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From her, I decide it’s a compliment. “You want to dress me?”
“To style you,” she corrects.
“Why?”
“His Highness likes your company. He didn’t toss you into a prison cell after your audacious request, he allowed you to stay, and he wants you close by. From the clothes in your closet and the jewels on your table, it’s clear you have his interest. To hold it, we just have to fix what he sees when he looks at you.”
Fix? I’m not even sure I want her help. I barely know the prince… except the thought of him makes my heart beat faster, and I need his favor to get my ring back.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask.
“Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I want to see how far one can go with a little help. Maybe I want to turn a village girl into a princess… even a queen.” Her eyes pinch like she’s thinking. “You look like someone who remembers their friends.”
“I do. I remember all my friends and my debts,” I say quickly, smothering any disbelief. Whether I want this or not, it wouldn’t hurt to have another friend in the palace, someone clever and well connected. Yet girls like me don’t end up with crowns on their heads. If we reach too high, we get cut down.
Mina grins as she moves to my closet, pulling out the neatly folded garments, dumping them on my bed and arranging them into piles. “The blue silk with the pink sash, the white cloak with the lavender brocade, the green robe with the yellow belt.”
A week’s worth of clothing is laid out more swiftly than the time it takes to walk once around the room. Soon, the accessories are strewn on the table as she divides them up, muttering things like:
“Never wear this silver comb with those gold hairpins.”
“These sapphires go best with rubies and pearls, not jade.”
“Pearls can match anything, but coral needs a bright color like turquoise to complement it.”
I have no idea why some pairings meet her disapproval, just that everything looks better when she puts it together, whether melding in harmony or dazzling in contrast.
“Mina, this is magic,” I say with wonder.
She leans over to unclasp the pearls from my neck, then holds up a thin gold chain studded with sapphires. “You don’t need ostentatious jewels—they are meant to adorn, not distract. Prince Zixin is the only one you need to impress; the rest will fall in line.”
As I glance at the mirror, Mina unties the ribbon holding my hair up. Gathering a handful, she twists it deftly into coils. “Now, let’s turn you into a princess.”
I laugh, but Mina speaks with such conviction, I almost believe her—that I could be the girl in the fairy tale instead of the one who’d climbed a tree, hoping for a glimpse of it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
T he sky has softened to lavender, marbled with rose. Clouds glide across the heavens, churned with gold, a fullness clinging to their curves like a storm hasn’t quite passed. The hem of my gown is damp from the evening drizzle, my shoes speckled with mud. Even then, I’ve never looked better: my hair swept up, my lips painted, the green gown that Mina chose flattering the hue of my skin. This feels like a dream, the kind I don’t want to wake from.
As I step through the entrance of the palace, leaving the iron wall behind, my spirits rise. The air here is stripped of the faint metallic tinge and sandalwood incense, smelling of grass and earth. Like home, in a way, the one that used to be good.
Attendants carry lanterns to light the path through the meadow. A lake ringed by willow trees glistens ahead, their branches of slender, red-gold leaves fluttering like strands of fire. In the mountains, I’d harvest the leaves for tea to treat headaches or inflammation. But now, I don’t have to forage or thrift, just savor their beauty.
Prince Zixin stands by the bank, flanked by attendants. Wind teases his long hair, pulled into a high tail, his white robe gleaming against the dark. A sword is fastened to his side, maybe because we aren’t within the palace grounds. Tonight, he appears not just the privileged prince but a hero from the stories. To look at him is to realize that fortune has its favorites. As I walk toward him, my mind wanders, wild and unguarded. If the palace were my home, I could live as he does, safe within these walls, wanting for nothing. Life would be as effortless as gliding across the waters in a boat instead of clinging to a raft.
A fantasy, yet on an evening like this when it smells of rain and change, when the Prince of the Iron Mountains looks at me, eyes dark with promise… it makes me reckless, like reaching for things I shouldn’t.
I halt before the prince, greeting him as I lower myself in a bow. As he gestures for me to rise, he studies me intently. “Your face is flushed, Miss Yining,” he remarks softly like he’s speaking to me alone. “What is on your mind?”
I’d rather break an arm than share my thoughts. “It’s a warm night, Your Highness.”
“Is it?”
The lift in his tone, his nearness—they stir something in me. Right now, he doesn’t look like the future king, intimidating and powerful, but someone I could befriend, someone I could trust… someone it would be easy to fall in love with. If only I dared.
I break the spell, taking a step back. Coward, my heart hisses, but I’ve hardened myself to ignore it. It’s my mind that’s kept me alive so far, and out of trouble. “Why did you want to meet me here, Your Highness?”
“It’s a fine evening to be out on the water.”
