Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter sixty-two

Chapter sixty-two

"Half the palace will be there," Jane said, failing to lessen the bout of tension writhing in my belly.

My arms spread individually so she could pull the sleeves of my cloak over them. The silk, both heavy and comforting, settled over my slight build, and the soft lining on the inside conformed to the bones jutting out from underneath my skin in a way that felt like security and. . . connectedness. As Jane prepared the kohl, I took hold of the armrests of my chair and lowered myself in it, indulging in how the cloak draped over the upholstered seat in a lax, easy manner. Its fine, black material forged a molding for me that wholly fit into this small yet extensive crevice of the Unmapped—it was a sense of belonging that I knew existed in more ways than one.

Jane took a comb to my hair, guiding the dark tendrils from my forehead. Over and over, I insisted to her she did not have to do this, for as promised, her required clothes were no longer white. Not to mention, Azra and Eshan needed her. "My parents are resting," she'd assured. "And no one can do your face like me."

Possibly because no one else had done my face but her.

Truthfully, this was a show of gratitude—or one of them, at least. Her caring for Anelah when I could not breathed thank you. Her giving statements upholding my name breathed thank you. Her drying my cheeks in order to dress them with pigment breathed I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but thank you, thank you.

In this long year of ascendancy, deaths were not an uncommon occurrence. It was either a sick child, one of the elders, or an injured guard. I was used to seeing the dead's loved ones wearing a layer of maquillage to symbolize the importance of the burial, along with a set of three curved lines drawn pygmy-sized on the forehead, a representation of wings.

I squeezed my eyes shut, Jane beginning her work. "Will you be there?"

"Yes."

"I wish Anelah could attend."

Anelah would loosen the knot of dread growing impossibly tight inside me—and she should go—but I respected the palace's tradition. Funerals must be silent, save for the priest's words. Noise could distract a soul from its journey to the other side. Therefore, young children would be left in the hold of caretakers.

Jane laughed, brown eyes, for the first time since I ever met her, twinkling. "With her loud self? Joseph would always be bound to this world."

My widow's veil filtered the pretty day.

The sky above dazzled, brilliantly clear, the fields below viridescent, rolling, and stretching far, enclosed by a thick fence of dark trees. (This was the rear of the palace. Unhomboldt's tents had been moved to border the lake out front.) Flowers and grasses swayed near my knees, which was not a difficult feat. Bees and butterflies pollinated them, coloring the warm air with yellow and pink and the sound of inconsistent buzzing.

It was difficult to believe an expanse of this kind doubled as a cemetery. There were six graves here, belonging to Jane's grandparents, her uncle, an advisor, a commander, and Azra and Eshan's stillborn. (Commoners were burned.)

Now it would hold seven.

Jane had been mistaken. Nearly all of the palace was present, the sea of them swallowing the entirety of the fields and what felt like a million gazes swallowing me. Guards separated them from the grave site and the three people allowed to be ten feet in front of it.