Grim

THINNER THAN WATER by Saundra Mitchell

I live in a kingdom surrounded by many lands. Beyond the Eventide Forest, there’s Lycea, where only a queen may reign; still further, Vernal, where the crown princess chooses her consort. They’re as fabled to me as Elysium and Avalon.

I’m the Princess of Flamen, and every night, my father—the king—comes to my bed.

Our people revere him, a man with the weight of the kingdom as his garland, and yet he tends his only child and always has. I hear them talk. I see the pride in their eyes: what a good man, our king. What a lucky people, we. I suppose they think we talk. Perhaps they think I unburden my troubles. His paternal counsel is no doubt wise.

From my balcony, I hear them sing the “Ballad of The Fairest Queen.” Over and again, sixteen years and they’re still not tired. It’s a dirge and the meter doesn’t scan. They don’t care, because it’s a romance. One with tragedy, the best kind, it seems. I don’t need fourteen verses to tell you the tale.

My father, then a prince, picked my mother—then a cheesemonger’s daughter—to be his bride. He loved her; she was beloved. She bore him child, and it took her life. In her last minutes, she made him promise to never again marry unless he found someone as beautiful as she. He swore it, three times, and she died.

Then the king, my grandfather, died of a fever. My father, newly crowned, was alone in the world but for me. At bedtime, when I was a flat-chested, nothing-shaped child, Father sang the ballad to me. His voice was sweeter than the laurel trees in the garden. His eyes, darker than the seas. He rubbed my chest, singing and staring out the window.

I’m older now. He’s not stopped singing, nor rubbing my chest. Tonight, he looks at me. There’s a frightening shade in his gaze. It ties a knot round my throat and makes leather of my tongue. His hand rasps. It catches on the thin silk of my nightdress. Unpleasant heat sinks through the fabric.

As the last note of my mother’s ballad drips from his lips, he stills. His hand rests above my heart. On the round of my breast. My guts turn liquid and churn. Perhaps it’s coincidence (I don’t believe it is) but his forefinger and middle make a V. They frame my nipple.

Inside, I scream. I howl a sound that scrapes the meat from my bones. Inside myself, I’m hollow. Scattered across the plains like sand. Across the sky like stars. I’m worlds away from myself. And yet, a single thread attaches me. My soul is sewn into my skin, and it relays every terrible thing, even at a distance.

“I was a better man with your mother at my side,” my father says, his hand heavy on my breast.

Am I to answer? He’s the king, so I suppose I am. My tongue rattles in my mouth, a dried bean inside a husk. “Were you?”

“Wiser with her counsel. Happier with her affection.”

I pray his hand remains still. “I don’t remember her. All I know is that she was beautiful.”

“And I promised to never marry until I found her equal.”

The song. I clench my teeth together. My eyes are already closed. “I know.”

My father leans over me. His breath skates on my cheek. His stubble burns. I don’t seek his kisses anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I drew his unnatural attention by climbing in his lap when I was little. I sought warmth beneath his arm then. Sometimes even climbed in his bed when I had a nightmare.

Now it’s all nightmares, and I don’t dare move. “Merula,” my father says. “You have bettered her. And I did promise....”

I roll from bed. It startles us both. My father’s left clutching the remains of my heat in the sheets. Lurching for the window, I consider flinging myself out. It’s late. I’m tired. I might have misunderstood him. I take deep, gulping breaths of the night air.

“Are you crying?” he asks.

I’m not. I’m shuddering. Trying to keep my supper in my stomach.

Across the castle walls, I see the good people of Flamen in the fields. They’re nothing but silhouettes, singing and laughing and looking to the stars. They’re illuminated by the streak of meteors and nothing else. There are proposals made on nights like these; couplings, too.

If I were one of those girls, if their fathers came to their beds, I could cry out. There are laws, each one with a punishment. A protection. The village quaestor would hear my plea. And if the quaestor didn’t satisfy my complaint, I’d turn to the praetor. Then the consul.

And if none of them applied our sacred codes, if none stepped in—and I couldn’t believe it would go so far—then the king would hear my complaint.

But I’m already here, in the finest chamber of the palace, trembling before the king. Because of the king. His voice drips like oil; it glides and spreads, until it fills the whole chamber. The walls seem to glisten with it.

“I’ve upset you,” he says disingenuously. “But take some time to consider it, Merula. Across the sea, Haladian royalty marry only sisters and brothers. Their empire was born before memory. No doubt, it’ll outlast it. It’s a wise decision.”

To strike my father would be treason. To spit at him, treason. To argue with him, to raise my voice—to displease him—treason. And that’s a crime punishable by death.

I can stand in my window and wish to be a girl in the fields. I can consider the slate flagstones beneath my window, and whether they would split my head and end me.

But I can’t disagree with the king.

In the executioner’s house, there are unholy devices. Capes full of hooks. Razored helmets. A spiked chair, all metal, that sits in a bed of embers. The executioner heats it till it glows, and only then is the prisoner forced to sit in it.

Death isn’t the worst thing that happens to a traitor in Flamen.

Before dawn breaks, I find Consul Sapiens at his breakfast. He’s elected, both a judge and a scholar. In Flamen, he’s the last voice of the law before my father. Egg-shaped and charming, he’s also one of my favorites in the court. When I was little, he kept a jar of sugared dates for me.

This morning, he pales when I enter his chambers. He moves to stand, covering his mouth to hide the nut cake he chews. “Augusta Merula! Glory and honor to you.”

“Please sit,” I say.

Closing the doors, I slide the bolt into place. A brief longing consumes me, a wish that we followed the Northern custom of covering our walls and floors with tapestries. They’d trap my treasonous words: a guarantee that none but Sapiens would hear them.

Abandoning his breakfast, Sapiens does sit. But it’s at the edge of his bench, not settled into it comfortably.

Wiping his mouth, he looks up at me. A faint, bluish haze has crept into his black eyes. It’s a badge of his age, the same as his balding head and rounding belly. The caul, nonetheless, unsettles me.

“I have nowhere else to turn,” I tell him.

“Oh, Merula,” he says, already coddling me, “what can be so bad as that?”

We’re equals, the two of us. Second only to the king. I whisper now, as I take his hand. And I choose my words carefully. No matter how fond of me Sapiens may be, I break the law when I say, “I think my father’s grown distracted. He loved Mother so much. Everyone says I look just like her, so I understand his confusion....”

I don’t. But politics and plain truth make an unpleasant harmony. The truth must be sweetened, smoothed. Though I wear Mother’s face, I’ve got my father’s political gifts—or so say the consul. I hope it’s true. Before Sapiens can say anything, I push on.

“He’s overcome with grief and thinks he should marry me.”

Flashing flat, yellow teeth, Sapiens laughs.

“Exactly what I thought,” I say. In relief, I slump. “It’s madness. Perhaps after these long years of solitude, it seems sensible. I think he dreams of my mother and misses her.”

“A joke,” he offers.

“If only it were.” Righting myself, I force myself to speak around it. I can’t voice the memory of my father’s hand. Where it rests, the shape it takes. My stomach turns to think of it. Bile burns in my throat, so I rasp when I say, “He means it, Sapiens.”

Sapiens’s hands tremble. He reaches for mine. “Are you certain, dear?”

“Last night, in my chambers, he came to me.”

“As he’s always done.”

The coddling tone makes me hesitate. Yes, as Father’s always done it, but it’s not the way it was before. I force myself to go on; arguing wins me nothing.

“He said the Haladians only marry siblings. That it’s a right and honorable way to maintain an empire.”

The silence isn’t long. Perhaps only the flick of a lash. The length of a breath. Then Sapiens nods.

His face is a puzzle, its details snapping together into a new shape. Now he wears an indulgent smile. I almost expect him to give me a sugared date. Instead, he says, “This is true.”

“What?”

“The Haladians intermarry,” he says—as if I were confused on the facts, not horrified at his reaction. “And it does clarify the line of succession.”

“That’s hardly my point!”

Mildly, he asks, “Then what is?”

“He said it was time to keep the promise he made my mother! That I’ve bettered her!” My voice goes shrill, and I can’t help it.

Why is he so calm? How can he be so thoughtful? Eels writhe beneath my skin. They squirm in my belly; I’m disgusted to recount it. How can he simply blink at me?

“Merula,” he says. Now he clutches my hand, and I wish he wouldn’t. “Perhaps you’ve misunderstood. Your father’s a good man.”

“But this is wrong.”

“Different,” he counters. “Not our tradition, but perhaps a new one.”

Inwardly, I fall. The underworld opens to swallow me, but only on the inside. This body is cursed to stay in this world, where my court favorite is twisting all our customs to permit the impermissible.

Sapiens speaks on, as if I’d said nothing at all. “And he does have good judgment, dear. Look how many come on Hearing Days for his wisdom.”

I want to retort, And look how many come to his kitchens for scraps! Look how many widows his single war made! Look how many of us scurry and flee—look to the executioner’s house and its red-hot chair!

My lips won’t part. Words refuse to slip through them because now I understand. I’m less than the king, and the king is the law. It will always change to agree with him.

“Merula?”

Lest Sapiens run to my father and whisper all my words in his ears, I force a smile. It’s brittle as straw-made ice, but he doesn’t care. Neither do I. I nod, and turn his hand. He needs to be reassured.

“You’re right,” I concede. “I panicked.”

“It happens to all of us,” he replies.

His chambers aren’t as airy as mine. The windows are too small and too high. Perhaps if he hung from a perch in the ceiling, the air would move and we would breathe. We don’t; we can’t. We’re second to the king, after all.

Poor Sapiens. I’m still his favorite, but now I hate him. I don’t care if he dies in what comes next.

The dovecote at sunset is spectacular. Shaped like a beehive, the birdmaster washes it with new plaster each month. Its purity reflects the colors around it—at noon, the gold of the fields. Now it’s a ruby set in the sand.

There’s a silvery bird in each recess. There are hundreds of them, each named for their home post. Slowly, I circle, reading the tags.

The birds in the largest niches will fly to other nations. Those in the smallest will deliver to provinces in Flamen. Once I figure out the method, it’s easy to find the beast I seek.

Gently, I lift Lycea. He’s peculiar, bloodred spots beneath each eye, and what looks like soot streaks down his back. Bedraggled wings flutter when I turn him over, but he doesn’t bite. Warm and light, Lycea gazes at me. Waiting.

I slip a coiled note into the tube on his leg. Once it’s fixed, he animates. Claws flickering, he quivers. Twists his head. Waits more actively, and seems almost delighted when I turn and toss him to the winds.

Soon, he’s a speck and I sink to the ground to wait for my reply.

Sunset turns to twilight, and just as the moon rises, Lycea returns. He lands in his spot unerringly, but he doesn’t settle. Instead, he struts.

“Proud thing,” I mutter as I scramble toward him.

The note inside is the one I wrote. My handwriting fills one side of the scrap, cramped to fit the space. I’m almost embarrassed to read my words. Though I phrased them carefully and tried to ask for only a little aid, in the reading, it’s stark.

My father comes to my chamber at night. Now he wishes to marry me. I can’t speak against him, so I beg for sanctuary.

Your obedient servant, Augusta Merula On the reverse, the Queen of Lycea has written her response. Despite the narrow strip of parchment, her hand is elegant. Her letters loop in a foreign but familiar script.

Ask for an impossible bride-price to stay him. I suggest a gown made of sunlight. Write again.

Fondly, Regina Vatia At first, I feel a pricking in my heart. She won’t take me; I must stay. I expected more of a queen. But logic explains it. To shelter me from my own father would be an act of war. No one would believe I was there by choice.

Like her handwriting, Vatia’s solution is elegant. She twists tradition to suit my cause. If I were to marry a lesser noble, I’d owe a price to my bride or groom. It’s symbolic, to equalize us.

In my chamber, a teak chest holds silks and goldspuns, a string of pearls as long as I am tall. I have gold beads and an ivory abacus, the deeds to two vineyards and one shipyard—that’s how much I would owe my mate, to make us equal.

Since my father is the king, he’ll owe me so much more than that. I believe he gave my mother a temple to Vara, four hundred sheep and every poppy in Flamen. People grumbled then that it still wasn’t enough.

Returning Lycea to his niche, I fold the note until it folds no more. Then I swallow it like a seed. Inside me, its idea grows.

When I walk into my chamber, I’m prepared.

“No one knew where you were,” my father accuses. He’s immaculate, a haircut and a shave today. He doesn’t stand. He sits on my bed, eyes following me as I move through the chamber.

I have to remind myself, he can’t see my thoughts. He doesn’t know the acid that eats through my belly. My expression is the truth, filtered through his filthy gaze. So I smile, but keep to my feet. “That’s ridiculous. I went to the dovecote.”

“Did you, now?”

“Yes,” I say. I stop in front of my mirror, putting my back to him. I toy with my hair to hide my trembling hands. I’m not lying, but my nerves betray me anyway. “I’m to be married. I wrote to Queen Vatia for her advice.”

Father’s trying to hide his nerves, too. His posture stiffens. “You have ladies of the court.”

Lightly, I laugh. “True. But they won’t be queens, will they?”

“You’ve been looking for a lot of advice today, Merula.” He stands, pulling his shoulders back. They pop, worn from old battles and hard chairs. “You spoke to Sapiens, as well.”

“To be certain none would stand in our way. I thought our laws might conflict.”

Heat sweeps through me, sweat rising on my hands. They turn clumsy, and I drop the comb in my hair. Hurrying to pick it up, I find my father has followed me down, as well. His scent invades me and my guts roil. Unsettled by the darkness of his eyes, I struggle to keep my false face. Holding out my hand, I wait for him to return my comb.

He clings to it. “And?”

“Nothing does,” I assure him. Since he doesn’t return my comb, I take it from him. Then I push away from him, swimming through the thick air in my chamber. I’ll play the part with words. Nothing more. Not my skin; it crawls. Especially when he laughs.

It’s a warm sound, delighted. The same laugh I heard when I did something particularly clever as a child. It runs through me now like a blade. Turning to him, I hold up a hand. “I’ve been considering my bride-price. I don’t want shipyards and orchards.”

Indulgently, my father rocks back on his heels. “What would you have, then?”

He has no idea how much I hate him right now. How much strength it takes to stand there and smile.

Inside, my mental body twists. It picks up the marble box on my vanity and brings it down on his head. Again, at the first sight of blood. Again, until he’s made paste and his face is obliterated.

My physical body remains serene. I twist my hair and pin it with the comb.

“I want a gown made of sunlight,” I tell him. “Not yellow. Not goldspun. Sunlight. And I don’t think you should come to my chambers until my bride-price is paid. I’ll need my ladies to help me prepare for our wedding night.”

My father, the king, agrees.

Two months pass. On Bread Day, I ride out with tributes for the people of Flamen, gifts of loaves to celebrate their hard work. Without their toil in the fields, we’d all go hungry. Fresh bread, salted and sweet, for everyone.

No one sings my mother’s ballad this time. My people whisper; I hear them as my carriage rolls through the streets.

“...doesn’t even look upset,” one says.

Another replies, “She always was too fond of him....”

Thankfully, the carriage rolls on. I feel slapped. How could they believe this is my design? Don’t they have fathers? Can’t they imagine my horror? Irrationally, I want to send the guards to clamp irons on them. To drag them down to the dark places beneath the castle. It’s spoiled, childish thinking. Proof that I have a monster inside me; that I’m my father’s daughter, after all.

“Bless, Augusta,” a woman murmurs. Then she ticks her tongue, and that speaks, as well. A shame, a shame, it says.

Another shakes her head. She takes the bread with her fingertips, careful not to touch mine. They’re not usually careful. Usually, I shake hands and kiss them, and thank them for coming to see me. Sometimes, people thrust babies into my arms. A kiss from a princess means good luck the whole year through.

Not now. No one raises their gaze to mine. As I hand out loaves, they reply with muttered thanks. The village streets seem impossibly long today. Unnatural quiet follows me. Though they try for subtlety, I see the people of Flamen. My people—I see them hide their children.

By the time we turn down the market row, my eyes burn with tears. My chest grows tight, aching with each restrained breath. If I take a full one, I’ll dissolve. The wind refuses to howl today. A blue sky stretches forth, an unmarked canopy. It’s cruel is what it is. The day mocks me with its perfection.

Then, at the last stop, one woman comes forth. Her wide hips swing, rocking the baby that she carries. Ignoring the rest of the crowd, she cuts through them and comes right to my carriage door. Her chin high, her onyx eyes glitter when they meet mine. “Augusta Merula, bless.”

“Bless you,” I reply. I leap on this scrap of kindness, offering her a loaf, and the baby on her hip a sweet roll. Those are usually mine, but I’ve had no appetite for them today.

The woman catches my wrist. “A kiss for my babe?”

Leaning over the side, I brush my lips on the child’s cheek and I shiver when the woman speaks into my ear. It’s a whisper that could cut her down. Warm, it skates across my cheek and I nod gratefully as I right myself. I don’t dare say anything aloud; she’s risked too much today already.

But as the carriage carries me back to the palace, I repeat her words with my inner voice. Again and again, I say them; they become a prayer. Not the usual kind, sweetened with incense and fatted lambs. The gods haven’t listened. This is a prayer for myself.

“You’re not alone.”

The gown is made of sunlight.

It took the better part of a year, but Father presents it to me at breakfast. In front of the courtiers, who are both fascinated and disgusted by the display. They don’t need to go to country fairs to see two-headed calves and claw-fingered ladies. I’m their wonder, conveniently located within the wealth of the palace. They don’t even have to change their clothes.

“How did you do it?” I ask.

My father laughs, amused. “Magic. Favors. What does it matter?”

I want to scream, but I can’t, and I don’t. Panic claims me. I never expected him to accomplish the bride-price. It was an impossible thing, but when you have an entire nation in your hands, I suppose impossible is a little easier.

“It’s perfect,” I say. What will I say next? My breakfast rises into my throat; what will I do if he tries to seal it with a kiss? Horror lines my flesh. If it were acidic, my skin would slip right off. I’d be nothing but raw muscle and blood, and maybe that would deter him.

Proud, he holds the gown aloft. Its delicate threads don’t glow. Glowing implies that it’s soaked up something else’s light. They illume, casting golden morning sunlight throughout the room. When the fabric shifts, it sings. A song of morning, of wind in trees and birds awakening.

Suddenly, I wonder how much it’s worth. Magic like that must come at a high price—it was meant to equalize me to a king. I laugh and clap, a bit of hysteria to it, but no one notices. They’re dazzled by the light dappling their faces.

I say, “It’s perfect, exactly what I wanted.” I even put a fond, staying hand on my father’s shoulder. “But I’m to be the queen, so of course I need a stola made of moonlight.”

“What?” my father yelps.

The courtiers hoot and whistle. What a delightful game this is to them. But emboldened, I trace my fingers over my hair. Magic is a slow, rare thing these days. It took four seasons to enchant a gown; perhaps two more for a stola. I need more time than that, so I add, “And a palla made of starlight.”

I think my father realizes that I’m putting him off. I think this is the exact moment when he realizes that I’m not eager to be his bride. Still, it’s also when he understands that I’ve played him well.

If I’d asked for more in private, it would have been easy to say no. Now he has no choice—exactly what he gets for presenting the gown in public. We both know the rules of saving face; it’s impossible to decline with an audience.

The crowd quiets when he raises his hands. How their faces shine, cheeks blushed and lips pink with delight. Their attention darts, from me to him, back again. It’s a match of fascination to them.

Picking up his goblet, my father raises it to me. There’s a silvered light in his eyes. It’s sharp, a blade made of his gaze. “To Augusta Merula, who already rules me. It will be done.”

I raise my cup, and close my ears to the courtiers’ roars of delight.

After breakfast, poor Sapiens has to run to catch me. I might have slowed for him once. Not anymore. Even his voice irritates me. It scratches and scrabbles senselessly, and I would shake it off if I could.

Out of breath, he finally catches me. “Merula, I was calling.”

“I’m sorry. I’m distracted this morning.”

He doesn’t dare call me a liar. I’m a princess and, apparently, soon to be queen. His tread must fall lighter than ever around me. That, I like. It’s a petty revenge, and all I have except for my prayer. I’m not alone, I tell myself. I hear the woman’s words again, feel the warmth of her lips to my cheek. I’m not alone.

Sapiens smooths a hand over his thin silvery hair. He twitches, his smile succeeding and failing by turns. “I wanted to discuss the succession with you again.”

As if this were normal. As if he hadn’t bent the law to make this travesty, so Flamen no longer has an heir. Shame lowers my voice. This marriage may be all but fact, but I don’t want to admit it, not yet.

The gown of sunlight kept my father from my chamber for a year. I might have two more now; I can make a better plan. I can decide I’m ready to dash my head on the flagstones beneath my windows.

“I think that’s hardly my problem,” I tell Sapiens. “The Haladians marry siblings, which neatly solved it. But we have a new tradition, don’t we?”

Sapiens frowns. “Are you speaking against the king?”

“Of course not,” I reply. “But it’s not my place to make law. Or uphold it.”

Plainly, I’ve angered him. The tip of his nose grows red; his cheeks splotch with a flush, too. Still, he insists on walking with me. He presses forward, because what else can he do? This is his mess, and now he has to make it legal. “The council and I have spoken at length on the matter.”

“Oh, good.”

“We think it best that you take a fosterling as your heir. The council is split on the details. Half think a noble-born child should become your heir. It would certainly cement alliances, and give the council incentive to support your court.”

I don’t reply. I don’t care who supports this court anymore.

“The other half believe,” Sapiens says, trying to reach for my hand, “that an orphan fosterling is more ideal. It will warm the people’s hearts. We rule only at the mercy and kindness of the people’s affections, after all.”

Pursing my lips, I say, “That won’t do. Am I not marrying my father to strengthen our right to rule?”

“Yes, certainly,” he replies. Then he waits, as if I might volunteer a solution for him.

My ugly inner self urges me to slap him. No, to punch him, because a slap won’t draw blood. Instead, I open his flesh with the sweetest smile, and a question. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t bear my own heir? I’m young. Surely I’m strong enough to have a nursery full of babies.”

The color drains from Sapiens. Now the cloud in his eyes seems ever paler. It’s perhaps cruel to delight in his discomfort, but I do. I enjoy every moment that he squirms in my presence. Every second it takes him to shape his mouth, and find the words to admit two things: making me marry my father is an abomination, and he is complicit in it.

“Of course you are,” he says, then falters.

“But?”

But what? I wonder. But we understand you might have terrible, damaged children? That you can’t mate a sire to a child without creating monsters? That we might be very lucky to have an heir who is only physically malformed and mostly cognizant? Oh, all those things. I know exactly why the council wants me to adopt an heir.

I refuse to let them hide behind their law and their decisions and their willing blindness. I wait for Sapiens to say something more. Finally, he withdraws from me. He has the gall to look at me with disgust, but he nods, slowly. “Nothing, Augusta. It was simply a thought.”

Perhaps he remembers the iron chair in the executioner’s house. Perhaps his very vivid imagination allows him to see himself, forced to sit on a red-hot spike as his skin fries like pork fat.

Mine certainly does.

The magic that worked a gown of sunlight works much faster the second and third time around. It’s only weeks until my father presents my stola and palla, both of them remarkable. And both of them, he brings to my chamber, after my ladies are sent away.

“I think you’ll be pleased,” he says, opening the box.

I’m not. I want to fall to the floor and vomit. I will myself to faint, so at least whatever comes next happens when I am quiet and dead. I can’t even bring myself to touch the last pieces of my bride-price. Because this is what I’m worth: a gown, a wrap, a veil. This is what pays for my flesh.

To be fair, they’re remarkable. The witch who made them is especially keen on nature, for the pieces alternate. My father explains in a voice that’s so distant to me, it could be a memory, the sunlight gown rises with light in the morning. Then it darkens, allowing the stola to glow from dusk till dawn.

Following the rules of the sky, the starlight palla flickers all the time. It’s most magnificent at night. The stars are embroidered in a field of pitch-blue. They shift and move with the hours—I’d be willing to bet, with the seasons, too.

Each point glitters with its own light. They’re all individual, even bearing their own shades of blue and pink and green. They rise and fall, and the Pole Star remains at my brow, like a crown.

And because my father is the king, because I’ve stayed him, because he’s submitted graciously to my whims, he insists. He insists, with callused hands, on opening the brooches at my shoulders. He unpeels my everyday stola and unties the belt that binds it.

Even when I was a child, he never stripped me. There was no need; I had ladies when I was too little to manage on my own. Once I was older, I did it myself. Tears spill down my face—I try to stop them, but they won’t cease. They just won’t, and it doesn’t matter.

Though my belly hitches with sobs, though I shake with them, my father undresses me anyway.

Much later, when he dresses me again, I wear sunlight, moonlight, starlight.

“I need a cloak,” I announce as I sweep into breakfast.

Shaking the chill of the dovecote from my skin, I pluck a sweet bun from the royal table and take a bite. It’s ashes in my mouth, and it burns to swallow. But I do swallow, and reach for my cup of morning wine.

The courtiers gasp. It’s the first time they’ve seen my bride-price complete. I wear all of it, and they’re stunned.

Their silverware stills; they put goblets in their places. Perhaps in some part, they stare because the gown is an extraordinary piece of sorcery. They laugh at the magician’s gambols at dinner, but this is a piece of true power.

My father pulls me into his lap. That, I think, is why the courtiers truly gasp. Since I’m wearing this gown, they know what it means. The celebration is yet to come, but the proof of consummation is on my sheets and in this gown.

Oh, yes, the madness of their king has come to pass. My mother’s ballad is complete: he found the woman more beautiful than she, and now I am their queen.

How romantic.

“What do you need a cloak for?” my father asks. His arms band around me, tight and hard. They belie the smile on his lips.

Inside, I am nothing but bees. I sting and I buzz, my breaths soaring and falling like a cloud of drones. To the tips of my fingers, I feel dangerous, but I make myself speak like honey. Sweet in his ears. “So bandits don’t set on me when I go to visit Queen Vatia. This gown is beautiful and it announces its worth.”

“Well, I don’t see why we can’t find you a cloak.”

Shaking my head, I loop my arms around his neck. If only I had stingers in my fingertips. I’d prick him and leave him gasping for breath. “I must have a special cloak. One that makes me look wretched. The gown really is a wonder.”

Now he’s suspicious. “You can’t hide beauty like yours.”

“Just the gown,” I insist. “I want a cloak made from Poeminus.”

Our audience gasps, but carefully. Shock ripples through them, but they don’t dare murmur. My father turns. It puts most of his back to the courtiers, and lets him argue with me in private. “I’m quite fond of that horse.”

I nod. I know he is; it’s his favorite horse. If he’s willing to sacrifice his only daughter then he will be made willing to sacrifice his favorite pet.

“He’s old and nearly dead. And it would make me very, very happy to have a part of you wherever I go.”

He hesitates. The monster. He hesitates!

He’ll go to any length to feed his deviance, except give up his pet. We’re all pets to him, I suppose. Playthings. Toys to be used and broken. I wonder now how willingly my beautiful mother came to his bed. She was only fourteen, still narrow in the hips—but he was eighteen then.

It was romantic, wasn’t it? He gave her all the poppies in Flamen because they paled beside her lovely face. A lucky gift, since the astrologers had no idea what would come next; the physikers plied her with opium when childbirth split her apart.

Suddenly, the scent of Father’s skin stirs my bees. They agitate and swell inside me. If only I could open my mouth and let them pour out. A swarm to swallow him, it would be a divine vengeance. Peeling his arms from me, I stand. My teeth snap together when I lean over him.

“I want it, by nightfall.”

Whatever will he do? This is his game, and I’m playing it. Because he claimed me and dressed me in it, I wear my bride-price. I’m his equal now. Though he could order me to the chamber of horrors, the people might turn against him. There are rules. His rules. And I abide them.

Without another word, I abandon breakfast. It’s a long walk to the dovecote again, but I have a whole day to burn away. I wait for Lycea, then I’ll wait for my cloak.

When my sister queen invited me to write again, I wonder what she expected. What did she think as she sat in her palace, adored by the consort she chose? Her suggestion of impossible bride-prices no doubt pleased her.

Perhaps she stroked his head and said to herself, “That will be that, and all will be well.”

I doubt very much that was her reaction when my dove found her the second time. Perhaps we’ll discuss it one day, but I think that unlikely. I knew better than to ask for sanctuary this time.

Once I have word from Vatia, I return to the palace and await my cloak.

At dusk, my lady delivers it and I cry.

The cloak she carries is unmistakably Poeminus. I know this, for the head remains attached. The eyes are glass now and some astringent sort of glue has cured his hide. But this was a beautiful living thing this morning. Now he’s murdered, at my hand.

Sending my lady away, I choke and I sob, but I put the cloak on. It still smells of horseflesh. Someone even braided the mane, all details that rack me with guilt. I’ll think of a way to make it up to him. I’ll pay penance, and make temples to him.

I force myself to settle. Though he meant to horrify me, my father’s cruel reply is actually a gift.

Once I’m outside the castle with the hood (head, bless the gods, it’s poor Poeminus’s head) on, I disappear easily into the countryside.

No one thinks twice about a horse in the fields. I hike to the Eventide Forest, and then through it. The cloak hides my glow of moonlight and starlight. I’m unnoticed the whole night through. The whole day through, too, when I sleep beneath Poeminus’s noble flesh. What’s one wild horse in a forest full of them?

By new dusk, I wake and cross the river. With a half night’s walk, I finally stop. A great wall rises before me, and it bristles with soldiers. As I approach it, I cast off the cloak and let my bride-price identify me.

On the other side of the gate, my sister queen Vatia greets me. Sending her men away, Vatia invites me into her war tent. She gives me the privacy of her own screen, and the gift of an enchanted pair of scissors.

I peel off moonlight, starlight, sunlight. The whisper of silver slicing through sunlight pleases me. I sit in nothing but my tunic and cut.

The magic that made my bride-price was valuable enough to make me equal to a king. It’s wealth with a measure; wealth I can share. I shear the fabric into a thousand pieces to pay the men and women who wait outside. My soldiers. My army.

When I dress again, it’s with my own hands. The Lycean chain weave is too big, but I belt it. My cloak of Poeminus fits perfectly. Though I’m exhausted, starving, shuddering, I accept the gift of Vatia’s horse. In return, I offer her my alliance as Flamen’s queen.

“Leave our people,” I cry as we gather at the river. “Leave our people, take nothing, burn nothing, harm none. We ride for the castle alone!”

My army roars. They’re the best sort, these men and women of Flamen, well paid and with a purpose.

Though I don’t see her among them, there is one woman in my village who understands. She slips through the streets tonight, warning the innocent to flee to the fields. No doubt her daughter trails after her, three years old, with bright black eyes.

I’m not alone.

And when I raise my pike, thundering horses surge with me. The voices of a thousand soldiers rise up, a new ballad that I’ll sing until the day I die. My father’s army is scattered. He fought just one war, and that was years ago. His guards search the forest for me; he’s unprotected.

This means when we take the castle, it’ll be easy to capture him. My new guard knows where to find the executioner’s house. They know what lies within it, and what my intentions are.

It’s my pleasure alone to find my father.

He’ll know me, because I wear the head of his favorite horse. I’ll throw it off, and I won’t kiss him. I won’t sit in his lap. I won’t pretend anymore that he’s my better.

No, he’s a lesser beast, a man who defiled his daughter. Who betrayed her, broke the rules of our land and committed his crimes with no fear of retribution. He should have feared, for now I’m the queen. He made me a queen, so I intend to teach him what everyone around him knows: Death isn’t the worst thing that happens to a traitor in Flamen.