Chapter 13:
“A chapel? That’s where it was?” Shanti asked.
“Yep! With these big arch-walls all around it.”
Qat leaned in. “And what did the princess say to you again?”
“She said I was really cute, because she could tell I was a junior princess still.”
“Oh,” Oshta sighed. “I wish I could have been there too!”
“Next time,” Mayah told her. She smiled at Oshta, a special smile that was supposed to tell her not to forget that they – just the two of them – were going to the library next off day. Mayah didn’t know if Oshta really understood all that from her smile but at least she seemed happy. Mayah was too. Even painting that day went better. Mayah was going to ask the regent if it was okay to start over, but then she remembered how Qat had said Mayah talked to serfs and regents like they were Rajas, so instead Mayah waited until the regent happened to be nearby. “Can I start over? But I need to check the Letters book. I want to make sure my scene is right.”
The regent gave her a new canvas and a copy of the book right away. Apparently she’d had the book with her all day yesterday and Mayah hadn’t even known! So silly. This was why Mayah needed to research. She needed to know everything so she wouldn’t make dumb mistakes like she had all day yesterday.
Mayah opened the book to the middle. That way it would seem like she was just checking it when she was really reading it. The days and nights are longer here on Chudami. There are about three daytimes – or 37.5 Earth hours, to be exact – of sunlight. Then the same, three nights or so worth of darkness. I don’t know how we’ll ever adjust. We’ll have to build homes that allow us to keep our Earth-based cycles. Massive indoor structures, that’s what I’m thinking, with blackout curtains and electricity to control how much light we get, and clocks to tell us whether it’s day or night. Because here, on Chudami, I’ll have day mean awaketime, and night mean sleeptime. I’ll make a new calendar and fit Chudami’s rotations into our rhythms. Those three days and three nights, 75 Earth hours, we’ll call a diurnal. And if the sun is out when it’s actually night (sleeptime), we’ll call it daysleep. If it’s dark outside when it’s actually day (awaketime), we’ll call it darkwake.
Below was a sketch of the calendar. Funny. Mayah hadn’t realized it was the Eternal Queen Sarana who had invented the calendar. She mouthed the familiar names. Sunstir, daysleep, sunwake, first nightsleep, darkwake, second nightsleep. Yes, this was it! Mayah would still paint the bio-dome, but from a different angle so that you could see the sun crossing the sky over it. No, no, wait, what she should do is make half the sky all sunny, and then make the other half all dark, but slice each half into three periods. Then the painting would match the calendar, which the Eternal Queen Sarana had made.
Mayah grinned. She was very happy with herself. Sunstir section first! Paint it with the sun peeking over the mountains to the east, yes, that was very nice, and then the daysleep slice was next, sun high in the sky but beneath it the part of the slice that went through the bio-dome would be all dark, the lights all off, and then next was sunwake with the sun setting like it did at the end of the day, and ooh! the first nightsleep slice would have lots of aurora kaikilas in the sky, but darkwake Mayah would focus more on the lights in the bio-dome beneath, then last of all, the second nightsleep slice would get all dark again. Rock-god, she was painting so much faster today! She’d catch up with the other Rajas in no time.
When it was time to eat lunch, Mayah put her brush down like everyone else. Then she stopped, frowning a little. Her painting still didn’t look like anyone else’s. At least her lines were clear and sharp this time, and her sun and the bio-dome looked real, but her painting was more… what was the word… thematic.
It took Mayah a moment to realize what she’d done wrong. They aren’t just painting real things! They’re painting like they’re cameras! Like the one Elanex used on me!
Her shoulders sagged. Mayah’d only read about cameras before coming to the castle; she’d never seen one before. But of course the other Rajas would have. Cameras were probably no big deal to them, they probably used them all the time. While she hadn’t even thought to make her painting look like a cameragram.
Mayah didn’t feel like crying this time. She wanted to rip her canvas off her easel and throw it on the ground and stomp on it instead. And then shrivel up, maybe, and go and die somewhere off by herself. She kept messing up!
Maybe it was because she’d been so mean to Sukren this morning.
Mayah swallowed. She’d snapped at Sukren and stomped away from him without even saying goodbye. And then she hadn’t thought about him until just now. Like really, she hadn’t thought about him at all while she was talking to Oshta, and then not at all during breakfast, and not at all while painting either. She hadn’t remembered him even once. The rock-god, though, never forgot. The rock-god remembered and paid you back if you did something wrong.
Maybe I should go to Sukren and say sorry. Yeah, I really should. I’ll eat lunch quickly and then go to him.
Then Mayah looked at her painting. But maybe I should come back here during lunch and work on my painting. I mean, I have to start over, again, so I’m going to be behind everyone else even more. Actually maybe in that case I should come back during breaktime because breaktime is longer. Or maybe I should come back during lunch and breaktime?
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Aren’t you coming?” Oshta was at the door, looking back at her.
“Yeah,” Mayah said, still trying to figure it out. “I’m coming.” She followed Oshta out of the studio and to the cafeteria. It still felt weird not saying anything to the serfs at the serving window but at least this time Mayah was distracted by her problem. Go to Sukren and say sorry? Or go back to the studio and paint?
She sat down with the other princesses, but her mind was elsewhere. After a while, she felt Oshta tap her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Mayah looked down at her tray. It was still almost full; all the other princesses were half done. “I feel sick,” she said. She wasn’t lying, she really did have a heavy feeling. It just wasn’t in her stomach.
Mayah stood. She didn’t want to throw away her tray of food – Rajas got to eat so much! – but she didn’t know where to put her leftovers, so she put everything on the conveyor belt anyway. When she got to the lift she had to show her papers to the regent standing in front of it, but the regent wasn’t scary; he didn’t have any weapons or anything. Up two levels, and then –
Mayah almost bumped into Sukren. He was standing outside the lift on their dorm floor. “Mayah,” he said, looking surprised. “Isn’t it lunchtime?”
“I’m sorry!” The words burst out of her. She reached for him, but instead of responding, Sukren put up a hand and took a quick glance around them. Frightened that someone else was there, Mayah stopped short. Even when he nodded, she still didn’t embrace him, letting her words communicate how she felt instead. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been mean to you this morning, I’m so sorry!”
To her surprise, he began laughing. “You were fine, Mayah. You were absolutely fine. Now go back to lunch. Don’t worry about me.”
Mayah let out a big sigh of relief. She felt so much better. And hungrier, too. “But I already put my tray on the conveyor,” she said.
Sukren was smiling at her, the way he did whenever he was feeling nice things about her. Mayah always liked it when he did that. It made her feel super special. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ve finally managed to send Ganithe on a chase, so my dorm is empty, for once. I’ll share my lunch with you.”
“Just like in the village!”
“That’s right,” Sukren said, still smiling. “Just like in the village.”
***
Mayah still didn’t know what to do about her painting, but at least she felt better. Lunch with Sukren had been a lot of fun. She’d told him about how she’d told Oshta not to tell anyone about the Houseparty because she knew Oshta would, and Sukren had laughed and laughed and joked about how dumb Rajas were, which now that Mayah thought about it, was a little weird because hadn’t Sukren told her last time never to say anything bad about queens? So did that mean Mayah could say bad things about princesses and princes but not about queens? It was a little confusing. But Sukren’s jokes had been really funny. And the Rajas did seem kind of dumb sometimes. Or at least Oshta did, and Priva definitely, and even Shanti too. Well, maybe they weren’t dumb, but… not altogether there?
Like even now, Mayah was watching Priva sing and dance little steps in front of her easel, and that was all Priva ever did, it had been a whole day and a half and Mayah’d never seen her stop and do anything else, not even once. It was like she wasn’t even a real person, like all she was was a song and dance.
Mayah shivered a little. She was wearing a frock with sleeve wings but today was sunwake which meant the sun was shining bright and hot into the big studio windows. Priva was nice, though, she was very nice, and Mayah wanted to be friends with her. Oshta first, Priva second. And Priva was painting now, wasn’t she, so Mayah should too. She didn’t feel like it anymore, because she really didn’t want to start over again, but she had to, her painting didn’t look like anyone else’s. But what to paint? Mayah didn’t want to ask for the Letters book again. She sighed. I’ll just paint a breathflower. Oh, I know, I’ll paint a hand holding a breathflower and tell everyone it’s the Eternal Queen Sarana’s hand. And I’ll make them both real big so I can’t fit anything else into the canvas. That way there’ll be less I can mess up.
She got a new canvas from the regent and began painting as quickly as she could. It wasn’t as much fun this time, but that wasn’t the point. It looked like everyone else’s paintings. That was what mattered.
“I thought you were going to paint a map.”
Mayah turned to look at the prince next to her. For the first time since she’d come to the studio, Mayah hadn’t turned her easel so nobody could see what she was painting. The prince had stepped away a little from his canvas to look at hers.
“I changed my mind,” she said, a little nervous. Was it okay to change her mind? Did she have to tell the other Rajas first before she did? “I thought it was better to paint the Eternal Queen Sarana. This is her hand.”
“You should paint the Dome Ring on her hand, then. Otherwise nobody will be able to tell it’s the Eternal Queen’s.”
It was a good point. Mayah didn’t like the way the prince said it, though, like he thought he was Mayah’s boss or something. But maybe he was? Oh, Mayah really didn’t know anything about the castle, she wanted to go to the library with Oshta now, not wait until the next off day! She almost sighed but stopped herself. Better safe than sorry. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Painting the Dome Ring meant she needed yellow paint for the band and green for the gem, all on top of the part of the hand she’d just painted. Mayah frowned. It was better to wait until the hand was dry, otherwise the colors would get mixed up. But what if she took too long? What if the prince looked at it again and saw that she hadn’t painted the Dome Ring yet? It was better to do it now, even though her painting was still wet. Besides, she’d gotten a glimpse of the prince’s painting too, and it was pretty bad. So if hers was bad too, who cared, right?
She began painting the Dome Ring onto the hand. Even as Mayah painted she could tell she was messing it up. She kept on going, taking a break only during exercise time. Boring, boring, painting wasn’t fun when she wasn’t trying at least a little bit, but there, she was done, the Dome Ring was painted, and thank the rock-god the regent was saying it was breaktime now, and you know what, Mayah could work on the rest of her very bad painting tomorrow.
It was too bad Mayah’d had to throw away her other paintings. She’d liked them a lot more.