Chapter 5: The Color Master

The long hours after he had refused her stretched into a sort of ambiguous, uncomfortable dream. It had been hundreds of years since she had been in the company of one man (or any other being) without the power to destroy him, and she couldn't make heads or tails of it. If she couldn't use her power, what purpose was there to her existence? She couldn't just live, as she had already had her chance at life. There was no growing or progressing for her. She had no love, no home, and no connections.

Thus, it was the first time she comprehended what a shallow, damned thing she had become.

That boy would make a wish. She could survive no other way.

***

The oven's fire hissed from the rain drops that managed to slip down the chimney. Flour caked her hands and dusted up to her elbows as she wrestled a ball of dough into submission. Standing next to her with an air of uncertainty was Hope, who had moved on to mincing peeled potatoes. Behind her, a lone scullery maid scrubbed pots, working to keep her face averted from meeting the eyes of the princess accidentally.

“I'm assuming he doesn't know about your hobby.”

“Oh, relax, Hope. He’d the only heir to some backwoods baron with hardly enough servants to be called nobility. If anything, he’ll be disappointed if I can’t.” Rubbing damp flour off her fingers she reached for the little bowl of melted butter. The cook frowned and handed it to her. They had made up in time for Kyanna to take advantage of the kitchen before the dinner rush. Her hunger had brought her back to Hope, as it always had, and the cook had been merciful enough to pretend their conversation had never happened.

Not to mention both knew that nothing helped her work out her frustrations better than beating up some dough.

“I heard from one of the men that he hasn't come back yet. I'm beginning to worry." Hope hesitated, as she often did when asking a question she knew she shouldn't. "You didn't get into a fight with him already, did you?"

The Princess hesitated, putting the bowl to the side. Frankly, she didn’t care where her unfortunate husband had gone, but knowing they were fighting wasn’t much different from knowing their lack of sex life, which would then lead to a real ‘honeymoon,’ drugged drinks and all.

The thought made her shiver. Usually, she’d trust Hope to keep her mouth shut. The scullery maid behind her, on the other hand, she didn’t know.

Hope read her expression and smiled reassuringly as she handed a bowl of raisins, honey, and spices for Kyanna to knead into her dough.

“Don’t worry about Dianne over there. She’s a shy little creature and not one for gossip.”

On hearing her name, the maid Dianne scrubbed harder, as though fearing a scolding for not cleaning fast enough. Kyanna didn’t blame her. Hope’s scolding was dreaded by all.

Turning back to the mass of dough and flour, she sighed, spooning up a glob of sweet raisins.

“I wouldn't say a fight. He told me some weird, messed up story about some sisters killing each other over a man and then apologized about not asking beforehand if I wanted to marry him and left.”

Thankfully, Hope settled for giving a knowing, 'hmmm,' and left it at that.

“That boy,” she said as Kyanna loaded her loaf onto the paddle for cooking, “he’s an honest one. You can tell in the way he always meets your eyes when you’re talking to him. Came down here at dawn for some food. Can’t go too amiss with integrity.”

Kyanna sighed and followed Hope’s lead by not disagreeing with her. Instead, she focused on the burn of her forearms as she lifted up the paddle and slid it into the oven with its load of sweet bread. She watched it carefully as the flames made the skin of sweet honey sparkle. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck from the heat and she wiped it as she listened to the familiar sound of Hope’s knife against the cutting board.

Gazing at a fire always gave one too much time to contemplate.

Kyanna bit her lip.

“Hope,” she said, hesitantly, trying to speak quietly. “You don’t…you don’t think I was cowardly for listening to father, do you?”

She could hear Hope’s massive frown. “Cowardly? Heavens, how?”

“Well, if I really loved Jeremy, wouldn’t I have fought more for him? Doesn’t this make me disloyal or, I mean, I-I wanted to be strong, you know? Smart. But I feel like I just took the easy way out. Jeremy could be crushed.”

“How was anything about this choice easy?”

“I don’t have to fight against anyone for it. It’s what everyone wants.”

“Hush, that’s not it. I’m sure lots of women in the kingdom wanted him instead.”

At Kyanna’s affronted glare, Hope chuckled.

“I’m being serious,” said Kyanna.

“And so am I,” said Hope, putting a bowl of cut potatoes aside and reaching for a fresh bowl. “You worry far too much about what everyone else wants you to do, even if it’s just so you can rebel against it.”

“I’m not rebellious. I grew out of that when I was fourteen.”

“Oh ho, so she says.”

“Hope.”

“No, princess, you were not cowardly or weak. It is much harder to bow one’s head, even to those we trust, than it is to just do whatever we want, especially when it’s something we desperately want that’s on the line. I thought that was obvious.

Kyanna hummed, still not sure she liked the sound of being told she worried to much what everyone else thought.

After glancing at her, Hope kept talking, chopping knife a patter beneath her words.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you will get over that…other one. Just give it time.”

Her insides squirmed and clenched. How could she know? “Can we not talk about this? Please?”

Hope sighed heavily and reached down to slap a slab of venison onto her workspace after scraping off a fresh round of veggies into the waiting bowl.

When others started to trickle into ready dinner, Kyanna washed up and left.

No sooner had she stepped into the main hall, when the front doors opened, and a familiar wet young man stepped through. Inwardly, she sighed, and went forward to at least do something about the ugly squirm in her gut Hope had left her with.

"We were wondering where you were."

He looked up from between his hair, grown dark from water, and gave her a goofy little grin as he swept aside his bangs.

"And who's included in this 'we'?"

She puffed out her nostrils quickly. "Why don't you—" she stopped, just noticing the light pink across his cheeks and his heavy breathing. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Just cold. Went on a bit of a run."

"You aren't sick, are you?" Ugh, if he’d caught a cold, he’d give it to her and make this honeymoon worse than it already was.

"The cold doesn't make you sick," he said, his smile weakening a bit as he straightened and made his way towards the stairs. "I'll be down for dinner, I just got to go clean up."

"Right…" But she didn't move until he had vanished into the second landing. Then she made her way to the dining room to wait, watching streams of water run down the dark windows.

Twenty minutes later, dinner was served. When Einar didn't show up, she said a private prayer of gratitude for the food and dug in, if drilled in royal table manners could be called such. Hope had outdone herself on the broiled venison steak. Pink and heady with fresh green onions and lemongrass. The meat nearly melted in her mouth, and the sweet red wine made the perfect drink alongside it.

Before she knew it, she had finished, and Einar had yet to show. Beginning to wonder if the hero was avoiding her (she couldn’t blame him, but still, ugh), and since she was done anyways, she got up.

“Keep his food warm for him as best you could,” she told the maid waiting on her.

The maid bowed her head. “Yes, your highness.

Kyanna then made her way up the stairs and through the hallways to their room.

There she found him passed out on her bed, his face flushed and his hair half dried. At least he had managed to change into dry clothes.

"Einar?" she shook his shoulder. "Einar, dinner's getting cold."

He didn't respond. A little tremor of fear knocked her stomach up to her throat. After a few more shakes and calls of his name, each one louder than the last, his eyes cracked open; sky blue, even in the dim light of the fireplace.

She didn’t allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief. He was probably just messing with her.

"Kyanna?" his voice sounded lower than usual.

She gave him a dead-panned look. “You said you weren’t sick.” He better not be.

"Yeah, just got a headache…a bit tired," he sat up slowly, a hand to the poster to steady himself. "Is dinner ready?"

"If you don't hurry, they're going to put it away."

He cursed under his breath and apologized, his eyes anywhere but at her, then tried to stand. For a moment she thought he might collapse again, but he steadied himself and set out looking none the worse for wear. The faking theory seemed more likely than ever.

Just as she clenched her teeth, she suddenly remembered that he hadn't eaten since this morning. Hope had said he had only eaten on his way out. Kyanna was no keeper of men, but what she knew from her father's constant struggle with keeping soldiers properly sustained was that active, large men needed a lot more food than women folk.

Imbecile. But, then again, she hadn't wanted to eat that day either. Heartbreak did that to you. But what heartbreak could he have? Unless he wasn’t faking his cold and it had been coming on for a while now.

When Einar returned, Kyanna had already bathed, dressed into her nightgown, and was brushing out her hair. He closed the door quietly behind him and went to the couch.

"I'm sorry if I worried you," he said, sounding better. The food must have done him some good.

"I'd need a reason first to worry about you," she said, as much to herself as him. It was technically true. If Einar died, the way would be clear for Jeremy, and Kyanna would be none the worse for wear.

Her conscience tinged at that thought. Kyanna to realize how hurtful that one statement had been, but she couldn't think of anything to say to recant it. She couldn't say she was sorry for simply stating the truth.

Hair brushed, and more than a little cold from the nasty weather despite the roaring fire, she pulled her legs in and wriggled beneath the covers.

"Princess…?"

"Yes, Hero?"

"Would you like…would you be interested in a bedtime story?"

"Another?"

He said nothing, probably because he had nothing to say. She squinted, but the shadows cast by the lone lamp and fireplace hid what she could see of him behind the couch. She sighed.

"Might as well. Though I'm beginning to wonder why you ended up a soldier in the first place. Why didn't you go off and become a bard? Might have been better for both of us if you had."

His shadowed shoulders shrugged above the couch back. "Stories aren't really made to be supported by a lifestyle or job. They're meant to support life, no matter what vocation you have; soldier, farmer, king…do you have any requests tonight?"

She sighed. “Not really.”

"Right, let me think…"

After a minute, he cleared his throat.

“There was once a foolish King who loved his Queen very much. His shallow heart was a complete slave to her, for she was the most beautiful woman in all the land. Despite her beauty, or maybe because of it, the Queen was incredibly vain and selfish. When she suddenly grew ill and found herself on her deathbed, she made the King swear that he would never marry again unless he could find a woman more beautiful than she. In his great angst, the King swore it, and the Queen died. For months the King mourned his Queen but made little attempt to replace her. After some years had passed the King’s counselors were beginning to worry about the welfare of their king and his stability in ruling the kingdom, so they pressed him to get married. Reluctantly, he sought out companions that would fit his late wife’s description, but of course it became apparent this was impossible. No woman could match the beauty of the Queen. But just as the King was about to give up, he noticed his daughter had grown into a fine, fair young woman. Not only did she take after her mother, but her beauty could be said to even surpass hers. With that, he approached the counsel and told them of his plans to marry his daughter. They were horrified. But the King’s shallow heart had awoken and set itself upon the Princess. When the news of his plans reached his daughter, she was equally disgusted as well as dismayed, for how could she refuse the will of her father and king?”

“That’s horrid!” Kyanna exclaimed, her stomach jerking. He doesn’t think of me like that, does he? As a princess who can’t refuse the will of her father and king, even to the point of doing something abhorrent? He had to feel something about Kyanna already loving someone else. The easiest one would be anger towards her or her father for rushing this marriage without telling him. He couldn’t be thinking anything good of her, certainly.

“Naturally,” he said, “and the princess, in attempts to defer the mad ambitions of her father, demanded that she have a cloak made of the fur of every animal as a betrothal gift. She hoped that her father would get caught up in the difficulty of this task and give up, but she underestimated him. The King sent out all his finest huntsmen unto all the world and they all returned with a pelt of every animal imaginable. From the huntsman’s haul her cloak was made. Betrothal gift made, the impatient King now demanded the hand of his daughter. So the daughter then demanded a bridal gift of three gowns of which the likes had never been seen: a gown the color of the moon, a gown the color of the sun, and a gown the color of the sky. And the colors had to be exact. They had to be near replicas of the objects themselves.

“This is where the Color Master came in, for the princess isn’t the hero of this story. The Color Master was the name given to a very gifted individual who owned a most curious shop in the kingdom. This shop’s specialty was color, along with a wide variety of various crafts. They’d often take the most peculiar requests from clients searching for the remarkable in color, such as a Duke who wanted shoes to make his feet invisible (he was terribly self-conscious about his feet), a foreign Countess who wanted a hat the exact same color as her lost hair (wigs frightened her), or a rich merchant who wanted a plate the exact color of a chicken’s eye (his wife’s pregnancy craving).

In most cases, the Color Master would direct her apprentices to do their best with matching the color before entering in herself to add the finishing touches that made it truly remarkable. The Color Master’s eye for color was nothing short of magical, and all her clients proclaimed her work to be magic. The Duke looked as though he stood on his ankles, hardly anyone could tell that the Countess was bald, and the rich merchant was able to get some well-deserved sleep.

“So, naturally, it was this shop that received the very special order of the King to make these remarkable three dresses. The request was to be the most difficult task the shop had ever made. But when the artisans went to plan their approach to this difficult task, they found their Color Master had fallen deathly ill. Little did they know that this illness had been plaguing her for some time and only now was taking its toll. Then, surprising everyone, she passed on the job and her line to the lowliest and most humble of them all: a shy, uncertain young woman, who quailed at the task at hand. Yet, for the sake of her loyalty to the Color Master, whom she deeply admired, she vowed to do her best. Though in reality, she knew she could never match up to the Color Master’s skill, for it was much more than color that she saw.

“Once the shop got started on mixing the base color for the dress of the Moon (which was to be first), the young apprentice visited the Color Master in her home, where she lived with her disabled brother. There she begged the Color Master to choose another, for she was the least fit of them all, but the sickly woman insisted that she saw what was in her. ‘I’m dying,’ she said, ‘and I can see death. It’s not dark, but rather a purple-blue.’ Ignoring all her protests and insecurities, the Color Master pressed her to put anger into the dress the color of the moon. ‘For haven’t you heard? The King intends to marry his daughter, and this is to be a bridal gift. It is wrong for a Father to force his daughter to marry. You must put in anger and give her the strength to leave.’ And the apprentice left with only a few strands of the Color Master’s silvery hair to help in dying the dress the appropriate reflective color. When the young apprentice’s time to do the final color mix that would turn the dress from beautiful, reminiscent color of the moon to a full-blown mirror, she found that she could almost hear the colors singing to her as her hand brushed over the many bins of dye. The dress came out better than she had expected, but not nearly a match to the beautiful touch of the Color Master. But when they sent the dress away to the castle, she realized that she had been so focused on simply making the dress acceptable that she had forgotten to try and put in the anger the Color Master had asked for. But even if she had remembered, she did not have an inkling of how she would have accomplished that.”

He stopped momentarily to clear his throat, his voice having gone hoarse.

She found herself pulling back the urge to tell him he could stop if he was tired. Forcing herself to be polite to this man was a conscious effort on her part, and she was too tired to put forth that effort. Let him talk himself hoarse. Couldn’t kill him.

Instead, she pulled out the unopened locket and bounced it a bit on its thick chain. His glanced back at the ‘chink’ sound but turned back to the fire almost as soon as he caught sight of it.

The rest of his story came through occasional breaks to clear his throat or yawn.

“When the next dress came, the dress the color of the sun, she visited the Color Master once more. This time she was worse and sicker than ever. ‘Death is glowing,’ she said, ‘shadowy, but glowing.’ She gave her apprentice suggestions on how to pull off a dress the color of the sun—a bright white that’s almost hard to look at, and yet yellow—before pressing once more for that rage to be put into the dress. ‘You do not bring something into the world just to bring it back into you. You are to set it free.’ And she spoke it free of moral obligation. It simply was, as she saw it, and that is what made her who she was. The young apprentice was once more captured in wonder at how much the Color Master beheld. It was so much more than the color of shoes for self-conscious dukes or hats or plates. In that moment, the young woman was reminded of her own indignation of how unrealized and underappreciated the Color Master was.

“This time, as her hands coasted over the bins of dye, she held to that indignation, urging herself to find it within the colors. It was a pale comparison to what she imagined the princess to hold, but it still shone out through the brilliance of the sunny skirts.

“The next time she visited the Color Master it was only to find her master dead. They had just begun the plans for the last dress, the dress the color of the sky. She stood there alone in the little cottage, watching the Color Master as though she were just asleep, when fury over her death overwhelmed her. It seemed suddenly, incredibly unfair for the Color Master had not been that old. She had been beautiful and young and had merely been one of those people who grey early. And yet here she was, dead and still unrealized and underappreciated for the eyes she had, for the wisdom she held.

“The apprentice held that rage and despair as the funeral came and went, and when her time came to finish the final dyes of the dress, she sent all the other artisans home. All night long, consumed by rage, she flung dyes into the dress as though angry with the sky itself…”

Einar paused. When his silence stretched out, Kyanna shook herself from the temptation of dozing and straightened up from her pillows. She could still see his head above the couch back, face towards the fire.

“Is that it?”

He moved, little more than a twist to the side. He must have lain down, though, as the long shadows painted by his feet vanished along with his head.

“The day…” he yawned, then coughed. “The day after the dress was delivered the city was abuzz with the news of the princess’s flight. The King was understandably enraged and had every soul on the lookout, and no one imagined a girl carrying three remarkable dresses as brilliant as the moon, sun, and sky to be all that hard to find. Even so, the apprentice, now Color Master herself, prayed for the princess’s strength and hoped she would never be found.

“And she wasn’t until after the King had died, and that is another story in and of itself, one of a ball where a mysterious maiden wearing dresses of the moon, the sun, and the sky stole the heart of the prince.”

Kyanna yawned, hugging her pillow. “I like that one.”

“I thought you would,” she heard the smile in his voice.

Even so, she frowned, closing her eyes.

“You don’t think of me like that, do you?”

“Like what, Princess?”

“Like…some princess who didn’t have the guts to tell her father no.”

She heard something like a smile in his voice. “That’s probably what you think of yourself. But it doesn’t matter to me either way. I would have worked with it, whatever the outcome, and done my best.”

“Done your best for what?” Though it came out nearly incomprehensible through a sudden, jaw-cracking yawn.

“To be where I am now.” The couch creaked as he shifted in place. “And everyone needs encouragement to defy strength. But I think it takes even more guts to see wisdom despite the strength and follow through with it. After all…” his voice had grown so soft she could hardly hear him, or it could have been because she was already half asleep. “No one likes being told what to do.”