In the kingdom of Aeziris, a rebellion is rising, but its reins are not in the hands of its citizens. With a fine string entwining her heart with that of its chieftain, Esméralda must walk a knife-edge while navigating her way through a palace of ma...
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E s m é r a l d a A l b y
"Esméralda!"
Laura's shriek of horror stopped my steps in the kitchen. I kept down the peeler and the potato, following her voice upstairs. My knock barely resonated before she was swinging the door open, almost as if she wanted to pull it off its hinges.
My gorgeous step-sister held a blonde strand of hair between her fingers, the one that managed to fall astray from her up-done bun. "Do you not want me to be a Countess?"
"I do," my words stumbled out. "Why would you even say that?
"Because I want to be perfect today. This—" she almost shoved the stubborn curl in my face, "—is not perfect."
I tried to smile. "A little bobby pin would do the work."
"You did that intentionally, didn't you? Isn't that why you're smiling?" She worked her jaw. "You know an Earl marrying a mere merchant's daughter is once in a blue moon opportunity and because that daughter isn't you, you want to snatch that away from me, don't you?"
My lips fell back into a straight line, maybe curled a little downwards. "No, no. I'd never do that to you, Laura. I'll fix your bun as new."
"You better."
She slumped in front of the mirror, huffing with arms folded across her chest. I quickly aligned the strand with the rest of the bun and secured it with a bobby pin, hiding it under her hairs so that no metal upholding her golden bun was visible. "See? Done. Perfect like you."
"Tighten the corset," Laura straightened her back.
Instead of her, I stopped breathing at that thought. "More tight?"
"How do you tighten something by doing it less tight? Stupid."
"How would you... breathe?"
"I've worn a corset like a corset all my life. You're the only one who wears it just to stop your nipples from perking up through your gown."
More like a cloth and less like a rib-crusher—it was fine with me.
Laura shrugged her gown to her waist once I had loosened it, waiting for me to pull the strings that might disrupt the arrangement of organs inside her body. I gulped, pulling a stubborn string by the small of her back. "Is it enough?"
"I don't want to carry disgraceful flesh on my stomach like you do, Esméralda."
The roll of her greyish-blue eyes was reflected off the mirror as she stood up. We shared the colour of our eyes with our father, the only similarity between us. I took my mother's auburn tresses while she adopted her mother's blonde. I sometimes wished I was as pale as her but my skin was a natural tan, another thing that I took from my father. It was now darkening more under the hot sun of Aezira. Summer had always been particularly harsh at our kingdom capital.
