All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 18: Charcoal

Nearly an hour later, Liv and I stood before an hourglass mirror. Giving each other a look-over before presenting ourselves for dinner, Liv twisted the light waves of her midnight hair. She then wiped an errant red ochre smudge from the corner of her mouth as I blinked charcoal from my eyes. The last thing I needed was for them to water and ruin all of Liv's hard work.

"It burns," I said, reaching up to pat my lashes with a gentle finger.

"Don't you dare touch it." Liv caught my hand mid-swipe. "Or I swear to Eyr, I'll give you a real black eye to match."

"Why does it sting so much?" I fisted my palms to keep from rubbing, releasing when I felt my nails dig into my scar. "The mixture we use at home never hurts like this."

"They must add something to it." She sniffed the tiny glass pot and shrugged. "At least it's distracting from biting your nails."

Tears gathered at the corner of my eyes, and I tried. I really did. But I could not hold back any longer. My knuckle swiped the black line cutting the outer corner. Liv raised a hand to swat me, but I blocked her. "Let me rub it!"

"No." Liv growled.

I snarled right back.

Sybil used to send a seething scowl my way whenever I strode into her lessons in the spire wearing my typical smudged black liner. And so, I laid it on extra thick—but with none of Liv's finesse. The sacred charcoal cream was meant to honor the war goddesses, several of many who watched over the Heerth. That it also combated the sun's glare in battle was a secondary blessing. When Arin came home wearing it one day after training, I begged her to show me how to apply the liner. She did and my mother never let her forget it.

Charcoal had only been the beginning for me though. I started sheathing a dagger to my hip and wearing Arin's old leather armor beneath my robes. Every morning—or at least on the days when I showed up to lessons—she'd work her way down my appearance in an agonizing inspection, following it with a class-wide lecture on why my attire was an absolute disgrace. Everyone else managed to not only show up on time but properly uniformed, so why couldn't I?

Well, for starters, I didn't want to be a healer and they did. But she wouldn't hear refused to accept that.

In private, she'd curse Eyr for giving her the most ungrateful daughter known to Kelvia. Sometimes her anger would boil over and she'd upturn the loft Arin and I shared. She often found what she searched for, so eventually, I stopped hiding it. The sacred charcoal was abundant, and she couldn't scrub it from my face while the other apprentices in the spire watched. But I bet she thought about it.

I met Liv's reflection in a mirror. She chuckled at the smudges around my eyes where my fists had rubbed. She placed the charcoal pot off to the side. "Come here." I stepped forward and she rubbed away the excess with the gentleness of a kind mother cleaning her child's wound. "Is that better?"

I checked the mirror and smiled at the blurred but contained lines. "Infinitely."

We continued getting ready, the hour for dinner closing in on us. Liv polished her teeth, noticing how I pulled on the sleeves of my Dorsi dress. The tight, itchy fabric came to a point and looped around my finger as if meant to restrain my reach. Brix had to place her foot on my tailbone and yank the strings of my corset with all her might to get it to close.

"I can't breathe," I said, holding the dresser for balance. "How am I supposed to eat in this thing?"

"Dorsi women don't really eat," said Brix from the corner of the room. I'd told her she needn't stand there, but habit.

"Why not?" asked Liv and me.

Brix clasped her hands. "The skinnier the better, Your Royal Highness."

"You mean, the weaker the better." I pushed off the dresser. "Hungry people are easier to control. I can't stay in this thing." The aglet tickled my fingertips as I tried to undo it from behind.

"It's only for dinner, Hana. A dinner in which you're supposed to be wooing a prince."

"And I'm supposed to do that in a vise?"

Liv spun me, her hands chilled on my shoulders. "You must think about this like a warrior before battle. You have a goal. There are actions you must take to win. You cannot win if you don't dress for the battlefield."

My hands felt my squished waist. I knocked on the hard fabric. "It is a bit like armor, isn't it? No pockets, though." Liv nodded and her expression waned, no doubt wondering whether she'd have to hold my hand through this entire night. "Don't look at me like that. I'll suck it up, quite literally, for several hours without another complaint."

"I doubt that last part," an amused grin lit her face, "but good." We shared a look Brix could not possibly decipher. One forged in years of friendship and inner jokes. "Are you ready?"

I sighed. "As ever."

"Good." Liv shut the armoire doors and replaced the cork of a bottle of perfume. "Do you think Lord Thorne will be in attendance?"

I narrowed my eyes, gathering the unnecessary ruffles of fabric inhibiting my movement. "Why?" Suspicion laced every letter in my question.

"I don't know," she said coyly, slipping an emerald-green slipper over her heel. "It's nice to see someone get under your skin for once."

"I ought to smack you."

"You'll have to catch me first." She flipped her hair, and an expression of haughtiness illuminated her entire face. "Oh, come now. The man's a little bit tortured and a whole lot of danger. It's almost like Eyr brewed him in a cauldron for you." She mimicked sipping a ladle.

"Well, aren't you hilarious, but no. I don't think he will be." I shook my head, uncharacteristically flustered. I was used to Liv's taunts as she loved seeing how far she could prod me until I blushed—not an easy task, mind you. But something felt different with this one, almost as if she had pinched a bruise. "Besides, I'm here to marry the prince," I reassured her— me—I'm not sure who. "And Thorne's nauseatingly confident and outright condescending; neither of which interests me."

"No? You don't gravitate toward the broody broken boys?"

"No, I do not."

"Could've fooled me, Your Feral Highness." Liv's impression of his inflection was annoyingly perfect and worthy of a swat. If she hadn't just tried to take a step in her heeled shoe and nearly fallen, I might've smacked her. But I figured thumping her elbow on the corner of the dresser was punishment enough.