by Jamie Lackey
in Issue 75, April 2018
Every girl in our kingdom is born with a bit of beauty. I was born with very little. Kiahna was born with almost enough to matter.
She sat by a window, working on her mending, the sunshine glowing golden in her braided hair. I was memorizing her freckles instead of doing my own work.
She pricked her finger and swore. A spot of blood spread across the worn fabric.
“I hate sewing,” she said. “I wish I could marry a prince. Then I’d never have to mend anything.”
Kiahna’s dream of marrying a prince made my chest hurt. “I’ll give you my beauty,” I said. “It’s not much, but maybe it would help you catch a rich man’s eye.”
“Oh, no, Lilybet,” she said. “You can’t do that!”
I shrugged. “Maybe if we combined it…” I trailed off. I didn’t really want her to leave me.
“If you’re sure,” Kiahna said. “But you have to think about it for two weeks.”
Two weeks later, I gave her my beauty.
When I told my mother what we’d done, she took my chin and stared at my face. She turned me this way and that, then sighed. “There’s hardly a difference.”
“I’ve always been plain,” I said.
“Why, Lilybet? Why would you give it to her?”
“I just want her to be happy.”
“But what do you want for yourself?” she asked. “What will you do when she finds her prince and leaves you behind?”
I shrugged. I’d given her my beauty. I’d sacrifice my happiness for her, too, if I needed to. But I didn’t tell my mother that.
With our combined beauty, Kiahna was breathtaking.
I missed her freckles.
The other girls were jealous, at first, but the local boys still sought them out, since everyone knew that Kiahna was destined for greater things.
The two of us sat together while they courted. I did Kiahna’s mending for her–I’d grown skilled at it, and I enjoyed taking something damaged and unloved and turning it back into something useful.
“I don’t know why none of them are courting you.”
I looked up from her mending and held her eyes for a long moment.
She closed her book. “You’re right. I do know, but they’re idiots.”
I went back to my sewing. “It’s fine. I don’t want them courting me.”
“Maybe we’ll both marry princes,” she said, her voice wistful.
“Kiahna, I don’t want a prince courting me, either.”
“What do you want?” Her voice was gentle, like she really wanted me to tell her. To say the words out loud. The moment, stretched, perfect and bright, like a dewdrop in the morning sun, catching the light for an instant before it falls.
I took a deep breath.
Before I could speak, Kiahna’s mother ran up, her face glowing with excitement. “There’s a young lord at the inn.”
Kiahna sprang to her feet.
I finished our sewing alone.
He was the second son of a duke, not a prince. But he was handsome and young and in need of a wife. He would do.
I hated him.
We all sat together, picnicking under a tree on the fifth day of the lordling’s visit. “You must come and meet my family,” he said, stroking the back of Kiahna’s hand. “They’ll adore you.”
“Of course, it would be my honor,” she said, her voice soft and demure. “But I’d miss my home. Could Lilybet accompany us?”
I kept my face carefully blank as the lordling glanced at me. “Anything for you, darling,” he said. “But won’t her family miss her?”
“Kiahna’s family will miss her as well,” I said, straining to keep my voice sweet. I didn’t want to go with them. I hated sitting with them, hated how his eyes lingered on her like he owned her, hated the gentle, simpering voice she used when she talked to him.
But if she wanted me to go with her, I would.
We traveled to the lordling’s family estate in a grand carriage. He and Kiahna talked in low voices while I stared out the narrow window, watching the land roll by. Within a day we were farther from my home than I’d ever been.
That night, while the lordling arranged for our lodging, I pulled Kiahna aside. “Why did you want me to come?” I asked. I tried not to think of the moment on the hill, before the lordling arrived. I’d been foolish to get my hopes up.
“I’m here because of your beauty. You didn’t think I’d leave you behind?” She took my hands between hers. “I won’t abandon you, Lilybet. I won’t forget what you sacrificed for me. I’ll get a rich husband, and we’ll live in luxury together.”
“That isn’t why I gave you my beauty,” I said.
“Then why did you?”
“Because I want you to be happy.”
She squeezed my hands. “I am happy, Lilybet.”
When we finally arrived, the lordling swept Kiahna inside, where he introduced her to his family. They left me outside with the luggage.
That night, Kiahna and I were shown to our room. There was a single huge bed, covered with blankets and pillows.
We climbed in on opposite sides, and I was careful not to touch her. But I could hear her even breath and feel her warmth, shared beneath the covers.
I wanted so much to reach out and take her hand. Instead, I rolled onto my side and tried to sleep.
I still hated the lordling, and his family was worse. They cooed over Kiahna’s hair and eyes and skin. His sisters treated her like a prize pet, and his brothers eyed her with hunger hiding behind their smiles. Their eyes skimmed over me.
I began to feel like a ghost. Like I had died, and followed Kiahna as an unwelcome spirit.
She was only herself in the middle of the night, when we spoke in low voices, huddled under the blankets in our massive bed.
“I think his sisters want to steal my skin and wear it,” she whispered.
“That’s not what his brothers want,” I whispered back.
Kiahna laughed. “Oh, Lilybet, you’re the only one in this house who still makes me feel like a person.”
“What about your lordling?” I asked.
She was silent for a long moment. “You know that he’s no better than the rest of them. They all see me as a pretty toy.”
“You don’t love him?”
“Of course not.” She sounded surprised and hurt, like I should know better. Like I had a reason to know better.
Kiahna and I sat together in the library. She was reading one of the beautiful, leather-bound books. I was mending a rip in one of my dresses. It was a bad tear, but I could add bit of decorative stitching, and it would be even better than new.
Her lordling came in, fresh from hunting. There was a spot of blood on one of his shirtsleeves. If he didn’t soak it soon, it would never come out.
He grinned at Kiahna and rushed toward her. “My father has given me permission to ask for your hand.” He dropped to one knee next to her chair. “Would you do the honor of being my wife?”
Kiahna’s gaze flicked up to me, then back to him. “I would.”
“I want to go home,” I said, two nights later.
“What? No, Lilybet. You can’t leave me.”
“I have to,” I said. I couldn’t stay and watch her marry him. I just couldn’t.
“Why?” she asked, her voice cold and angry. “There’s no one waiting for you there.”
I blinked my tears away. “There’s nothing for me here, either.”
I left the next morning.
But I didn’t go home. I wandered from one town to the next, trading mending for food and a place to sleep.
I made my way to a small city. After a few weeks of mending holes in socks and split seams in pants, a girl asked me to make her a wedding dress. Her freckles reminded me of Kiahna and my chest ached.
“I don’t have much to work with,” she said. “I was going to wear my mother’s dress, but the moths got to it.” She opened her hope chest, and we looked through it together. There was a small pile of silk handkerchiefs in the bottom corner.
“What are these?” I asked, running a gentle finger over them. They were slightly yellowed from age, but still a delight to touch.
“My great grandmother worked for the queen. They were a gift, but we could never find a use for them.”
“I could use these in a dress,” I said, imagining how they’d fit together as a bodice, how the silk would hug the curves of her body.
Her smile was like sunshine.
I’d never created something new before, but it came as naturally as breathing. I sewed the handkerchiefs together, and used strips from her mother’s dress for the skirt. I embroidered roses in white thread that stood out just enough against the yellowed silk.
When I saw the girl wearing the dress I’d made, it made my chest ache in a whole new way.
She invited me to her wedding, and I wondered if Kiahna had looked as happy when she married her lordling.
I hoped so, even though the thought hurt.
Afterwards, more brides sought me out, and they paid good coin. My reputation spread. I loved the work, but wasn’t quite happy. I thought about my last conversation with Kiahna, and realized that what I told her was still true.
I wanted to go home.
“You came back,” my mother said, hugging me tight.
I kissed her cheek. “I want to open a dress shop.”
“That is wonderful,” she said. “I’m so glad you finally found something for yourself.”
“You were right. And thank you.”
She hugged me again. “There’s something else you should know–“
Kiahna burst through the door.
I froze, staring at her.
“You’re not the only one who came home,” my mother said. She kissed my temple and left us alone.
“You’re here,” Kiahna whispered, her eyes meeting mine like she could see nothing else.
“I am. But why are you here?” I asked.
“I tried to follow you,” she said. “But no one knew where you’d gone. So, I waited. I’ve been waiting.” She stepped forward and touched my cheek. “I want to give you your beauty back.”
“I don’t need it,” I said, dazed.
“But it’s yours,” Kiahna whispered.
“It’s not enough to matter.”
“It matters to me.”
I let myself touch her cheek, tracing her freckles as they reappeared. My chest ached.
She wrapped her arms around me. “I can’t believe that you’re really here. I’m so sorry for what I said, and so sorry that I was such an idiot. I thought you knew how I felt, but I should have told you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I love you, Lilybet. No one else. Just you. Always. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I wanted you to tell me first. Because I’m an idiot.”
I rested my forehead against hers and felt her words settle into my heart, filling the hole that I thought I’d live with for the rest of my life. “I forgive you. I love you, too. And I promise that you’ll never have to mend anything again.”
Her laugh was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
©April 2018 Jamie Lackey
Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cat. She has over 120 short fiction credits, and has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the Stoker Award-winning After Death…. Her fiction has appeared on the Best Horror of the Year Honorable Mention and Tangent Online Recommended Reading Lists, and she’s a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her short story collection, OneRevolution, and her science fiction novella, Moving Forward, are available on Amazon.com. She read submissions for the Hugo-winning Clarkesworld Magazine for five years and was an assistant editor for the Hugo-winning Electric Velocipede from 2012-2013. She served as editor for Triangulation: Lost Voices in 2015 Triangulation: Beneath the Surface in 2016. Her debut novel, Left Hand Gods, will be available from Hadley Rille Books in July 2016. In addition to writing, she spends her time reading, playing tabletop RPGs, baking, and hiking. You can find her online at www.jamielackey.com.