her hands. Seledri wouldn’t want to hear that Aniri’s heart was breaking for her. Again. That she dreaded being forced into the same loveless, arranged marriage. “It’s nothing.”
Seledri grabbed hold of Aniri’s shoulders and plied her with those warm brown eyes. “Since when do you lie to me, Aniri? Am I suddenly First Daughter, Future Queen of Dharia?” She gave a small smile, and Aniri returned it. They had always kept things from Nahali because she would run off and tell their mother the instant she knew anything worth knowing.
“If you were First Daughter,” Aniri said, “you would probably be in on it.”
“In on what?” Seledri frowned. “You know Mother never tells me anything anymore. I’m married to the enemy now.”
“The enemy?” Aniri was genuinely shocked Seledri would use those words. The bonds between Dharia and Samir were long and deep, cemented by countless arranged marriages over time, even outside the royal family. Aniri was far from the only Dharian to fall in love with a Samirian. “Is that what you call your husband when you’re in his bed?”
“Only if he’s been very good.”
Aniri laughed outright. It washed away some of her hesitation, and the tension in her shoulders calmed. Still, she dropped her gaze to her hands. “Mother wishes me to accept Prince Malik’s offer of a peace-brokering marriage.”
Seledri sucked in a breath. “Aniri…”
“I know.”
“But he’s Jungali…”
Aniri just nodded. It was as if the gods were playing a cruel joke on her.
Seledri paused and then said, “Has he already made the offer?”
“The formalities are after tea, but yes.”
“But the decision isn’t made? Maybe I can talk to Mother about this…”
Aniri looked up into Seledri’s eyes and knew her sister would do anything for her. It swelled her heart. She took a breath and said, “Mother is giving me the choice.”
Seledri’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, then her brow wrinkled with a fierceness she hadn’t seen since they were girls. “Well, then the answer is clear.”
Aniri waited.
“You say no.”
The strength of her sister’s words stole Aniri’s breath. They were exactly the words she wanted to hear, and yet they twisted her heart all the same. Aniri pulled her sister in for a hug, so she wouldn’t have to see the look on Seledri's face.
The storm of anger that raged across it would only bring Aniri's tears back.
You say no.
Her sister’s words seemed to echo in the spiral staircase even as Aniri’s silk slippers made no noise on the sandstone steps. Her labored breathing was the only true sound, her chest heaving not from haste, but from the pain in her heart.
The Queen hadn’t given her sister a choice, and Seledri knew her role from the moment she could understand such things. Aniri couldn’t tell if her heart was breaking all over again for the plight of her sister, who deserved to love as much as be loved, or if it was breaking fresh from the fear of being trapped in the same cage. Seledri hadn’t had a choice. Aniri owed it to her sister, as much as to herself, to live the life Seledri had never been offered.
She pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the Queen’s Grand Chamber. It was empty, vacant now that tea had finished. At the far end, the Queen stood with Janak, consulting in hushed tones. It irked Aniri more than normal, that her mother had such a close confidence with the raksaka who guarded Aniri. As if Janak were some kind of paternal force, a military substitute for the father her mother had abandoned. Meanwhile, she put Aniri through tests of worthiness as a daughter of Dharia.
It irritated her, like a loose hairpin scratching.
Aniri took her time crossing the long room, no longer hurrying. Before she left Seledri, she had washed every trace of tears from her face. She didn’t want her mother to think she had been crying over this decision she had set before her.
“Aniri,” the Queen said as she approached. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t want to keep the young prince waiting any longer. He’s already had a long journey from the north.”
“I’m at your service, your majesty.” The bitterness in her voice was unavoidable, but she stood as tall as her heavily embroidered dress, weighted with the obligations of royalty, would allow.
Her mother frowned, seemed tempted to say something, but held it back. Janak wore his usual impassive look—apparently his smiles were reserved for mocking her in private. The Queen nodded to Janak, and he motioned to a doorman at the anteroom where the Queen usually prepared for tea. The doorman disappeared, ostensibly in search of the prince. That her mother would allow the barbarian to use her private chambers disturbed Aniri.
“Have you already given him visiting privileges?” Aniri asked in a low voice.
“I’m simply treating him with the respect due a sovereign of a potential ally.”
“In your personal antechambers?” Aniri asked. “Are you certain the artwork is secure?”
“Aniri.” Her mother’s voice had gone cold, but Aniri already knew she had stepped over the limit of her mother’s tolerance. “I expect you to—” She stopped when the door swung open, and the prince strode in. He was young, just as her mother had taken pains to note, as if that somehow would make a difference.
He crossed the floor with long purposeful strides. His finely tailored jacket and pants were current with the latest fashion befitting a nobleman in Dharian court: high-collared, deep navy silk, trimmed with twisted gold embroidery and reaching to his knees. Only he seemed awkward in the jacket, as if the silk chafed across his back. Or perhaps Aniri imagined his discomfort, the barbarian tales draped on him like an invisible cloak that he labored under. Then again, maybe he was trying to conceal a club.
She steeled herself against the urge to smile at his expense.
When the prince stepped from the shadowed back of the room and took in Aniri’s face, he frowned and seemed momentarily disappointed in her. It stuck her as incredibly irritating. What did this barbarian have to be disappointed about? The question nearly leaped from her lips, but then the look was gone. Perhaps she had imagined it. In any event, he was now the picture of courtly dispassion, staring at her with strangely pale amber eyes. Did all that time in the harsh northern sun bleach the color from barbarian eyes?
The prince stopped at a respectable distance, in accordance with the most formal traditions. Only then did Aniri notice his servant, a massive man, stepping clear of the shadows. Janak, still in his royal uniform from his duties at tea, subtly angled his body between the prince’s giant guard and the Queen.
The prince’s servant merely stood taller and announced, “Prince Malik, of the Jungali Coalition of Provinces.”
The prince pressed his hands together, held before his face in a position of high respect, then solemnly tipped his head forward to the Queen. “I bow to the great land of Dharia.” Aniri hadn’t heard the traditional greeting in a long time. She couldn’t decide if he was quoting some kind of handbook on Dharian customs or if he had been coached to use the highest formality as a way to supplicate to the Queen.
Regardless, her mother seemed quite taken by it. She brought her hands together, touched them to her lips briefly, then spread her hands wide. “You are most welcome in our land,” she said, the traditional response.
“Arama, your majesty,” the prince said, bowing again and relaxing the formality. “You are most kind for receiving me with such unforgiveable shortness of notice. If it weren’t for the urgency of my business with her majesty’s royal court, I would have made proper entreaties for my arrival.”
“We’re honored to have you for our guest,” the Queen said. “And your bus
iness is of great interest to the court.” She smiled broadly. “May I present my daughter, Princess Aniri.”
The prince turned to her, his amber eyes as cold as the frozen Jungali seas. He bowed, hands clasped, but did not repeat the greeting, not even the more informal arama, used by everyone, commoners and royalty alike. Aniri wasn’t sure whether she should be insulted or not. She clasped her hands and bowed in return, although she may have done it too quickly. Her mother’s keen look flashed disapproval.
“Well, I expect that you have much to discuss,” her mother said to the prince. Aniri shot her a look, but she was focused on the barbarian. “Please inform Aniri’s guard if you have need of anything, Prince Malik.”
Aniri frowned. Was the Queen leaving? The prince had yet to make his formal request—what purpose could it serve for the Queen to leave before that happened? Before Aniri could form a question, her mother swept toward her antechamber, the jewels on her dress winking from the shadowed recesses. The prince, for his part, didn’t seem surprised at all by the Queen’s sudden departure.
Aniri glared at Janak, but she couldn’t catch his attention. Instead, he coolly eyed the prince as he approached her.
“Princess Aniri,” Prince Malik said, “is there somewhere we can speak in private?”
Aniri blinked. “In private?” According to custom, they wouldn’t meet in private until after the arrangement had been negotiated. And she hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She glanced at Janak, suddenly uneasy he might whisk away like her mother. “Whatever you have to say, Prince Malik, you can speak it in front of my personal guard.” She hoped Janak understood her meaning—that he dare not leave her alone.
Malik stepped closer. A panicky feeling fluttered her heart, but he merely dropped his voice so Janak would have to strain to overhear. “Princess, it is your privacy, not mine, I wish to protect. Perhaps we could…” He glanced about the Queen’s tea room. “…find a more open place to discuss our business.” His gaze alit on the windows streaming the golden haze of summer into the room. “Maybe the garden?”
Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) Page 3
