“What do you think of our chances?” Serina murmured, glancing sidelong at the nearest girl, whose handmaiden was rearranging her vivid orange gown.
Nomi was tempted to tell Serina what she really thought: that they should leave, right now, without a word. That they should go back to Lanos, or better yet, somewhere else entirely, somewhere they could decide what they wanted to do all day, instead of Nomi’s endless chores and Serina’s hours of training in etiquette and dancing. But Nomi knew the truth as well as Serina did: A place like that didn’t exist. No matter where they went, their choices were the same: They could be factory workers, or servants, or wives. Unless Serina became a Grace.
In Viridia, Graces were held as the highest standard of beauty, elegance, and obedience. What all little girls were meant to aspire to.
For Nomi and Serina, becoming a Grace and a handmaiden was a ticket to a different life, but in this they disagreed: Serina believed this different would be better, and Nomi did not.
“I think we’re going to lose something either way,” Nomi said as she rubbed out a tiny smudge of kohl at the corner of Serina’s eye.
“Don’t say that,” Serina said warningly. “Don’t—”
“Don’t think about you parading before the Heir, a possession for him to own?” she whispered. She smoothed a section of Serina’s hair, her hands trembling. She and her sister both had brown hair, olive skin, and their mother’s high cheekbones. But somehow, their shared features combined to make Serina as rich and lovely as Nomi was slight and inelegant. Serina was extraordinary; Nomi was not.
“It’s not about becoming his possession, it’s about winning his admiration and desire,” Serina said through an artificial smile, for the benefit of the girls who’d glanced their way. “This is our chance to have a better life.”
“What makes it better?” Nomi shook her head. Anger surged uselessly in her chest. “Serina, we shouldn’t have to—”
Serina stepped even closer. “Smile at me, like you’re happy. Like you’re just like the rest of these girls.”
Nomi stared into her sister’s eyes. Serina was so beautiful like this, with anger staining her cheeks. She was so much more interesting when she wasn’t strapping herself into a corset and a demure, downcast grin.
The hushed murmurs of the prospects and their handmaidens died down suddenly, as a woman stepped onto a small raised dais at the far end of the room. Her gown of cream silk highlighted her refined, statuesque air. “My name is Ines. I am the Head Grace.” The woman’s words were soft as a song. “The Heir is honored that you have journeyed so far. He regrets that he can only choose three of you to remain. But be assured, you are all blessed.”
Nomi had always found it odd that Superiors and their Heirs chose three Graces every three years, rather than one a year. Then again, the choosing did consume the whole country, with magistrates spending months observing their province’s prospects, and the Superior organizing balls and other events to show off the new Graces once they were chosen.
The current Superior had nearly forty Graces now. But rumors swirled about his health, and this year he had announced no plans to choose Graces for himself. Instead, the Heir would make his first choice. Many assumed this meant the Superior would soon step aside and allow the Heir to rule Viridia in his place.
“The ball is about to begin,” Ines said, her thick gold bangles clinking as she raised her hands. “Prospects, it’s time.”
Serina hugged Nomi tightly. “Be good,” she admonished.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Nomi replied, holding on to her sister just as tightly.
One by one, the girls were announced, the doors to the ballroom opening and closing between them. When Serina’s moment came, two of the Superior’s men pulled the massive doors wide, exposing the swirling brightness within. A deep voice stated, “Serina Tessaro, of Lanos.” Without a backward glance, Serina stepped into the light.
Nomi’s heart did a painful flip when her sister disappeared from view.
She placed her bag against the wall where the other handmaidens had left their things and stood awkwardly in the corner. Some of the girls grouped themselves on the balcony to talk. The rest sank into chairs or meandered around, taking in their opulent surroundings.
The walls pressed in on her, the gilt and sparkle heavy as iron. Everything was so different from home. She’d only been gone a week, but she already missed waking up to the sound of Renzo gathering his books for the long walk to school. Missed the stolen moments after her chores were done, when she could sit and rest without Mama scolding her. Missed the taste of the sharp, snow-edged wind at twilight, knowing the world would look entirely different by morning. Even the groaning pipes and tiny soot-crusted windows of their family’s apartment on Factory Row.
A part of her desperately hoped they would be sent home. That she could return to their small, shabby apartment. But she knew that would only delay the inevitable separation from her family.
It struck her that she might spend the rest of her days like this: trapped in a beautiful room waiting for Serina to return, her own life a footnote. Unremarkable. Invisible. Forgotten.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She glanced around, self-conscious, but no one was paying attention to her. Maybe if she splashed some cold water on her face, took a moment to herself, she’d feel better.
She made her way out into the hallway in search of the lavatory. With each step, the tightness in her chest lessened.
As Nomi rounded a corner, the interior of a room caught her eye. Deep upholstered chairs, a finely patterned rug. And endless bookcases of rich mahogany, stacked toweringly high with bound volumes edged in gold. Books. More than she’d ever seen in her life. Before Nomi could fully grasp what she was doing, she strode toward the room. She paused outside the half-open door for as long as she dared, listening for movement. Then, with a deep breath, she slipped inside.
The whole world opened up before her. Rows and rows of bookshelves climbed to the ceiling. The scent of pipe smoke hung thick in the air. Nomi breathed deeply, letting the room’s stillness, its promise, wash over her. On trembling legs, she sidled up to the shelves and ran tingling fingers across the thick leather spines. The gold-leaf titles shone in the low light. She traced the words, many of them unfamiliar to her. Her hand caught on a slight volume nearly swallowed between two thick black tomes. She gasped in recognition. The Legends of Viridia.
Immediately, a memory rose in her mind. The autumn Nomi and Renzo had turned twelve, he was given this same book of legends to study, and she’d demanded to know what it said.
It was against the law for women to read. It was against the law for women to do almost anything, really, except birth babies and toil in factories and clean the houses of rich men.
But Nomi couldn’t let it go. And Renzo couldn’t resist showing off what he knew. Slowly, surely, he had taught her to read.
It had been the best few months of Nomi’s life. They’d spent their nights hunched by a guttering candle as Nomi haltingly read and reread the story of the moon and her lover, the terrors of the deep, and—her favorite—the tale of two brothers driven apart by a mysterious tattooed woman with a golden eye. Only Serina knew their secret. Renzo once asked if she wanted to learn too. But Serina preferred to be read to, the same stories over and over, while she practiced her embroidery. When spring had come and Renzo’s school had exchanged the book of legends for one of math equations, Nomi and Serina had continued to tell each other the stories from memory. But it was never quite the same.
She drew the book from the shelf, caressing the embossed letters on the cover. It was made of the same soft leather, only without the battered corners and bent cover. She hugged the book to her, remembering every night she and her brother had pored over the pages, teasing out the pronunciation and meaning of each word.
This book was home to her, more than the palazzo and its fine furnishings could ever be.
She couldn’t bear to lea
ve it behind. Surely no one would miss a small book of stories. It slipped down the front of her dress so quickly, so easily, she could almost convince herself it had been the book’s desire, not her own. She hurried into the corridor, arms crossed protectively over her chest.
She was nearly back to the gallery when two men rounded the corner right in front of her.
The Heir and his brother.
Nomi bowed her head and waited for them to pass, arms tightening over the hidden book.
“—should be up to me, not the magistrates,” the Heir was saying, anger edging his words. He stopped speaking when he saw her.
Nomi should have curtsied. She should have kept her head down, like any other handmaiden. But she was caught off guard, unprepared, and without meaning to, she met his gaze.
The Heir’s eyes were deep brown and held a silent intensity. He stared at her as if he could puzzle out her history, her secret hopes, everything. With one look, he laid her bare.
Cheeks burning, she finally tore her gaze away.
“Who are you?” Malachi demanded.
“Nomi Tessaro,” she murmured.
“And what exactly are you doing here, Nomi Tessaro?” The Heir’s voice filled with suspicion.
Nomi bowed her head. “I’m—I’m a handmaiden. I was just…” Her voice petered out. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to have been doing. The book burned through her skin.
“Come on, Malachi, we’re late,” Asa said, running an impatient hand through his hair. His black suit shadowed Malachi’s white one, down to the gold embroidery, but there was something more relaxed, almost untidy about him.
Malachi ignored his brother and stepped closer to Nomi, his muscled frame trapping her against the wall. “You were just what?”
The attempt at intimidation had the opposite effect. Nomi bristled, a familiar, instinctive fury momentarily squashing her panic.
Her spine straightened. She lifted her chin and faced the Heir’s steely gaze with one of her own. Defiance radiated from her in waves. “I was using the lavatory,” she said clearly. “It’s just there,” she added, nodding toward the other end of the hall, “if you need to go.”
Asa snorted, but the Heir did not look amused. His cheeks flushed an angry red.
Horror rose, bitter at the back of Nomi’s throat. She dropped her gaze. Serina had asked her to behave. And she couldn’t, not even for ten minutes. The audacity of what she’d just said… the expression the Heir had no doubt seen in her eyes.…
“You may go,” Malachi said at last, but it sounded more like a sentence than a reprieve.
Nomi scurried into the gallery as the men continued on their way, her heart beating a panicked rhythm. The sharp edges of the book she’d stolen dug into her skin.
She hurried to the corner where she’d left her bag, and slipped the book in among her things. She was almost certain the Heir hadn’t seen it. But her impertinence had been damning enough.
The rest of the evening she waited, eyes pinned to the open doorway, wondering when her world would end.
THREE
SERINA
SERINA’S FIRST BALL was almost exactly as she’d imagined. The long, gleaming ballroom teemed with movement, the prospective Graces as glittering and colorful as a school of fish. The mirrored walls and endless gold filigree caught the light of a dozen crystal chandeliers. Musicians sat in a corner by a wall of arches leading to the terrace, their fingers flitting so fast across their instruments Serina couldn’t follow them.
It was a far cry from her cramped living room, where an instructor had taught her to dance with Renzo as her partner. They’d had no music—only the dogged beat of the instructor clapping his hands.
Here, the sparkling music curled and spun, and Serina twirled and smiled in the arms of the Superior’s finely dressed dignitaries, thrilled to be at the center of the glamour, one of the glittering, colorful fish.
But there was a flaw in the fairy tale. The Heir didn’t appear.
When the musicians took a short break, Serina slipped into a corner to catch her breath. The strain of her corset against her lungs had become suffocating. As she rested, she scanned the ballroom. It wasn’t hard to pick out the Superior’s Graces. Unlike the prospects, they moved as if they wholly belonged, taking the attention in stride. Several posed on tall, circular platforms, draped in shining purple satin, raised up—literally—as the epitome of female perfection. Serina stared at them, awed by the control it took to stand so perfectly still.
She had been groomed for this, her training beginning before she was old enough to truly understand a Grace’s role. From the moment she first danced across the dusty floor with Renzo, the weight of expectation was upon her shoulders. Even then she knew that being chosen would change her family’s fortune, that it was the highest honor for any girl in Viridia, that it would allow her mother—nearly blind from years of squinting over her sewing in the factory—to finally stop working. That it would allow her brother to someday afford a bride.
Most important, she could keep headstrong Nomi by her side. Nomi was smart, too smart: too challenging of authority and the rules. Where Nomi was a dreamer, Serina was a realist, and she would do everything in her power to keep it that way—protecting Nomi’s fiery spirit and her safety at the same time. Nothing scared Serina more than the thought that her sister might someday take too great a risk, and be caught.
Nomi didn’t see this chance as a gift, but Serina did. She wanted more than anything to become a Grace and keep Nomi by her side as her handmaiden.
A girl paused next to Serina, her floral dress swishing delicately. “It’s all quite incredible, isn’t it?”
Serina appraised the girl with a quick glance: soft features, pretty blue eyes, hair a peculiar blond-silver that almost seemed to shimmer in the low light.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Serina replied. She scanned the room again. Surely the Heir was about to make his entrance.
“I’ve never seen anything like your dress,” the girl said. “Did your mother make it for you?” It took Serina a moment to recognize the barb hidden in the girl’s sweet voice.
She smiled benignly. She wasn’t about to admit that her mother had.
“It’s so… interesting,” the girl continued. “In Bellaqua, no one’s worn blue in years.” She cast a glance across the dance floor.
Serina followed the girl’s gaze. It was true; the room was a sea of pinks and purples and yellows. And most of the gowns were full length, some heavy with brocade. More formal than her calf-length, swirling dress and golden sandals.
Serina raised her chin and said with a casual shrug, “I suppose that’s lucky for me, then, seeing as blue is the Heir’s favorite color.” It was a lie, of course; Serina had no idea what his favorite color was. But the flabbergasted look on the girl’s face was worth it. Serina walked away, leaving the girl gaping.
A sudden ripple of excitement passed through the ballroom. Serina turned in time to see the Heir arrive at last, with his brother beside him.
The Heir surveyed the ball, his eyes picking out each of his prospects. Serina lowered her gaze long before his scrutiny reached her. A handful of prospective Graces drifted closer to him. Ines appeared at his side. The girl who’d talked to Serina hurried toward them, but Serina stayed where she was. She didn’t want to cluster in with the others and risk being lost in the crowd. Instead, she made her way to the terrace to watch the last streaks of sunset stretch across the sky. The light was lovely, rich and golden, and she knew it would make her skin glow.
Far below the terrace, the canals shimmered with the pink and orange of the fading light. Serina had heard stories about Bellaqua her whole life. Perched at the southern tip of Viridia, the capital was the royal family’s stronghold and its greatest achievement. The first Superior had designed it to resemble an ancient northern city that had been destroyed in the Floods. Seeing it herself for the first time, she couldn’t deny the city’s beauty; but it also
had a cold quality to it—untouchable, removed.
Ines reached her at last. “Malachi, this is Serina Tessaro, of Lanos.”
Serina turned away from the balustrade and dipped into her lowest, most graceful curtsy. As she straightened, she raised her gaze just to the Heir’s lips, which were full and soft in contrast to the hard lines of his jaw. It would be impolite to meet his eyes.
“I am honored to be here and eager to serve you, Your Eminence.” She smiled.
“Serina Tessaro? That’s your name?” he asked, with a gruffness she wasn’t expecting.
She bowed her head gently, just as she’d been taught, like a flower nodding in the wind. “Yes, Your Eminence,” she replied, then shifted slightly so the light would fall just so along her cheekbones.
“Dance with me,” he ordered.
A bolt of nervous heat shot through her. “I would be honored, Your Eminence.”
His hand closed around hers, and he drew her onto the dance floor, where the musicians were beginning a fast, wild song. She spun away from him and then back into his arms. As Serina dipped and twirled, it was impossible to miss the envious stares of the other prospects. Her feet flew through the steps of the dance, and her skin prickled everywhere the Heir touched.
“You’re from Lanos?” Malachi asked when the music slowed. She expected him to move on to the next girl, but he didn’t. Instead he pulled her closer. He smelled delicious, like spun sugar and spiced wine.
“I am, Your Eminence,” she replied. “Up in the mountains. It’s still cold this time of year.”
“You live with your parents? Brothers? Sisters?” By now, they were barely moving, just the slightest sway to the beat of the music. His hands were on her hips, his heat passing through the filmy layers of her dress.
“Parents. A younger brother and sister. My sister’s here with me as my handmaiden, Your Eminence.”
The song ended, and this time the Heir released her. The warmth of his hands remained long after he let go, imprinted against her skin.
Grace and Fury Page 2