Free I Am Forever (What Kills Me) by Wynne Channing

from the kitchen. But no one heard me. So I wept.
    The Empress wants me to be a symbol of strength. And I’m crying into my milk.
    Brogan opened the doors, letting in a cool draft and releasing the mist from the room. She pushed the doors shut with her back and waited. I looked at her, my chest laden with sorrow.
    “I’m missing my family,” I whispered. “My dad, my mom, my sister. They’re probably so worried about me. It just kills me to think that they’re suffering. It kills me that they’re so far away and I can’t see them. Do you know what that’s like?”
    She clasped her tiny hands over her heart and held my gaze.
    “I’d give anything to know that they’re okay,” I said. “I just want to know how they’re doing.”
    Brogan’s bold hair color did not match her small features—her slightly upturned nose, her downturned, sad-looking eyes. She appeared to be about eighteen. But I wondered how long she’d been a vampire. I wondered if she was an introvert as a human, or if the years as a maid had caused her to retire into herself.
    I cleared my throat. “Did they find Lucas?”
    She shook her head.
    “Where the heck did he go?” I said mostly to myself, splashing my face to remove the blood from my cheeks.
    Brogan opened a towel and when I went to her, she put her arms around me and enveloped me in the fuzzy fibers. “Thank you, Brogan.”
    She blinked twice, unmoving; she always seemed taken aback to hear her own name. “You’ve been very kind to me,” I told her. Her lips parted and I waited for her to speak.
    But the rustle of clothing in the other room interrupted us; we could hear Pavone ordering the maids around in another language.
    “Ahh!” Pavone exclaimed when I emerged into the round, softly lit room. She pressed her hands together as if in prayer and grinned. “Are you ready to look more amazing than you’ve ever looked before?”
    “You’ve got quite the challenge ahead of you, Pavone.”
    She sniffed. “Nonsense. You are a masterpiece. I am but providing a frame.”
    She pointed with her two hands, as if directing air traffic, at a tall stool in the center of the room. One maid helped me into a white terrycloth robe. After I sat down, she draped a black cape around me.
    Another maid had wheeled in a four-foot-tall rectangular case. With the snap of several latches, she unfolded the case to reveal dozens of drawers, filled with stacks of colored pots and rows of lipsticks.
    Pavone leaned into me and picked a strand of hair that had become trapped in my eyelashes. She moved it aside, as slowly and carefully as if she was turning a thin, delicate page, and then pursed her lips at me.
    “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she murmured. Without looking away she put her hand out. “The ten please.”
    A maid approached wearing a smock covered with pockets; each pocket was filled with brushes and she plucked one from her chest. As Pavone chose a container from the trove of makeup, I heard Uther’s shuffling footsteps down the hall.
    “Did you find Lucas?” I asked before he was even inside the room.
    “No, my lady. I’m sorry. But one of the maids saw him walk out of the office. I have several maids on the search. They will bring him here once they locate him.”
    I slumped and crossed my arms. Anger penetrated my anxiety. What the heck? How could he just walk out without telling me? He must have known that I would worry.
    “We will find him, my lady,” Uther said. “I’m sure he will not want to miss your ceremony.”
    I don’t know about that. I’m sure he thinks this whole thing is ridiculous.
    “What am I going to do?” I tried not to move as Pavone painted my face.
    “Oh, my lady, I will be with you at all times,” Uther answered. “The ceremony is very formal and carefully planned. You will enter the room and take a seat at the altar, where you will remain for the entire ceremony. The Empress will make a declaration, consecrating you as the Divine.