Chapter 8: The Game

Lucilia and Jeth rejoined Orpheia’s staff to help the tailor dress her for dinner. She dreaded every moment that those villains touched her bare skin, despite the fact that they had clearly been warned to remain on their best behavior. They didn’t pinch or tug Orpheia’s flesh, weary of leaving marks. The maids and the tailor alike took extra precautions to ensure that Orpheia’s body would remain unmarred. She feared asking them why they were being so oddly gentle with her. There was an odd air about the women, especially. They were particularly silent during the ordeal, speaking only to the tailor when he would give them orders. They refused to meet any gazes besides each other’s. When their eyes would lock, Orpheia would often catch the women grinning back to one another. Her stomach twisted, and she held her bleeding legs closed.

In silence they worked, toiling away at Orpheia’s face and hair while the tailor added the final touches to her dining gown. Lucilia piled Orpheia’s long silvery hair in a complicated updo, braided together with silver ribbons and sapphire stones. Any loose strands that fell from the sculpture were pinned down to keep obstructions from hiding Orpheia’s face. Meanwhile, Vita was dabbing Orpheia’s pallid cheeks with a light rouge, colored the same rosy pink as the cream painted onto her lips. Her eyes were dusted with black pigment, which made them appear larger, and were carefully decorated with tiny sapphires to match her hair. Orpheia felt odd each time she furrowed her hairless brows, for the adhesive that clung to the stones pulled against her skin in an uncomfortable manner.

When the maids finished, the tailor finally presented Orpheia with her dining gown. Orpheia stared at it in puzzled silence, for it appeared to have far less fabric than what she was expecting. Perhaps it would look larger on her body, the spectre suspected, so she kept quiet as she was dressed. Alas, she was incorrect. The gown was a peculiar shape—less a gown, in fact, and more of a day dress. It was something that only a Terrsolis designer would design, yet it was made with materials and dyes that Orpheia recognized from her own people. The silk was dyed with indigo, silver, and squid ink, giving it a rich black color with an iridescent dark blue sheen, much like the sapphires. What was so peculiar about the dress that Orpheia could not seem to wrap her head around was the fact that it had a high collar and a low hem, ending in the higher half of Orpheia’s thigh. Oddly, it looked like a schoolboy uniform. It billowed outward in a large plume of folds and fabric and was made to expose Orpheia’s long, slender legs. A tendril of warm crimson slowly dripped down to Orpheia’s knee as she gazed upon herself in the looking glass. Stunned at the sight of the sapphire-laden queen before her, Orpheia hardly noticed that her maids were dressing her in a multitude of heavy silver bracelets and anklets. Yet she was given no gloves nor shoes.

“Am I to see the king barefoot?” Orpheia asked, finally speaking up. She laughed when she spoke, as she expected this to be some manner of jest, but none of the servants laughed with her.

“Umbran feet are strong,” the tailor sneered. “Your feet will survive the journey to the dining hall.”

“You’re being honest,” Orpheia stated, her mouth agape. “I am to wear this childish dress with no corset, nor petticoat, nor crinoline underneath; and now you tell me that I am not allowed stockings or shoes?”

“If you refuse to wear the outfit, then you will starve for the night,” Vita hissed. Her words were wet with spit and sputtered into Orpheia’s face.

Orpheia clicked her tongue with disdain, wiping away the maid’s saliva. “It seems improper to eat at the king’s table without shoes. How do I know you aren’t trying to humiliate me?”

“You don’t,” Lucilia said arrogantly. “You have no other choice, I’m afraid.”

A fretfully true statement. And one that Orpheia did not have time to properly dispute, for dusk was upon them and the dinner table had been set. Meyrick was no doubt making his journey down to the dining hall right at that moment. It was never wise to leave a king waiting. So with a huff and a glare, Orpheia conceded to the wicked women’s whim. Swallowing her pride, she allowed the maids to carry her out like prison guards. One stood behind her and another guided her path from the front. Orpheia used the time to settle her nerves, organizing what she was to say to the king, if given the chance. There was always the possibility that he, too, was a stickler for certain rules. Orpheia might not even be allowed to speak during the meal. Though the chances of this were slim, given just how often Meyrick allowed her snide comments to pass by. Orpheia pondered why this could be. He had a surprisingly untroubled temper for a man of his position. This dinner could be exactly what Orpheia needed to gain the upper hand. So long as she didn’t let her anxiety get the better of her. Which was proving to be a far more difficult task than Orpheia had planned for as she walked through rooms, hallways, and stairwells of gawking onlookers. Every guard, servant, and soldier they passed hung their mouths open in shock as they marveled at the creature being guided through the palace. The stories of their king bringing home a spectre bride were mere rumors at the time, for many had yet to lay eyes on Orpheia in all of her mystic glory. Yet there she stood; flesh and bone—breath and beauty. Orpheia held her head high as if it were bearing the weight of the royal crown. Though she would have little power as queen, Orpheia planned to make those people rue the day they jeered and snickered at her from the cowardly corners of the halls. Though they all seemed to fall startling silent the closer Orpheia was led to her destination, for no one dared breathe a word in the presence of any male royal. Which meant that Meyrick was already waiting.

The dining hall stood barely within reach, hidden behind a pair of large black doors. They were intricately decorated with carvings that depicted scenes of feasts from the Book of Sol. The feast scene on the left celebrated the birth of their god and the gift of his light, while the one on the right celebrated the banishment of Lu’a to the darkness of night. Orpheia scoffed at the gaudy display, recalling her wretched lessons from earlier. It seemed that around every corner there lied stories of Solian superiority, dressed in artworks taken from Umbranian styles. Even the wood the doors were carved from was grown in Umbranian forests long ago. Orpheia shuddered beneath the weight of their stature, falling so deep into her anxiety that she hadn’t noticed her maids had abandoned her. The sound of their distant chuckles echoing down the corridors sent a shiver up Orpheia’s spine. She turned to the two guards blocking the dining hall’s entrance and balled up a fistful of her skirt to distract her. One of them startled, for he was much too preoccupied watching a tendril of blood drip down Orpheia’s leg. Clearing his throat beneath his iron helmet, he pulled his colleague from the same daze and pushed the doors open to invite the spectre inside.

The dining hall was nothing short of lavish, just like the rest of the palace. Similar to her chambers, the room was far too akin to home for Orpheia’s liking. The ceiling stretched on to impossible heights, curling overhead with rib vaults that spring decadent chandeliers—forged from iron and onyx stones—from their intersections. Prodigious arched windows stood squarely against the opposite wall to the doorway, overlooking the palace’s courtyard below. They were made of frosted glass that shone with light violets, golds, sages, and baby blues. The image of the outside was blurry through the windows, but Orpheia had no doubt that the sun would take the glass come morning and paint the room in a stunning mural of pale colors. It would contrast well against the richly dark mahogany furniture that was polished to a sheen and decorated with silver gilding and filigree.

Orpheia stilled as she focused on the landscape paintings that hung all around her. They were the first decoration she had seen besides a mirror or two that decorated the palace’s walls. They were painted by famous Umbranian artists; paintings that had been declared destroyed after centuries of war. It was then that Orpheia realized why the room felt so much like home, for it was not simply that the aesthetic was robbed from her people, but it had literally been filled with stolen goods. Merlot velvet dining chairs, the polished silver dishware, the crystal goblets, the woven napkins—all spoils of war. Even the table was covered in recipes taken from Umbranian wives and mothers. Recipes that had been lovingly handcrafted for Umbranian children and their children’s children to enjoy were suddenly being made for the mouths of the men who had killed them. Orpheia felt bile bubble up the back of her throat as her mouth watered over the decadence of the spiced fruits and honeyed meats sitting before her. She knew that such a display was certainly a trap. A morbid game Meyrick was playing with her.