Page 23 of The Sun King's Noon

Briony drew back enough for him to see her tear-streaked face. “I have eyes, Brother!”

Richard’s bewilderment only deepened. “Briony?—”

“I am not tall and pretty-faced like you and Sister and Corwin,” she burst out. “I am round and stumpy, and my cheeks wobble, and my bleeds hurt and come whenever they please, and Sister says not to fret, but hers are as regular as the moon, and—and I have started growing a moustache!”

The last word dissolved into a wail, and she buried her face into his chest again.

“Oh, little one.” He cupped her face and gently pulled her back. Her nose was pink, her lashes clumped wet, and indeed, there were scattered coarse hairs above her upper lip. “You are the most precious creature in this castle. A great many girls and boys feel awkward at your age. Why, Elara struggled so much she almost set the royal quarters afire.”

Briony glowered through her tears. “That is different. Everything looks right on Sister. Even when she is cross or weepy, she is beautiful. And Corwin has all the castle swooning when he laughs, and you—” she made a vague gesture at him— “you are like a statue come to life. But I am just me. My dresses pull oddly, and my breasts are too big to be pretty, and I hate my ankles, and Squire Godwyn is so very handsome and I blush terribly when he smiles at me, and I thought he would ask me to the Summer Ball, but he has asked Squire Isolde instead, because she is graceful like a willow tree and I am like a thundering elephant and—and?—”

She collapsed into sobs, and Richard hugged her, resting his cheek against her curls. It took him a while to find the right words, for this suddenly seemed of greater importance than even the Sanguis Order.

“Briony. Bodies change in strange ways and on strange schedules. It does not make you any less beautiful.”

“You have to say that,” she muttered, her voice muffled by his night tunic. “You are my brother.”

“It remains true nonetheless. When you talk of your books, you sparkle brighter than the shooting stars. And when your clever fingers draw, such beauty emerges. Why, you are a kind and lovely girl who even helps my knight write his poems.”

Briony wailed, “But Kaelen does not get any better!”

“That is entirely because he is too silly a creature,” Richard said loftily, “who overuses his metaphors and has no head for rhyme or structure.”

Briony nodded miserably. “I have tried to teach him so.”

“Some stubborn and prideful fools cannot be taught.” Richard huffed, recalling Kaelen’s glare from earlier. “Now, you will not think yourself ugly, for you have our mother’s eyes. And when you are pleased with yourself, you resemble our father after he won his arguments. As for being taller or trimmer or prettier by some ludicrous measure—” He bent to thud their foreheads together. “I would not trade one Briony for a hundred elegant strangers, and so will you find too, a group of friends, and perhaps a lover, one day, who shall think the same.”

Briony scrubbed at her nose with her sleeve. “Do you truly think so?”

“I do.”

“Oh, very well.” Briony flopped against him. “But what of Corwin, Brother? He laughed at my moustache and said I am destined to become a wise scholar.”

Richard scowled at the snoring boy and debated kicking him off the bed. “You know better than to listen to his foolishness.”

Briony pinched Corwin’s ankle and looked disappointed when it only garnered a twitch. “I do hate growing up, Brother. It’s awfully unfair.”

Richard hummed and smoothed a curl from her damp cheek. He’d felt a different strangeness at her age. Not the awkwardness of a body changing, but instead, the slow, isolating discoverythat everyone around him was learning a language he could not understand.

The boys and girls at court had grown curious early. They whispered in corners, giggling over who wanted to kiss whom, who had sneaked behind the gardens with a stablehand, who was said to have the plumpest breasts, whose arse looked best in riding trousers when they bent over. Richard had stood among them and listened in confusion, waiting for understanding to arrive. For the thrilling longing they all spoke of to catch in him, too. It never had.

He had tried, once or twice, to summon the curiosity by force. He had looked where the others pointed. At the curve of women’s bodices, at men stripped to the waist after training, at painted lips and flexing biceps and bared legs. The boys at twelve and thirteen had smuggled in erotic paintings and crowded over them in a fever of fascination, flushed and awed, while Richard, peering over a shoulder, had felt only nonchalance. As though he had been invited to sample some fine dish and been served chicken broth instead.

Haldric had urged him to make friends, and so he had tried, starting conversations about dwarven cities hidden in mountains, or whether werewolf packs transformed under any moon or only a full one, or if dryads died when their tree was felled. The others had politely listened, exchanged glances, and the conversation soon returned to which of the knights would offer the most passionate kiss. Friendship had come harder after that.

“Growing up is never painless, little star.” Richard ruffled Briony’s hair. “Not to worry. I shall have Squire Godwyn executed for daring to break your heart.”

Briony considered it. “Could we have Squire Isolde executed, too? She is always laughing and tittering with the other girls when I come near. I think she is poking fun at me.”

“I see. Well, then. They shall both be beheaded at dawn.”

“Really?”

“Whatever you wish for.”

Briony giggled at that and nuzzled against his shoulder. “Oh, never mind. I ought not be cruel.”

Richard smiled and held her for a while, patting her back. His sister was with him again. Beneath the relief, however, unease remained. There was still something she was not saying. It was clear in her averted eyes, in the way she gripped his sleeves.