Beatriz has to squint when she steps out of the carriage, the sunlight blinding her and making her eyes itch even more. The chemist who made her eye drops told her that she would become accustomed to the sensation, but she’s practiced using them a few times now and she’s not sure that will ever be the case. Loath as she is to admit it, though, her mother’s right—it’s a necessary discomfort.
When her eyes adjust she sees three matching open-topped carriages that must have preceded them from the palace—all painted powder blue and gold, Bessemian colors, and each pulled by a pair of pure-white horses with ribbons wound through their manes and tails. Beside each carriage is a small silk tent. One Frivian green, one Temarinian gold, and one Cellarian scarlet, each flanked by a pair of guards dressed to match.
The Bessemian delegation that accompanies them surrounds their carriage, and Beatriz spies a few familiar faces, including Nigellus with his cold silver eyes and long black robe. Even under the heat of the noon sun, there isn’t so much as a bead of sweat on his alabaster forehead. He must be her mother’s age, at least, but he looks closer in age to Beatriz and her sisters.
Surrounding each tent is a cluster of well-dressed men and women, their faces all blurring together—the delegations of nobles sent from each country to escort them. The Cellarian party is by far the brightest, dressed in colorful shades—some of which she can’t put a name to. They look friendly enough, all wide, beaming smiles, but Beatriz knows better than most that looks can be deceiving.
It doesn’t matter how many times Beatriz has heard her mother go over the official handoff, she still doesn’t feel prepared, but she tries not to show her nerves, instead keeping her back straight and her head high.
Their mother kisses each of their cheeks one last time, and when she gets to Beatriz, her lips are thin and cold against her skin and then it is done. No show of sentimentality, no parting words, no declarations of love. Beatriz knows better than to expect anything different. She tells herself that she doesn’t even want any of that from her mother, but she finds that it still stings when the empress moves away from them, leaving the three sisters in the center of the clearing, caught both literally and figuratively between worlds.
Daphne takes the first step, as she always has as long as Beatriz can remember, walking toward the Frivian tent with her shoulders squared and her eyes fixed straight ahead. She tries so hard to mirror their mother’s coldness, but she can’t stop herself from looking back at them, and in that instant, Beatriz sees the uncertainty plain in her eyes. In that instant, Beatriz wonders what would happen if Daphne said no, if she refused to go into the tent, if she disobeyed her mother. But of course she doesn’t. Daphne could sooner catch a falling star in the palm of her hand than go against the empress’s wishes. With a final half smile at Beatriz and Sophronia, Daphne steps into the tent, disappearing from view.
Beatriz glances at Sophronia, who has never been able to hide her fear like Daphne.
“Come on,” Beatriz tells her. “We’ll go together.”
Together until we can’t be, she thinks, but she doesn’t say that part out loud. They follow Daphne’s lead, and before they disappear into their own tents, Beatriz gives Sophronia one last smile that her sister’s wobbling mouth can’t quite return.
She hopes Sophronia won’t cry in front of the Temarinians—that shouldn’t be their first impression of her, and their mother has always stressed the importance of a good first impression.
As soon as Beatriz enters the candlelit tent, she’s besieged by an army of women speaking in rapid Cellarian. Though Beatriz is fluent in the language, they all speak so quickly, with a range of different accents, that she has to listen carefully to make sense of what they’re saying.
“Bessemian fashions,” one woman says with a scoff, pulling at the full, lacy pale yellow skirt of Beatriz’s gown. “Pah, she looks like a common daisy.”
Before Beatriz can protest, another woman chimes in, pinching Beatriz’s cheeks. “There is no color here, either. Like a porcelain doll without any paint—flat and homely.”
Homely. That stings. After all, what is she if not beautiful? It is the one value that has been assigned her: Daphne is the charming one, Sophronia the brainy one, and Beatriz is the pretty one. Without that, what value does she have? But Cellarians have different standards—they want beauty that is loud and dramatic and overstated. So she bites her tongue and lets herself be poked and prodded and talked about without speaking a word. She lets them pull her dress over her head and toss it to the floor like an old rag, lets them unlace her stays and pull off her chemise, leaving her naked and shivering in the chilly autumnal air.
But at least now, the snide remarks cease. She feels their eyes on her, appraising.
“Well,” the first woman says, her mouth pursed. “At least we know she eats. Some of these Bessemian women have no softness to them—no breasts, no hips, no flesh at all. At least I don’t have to tailor clothes for a skeleton.”
The woman pulls a new shift over Beatriz’s head, then laces her into a new corset. Where her Bessemian corset was so tightly laced she could scarcely breathe in it, this one is looser. It seems designed to emphasize her breasts and hips rather than to make any part of her smaller.
A petticoat follows, more voluminous than any Beatriz has worn before, even to a formal ball. It is so wide it will be difficult to fit through doors, let alone into a carriage, but at least the material is light. Even through the layers, her skin is cool. She feels the rustle of a breeze that blows in through the tent.
Finally, the dress itself. Ruby-red and gold silk damask with a low neckline and wide shoulders, baring more skin than anyone in Bessemia would dare before sundown. Without a mirror, it’s difficult to tell how it looks, but the woman in charge of her dressing gives her an approving nod before conceding her place to the woman who seems to be in charge of cosmetics.
After that, it’s a flurry of brushes and paint, of hair pulled and curled and piled, of metal combs scraping over her scalp and leaving it raw. Of cold paint brushing over her eyes and cheeks and lips, of powder dusting on top of that. It’s tiresome, but Beatriz knows better than to complain or even flinch. She’s learned how to stay perfectly still—a living, breathing doll.
Lastly, the seamstress and the hairdresser help her step into heeled slippers crafted from the same material as her gown.
“She is quite lovely, isn’t she?” the woman in charge of cosmetics says, eyeing her with her head tilted slightly to the side.
The seamstress nods. “Prince Pasquale ought to be very happy with his bride.”
“Not that he’s happy about much,” the hairdresser replies with a snort.
Beatriz smiles and dips into a slight curtsy. “Many thanks for all of your hard work,” she says in perfect, unaccented Cellarian, to the surprise of her attendants. “I am truly looking forward to seeing Cellaria.”
The hairdresser speaks first, flustered and red-cheeked.
“A-Apologies, Y-Your Highness,” she stutters. “I meant no disrespect, to you or the prince—”
Beatriz waves her words away. Her mother has stressed the importance of endearing herself to her staff. They’re the ones who know the most, after all. And the comment about Pasquale is nothing she hasn’t already heard from her mother’s spies, who have described him as a sullen, moody boy. “Now, shall we?”
The seamstress hurries to hold open the tent flap for Beatriz to step through, into the bright sunlight once more. She sees that she’s the last to emerge, her sisters already piled into their respective carriages, each surrounded by the delegation of fawning courtiers.
Both of them look like strangers.
Sophronia resembles an elaborately crafted pastry, swamped in a sea of bejeweled chiffon ruffles in shades of lemon yellow, her blond hair curled and piled in a towering hairstyle ornamented with all manner of bows and jewels. Daphne, on the other hand, wears a green velvet dress that could be called plain only in comparison to theirs, with long, narrow sleeves and bare shoulders, and delicate flowers embroidered on the bodice in shimmering black thread; her jet hair, in a single braid down her back, highlights the severe sharpness of her bone structure.
They both look beautiful, but they also already look so different. In a year, they might be strangers altogether. The thought makes Beatriz feel sick, but she tries not to show it. Instead, she walks delicately toward her own carriage, careful that the heels of her slippers don’t dig into the soil and make her stumble. A guard hands her up into the carriage, and she settles into the empty space between two Cellarian women with matching red lacquered mouths.
The women immediately fall all over themselves paying her compliments in stilted Bessemian.
“Thank you,” Beatriz replies in Cellarian, much to their relief, but she barely hears the rest of their chatter.
Instead, she watches her sisters. Her driver urges the horses into motion and the carriage jerks forward, heading south, but she keeps her eyes on them until they both disappear from view.