Page 27 of Crown of the Courtesan

I grab her slender hand. “I’m glad too then.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” She gives me a shy smile and backs away.

“You’re welcome to remain here if you’d like to keep talking. Courtesans often sit together while bathing.” And truth be told, I don’t want to be left alone with my thoughts.

Her eyes light up, and she nods before heading to get more towels.

Dropping my dressing robe, I submerge myself in the soothing tub. When I reappear above the water, Klara is already sitting on a three-legged stool next to me. If she’s willing to be friendly, I can’t think of a better person to help me transition into castle life. She’s probably a trove of information.

I let the hot liquid relax my muscles and quiet my thoughts. That is, until I notice a beautiful face staring at me from a gilded portrait. I suck in a breath.

There she is—Theodora, the Courtesan Queen, painted in all her splendor. Her deep auburn hair rests in waves around her face and she wears a delicate tiara. It arches and swoops to a center point, cradling an enormous oval-cut jewel in its filigree. The gem glitters with iridescent rainbows—somehow, the artist conveyed the millions of light specks dancing across the dim chamber walls in the painting’s background.

I study Theodora’s face closely.

It’s different from my own. Hers is soft, with a swooping nose. Mine is sharper, and I have a small bump on the bridge. My irises are gray like iron, while hers are so light they almost look silver. The truth is that I have no features resembling hers or the king’s.

The whispers creep around the edge of my mind. I gaze at the circlet resting on the dressing table, then quickly turn away.

I’m not ready for this.

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Princess Klara hands me a sea sponge. I want to change the subject and ask her about her own mother, but I decide against it. General Metalla’s wife, the Duchess of Alexandria, went mad ten years ago. She was removed from the castle after she deliberately set a large fire. Those cruel depictions in the scandal papers will forever stay in my mind. I can only imagine what it must have been like for a seven-year-old girl to lose her mother in that way.

“I don’t know how I feel.” A half-lie. I’m too scared to admit I might be sick from the anxiety of it all.

She hands me an oval bar of lavender-scented soap. “There’s no point in worrying over the things we can’t change, especially when we need to prepare ourselves for a busy day.”

Those are the exact words passed between courtesans many times over, and now I receive them here too. Unease squeezes my heart before I ask, “Prepare for what exactly?”

“Uncle Xander’s Pyre Ceremony—it’s today,” she explains, frowning. “And after the press broke the news yesterday, a crowd has gathered at the castle gates waiting. I believe they want to watch us start the procession and maybe get a glimpse of you.”

I remember the king’s lifeless eyes and shut my own to block them out. “I bet the papers are flying off the stands with how they twist things. I don’t want to know what they’re printing about me now.”

“I know, right? The absolute nerve of them.” When she sees me staring curiously at her, she admits, “I used to read about you over the years. Even when they wrote that the Chancellor might bid on someone else, I always rooted for you. It made my tutor furious when I couldn’t focus on my calligraphy lessons.”

Her forwardness catches me off guard. I blink. “May I ask you a question?”

She nods eagerly.

“I thought no one could open the monarch’s chambers if they were locked. How did you and the servants get in?”

“There’s a fail-safe in case of emergency. The heir can always access this room. And since you don’t have any children, I’m your heir. I unlocked it when you wouldn’t answer the maid’s knocking.” She smiles and pats my hand. “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

“Do you… do you have powers?”

Her lips scrunch. “No. Not yet… but they were teaching me what to expect when the circlet became mine. Now I’ll only inherit my father’s wrist cuffs, but that’s okay because it gives me more time to prepare.”

It is beyond my comprehension how she so easily adapts to life’s changes with such an upbeat attitude.

A seamstress enters with an assortment of black gowns and places them at the foot of the bed.

“Since we’re getting comfortable asking each other questions, I would like to ask you something too—” A sharp rap on the chamber door cuts the princess off.

Without thinking, I call out, “Come in,” as if I were at the Bidding House.

Captain Finn Wellcrest, dressed in a black mourning cape over his silver armor, enters, his eyelids puffy. He nods to his betrothed, then turns toward me and gives a quick bow, his long braids falling forward. Princess Klara shoots up from her stool, her face turning crimson.

I scoot lower into the water, wishing I could disappear entirely. But instead, I force a polite nod. “Yes?”