Whisper of Blade | ✓ (Crimson #1)

Chapter 19: Pain of Death

"He's handed me a double-edged sword," Minerva said numbly. Water dripped from her hair to leave damp stains on her bathrobe. "And I have no idea what to do with it."

Kaolin continued wringing out Minerva's locks with a heated cloth, kept warm from a miniscule amount of fire power. "There is only one viable option."

"Which is?"

"Wield it, of course." With her matter-of-fact tone, Kaolin could have almost convinced her.

"And if I end up dead because of it?" Minerva asked with a raised eyebrow. She caught Kaolin's wrist with her hand and looked up at her.

Her maidservant's brush strokes faltered before she answered, "Only a minor inconvenience."

Kaolin would never learn how much she agreed with that sentiment. Dying was a minor inconvenience. Living however—well, that was the major one.

And it was the pain of the death that terrified her most—the transition between the two.

Minerva released her grip on Kaolin—her maid resuming her work—and touched each of the items on the vanity one by one. A silver letter opener. A crystal flask of perfume. A traditional hair ornament—a kanzashi—crafted into the shapes of delicate metal cherry blossoms. They were all old gifts. Not to her, but from her.

For Edina.

"Going out into the lower ring of the city will be dangerous." Kaolin set the brush down and sectioned off parts of Minerva's hair to braid, weaving in the kirukkan stone chain as she went.

Minerva pinched the side of the chain Kaolin wasn't using taut, so that the stone wouldn't rest too low on her forehead. "I've been in the lower ring before."

"Not as the Pyro Heir, you haven't."

"If the Hydro embassy could make it to the palace without incident, my failure to appear to the people would be an act of cowardice and nothing else."

Mala shifted from where she'd been napping beside the vanity and chair. With a glance at the manticore's bound paw, Minerva laid a gentle hand on her guardian's head. "Mala is almost healed and will be a last line of defense should the other security measures you've taken prove to be inadequate."

Sharp tugs on her hair as Kaolin gathered it up into a bun signaled to Minerva that her maidservant had not been placated with being put in command of the protection of her person. If anything, it had caused her understandable anxiety.

"What if someone else happens to recognize you?" Kaolin roughly speared the kanzashi through Minerva's hair.

"Paint and powder. You're a master of it," Minerva answered.

Kaolin sniffed, but the curtness of her movements lessened.

They didn't speak while Kaolin brought out and applied the aforementioned cosmetics—aside from her telling Minerva how to turn her head or to summon a flame for better light. Under Kaolin's delicate application, Minerva watched her scars vanish; the dark circles below her eyes fade. When she raised her fingers to brush her cheek, Kaolin slapped her hand with the brush.

"Don't ruin it," Kaolin said softly.

Her tone, almost begging, reminded Minerva of the Kaolin she'd met years ago. In a way, her old acquaintance had grown as jaded over the years as she had. But still, Minerva could see the lingering remnants of the girl who wanted nothing more than to be an artist, who catalogued faces she wanted to paint as other people noted strangers whose faces they found attractive.

Yet, Kaolin had been her own worst critic.

There had been one morning after staking out the Inari mansion and its guards, where Kaolin almost walked out on the job. On her. All over a simple portrait.