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She looks the part of Sankta Alina, she knows, gold spikes and pearls set into the gossamer white of her hair (“Think of it like the rays of the sun if a tiara bothers you so much, sweetheart,” had been Nikolai’s offering), robes falling to the floor in waves of glistening silk, shot through with gold threads, rich and resplendent and nearly stiff enough to stand empty without her.
The embroidery marking it is deepest blue, of course, the summoner’s color, and Genya does up her face beautifully, all rose blush and thick lashes and just a scattered hint of gold, enough to distract from the Ravkan double-eagle jewelry that waits in velvet cases to be draped over her.
But that robe - alone for one last moment, Alina eyes it where it hangs, drawing back the edge to slide her fingers across the fabric that will touch her skin, hold her, caress every line of her body, and smiles to see the Fabrikators followed her last and most important instruction to the letter: line it in black.
“The throne suits you,” he says, his voice velvet-soft as the dark, echoing in the deserted throne room.
Alina swallows past the sudden tightness in her throat, breathes him in as he looms over her, despite the marble heavy under her fingers, despite the crown on her head, despite it all, and the worst part is she knows that he knows it; knows he’s watching her lips part as he leans into her, close enough to touch, and whispers, “What would you have of me, moi tsarina?”
Still, she has one satisfaction: the look in his eyes when she speaks a single word, kneel.