The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

“Rae, you’d just been attacked yourself, hadn’t you? That’s a lot to handle. That doesn’t mean you’re the kind of person who punches people. Especially not people you like.”

Except that I did. Bren isn’t a friend, not really, but as infuriating as I find him on occasion, I do like him as a person. I don’t wish him harm. But I still punched him.

“It’ll be all right,” Melly says softly.

“No, it won’t.”

“Perhaps,” she agrees. “But you will get through this.”

That much is true. I let out a slow breath and rest against her, my tears slowing.

“Now, come. Have another cup of tea. And a biscuit. Life is always better after you’ve eaten a biscuit.”

I let out a watery laugh and straighten up. It’s the sort of thing Bean would say.

“That’s better.” Melly smiles and hands me the promised biscuit.

While it doesn’t take away the past, at least it makes the present more bearable.

Chapter

34

Tonight is the sweetening, the last big celebration preceding the wedding procession in two days’ time. Mina sends for her maid to help us both get ready. All the attendants have been provided with matching ensembles of pale blue silk embroidered with silver, a seamstress coming to ensure that any last adjustments are taken care of. Once we are dressed and our hair done up, we switch off with Jasmine and Zaria, keeping the princess company as she dresses along with half a dozen ladies of the court.

The ladies Havila and Dinari sit in a pair of armchairs set nearby the dressing table, a couple of young women hover nearby, chatting and telling jokes, and three more sit on the bed, joining in the conversation when they aren’t giggling with each other. It gives the room a bright, festive atmosphere. No one reflects on the absence of the foreign queen, and Alyrra doesn’t seem to note it herself. Perhaps she did not expect her mother to be present; it’s hard to know what her own traditions might be.

Regardless, Alyrra seems cheerful and curious about the night’s events. Havila provides a rundown of the evening’s progression: the men and women will gather in different halls; there will be singing and dancing, and henna for the women; the men will play tricks on Kestrin, and the women will feed Alyrra more sweets than she could ever possibly want; and Kestrin will enter about halfway through the night. The women will present themselves as utterly demure while he offers Alyrra a set of gifts, at which point they will chase him out, saying he doesn’t value her enough. He must then return with a second set of gifts.

“Really?” Alyrra asks, amazed. “You’ll chase him out?”

They don’t disappoint. When Kestrin arrives, kneeling before Alyrra where she sits on a sofa set up on the dais, he offers her an intricately designed gold set that easily weighs as much as all the gold my family owns. I stare at it in awe.

“You think that’s a fit gift for a bride?” Havila demands, her cane thumping against the carpets of the raised dais to create a hollow boom. “Are you descended from prairie dogs? Have you the brains of a mud-dwelling fish?”

The whole hall immediately erupts into jeers and shouts. Alyrra’s eyes widen, and Kestrin, looking up at her, grins impishly and runs out of the room, arms over his head as if fearing thrown vegetables, trailing an entourage of highly amused attendants.

“How very strange,” the foreign queen remarks from her seat on the dais. “I should think you would have more respect than that.”

Alyrra turns toward her mother. “I believe the point is he should have more respect for his bride. It seems an excellent custom. Perhaps it should be adopted in Adania as well.”

“To call one’s prince a rodent . . .”

“Oh, indeed,” Havila says. “It is better, though, than having a viper as a prince, don’t you think?”

The queen’s expression shutters, her eyes glittering with fury for a bare moment before she gives a disdainful sniff. “You see, Alyrra? Even the old women here know nothing of respect.”

Havila smiles, a smooth, pleasant look that says she has brought out for display exactly what she wished from the queen. And as the queen’s eyes narrow, I can catch a terrifying glimpse of an evening ruined by this arrogant woman’s pride and disrespect—an evening that Alyrra has every right to enjoy.

“Oh!” I cry, stumbling forward and bumping a tray of sweets set on a table beside me. I step on the edge of my skirt for good measure, and then my hand accidentally comes down on the edge of the tray, sending it flying. Jasmine shrieks.

I catch myself on my hands and knees and pain screams through my arm. I hold myself stone still, and then slowly ease the weight off my wounded arm. I take a shaky breath and try to school my features into something neutral.

“I told you not to allow the lame one here,” the queen says, which is news to me.

Alyrra stands helplessly a few feet away, having leapt up from her seat, her hands still covered in half-dry henna. “Rae?”

“I’m sorry,” I manage, and look up to find the dais littered with crumbling sweets.

“Someone pushed her,” Zaria says from beside me, turning to scan the empty space behind the dais. What?

The nobles exclaim and shake their heads as Mina helps me to my feet. A trio of servants swoop in to collect the fallen tray, scooping the destroyed sweets onto it and sweeping up the remaining crumbs.

“Are you all right?” Alyrra asks, her gaze flicking from me to where I stood, seeking the nonexistent perpetrator.

“Yes, only I’m so sorry to cause such a scene.” My arm still hurts, but I can’t check it now. It will just have to be all right.

“That hardly matters. At least the sweets didn’t get on you!”

“Just my hands,” I say ruefully, turning my palms over to show the sticky sweet crumbs attached to them.

“Nothing a bit of water won’t fix,”