Cruel Beauty

“I’m sure he’ll fall in love with you at first sight,” said Ivy bravely. Her hands were shaking as she adjusted my skirt, so I managed to scrape up a smile for her. It seemed to calm her a little.

For the next few minutes, we all pretended that I was happy to marry. Elspeth and Ivy giggled and whispered; Astraia clapped her hands and hummed snatches of love songs; Aunt Telomache nodded, lips pursed in satisfaction. I stood quiet and compliant as a doll. If I stared very hard at the wall and reviewed the Hermetic sigils in my head, the bustle around me faded. I still noticed everything they did, but I didn’t have to feel much about it.

They combed my hair and pi

A gleaming, crimson-clad lady stared back at me. Until this day, I had worn only the plain black of mourning, even though Father had told us when we were twelve that we could dress as we pleased. Everybody thought that I did it because I was such a pious daughter, but I simply hated pretending that everything was all right.

“You look like a dream.” Astraia slid her arm around my waist, smiling tremulously at our reflections.

Everybody said that Astraia was the very image of our mother, and certainly she could not have gotten her looks anywhere else: the plump, dimpled cheeks, the pouting lips, the snub nose and dark curls. But I might have been born straight out of my father’s head like Athena: I had his high cheekbones, his aristocratic nose, his straight black hair. In a rare burst of kindness, Aunt Telomache had once told me that while Astraia was “pretty,” I was “regal”; but everyone who saw Astraia smiled at her, while people only nodded at me and said my father must be proud.

Proud, yes. But not loving. Even when we were very young, it was clear that Astraia took after Mother, and I after Father. So there was never any question which one of us would pay for his sin.

Aunt Telomache clapped her hands. “That’s enough, girls,” she said. “Say good-bye and run along.”

Elspeth looked me up and down. “You look pretty enough to eat, miss. May the gods smile on your marriage.” She shrugged, as if to say it was no concern of hers, and left.

Ivy hugged me and slipped a little straw man into my hand. “It’s Brigit’s son, young Tom-a-Lone,” she whispered. “For luck.” She whirled away after Elspeth.

I crushed the charm in my hand. Tom-a-Lone was a hedge-god, the peasants’ lord of death and love. The village folk might sacrifice to Zeus or Hera sometimes, when custom demanded it, but for sick children, uncertain crops, and unrequited love, they prayed to the hedge-gods, the deities they had worshipped long before Romana-Graecian ships ever landed on their shores. Scholars agreed that the hedge-gods were merely superstition, or else garbled versions of the celestial gods—that Tom-a-Lone was but another form of Adonis, Brigit another name for Aphrodite—and that either way, the only rational course was to worship the gods under their true names.

Certainly the hedge-gods hadn’t saved Elspeth’s brother from the demons. But the gods of Olympus hardly seemed inclined to rescue me, either.

With a sigh, Aunt Telomache unfolded my fist and plucked out the crumpled Tom-a-Lone.

“Still they cling to their superstitions,” she muttered, and flung it into the fireplace. “You would think Romana-Graecia conquered them last week and not twelve hundred years ago.”

And from the way Aunt Telomache talked, you would think she was descended in a straight line from Prince Claudius, when in fact she and Mother came from a family that was only three generations removed from being peasants. But there was no use pointing that out to her.

“You don’t know,” Astraia protested. “It might bring good luck, after all.”

“And then the Kindly Ones will grant her three wishes, I suppose?” said Aunt Telomache, sounding more indulgent than a

No, it’s easy for you, I thought. Tonight you will fondle my father while I am the plaything of a demon.

“Yes, Aunt.” I looked down at my hands.

She sighed, eyelids drooping in preparation for another tender moment. “If only dear Thisbe—”

“Aunt,” said Astraia, who was now standing beside the chest of drawers. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Her hands were behind her back, her smile as big and bright as the time she had eaten all the blackberry tarts.

“No, child—”

“So isn’t it lucky I remembered?” With a flourish, she pulled out from behind her back a slim steel knife hanging in a black leather harness.

For an instant, Aunt Telomache stared at the knife as if it were a big, fat spider. I felt as if I had swallowed that spider, as if it were crawling down my gullet with poisonous legs. That was how lying felt: all the lies I had swallowed and spat out again, vile and empty as the husks of dead insects, all for the sake of making sure that precious Astraia could stay happy. And this knife was the most important lie in our family.

“I had it specially made,” Astraia went on earnestly. “It’s never cut a living thing. Just to be safe, it’s never been used at all, not even tested. Olmer swore it wasn’t, and you know he never lies.”

Unlike the rest of us, who had been telling her for the last four years that there was a chance I could kill the Gentle Lord and walk away.

“You do realize,” Aunt Telomache said gently, “that it’s possible Nyx won’t get a chance to use the knife? And”—she paused delicately—”we can’t be sure it will work.”

Astraia raised her chin. “The Rhyme is true, I know it. And even if it isn’t, why shouldn’t Nyx try? I don’t see how stabbing the Gentle Lord could possibly hurt.”

It would show him that I was not broken and cowed, that I had come as a saboteur to destroy him. It would likely make him kill or imprison me, and then I would never have a chance to carry out Father’s actual plan. Even if the Rhyme were true—even if—trying to fulfill it was still a bad bet, when the Resurgandi might never have another chance like me again.

“I don’t know why you’re so reluctant to trust Nyx,” Astraia added in an undertone. “Isn’t she your dearest sister’s daughter?”

Of course she didn’t understand. She’d never had to think through this plan, weighing every risk because she had only one life to lose. She’d never woken up in the night, choking on a dream of a shadow-husband who tore her to pieces, and thought, It doesn’t matter how he hurts me. I’m the only chance to save us from the demons.

Aunt Telomache met my eyes, and the flat set of her mouth spoke as clearly as words: Indulge her for now, but you know what to do.

Then she pulled Astraia close and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Oh, child, you’re an example to us all.”

Astraia wriggled happily—she was almost a cat, she liked so much to be petted—then pulled free and gave me the knife, smiling as if the Gentle Lord were already defeated. As if nothing were wrong. And for her nothing ever would be wrong. Just for me.

“Thank you,” I murmured. I could feel the rage pushing at me like a swell of cold water, and I didn’t dare meet her eyes as I took the knife and harness. I tried to remember the panic that burned through me last night, when I thought her heart was broken.

She was comforted in minutes. Do you think she’ll mourn you any longer after your wedding?

“Here, I’ll help!” She dropped to her knees and strapped the knife to my thigh. “I’m sure you can do it. I know you can. Maybe you’ll be back by teatime!” She beamed up at me.