Page 5 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

This meant every moment I was out of my chambers, I was picked over like a prized pig, marched down the halls with my arm trapped in a sweaty elbow, or led to the gardens so that they could take turns herding me into a secluded corner to either try to steal a kiss or ask me pointedly inappropriate questions.

It had taken all my nerve not to punch Lord Emerus in the face when he had asked me if I remembered, "that time in the garden, with the snow laying all across the land, when you allowed me to steal a kiss?"

I had allowed nothing, and he had taken much more.

"Ouch," I said, turning to look where the seamstress was crouched behind me, sliding pins into the waist of my gown as she gathered the material of the wide skirts.

"Sorry, Your Highness," Edriana said around a mouthful of pins. "If you did not have quite so much ass, my job might be a bit easier."

I huffed, though I knew her words were good-natured.

She was constantly expressing jealousy that her thin frame didn’t bear a lot of shape in the backside.

But I knew the seamstress was only trying to make me feel better, as usual, while in the presence of my Lady's Companion, Tatana.

She was lounging in a chair by the door, her long, graceful legs encased in loose-fitting silk.

The soft, comfortable pants were the custom in Elysium, where she lived as a child, before being taken by ruthless men and brought to Albiyn.

Tatana and her little brother, Set, had been lucky to be placed in service to the crown. An Elysiun, especially one as beautiful as Tatana, with her long, straight fall of inky black hair and big brown eyes, would have been a prized addition to any Albiyn pleasure house.

Tatana set her book aside and unfolded herself from the chair as Edriana's assistant opened a trunk and began to pull out dresses.

She smiled excitedly as the rich, colorful fabrics were revealed. "These are beautiful, Aelia," she said in her sweet, lilting voice. She looked at me warily. "I have never seen you choose so much color."

She was right. Bright colors had never done my pale skin and bone-white hair justice. "I chose the colors for you—for the Lady of Aracet."

Tatana’s face fell slightly as I added the title. She went to the dresses and began thumbing through them where the assistant was hanging them on a rolling rack for our perusal.

Edriana turned me slightly, pinning another section of my skirt. “When you become Lady of Aracet," she said to Tatana, "I will come to your estate, and we will make you a whole wardrobe. I have always wanted to visit the sea."

"If I become Lady of Aracet," Tatana replied, not looking up from where she held a long golden gown against her body.

Edriana gave me a look, but I shook my head, dismissing it. Tatana was very doubtful that my plan for her future freedom from servitude to the crown of Windemere would work.

"When she becomes Lady of Aracet," I said. "I will make it my first royal decree. Even Arkadian admits the council will not be able to find issue with the historic first decree of a new ruler."

With the decree, I would hand Tatana an ancient castle fortress on the Thyella Sea, and all the lands and incomes that came with it. She would be a noblewoman in her own right, able to return to Elysium if she ever chose to.

I couldn't help the way my heart contracted in my chest to imagine her returning to the islands, slipping behind that bank of mist. The magic was so deep it could sense Elysiun blood and allow no others to pass. I might never know what she found on the other side.

"So..." Tatana said shyly. I immediately knew where her thoughts had landed after I mentioned Arkadian. "Your cousin thinks it will work?" she asked, eyes still downcast.

For as long as I could remember, Tatana had been in love with Arkadian—desperately and hopelessly so.

Even if her rank as lady’s companion didn’t put her squarely out of the running for being his duchess, Arkadian’s own reluctance to settle down and marry anyone, did.

So, Tatana kept her feelings a secret—albeit a badly kept one—even from me.

They were very often written right on her lovely face, though, and Arkadian was not blind. The only thing that kept my whorish cousin away from the most beautiful woman in Windemere, was my promise to cut off his balls if he ever approached her with anything less than a marriage proposal.

Tatana valued chastity higher than most other qualities in a woman.

In Elysium, a young girl's virtue was cherished and protected, she told me.

Her virginity was a gift she would only willingly give her husband in the rite of Isenom where the couple would share their true names with each other.

Since divorce was forbidden and unthinkable to her people, no other living soul would ever know them.

The gift Tatana valued so dearly had been stolen from her, in a small way, by Lord Emerus Divestra, as the three of us played at making snow angels in Albiyn's statue gardens.

Then later, in a much bigger way, by my gods damned, fucking uncle, who I swore to all the gods in the heavens and the angels in the skies, I would destroy for what he had done to her.

Edriana finished pinning my skirts and helped me pull the gown off over my head. "Come," she said, motioning to Tatana as she led me off the stool.

Tatana hesitated, but then she clutched the yards of shimmering golden fabric to her chest and hurried to the stool excitedly. The seamstress helped her out of her simple tunic and pants and lowered the gown over her head.

While she gathered the bodice, pinning it around Tatana's perfectly proportioned chest, I couldn't help but look in the mirror where my body was reflected in nothing but a simple thin chemise, and compare my shape to hers.

Tatana was simply perfect. She was all long lines and lovely curves, and I was well...just curves.

I was not fat. In fact, I had built a nice base of muscle in the last several years, but over that was just a mess of large breasts and what to me, seemed like a rather sizable bottom.

I did have a slim waist and a flat stomach that delicately curved out around my navel in a somewhat pleasing way, but it just all looked so...wicked somehow.

And perhaps my opinion of myself was all born of the looks I got from men—those nearly drooling looks when they inevitably found themselves surprised that there was a bit more of me than they had expected.

But in any case, I had always compared myself to Tatana, and found myself lacking.

My legs were probably the only part of me that I truly loved. They were long and shapely, but strong. They seemed to make up most of my nearly six feet of height all on their own, and I was glad of their strength, especially when I spent as much time in the saddle as I had been lately.

But as I looked at us both in the mirror, I had to admit that the truly striking difference between myself and the beautiful Elysiun goddess standing on the stool beside me was coloring.

My pale flesh and odd white curls always seemed like a bleached approximation of beauty beside her dark golden skin and that sleek, shining black hair.

Unlike mine, her wine-red lips never needed any color. And even though my brows and lashes were dark, Tatana's long lashes accentuated her brown eyes in a way that mine would never do. She had the kind of beauty that was hard to look away from.

While she and Edriana continued chatting about the gold gown, I went to bathe and dress. I used the mirror to braid back my nearly unmanageable waves so they would be easier to conceal under a hood.

My hair, which was not blonde, but simply white, was an oddity in Windemere—an oddity in all of Alterra really.

I was born with dark-brown hair, like my parents, but when I contracted the fever that killed my mother, only a few days after my birth, the illness robbed me of both my hair color and my strength for much of my childhood.

My health had returned, but my dark hair never had.

When I left the bathing chamber, I was confronted by an actual golden goddess in the middle of my room.

The setting sun shone through the curtains, reflecting off the shimmery material draped over Tatana’s body like it was born of some magic that recognized her true value and gilded her like a treasure.

"You look so beautiful," I said, smiling as I stepped closer to run my hand over the skirts of her gown. Tiny, polished discs had been sewn onto the fabric to make it shimmer.

Edriana had finished fitting the gown and swept Tatana's long hair up, pinning it with gold combs. She'd even plucked a necklace of elaborate golden chains from the jewelry box and laid it around her neck. It blended almost perfectly with the gold bodice of the gown.

"You look like a queen," I told her, meaning it. She looked so much more royal than the pale specter of myself ever had, or ever would. "And you must keep the necklace. It was made for that gown, surely."

Tatana clutched the necklace, surprise flitting across her features.

For far too long she had been forced to blend into the background of society. I suddenly and unexpectedly looked forward to my wedding and coronation, if only so that she could rise to the place in my court where she so obviously belonged.

"Thank you," she whispered as tears swam in her eyes.

Those tears shamed me. She was little more than a slave in my castle, and she cried with gratitude over a dress and a necklace. My family and my kingdom had taken so much from her. I would never be able to make up for that. "No gratitude is necessary, Tatana. You're my sister."

"Where are you going, Aelia?" she asked, suddenly realizing I was dressed in pants.

"To find some handsome men to play cards with, of course," I teased.

At her look of horror, I added. "I am going out with Arkadian to play a game of cards with Lady Pettifer and Rhychulson Nygaard. That is all. Come with me," I coaxed, though I knew she never would.

Even if she could get her head around the danger of having an exploit in the city, she would never be in the company of so many men without a chaperone.

If she only knew where we played cards, I thought with a sigh...