The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(16)
They did their best to tidy Min—scrubbing her thighs raw in the bath, then swathing her up in clean, lightly perfumed white wrappings, as though her body were a wound. Even when they’d finished, she felt ill.
Of all days to let this happen, she thought miserably, tears welling up in her eyes. Bad enough that she should embarrass herself looking a sweaty, repulsive mess in front of the whole assembled court, let alone in front of her cousin Set and his Hana entourage, too.
“It’s all right, Small Princess,” said Amma Ruxin, laying a firm hand upon her shoulder. “No tears,” she added, wiping at Min’s face with a handkerchief produced from deep inside the sleeves of her robes. “You’re a woman now.”
The empress was having her long black hair styled for the Betrothal Ceremony when Min shuffled into her quarters. Her mother’s ammas flitted about her like hummingbirds around a trumpet flower. She was a beautiful woman: tall and graceful, with a stately elegance wrought through good breeding and years of practice. Today she looked especially striking in robes of deep cerulean embroidered with gold thread, and makeup that accentuated her high cheekbones, full lips, and gray Hana eyes.
Min curtsied as best she could in her stiff new robes.
“Mother,” she said.
The empress cocked her head slightly to one side—no easy feat given the weight of her hair, dripping with jeweled pins and topped with a gold diadem. There was apprehension in her face—disappointment perhaps? Is it the robes? Min fretted, feeling the cold prickle of panic. It’s not fair. She’s the one who picked the lilac . . .
Min herself had favored a bolt of malachite green silk, but the empress had quickly dismissed it, reminding Min of how badly dark colors washed out her already pale face.
Her mother was correct, of course. Min did have a pale face—soft and round and bland as an uncooked dumpling. Her sister Lu could wear bold colors to striking effect, the jeweled tones intensifying her sharp, lively eyes and quick grin. But then, it seemed Lu could do anything she wanted.
Except be emperor, a little singsong voice inside Min whispered. Her gut clenched at the cruelty in it. Where had that thought come from?
Her mother held out a hand. “Come here, my sweet.” When Min stepped forward, the empress enveloped her in a brief, perfumed embrace. The sharp smell of mandarin blossoms lingered in the air, and Min breathed in deeply to savor it.
“Amma Ruxin tells me you are a woman now,” said the empress. She cocked her head, and the faint lilt of a smile strained her lips. Her face went soft like love. Just for a moment. “You look pretty. All grown up.”
In spite of herself, Min felt a bloom of pleasure and relief in her chest. She indulged it for a cautious moment before forcing it back down. The empress was in a good mood this morning.
Her mother turned back to her mirrors. She frowned slightly at her reflection, touching a loose loop of hair. “This is out of place,” she informed Amma Inga, a reedy woman whose head reminded Min of a lumpy turnip.
The empress cast a sidelong look toward Min as Inga sorted out her hair. “The robes will do. But I daresay you’ve grown since we had them cut—outward, if not upward. A hazard for anyone at your age, I suppose.”
The relief she’d felt earlier flinched and contracted behind her breastbone. “Yes, Mother,” Min agreed.
“You should take care to eat less, but don’t worry about it too much,” her mother continued, carefully watching the ammas work in the reflection of her mirrors. “When I was your age I tended toward stoutness myself; it is only a phase. And it means you will be plump in the correct places when you’re a bit older.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Min secretly wondered if there could be any truth to the empress’s words. All her life she had been told she would be beautiful one day—one day, one day—and all her life it had never happened.
“And for the time being, at least you have our Hana eyes—no, no!” The empress broke off to scold Amma Inga, yanking the hank of hair from the frightened woman’s hands. “This is atrocious. Ailin, come here and fix this savagery . . .”
Min bit back a sigh, sitting at her mother’s dressing table as the ammas hurried forth to tend to the empress. There was a large polished mahogany box atop the vanity, gaping open to reveal a bounty of jeweled hairpins.
Min selected one and turned it over in her hands. The pin was yellow gold, adorned on one end with a fist-sized lily of mother-of-pearl.
She looked up and her face gazed back from the mirror. It was true she had the famed gray eyes of the old Hana Family Li—her own vague like vapor, while her mother’s were bright and unyielding as wet stone. Apart from that, Min looked every bit like their father: the same round cheeks and anemic complexion. The full, downturned lips that should have been attractive but somehow lent her an anxious, dour air.
Not for the first time, Min wondered if her mother so emphasized her Hana eyes because she wished Min looked more like her—as though calling attention to that token similarity could eclipse the chasm of difference between them. Or perhaps it was simply that her eyes were the only feature pretty enough to comment on.
It was small comfort that Lu had not inherited their mother’s particular beauty, either—she little resembled either of their parents. Instead, she was often described as their first uncle Hwangmun returned from the heavens in the body of a girl.