Page 99 of Born for Silk
Of course it is.
Our doors don’t lock.
Don’t do go in, Aster.
It’s none of your business.
She needs her rest.
Holding my breath, I gently push the door open and peer inside, seeing an identical room to the one I sleep in and an unmoving human-shaped lump beneath a gold sheet on the bed.
My throat tightens. “Ana?”
The ornamental fire on the wall emits a glow of deep yellow and warm, cosy waves.
I step inside and close the door, the puzzle clutched in my hand. “Ana?”
“Go away.”
I exhale audibly hard. “Oh, my. I was so worried, Ana.”
I walk over to her bedside and peer down at her. The golden sheet is pulled up to her chin, her fingers curled over the top, holding it there. There is a little tendril of her dark hair laying over her face, and I want to sweep it aside for her.
“Are you sedated with Opi?” I ask.
She blinks and shakes her head—no.
A long unbearable silence circles the room.
As she stares at the fake yellow flames, I slide down to the floor and press my back to the mattress.
I empty the puzzle on the carpet and begin organising the pieces by colour. “I know we are meant to make the border first,” I say quietly. “But I like to make smaller pictures first, and then fit them all together at the end to make a larger image. The Silk Wardeness used to say this was because I wanted immediate satisfaction and was impatient. But that’s not true. It is because when I make the border first and simply fill it in, I don’t get to appreciate the smaller details as much.”
I sigh. The small details of Rome and I and our intimacy don’t create a greater picture. Accept it, Aster.
Tears sting the back of my eyes as I work on the puzzle in silence on the floor beside her bed until the fire turns a deep red and I know I have to leave her room.
Despite trying to be quiet, the next first-light Ana wakes to the sound of me clearing my throat. Or maybe it’s the steaming scent of honey that lifts her lids.
“Your Watcher allowed me to bring you oatmeal in bed,” I say, looking at the bowl on her nightstand. “They are worried, too, and I don’t think they know what to do.”
Thumbing a puzzle piece into place, I slide the second completed flower aside and get to work on the third. Jumbling and sorting the puzzle shapes together.
She groans. “You’re not going away.”
“You were nice to me,” I mumble. That is not something I will forget. I know you feel awful, Ana.
“I will never be a Sired Mother.”
She means, ‘I will never see him again.’ Her softly spoken words are choked with sorrow, but I cannot help but feel relief in hearing her voice. I don’t know how to respond, to not scare her voice away with the wrong thought. Blossom would give her hope. Daisy would state the facts.
We can work on this together, just like the puzzle. I’m sure she is worried she will never have two boys and a girl. No other lord will take a Silk Girl who has been opened by another man. It just isn’t done.
I start to talk with a lie on my tongue, about how she may still be given a chance, but instead stop. “You have Meaningful Purpose, Ana,” I offer. And I will, too. “You have to appreciate the smaller pieces, like with this puzzle.” And maybe I can, too. “You have a bowl of oatmeal and honey, a swollen belly, this puzzle, and me. The whole picture comes later.”
“That one goes there,” she says by my ear, so I peer over my shoulder to see her eyes open and scanning the puzzle. I smile. Her gaze is present, not miles away like it was yesterday.
“This one?” I point.