The Truth-Teller Of Estrella

Chapter 27. A Vow to the Full Moon

To say Aleta was grateful to hear the knock at the door, accompanied by an invitation for her to get dressed in Karisa's room, would be an understatement. She had been sitting near the window, her eyes fixated on the door, when Padma arrived to escort her.

"I was going mad in there!" She cried over to her friend as she plopped herself on Karisa's bed. She reached across, fingering a fine silk gown that had been laid out. It was red — form fitting at the chest and flared out at the bottom. The cardinal shine would have complimented the fiery tints in Karisa's hair well... only she was already dressed. Aleta eyed her down, the sophisticated and deep violet of her dress an ode to her priestess hood. It was the color of the gods — the old gods, not the one Drika had forced her to pray to, but the ones she still prayed to in secret... in the shadows. It was the reason Karisa walked every day, out of the city centre and to the small village temple. It was as if she was showing them, proving to them, she had not lost her way.

Her friend's voice cut through her thoughts like a sharp blade, "That one is yours. Drika had Padma lay it out for you."

"Why?" The Empress' desire to control her attire seemed to continue, far beyond Aleta's days of reporting and the night of Samir's arrival. She didn't understand Drika's need to dress her. It was as if she was nothing more than a doll. It was a slap in the face. A reminder of who really called the shots in the palace... regardless of Aleta's assurance that she was nothing more but a love sick sorceress.

Karisa shook her head.

"I don't understand, after all this time — why she still feels the need to control what I wear. Are there not more important things on her mind?'

"It's her way of indoctrinating you." Answered Karisa. "She wants you to feel like she controls every aspect of your life. She wants you to eventually feel like you need her to make decisions."

Aleta huffed. She would never need Drika to make decisions for her. She would never truly control her life in the way she wished.

"She's probably beside herself with joy, now that she thinks you and Sam are..." Karisa paused. Aleta could see her friend was selecting her next words carefully. "Now that she thinks you and Sam are a thing. It's another way for her to control you."

"Or a way for us to control her." Corrected Aleta.

Aleta looked over to her friend and the tub that had been filled to the brim in the corner of her room. She watched the steam dance its way into the air, its ghostly shadows calling to her.

"Risy?" She finally said.

Karisa had not heard her friend say that name in a very long time. At one point she had even forgotten the tone in which Aleta would say her name — the way it spilled out of her lips like a soft embrace. It was familiar, the kind of familiar she did not expect to hear from her again. It tugged at her heart as memories, simpler memories of her friend calling her in the shadows of their once home. She smiled, causing the freckles of her face to crease and smush together. Aleta missed that too.

"After my bath would you help me with my hair?" She asked.

"Of course."

***

Drika's fingers clenched the knife in her hand as she sliced the meat on her plate. She handled it with such delicacy — yet anger, deep and unwavering hatred, wafted in the air. Although she seemed calm and contained, Samir could see the wildness and violence behind her plastered stoic face. Her knuckles were white as snow and he could almost sense her ocean blue veins pulsing beneath her skin. Samir was seated across from his aunt, allowed at the head of the table, a seat of honor and a symbol of her trust. She must have had the buck placed at the library long before he joined her, and knew of the creature's inability to retrieve it. It must have been why she wanted Aleta to go along with them to retrieve it. But why hadn't she told him? Why didn't she inform him about her accomplice in the library? Drika had no idea what Samir's true plans were. She couldn't have. And as he chewed on his last bit of stewed meat Samir allowed his eyes to glance over to Aleta.