Time-skips will be frequent for the rest of this story, as short as it's likely to be. Happy seventeenth birthday, Daine! Enjoy the long chapter.

If you already feel the loss of an alternate universe from Tortall—I could write these all year. The first chapter of Lady Lioness has already been posted, and it's based on an even easier premise. Alanna's mother didn't die in childbirth, Alanna never became a knight, and the entire world was different by the time that sixteen-year-old Lady Alanna of Trebond was presented at court.

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Thirty-seven: Painstaking

No amount of help from her allies in the People would save her, Daine knew, but it was still tempting to ask the sparrows just outside the window to come in and frighten the seamstresses. She knew it was an uncharitable thought, and that it was definitely unbecoming of the lady she would be by the end of the night, but Thayet was being impossible. Daine told her so, with all of her usual candor, and it was a testament to the sheer amount of dress-fitting that had happened in the last week that not one of the seamstresses or maids present reacted to someone telling the queen to go bother her husband instead.

After a full hour of final touches and last alterations, and five minutes before Daine lost her patience and convinced every animal in her range to come visit the queen's sitting room, the seamstresses stepped away. Daine, of course, was not in command of the fleet of girls. They answered to Queen Thayet and her favorite dressmaker, Rielle. It seemed to Daine that Rielle should really be a dress-sketcher, when Daine had yet to see Rielle touch something so common as a needle, but everyone else seemed happy enough with an arrangement that left Daine sewn into a steel-grey dress with a neckline that had nothing at all to do with her neck.

After Rielle nodded her approval and Thayet kissed both Rielle and Daine on the cheek, Daine was finally allowed to see the results, and somehow she couldn't hate the dress so much as it deserved. It had been the reason that she stood perfectly still for ten hours, without even a book to occupy herself, and it had been the cause for dozens of accidental pinpricks. (Daine still thought several had been intentional, but would also admit that she had probably deserved them after that disaster of a fitting.) By all rights, she could hate it and set it on fire the instant that her debut ball was over. Thayet would stop being smug, or at least she would have knocked it off if Daine hadn't already reacted.

It was a very pretty shade of silver, one that made her eyes shine blue, and the neckline wasn't all that bad. It cut wide instead of deep, showing all of her collarbones and only four fingers beneath them, and the cap sleeves were light enough that she still had the range of motion to draw a bow if she felt the need. (Daine had insisted that her dress would not be pink or she would have every animal in her range defecate on it, and for once Thayet had backed down from a threat.) The seamstresses had sewn her into the bodice, which shifted into skirts with soft, comfortable layers under the stiff, shining fabric on the outside. They had even lined the bodice with silk when the stitches made Daine fidget.

"It's wonderful," she admitted finally, rather taken with the sight of herself in the mirror. Ma never would have believed this, or maybe she had. Maybe she'd known things would get better, later, and Alanna was fair sure that her Ma would be able to watch things now. "Thank you, everybody, and I promise I'll only be half as much of a grouch next time."

The seamstresses tried to hide their smiles when they nodded in acknowledgment. Rielle herself nodded very stiffly before leaving, with all six of the younger girls scurrying after her while picking up whatever scraps of fabric and designs came to hand.

"You were very good, Daine," Thayet said teasingly, standing behind the girl and looking at their reflection. When she continued, her voice and expression alike were more serious. "I know that you hate this kind of thing, but it means a lot to me that you're going to let us fuss over you properly. We even convinced Buri to come."

"I've been looking forward to it, actually." Daine gathered her skirts into one hand carefully. She had been practicing the motions with Thayet and Kally in the months before her formal presentation, but she had never tried with materials so fine. "It's not as if I haven't been to all the fancy dinners for the last age, and I've been the middle of attention plenty. I just haven't been the focus when I was dressed up all nice before."

"We all wanted to be sure that you'd have all the attention you deserve."

The words sounded ominous, and the words were on the tip of Daine's tongue to protest that she didn't need more presents than a fief of her own, but her jaw dropped when Thayet opened the expected box of jewelry. The gemstone earbobs had been nice, and the pendant with the opal the size of a knuckle, but this would make everything else in her growing collection of jewelry look paltry.

Daine wasn't one for many material things, but just the sight of the silver pearl earbobs and the matching necklace was enough to halt even her instinctive protests that they were spending too much money on her. She would be a lady in just a few hours, with lands of her own, and it wasn't as if she couldn't spoil all of them right back.

"Arram said that you'd mentioned pearls, once, and from there..." Thayet put the earbobs in for her, one after another, as if it was perfectly natural for a queen to act as someone's handmaiden. "There's a card in your room, so we didn't have to think about finding things later, but this is from me, Jon, Kally, Alanna, George, Myles, Lindhall, Miri, and Arram. Miri's aunt married a pearl-diver, and she'd been saving this set for somebody special."

Daine touched the pearls gently while Thayet fastened them around her neck. "I'll be sending everybody lots of letters, you can be sure about that."

Thayet beamed, but for once Daine didn't feel paled in comparison. The shining of the pearls had captivated far too much of her attention. "George actually lost a bet. He thought that you'd need to be talked into the present again, but the rest of us knew better. You and Arram understand each other far too well for a hand-chosen present to not work out exactly as planned."

Someone knocked on the door before Daine had to come up with a response to that odd statement. Alanna was in an elaborate lavender dress with matching gems at her ears, something that must have taken at least two people to finish up nicely, and Thayet had been wearing her own overly-detailed dress throughout Daine's entire fitting. She supposed she'd need to get more used to complicated dresses, as a full lady of the court, but she was spending every last minute on her home fief in breeches. Visitors could stuff it if they didn't like the informal dress code, she would be close enough to Corus that she'd be dressing up enough as it was.

Somehow, she got all the way to the ballroom without realizing that no one had mentioned her escort. George had already taken Alanna's arm, and the king wouldn't take anyone but Thayet or his own daughters, and Sir Myles was already inside. Onua and Sarge had taken a seat at the Rider-populated table, but neither was one for the spotlight at formal affairs. Sir Raoul was very kind, but hardly one of her close friends, and Lindhall had already said very firmly that he would only trip himself and her in front of the entire assembly.

Somehow, she still wasn't surprised when Arram was there. He had been leaning against a wall to wait for the party, wearing his black silk robe over a dark blue shirt and black pants. She could pay more attention to his clothes, perhaps, but she was more surprised by the absence of a great deal of jewelry. He had his amber eardrop, the one that she always asked to hold to study the little insect that had been trapped inside for thousands of years, and one black opal set on a chain around his neck.

She thought that she had been staring for far too long without saying much of anything, but he broke the silence before she could stutter out some vowel sound or other. "You look beautiful, Daine."

She'd heard far more eloquent things, perhaps, but his complete sincerity always made her blush faster than anything else. "Thanks, Arram—Numair, sorry," she corrected, blushing even pinker. "I swear I'll remember one of these days, but it might not be until my eighteenth birthday."

"It's not much of a concern within the palace itself," Numair said kindly, taking her arm while she composed herself again. "Happy birthday. Not just everyone gets land and a title for the occasion, you know."

"I haven't even thought of a name," Daine confessed. "I didn't know until yesterday that I'd be getting land on the sea, just an hour's ride from Alanna and George, and this morning I heard that there's a fishing village."

"There's an entire cove of oysters, as well. They're the source of the necklace. Alanna had me ride out that way to be sure that we had a good enough foundation to begin building on four months ago, and between our shameless flattery and Miri's letters home, they were happy to add on the pearls as a welcoming gift."

"Miri's village?" Daine was not at all sure what to make of the news.

"It's fine," Numair assured her quietly. "They didn't have a lord, and recently they've been having problems with thieves stealing hours of work off of the sand. The pearl-divers are happy for the funding you can bring, as well as guards, and the fishermen were as happy as anything to have you living there. They're quite sure that you'll be good luck, and that's with the full knowledge that you'll not bring any animals to their nets."

Daine relaxed, even if it was quite odd to think that Miri could someday be one of the commoners that technically owed allegiance to her. Daine would be a very different kind of noble, though, and Jon had known that from the very start. "I still need to name the fief. The village itself is usually just Waves-on-the-Rock, if I remember right."

"That won't come until the end of the night, magelet," Numair soothed, squeezing her shoulders. "Even if you can't think of anything just yet, tell the crowd that you'll need more time to consider and then make the thank-you speech. It'll be fine."

Daine exhaled slowly, then looked up into his eyes. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Numair," she said, her blush entirely replaced by a smile. "It seems that you're always there to help when I need it."

Numair actually kissed her hand, something that he had certainly never done before. It was something that he did with all the court ladies, and even then he only bent over the hand with the ladies he actually liked. Daine blushed all over again, noticing that, but Numair didn't say a word about the sudden rush of heat to her cheeks.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Daine could have sworn that his voice was a few tones lower than normal. "I would say that I'm returning the favor, but I think we've traded that back and forth so many times that it doesn't count for anything now."

They didn't have time to say anything else before she was introduced to the court, but maybe it was just as well. She hadn't known at all what to say in response to such a thing, and he hadn't looked any more confident about what the proper response would be. She did dance with him several times that night, but she never had the chance to sit. Jon took her hand for one song, even, and George chose the most complicated song of the night and was just as short of breath as Daine when it finally came to a close. The nobles held their tongues about Daine's mother, for once, perhaps warned by the way that one of Daine's friends was always just within hearing.

To add to the wonders, Daine didn't stutter at all when it was her turn to address the court. She thought that she had managed to sound fair gracious, by the way that her friends looked fit to burst out of happiness, and she even had a few of the conservatives smiling with her praise to Tortall itself.

She named her fiefdom Pearl Cove, and for one of the last times wondered what all the folk in Snowsdale would think of her now. They hadn't been much impressed with Sarra's bastard, or with the girl that ran with wolves. They probably wouldn't recognize Lady Veralidaine of Pearl Cove, like it said in the handkerchief that Kalasin had embroidered for her in the tiniest stitches Daine had ever seen. Her friends would, though, just as they'd recognize her covered in muck from cleaning out the stalls or even as the tigress that was play-wrestling Roald in the courtyard.

Daine had friends now, the best of them, and nearly all of them knew the truth about her ma. They knew that her mother had taken a god to her bed one Beltane, and that she'd refused to get married all those years after because she had her own ways of being faithful. Her friends knew that her ma was a goddess, now, and that her da had been the one to leave the bow at the foot of her bed on the last Beltane to pass.

People could say all that they liked about Lady Veralidaine or Daine Sarrasri or Sarra's bastard. Daine knew the truth about her ma and about her own reputation, and so did all that mattered.

The new certainty lasted when the ball ended well after midnight, and even while two of the younger seamstresses carefully undid the seams down her left side. Alanna had appointed herself the second attendant of the night, it seemed, because she was the one to put the pearls away carefully and shake out Daine's nightgown. The pampering wasn't at all necessary, but it was her birthday and her friends liked showing that she cared.

"I'll send out letters about it later, Alanna, but this was the best birthday ever," Daine said shyly, just before Alanna was ready to return to her own room for the night.

"Let's hope that they can keep on going up from here," Alanna said. She sounded far too mischievous, given the hour, but she only smiled at Daine's skeptical look. "A few brave young men have started asking about the new lady at court, but none have been brave enough to ask one of us directly."

Daine hardly remembered saying goodnight. She spent minutes looking at her mirror, wondering, and only shook herself out of the self-indulgence of imagining all of the young men she might like to date when she heard the wall guard call the hour. She rested a hand on the small box holding a fortune in pearls, the most beautiful thing that she had ever owned, and wondered if any of those young men would understand her half as well as Numair.