Free The Red Lily Crown by Elizabeth Loupas

through the loose masses of her hair, then drawing the ribbon up over the top of her head.
    â€œLift your head.”
    She lifted her head. Magister Ruanno took hold of the ribbon and placed one finger between her eyebrows, pressing the ribbon against her skin. The prince let go of the end of the ribbon at the back of her head and stepped around in front of her. Magister Ruanno then drew the ribbon from between her eyebrows, down to the tip of her nose and beyond, and held it taut.
    The prince stepped in front of her again and picked up the dagger.
    Chiara’s heart stopped. The black water swelled and trembled within her.
    With one perfect, ritualized sweep, the prince brought the dagger up and sliced the ribbon exactly at the end of her nose.
    She gasped. She reached up and touched the end of her nose, then looked at her fingertips. No blood.
    Magister Ruanno dropped the sliced-off end of the ribbon on the red table, and handed the measured length to the prince. He stepped back. The prince wrapped the ribbon around her neck and brought the ends together in the hollow at the base of her throat.
    â€œIt is exactly the right length,” he said. “Very well, we shall proceed to the test of the silver sieve.”
    He put the measured piece of ribbon and the bronze dagger back on the red table and returned to his throne. Magister Ruanno followed him. It was all like some kind of complicated dance, or the way the acolytes assisted the priest in the church.
    Chiara fought back a crazy urge to laugh.
    â€œStep forward, Chiara Nerini, to the silver table.”
    The table was long and narrow, its surface covered with silver cloth. Chiara wondered if it was somehow woven of real silver. On the cloth rested a silver bowl of water—more water, please please don’t let this whole business last much longer—a silver ladle and a round silver sieve strung with white horsehair.
    â€œYou will fill the sieve with water,” the prince said. “You will carry it around the table. Then you will step upon the golden grate, beneath which a fire is burning, and when you have crossed it, on your knees you will offer the sieve to me.”
    So he only required the sieve to be offered, not the sieve filled with water; he instructed her to step on the grate, not the fire. Again, if Magister Ruanno hadn’t explained the trick to her, she never would have guessed she was to shake the water from the sieve upon the fire, to put it out and cool the grate.
    First, though, there was the business of carrying water in the sieve in the first place.
    She stepped to the table and picked up the sieve. Other than having an engraved silver rim, it looked much like the sieve Nonna used to sift flour, when they could afford to buy flour; its mesh was very fine, tautly and evenly woven, and it appeared to be perfectly dry. She tilted it slightly in the candlelight and caught the faint reflection of oil, not enough to clog the meshes, just enough to give the horsehair the same gleam as the leather of her father’s fine old bookbindings.
    . . . hold the sieve level and steady, and take care that the underside remains absolutely dry . . .
    She transferred the sieve to her left hand and held it level, parallel to the top of the table. She picked up the ladle with her right hand and dipped it into the water, then very slowly, very carefully, with the ladle very close to the meshes but not touching them, she poured a little of the water into the center of the sieve’s circle.
    To her amazement, the water did not instantly flow through. It formed a flattened circle with a rounded edge, standing up slightly from the mesh of the sieve. It’s like the time Nonna was sick, she thought, and I spilled the rose-hip tea on her bedcover. It made round droplets and they stood up on top of the cloth for the longest time, before they sank in. That’s what this water is doing. I have time, but not endless time.
    Steady.