Page 77 of The Rat King
NighvalwasgonewhenI woke and a little pang of disappointment hit me, making me regret not taking him up on his offer for more pleasure last night. Someone had opened the curtains and dust danced in the rays of sunlight streaming in through the window.
Throwing the covers off, I got up noticing someone had also brought in my trunk and moved a small desk and my vanity items into the room, which were now soot free or perhaps only replaced. Wow, I slept through it all. Was it the exhaustive week I had or being with him? I suspected it was the latter.
With all my shift dresses abandoned, and everything that was in my wardrobe covered in soot, I was stuck with the smaller selection of what my trunk protected.
Rifling through it, I fished out a few things and went to the bathroom to ready myself for the day. Despite the fact that I was running late for breakfast, I took care with my appearance in case my husband sprang anymore former lovers on me.
The outfit I chose was on the more experimental side of my collaborations with the palace tailor. I slipped on the dark charcoal sweater I cut into a crop top, and a thick jersey-like black fitted skirt which sat high on the waist and had two slits that came to my upper thighs exposing the black leather boots which laced up to the knee. They were new, a modern take on combat style, with a three-inch stacked heel and shiny gold eyelets that ran up the front. The shoemaker had given me more than one strange look as I’d explained to him what I wanted, but these were worth it. With the frayed edge of the top, the heavy eyeliner, and the boots, I looked like a punk rock princess.
Jetta glanced up from trying to stab a grape, which rolled around defensively on her plate, as I walked into the dining room. A grin transformed her frustrated expression into one of pure mischief.
“Is it true?” she asked, leaning forward as I took a seat across the table from her.
“Is what true?” I asked, already dreading where this was going.
She caught the grape and plopped it between her red lips. “That you set a fire to your room so Nighval would have to come save you and take you back to his bed?” Her eyes were wide, curious. Was she impressed?
“Oh my god, no, Jetta. I didn’t start the fire. It was an accident.”
Jetta huffed in disappointment. “I hardly believe you. Link said you seemed very eager when you found them.”
My face flamed. “I was in a panic.”
“He said Nighval dismissed him rather abruptly and one of my attendants said she saw him carrying you through the hallway over his shoulder,” she said, and now her grin turned into something liquid as she tapped her finger on her pursed lips.
I wanted to crawl under the table.
“So, it is true,” she teased. “Our king is a very deserving man, so I hope you were able to give him what he needed.”
“Are you always so forward?” I asked, and she only hummed like the question amused her. We chatted about our similar childhood experiences, and the differences between our planes as we finished breakfast.
As we stood, she gave me a once over. “Another new outfit, I see.”
I returned the scrutiny, taking in the fitted emerald sweater dress she wore which had a deep V-neck and black leather laces that held her chest from spilling out. Barely.
When we arrived in the Great Hall, the designers were already waiting with their samples, along with furniture makers and other artisans. I ushered Jetta over to where Leviticus tapped his foot impatiently next to the color boards I had gone over with Nighval.
“Good morning, Your Majesty,” he said. “You’ve made a decision?”
I had made the decision, but I still looked at Jetta for her input. She studied the options for a few moments, then said, “I think I prefer the green.”
“I do, too, but Nighval prefers the blue,” I said. “There’s just something about it that isn’t coming together for me.”
She picked up the blue color board and set it on the banquet table in the middle of the room. The table was massive, and all of the varnish had been sanded off down to the raw wood. The craftspeople were waiting on me to make a decision for the new stain. It was the one piece of furniture I decided not to replace, and many of the surface level mars had been removed with the sanding, but the deeper ones I felt would be a symbolic reminder of the past.
Jetta pointed to a man holding a box of fabric swatches and gestured for him to come to the table and set them in front of her. She rifled through the box of material and pulled out a smoky navy and another lighter, silvery blue. She laid the second swatch over a more turquoise one on the color board and then laid the navy next to it.
“I think this one would work, but we need to play with tone more. What if we covered the existing chairs with this darker swatch and used the lighter one for the accent piping?”
I picked up the silver, folded it around a pencil, and set it against the dark navy. “I love it.” I walked over to where the stain colors were laid out, and the dinnerware. “The table should be this charcoal wood dye, white plates on these pewter chargers. And we’ll want the larger silver candelabras to be polished and set between each bouquet.”
The people scurried off to do as I had requested. It would take a small village worth of upholsterers to make the chair covers, but the people needed the work, and I imagined new chairs would have been much more of a challenging request. It was a clever idea on Jetta’s part.
“You are very good at this,” I said.
She gave me a toothy grin. “I spent years trying to keep my father’s estate on the mend. Despite the curse, I refused to let things fall into disrepair, even though everything felt hopeless.”
As she said it her fingers brushed the scar on her chin and my eyes skipped over the other silvery remnants marking her otherwise smooth chest. I appreciated Jetta’s strength. Few people here had been so fortified and she was a teenager whenever it happened. I could hardly imagine what that would have been like. When I was a teenager, I was busy thinking about boys, what university I would go to and the upcoming Smashbox holiday color palette release.
