A Whisper of Night

11.1 || LORELEI 🌊

           

"Spin around," Lorelei said. Laya turned, her arms held at shoulder level. "How does that feel? Too tight?"

    "It - it's perfect, my Princess," the handmaiden said, blushing. "It's beautiful."

    Lorelei laughed. "It'd better be, after all the time I spent on it." She tucked her needles back into her sewing kit. "Very well, then. Help me into my gown. All of you."

    She disrobed and let her handmaids pull the garment over her shoulders. Her gown was made of baby blue tulle, shot through with indigo and violet. Beneath the tulle glittered a layer of the sheerest silver silk, laced with intricate gold embroidery and miniscule sapphires and amethysts. A train of white fell from her sleeves, rippling like river froth.

    Lorelei had sewn it herself, after refusing her mother's traditional gown of white. A month ago, a day after Lorelei had declared her Maidendance, her mother had shown up at her door with the dress. Lorelei, still furious at her, had turned her away, and Ceira's stony face had been the last she'd seen of her mother since then.

    The handmaids finished lacing up her back. Lorelei stood, surveying herself in the mirror. The gown's simple neckline retained an air of modesty, but the embroidery and gems on the silk shimmered incessantly, haloing her curves with every movement. Cream-colored pearls shown from her bosom and ears. If it weren't for the innocent tulle, she would've been indistinguishable from one of the Sapphire Swan's prostitutes.

    "Thank you," she said, as the last maid slid cream-colored slippers onto her feet. "Go refresh yourselves before the dance, but do not smear your makeup or get food on your gowns, or I will never sew anything for you again."

    Her handmaids curtsied at her, then raced outside, laughing and chattering.

    Lorelei sighed, resisting the urge to run a hand through her hair. Her skin was soft and dewy after two hours of baths and lotions, her hair finer than the silk she wore.

She lined her lashes with kohl and dabbed a bit of pink onto her lips. She softened the sharp edges of her face with a rosy blush, then leaned back to examine the result.

The girl who stared back at her looked so pretty and pure that Lorelei almost laughed. She usually aimed to look older, sterner, when she put on makeup - she would spend an hour sharpening the angles of her face and deepening the shadows around her cheekbones and noise before her escapades at the Sapphire Swan.

The Sapphire Swan...there would be no going back after she was married. She dreaded that more than anything else - there would be nothing to stop her nightmares after tonight.

Her dreams had only gotten worse in the last few days. She kept dreaming of Calder and her family, of the cryptic words that poured from their lips, of the river of blood. But there were more dreams, too. Only last night, she'd glimpsed a boat sailing down a stream of ice, a girl with golden hair hunched within...and although she had not been scared, she could've sworn that the girl had looked up at her, her blue eyes wide.

Don't think about such things. Lorelei gave herself one last look in the mirror before heading for the stairs.

Her handmaids were waiting outside. They flocked around her like chicks to a hen and followed her down the stairs to the ballroom.

The hall was empty. King Glion stood at the head of the ballroom, commanding his servants with a stony expression. The king had done everything within his power to call off the Maidendance, even going as far as threatening to reveal Lorelei's glass-kneeling to the public. She had ignored him, and at long last, he'd given up.