Burning for Love (Kindred Tales)

“But I’ll be the Queen at that point!” Rissa pointed out.

“That matters not a bit, my girl,” Lady Mildew said sharply. “You might rule the planet by virtue of your First Family blood, but your husband will still rule you—as is right and proper. There—I’ve finally finished those confounded buttons. Let’s get you into your wig.”

The wig for tonight was a heavy one made of gray fuux-hair that rose a good two feet above Rissa’s head in a towering headdress bedecked with ribbons and lace. A fake bird’s nest with a tiny golden bird and three sky-blue eggs perched in the very center of it. The bird sang every now and then—three high, trilling notes that Rissa found unbearably irritating after a while.

But before she could put the elaborate wig on, her own abundant curls had to be scraped flat and shoved up under a stretchy skull-cap. The cap had a tight seal that gave her a headache when she wore it too long but it was still better than being shaved bald, as Lady Mildew was always advocating.

“You know, most of the ladies in Court have much shorter hair—or none at all,” the older woman said now, huffing in irritation as she attempted to shove Rissa’s hair into the tight, stretchy cap. “We ought to have the Royal barber in here and make an end to these confounded curls—it would make getting your wig on so much easier!”

“I have told you before, Lady Mildew, I will not allow myself to be shaved bald, simply so it’s easier to wear these monstrous wigs we are all forced into by the dictates of fashion,” Rissa said coolly. “I like my own hair.”

“Foolish vanity!” Lady Mildew muttered, shoving harder at Rissa’s hair and pulling out several long, curly strands which made Rissa wince in pain. “Let’s see how long you want to keep your hair when you don’t have me to slave over getting you ready, my girl! You think one of those shiny silver robots can do your hair? Why, you’ll be lucky to get it to run the bath water without falling in and shorting itself out!”

Rissa ignored this tirade, as well as she could, and tried to hold still. At last her hair was all confined beneath the skull cap and Lady Mildew was able to fit the huge, gray wig upon her head.

It was a weighty, wobbly tower of hair and it had to be secured with two dozen pins that dug sharply into Rissa’s scalp before Lady Mildew was at last ready to spray it with wig powder.

The older woman took the miniature leather bellows from the dressing table and filled it with the starchy white powder. Then she draped a sheet around Rissa’s neck and gave her a shield to hold over her face.

“Hold still now!” she commanded, and began pumping the bellows energetically, filling the air with the scent of laelock flowers and starch.

Rissa held her breath and tried not to sneeze, which always resulted in her wig going askew and a severe scolding from her old chaperone. Ugh—she hated the fashions she was forced to wear. The white gowns that showed her glowing points and the heavy wigs that hid her real hair. Everything was just so fake—as fake as all the Ladies and Gentlemen at Court, smiling and bowing to her and calling her “Your Highness” and pretending to be her friends.

But one of them tried to have me killed! Rissa thought to herself, as she waited for the wig powder to settle. It must have been someone from one of the First Families—someone who didn’t want me to ascend the throne and be Queen.

She had been trying hard not to think about the assassination attempt—it had happened so quickly and was over so fast it almost seemed like a dream. The would-be assassin had jumped from behind the door in the palace library in a wholly unexpected attack that had left Rissa shaken for days afterwards.

Though she tried hard to forget it, she could still feel the knife the man in black had held at her throat before one of the palace guards had shot him through the eye with a well-placed bullet.

It was because of the attempt on her life that she was getting the Kindred robot guard. It had happened just before the visit of Commander Sylvan and his wife and they had promised her uncle, the Steward, that they could send a special kind of robot Kindred warrior who would keep her safe until her marriage and ascension to the throne.

Which will hopefully be soon, Rissa thought to herself. Surely her uncle would approve a new batch of suitable suitors she could choose from before too long. After serving her sweet Papa for so long, he would certainly understand that her Heat Cycle had to be taken care of before she combusted, as her dear Mama had…