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.And after they were dressed, Mari spent almost an hour doing their hair, getting it to lie in sleek, shining curls over their shoulders, then setting the little caps made to match the gowns at precisely the correct angle on the backs of their heads.Through all this hubbub I saw or heard nothing from my aunt, and began to wonder if she, too, had decided the enterprise was madness and had abandoned it.I should have known she was made of stouter stuff than that, for almost as soon as the hired carriage bearing my stepsisters rattled off down the street and I had gone out to the courtyard to pour out the used wash water, I heard a whisper from the unused stables.“Ashara!”I turned and saw my aunt’s face peeking out from behind one of the stall doors, and quickly set down the basin I was carrying.After taking a quick look around to make sure I was unobserved, I slipped inside.Aunt Therissa wore a hooded cloak, but she had slipped the hood back.Her dark eyes shone with excitement as she looked at me.“Are you ready?”“I-I think so,” I stammered.“That is, I have been watching my stepsisters practice their dance steps, and I know which fork to use first, and — ”“That is not what I asked,” she said, interrupting me, although her tone was gentle.Her gaze met mine, and I found I could not look away.“Are you ready?”My heart began to beat faster, and my fingers suddenly felt as if they had been carved from ice, but I managed to nod.“Yes, Aunt Therissa.I am ready.”A smile then, although I could not say whether it blazed forth because she was relieved I had not backed out at the last minute, or simply because I had called her by her name for the first time.“Good.You are your mother’s daughter after all.” Once again she murmured words I could not understand under her breath.I looked down and saw I wore a gown of heavy russet silk, almost the color of my hair, with a subtle pattern of leaves woven into the fabric.Trim of copper and bronze edged the sleeves, and fine lace peeked above the edge of the low-cut — but not too low-cut, as this was a daytime event — bodice.“Beautiful,” she breathed.“He will see no one else, once he catches a glimpse of you.”“I rather doubt that,” I said dryly, but she only laughed.“Very well, I will leave that to the gods, but you must be off.I have a carriage waiting just down the street.Hurry!” And even as she said that last word she muttered something else, and I was looking back at myself, down to the fingernail I had newly broken that morning and the fresh burn along the edge of one hand, from carelessness with a bread pan still hot from the oven.I stared, but she only shook her head.“’Tis nothing that you haven’t seen before.Now go, and make me proud! Just be sure to be back before twelve hours have passed, for I can’t hold the spell any longer than that!”As I didn’t trust myself to speak, I only nodded, then slipped out of the stables.No one was watching, no doubt still occupied with cleaning up the aftermath of my stepsisters’ preparations, and so I was able to steal away unobserved.The promised carriage waited a few doors down, and I hurried toward it, accepting the hand of the driver as he lifted me into its interior as if I had done that sort of thing every day.After all, this was my first test.I must make him believe I belonged here, or certainly no one else would.But he only bowed, and shut the door behind me, then moved on to take his perch up front.I heard him chirrup to the horses, and the carriage began to move forward.Clenching my hands in my lap, I willed myself to be calm.No matter what happened, there was no going back now.Chapter 4Torric“Well, I see you’ve managed to make a spectacle of things once again,” my mother commented in the acid tones she’d perfected over the years.“How on earth are you going to choose one young woman from all that?” And she pointed with her fan of carved ebony and peacock plumes in the direction of the milling crowd, one that was far more weighted toward the female sex than any crowd at a tournament generally might be.Of course I would never admit such a thing to her, but I did begin to wonder if she had a point.We had estimated and we had guessed, but we hadn’t known for sure until we opened the gates to the tourney field exactly how many prospective brides might answer the summons.Judging by the brightly dressed throng below, it had to be at least four hundred.Lyarris, ever the diplomat, leaned forward and smiled at Mother, something I was rarely able to do.“I daresay it looks rather overwhelming from up here.But I trust Torric to sort them out quickly enough.After all, you won’t give anyone who isn’t handsome a second look, will you, brother?”I shot her a sour glance then, even though I knew she was probably right.After all, what was the point of such an exercise if I ended up with a plain wife? Certainly somewhere among that mass of young women, even now heading toward their seats in the stands, there must be one who was lovely in addition to being intelligent and charming.That couldn’t be too much to ask.However, I did not deign to reply, but instead scanned the crowds, although at this distance attempting to pick out any true details of their faces and figures was difficult.Here and there I thought I saw a girl whose countenance seemed pretty, or whose person promised to be pleasing.But none of them stood out all that much, and I began to wonder if this tournament had been that wise an idea.True, at the end, after the victor had been crowned, we would all move to a series of pavilions set up beyond the fields, where we would take refreshment, but that was some hours off.And in the meantime I would have to sit up here in the imperial box and pretend to be interested in the doings of the horses and their riders.Ah, well, better to be up here than down there, sweating under the heavy mail and perspiring even more in concentration.I recalled those days all too clearly; my father had of course made sure I had thorough training in arms, although the chances of my ever having to lead an army into battle were slender enough.At any rate, I had enough experience that I knew it was far more pleasant to be watching the clash of arms, rather than down on the field collecting a new set of bruises that would last for days.I did note a distinct lack of brightly colored favors fluttering from the warriors’ belts or their sleeves.Most of the men gathered to display their battle prowess today were younger and unmarried, but I wagered that most of the young ladies who were similarly unattached had not wished to bestow their favors upon mere knights or even baronets or dukes’ sons…not when they had set their sights on an attachment far more lofty than that.“Ah, quite the turnout,” came Lord Keldryn’s falsely hearty tones from behind me
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