While she has a moment’s peace, she turns her mind to the mission her mother set for her.
Charm the Temarinian ambassador, the empress told her. I want him so wrapped around your finger that he will leap from the cliffs of Alder if you ask it of him.
It will be easy enough—this is what she was raised for, after all. Raised to charm and seduce and curl people, men in particular, around her finger. She has an arsenal of courtesans’ tricks at her disposal: how to laugh and touch a man’s arm, letting her touch linger an extra second; how to smile in a way that shows the dimple in her cheek; and most importantly, how to deduce quickly and accurately what is desired of her and how to fulfill that desire. How to become the blushing innocent. The bold seductress. The shy romantic. The brazen wit.
Everyone has a fantasy, and Beatriz has learned how to embody every last one. It is simply a matter of reading people.
Everything she knows about the Temarinian ambassador, Lord Savelle, indicates that he will be easily charmed. A widower in his forties, he’s spent half of his life in the Cellarian court, barred from using stardust for any purpose. Her mother’s spies say that he is disliked and distrusted by everyone at court, but by none more so than the king himself, who wastes no opportunity to insult him. For his part, Lord Savelle appears unruffled by the attitudes of the king and his court—he is in Cellaria to do a job, and by all appearances he has done it well. In the nearly two decades since the end of the Celestian War, peace between Cellaria and Temarin has been kept—a difficult task, given the rumors of King Cesare’s quick temper and rash impulsiveness. The Cellarian spies credit Lord Savelle with singlehandedly preventing the king from declaring war on what he viewed as the heathen Temarinians no fewer than a dozen times.
Beatriz is sure Lord Savelle must be lonely.
You want me to flirt with an old man? Beatriz asked her mother. He’s old enough to be my father.
The empress didn’t like that—didn’t like any sort of questioning of her instructions. But Beatriz was never as good as her sisters at holding her tongue. If she were to be honest, she never really tried. I expect you to do whatever it takes to win him over, the empress said coldly. At Beatriz’s horrified look, she laughed. Oh, please, Beatriz. Playing the part of the prude doesn’t suit you. You’ll do what needs to be done.
The other ladies in the carriage stir when they begin to cross over a bridge leading into a walled city with colorful spires peeking over the walls, and Beatriz forgets her mother, forgets those instructions and how nauseated they make her.
“Ah, Vallon,” one of the ladies says, wistfulness in her voice. She’s the closest to Beatriz’s age, but still at least a decade older.
Bianca is her name, Beatriz remembers, the Countess of Lavellia, who is insecure about the size of her ears and has a reputation for bullying the younger ladies at court. They haven’t even gotten to court yet and Beatriz has already seen those rumors to be true—not in an overt way, the countess knows better than to be openly rude to her future queen, but there have been barbed compliments and withering looks and cutting laughs in her direction.
Each time, Beatriz grits her teeth and pretends not to notice, even when the other ladies smirk and titter behind their hands. Her mother has taught her many things, most of them unpleasant, but chief among them is patience.
She leans closer to the window, trying to see as much of the city as she can, but even at this distance, it’s too big. Bessemia’s capital, Hapantoile, could fit inside it at least thrice over.
Suddenly, Beatriz—always too loud, too bright, too boisterous—feels as small as a mouse in a cathedral.
They draw closer, over the bridge and through the city gate, a great, gilded thing set with a rainbow of jewels that glitter in the afternoon light, making it look like it’s alive. Then it’s through a labyrinth of winding streets, past brightly colored town houses and manors, gardens blooming with flowers Beatriz can’t begin to name, people in fashions that in Bessemia would be considered gaudy and ostentatious. The whole city bustles and glows with a light Beatriz never imagined possible. The cacophony of city sounds hits her ears like the sweetest music.
“It’s beautiful,” she tells the ladies in Cellarian, her face pressed so close to the window that her breath fogs it every time she exhales.
But even the city is lackluster in the shadow of the palace. It looms over everything, a large white structure with too many windows and balconies to count and an arrangement of pillars along the entrance. In the sunlight, the white stone seems to glow with a light of its own.
Beatriz has always thought the Bessemian palace is the grandest in the world, but when she steps out of the carriage and stands before the Cellarian palace, she realizes just how small her home is.
She tries not to gape openly and instead focuses her attention on the group of people gathered in a line, facing her. Each one is dressed more outrageously than the last. One woman wears a sweeping orange gown with sleeves the size of watermelons. Another wears a hat that resembles a monarch butterfly, dripping in more jewels than any chandelier Beatriz has ever seen. Another man wears a suit of red-and-black-striped satin and boots with ruby-studded heels.
At the center of the line is King Cesare, recognizable by the gold crown atop his head and the bejeweled velvet cape around his shoulders. Beatriz has heard stories from some of the Cellarian women in the Bessemian brothels about King Cesare, most of whom used a past dalliance with the king to advertise themselves—who wouldn’t want to bed a woman good enough for a king? In his youth he was said to be the handsomest man on the continent, and even now, in his fifties, she can see the shadow of that. They say he has so many bastards that a day has been set aside in the calendar to commemorate all of their birthdays at once.
Beatriz can feel her heart speed up as she shifts her gaze to his right, where his only living legitimate child stands at his side, marked by his own golden crown, less ornate than his father’s but every bit as regal.
Prince Pasquale.
He looks like Beatriz imagined, more or less, though the portrait she received of him some years back took some liberties. His shoulders aren’t quite so broad, his stature slighter. But the artist captured his eyes perfectly—the same wide hazel gaze that looks better suited to a child, curious and also somewhat terrified. When those eyes meet hers, he tries to smile, but it’s a close-lipped thing, tight and insincere.
A crowd lines the stairs that stretch up to the palace, shouting townspeople who cheer as Beatriz begins her ascent. One of the ladies from the carriage hastens to lift the long train of her gown, which spills out behind her like a trail of fresh blood.
Her legs ache when she finally reaches the top, but she manages to dip into a deep curtsy before King Cesare.
“Welcome to Cellaria, Princess Beatriz,” the king says, his voice booming enough that even the crowd gathered at the base of the steps can hear. He reaches down, placing one smooth finger beneath her chin and tilting her face up toward him. Beatriz meets his gaze as he looks her over, his expression critical. For an instant, her heart stops beating—what if he can see through the eye drops? She used them last night, careful to put them in just before she fell asleep so that the servants who woke her in the morning didn’t notice. The apothecary said the effect would last a full twenty-four hours, but what if something went wrong? Will the king have her killed on the spot? After what feels like an eternity, he smiles widely and lifts her back to her feet.