To this, Kamran said nothing, for if she’d indeed asked for a moment of his time, he could not now recall such a summons.
His mother stepped closer.
“Soon,” she said, “I will be all you have left in this palace. You will walk the halls, friendless and alone, and you will search for me then. You will want your mother only when all else is lost, and I do not promise to be easily found.”
Kamran had felt an unnerving sensation move through his body at that; a foreboding he could not name. “Why do you say such things? Of what do you speak?”
The princess was already walking away, gone without another word. Kamran made to follow her and was halted by the arrival of the seamstress, Madame Nezrin, who’d entered the dressing room promptly upon his mother’s exit.
Again, Kamran flinched.
Even if he deserved it, he did not think Madame Nezrin should be allowed to stab him with impunity. Surely she knew better. The woman was the crown’s most trusted seamstress; she’d been working with the royal family since the beginning of his grandfather’s reign. In fact, Kamran often marveled that she hadn’t gone blind by now.
Then again, perhaps she had.
There seemed little other explanation for the ridiculous costumes he regularly discovered in his wardrobe. Her ideas were meticulously executed, but ancient; she dressed him always on the edge of a different century. And Kamran, who knew little of fashion and fabrics, understood only that he did not like his clothes; he possessed no alternative suggestions, and as a result felt powerless in the face of such an essential problem, which drove him near to madness. Surely the mere act of getting dressed should not inspire in a person such torment?
Even now she dressed him in layers of silk brocade, cinching the long emerald robes at his waist with more silk, this time a beaded belt so heavy with jewels it had to be pinned in place. At his throat was yet more of the awful material: a translucent, pale green scarf artfully knotted, the coarse silk netting like sandpaper against his skin.
His shirt, at least, was a familiar linen.
On a single, regrettable occasion he’d once said to his mother—distractedly—that silk sounded just fine, and now everything he owned was an abomination.
Silk, it had turned out, was not the soft, comfortable textile he’d expected; no, it was a noisy, detestable fabric that irritated his skin. The crisp, stiff collar of his robes dug into his throat now not unlike the edge of a dull knife, and he turned his head sharply away, unable to keep still any longer, paying for his impatience with yet another needle in the rib.
Kamran grimaced. The pain had at least done a great deal to distract him from his mother’s ominous parting words.
The sun had begun its descent in the sky, fracturing pink and orange light through the lattice screen windows of the dressing room, the geometric perforations generating a kaleidoscope of oblong shapes along the walls and floors, giving him somewhere to focus his eyes, and then, his thoughts. Too soon, guests would begin arriving at the palace, and too soon, he would be expected to greet them. One, in particular.
As if he’d not been delivered enough suffering this day.
The news from Tulan had been less distressing than Kamran had expected and yet, somehow, so much worse.
“Remind me again, Minister, why on earth the man was even invited?”
Hazan, who’d been standing quietly in the corner, now cleared his throat. He looked from Kamran to the seamstress, his eyes widening in warning.
Kamran glowered.
None of this was Hazan’s fault—logically, the prince understood that—but logic did not seem to matter to his abraded nerves. Kamran had been in a hateful mood all day. Everything bothered him. Everything was insufferable. He shot an aggravated look at Hazan, who’d flatly refused to leave the prince’s side in the wake of the recent news.
His minister only glared back.
“There’s little point in your sitting here,” the prince said irritably. “You should return to your own rooms. No doubt you have preparations to make before the evening begins.”
“I thank you for your consideration, sire,” Hazan said coldly. “But I will remain here, by your side.”
“You overreact,” said the prince. “Besides, if you should be concerned for anyone, it should not be me, but th—”
“Madame,” Hazan said sharply. “I must now escort His Highness to an important meeting; if you would be so kind as to finish the work in his absence? No doubt you have enough of our prince’s measurements.”
Madame Nezrin blinked at Hazan; she seemed uncertain, for a moment, which of the two young men had spoken to her. “Very good,” she said. “That should be just fine.”