The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [86]
She looked up and saw the seamstress and the three not-ladies-in-waiting gaping at her.
“It suits her,” said the most thoughtful of the three. “With the starkness of the pattern, it is her face you see. The strength in it. And the love.”
“She will start a new style entirely,” said the seamstress. And she began sketching intently some new gowns that were similar.
So in the end they were not displeased with her choice.
The seamstress brought in a shoemaker later that day. He offered her dainty jeweled slippers and pinched dancing boots with heels too high to be comfortable.
In the end Chala sent him away and decided to wear instead the boots the wild man’s magic had given her when she was first transformed into a woman. They were worn, but she sent them to be cleaned, and they came back shiny and with new laces. They did not show much under the gown, but they did not shame her. And she had the added comfort of knowing that she could run in them.
Not that she expected to need to. But it was nice to know she could all the same.
The morning of the wedding she dressed herself, but allowed one of the ladies to pull her hair back from her face.
Then the music started.
The doors opened.
Chala had to force her legs to move forward.
She had no flowers in her hands. She thought it an abomination to pick living things purely for the sake of decoration.
But now her hands were clenched at her sides.
She was dry-mouthed, staring at Richon, far to the front of the palace chapel. And between the two of them, at least a thousand gaping faces.
She trembled, and tried to decide which way to go.
Toward Richon. Or away from him?
She knew which way she wanted to go. But she did not breathe until she reached his side.
Then he put his hands in hers. “Would it help for you to know that I am dripping sweat?” he said.
It did help. It made her grin and think that perhaps he sometimes felt as little suited to his role as king as she did to hers as queen.
“Don’t look at them. Look at me,” he said, pulling her closer. “It’s not them you’re marrying.”
Strangely, as soon as the ceremony was over, the noise of the cheering around her lifted her spirits. She did not mind the cannons firing at all, though dinner went on far too long, and the meat was overcooked.
That night, when at last she went to Richon’s bedchamber rather than to her own, he asked her if she was nervous. Many women were, and she was so new to her body, he said.
But she bit his ear and he did not ask any questions after that.
In the morning she woke up with Richon’s breath on her shoulder and thought that all had been worth it. Even if she had no moment past this one.
She did mention to him sometime afterward the rumors about her that she had heard whispered about the palace.
Richon went rigid and white with anger. “Who would repeat such things?” he asked. His hands twitched, as if ready for a sword to be placed in them, to defend her honor.
“It is true,” said Chala with a shrug. She was surprised that Richon had heard nothing of them himself. It meant something to her that those around him knew him well enough to see how he loved her and how it would hurt him to hear such things.
“It is not true,” Richon said flatly. “You are not a bear. You never were one.”
“But I was a hound, and I doubt that your people would see much distinction between the two. I was an animal.”
“You are human now. As much as any of them,” Richon said fiercely. “Without you I do not know if the battle would have gone as it had. I do not know if I would have taken the magic from the animals even. You guided me. And then you ensured that the cat man would never touch us with the unmagic again. You deserve their thanks and their welcome. Not these foul stories.”
“I think you must make an announcement of some sort,” said Chala.
“And say it is truth? How will that help?”
“It will help because your people will see you as strong enough to stand up against a threat.