Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,47
coward, but I would rather Thea had some use for me.”
She drained her glass and walked away, all shining hair and skirts, leaving Savedra to curse the sympathy that already spread slow as poison in her blood.
The barge docked smoothly and the laughing courtiers spilled into the manicured gardens. A new set of musicians was already in place, playing livelier tunes to invite dancing and games. Tables strained with the weight of wine and confections, and the breeze was heady with sugar and alcohol and the tang of freshly clipped grass. Colored lanterns and candles in glass bowls painted the night with red and green, blue and gold, turned trees and hedges into a phantasmagoria of color and darkness. The cold light of the waxing moon cast opposing shadows.
Nikos lingered beside Savedra while the guests waited impatiently for him to begin a dance. “What’s wrong?”
She laughed too brightly. “Shall I draw you up a list?”
He traced the crease between her brows. “You’ll wrinkle if you keep frowning like that.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“Your mother is a woman of taste and wisdom. Do you think she’d accept a seat on my council?”
That drew an honest laugh from her. “I imagine she would, if only to see the looks on the other archons’ faces.”
He kissed her lightly; he’d had years of practice learning not to smear paint or powder. “Forget about politics. Dance with me.”
She plucked his hand off her arm with feigned indignation. “Dance with your wife, Your Highness.”
He clasped the slighted hand to his breast. “As you command, my heart. But you must join me at least once tonight.”
“I make no promises. Go on—your court is waiting for you.”
The musicians struck up a new song as Nikos entered the circle of light that served as a dance floor and offered his hand to Ashlin with a bow. She rolled her eyes, but let him lead her into the center of the lawn. The princess rarely danced, but when she did it was with the same grace with which she wielded a sword. The guests watched them move together for an extra measure before pairing up and joining the steps.
Savedra tensed at footsteps in the grass behind her, but it was only Ginevra again. The Jsutien held another glass of wine; her eyes glittered, and Savedra wondered how many she’d already drunk.
“People will think we conspire,” she said.
Ginevra hid a smile by raising her glass. “I’ll say you were angry about my dress, and all we did was snipe and quarrel.” She watched Nikos and Ashlin move in each other’s arms, dark and bright. “Are you jealous?”
“Are you?” Savedra retorted, though the question had been honest and not biting.
The woman’s shrug made it look as though her gown would slide off her shoulder, but the dress was too well sewn for that. “No. But I don’t love him.”
“I’ve always known Nikos would marry. And he could hardly marry me, could he?”
“You might be jealous of him. The Princess does flirt with you, after all.”
Savedra shot her a startled sideways glance. “We’re friends, however mad that seems. And she likes to unsettle. She doesn’t like women that way.” She realized how foolish that sounded as soon as the words left her mouth.
Ginevra made a noncommittal sound. And, Savedra realized, she didn’t know that for a certainty. Ashlin scorned the giggling pampered doves of the court, of either sex, but Savedra had never heard her speak of lust for anyone. But the princess hadn’t come virgin to the marriage bed—the tactful long betrothal was proof enough of that, for all that they had called it mourning for Lychandra. Who had Ashlin left behind in Celanor?
The flash of jewels as Ginevra shifted her weight drew Savedra from her brooding. The wine in her glass was nearly gone. “You don’t wear the hijra mark.”
She snapped her fan again; let watchers think they quarreled. But no one had asked her this in months, and she supposed it was due. Tactless, perhaps, but Ginevra was tipsy and curious. And, she realized with a flash of empathy, lonely. She kept her free hand from rising to her forehead, to the spot Nikos had touched, the place where the mark would be.
“Despite popular opinion, I am not precisely a whore.”
“I never—” Ginevra’s eyebrows rose. “Is that really what it means?”
“To bear the mark means accepting the rules of the hijra, and the hijra have joined with the Rose Council. They are their own faction within the Garden, and sell