The gown clung like it had been poured over me. A pale green silk threaded with ivory lace that left my shoulders bare, the neckline just low enough to make me fidget in the mirror. The bodice hugged my waist, cinched tight by Clara’s careful fingers, before the skirt spilled down in soft folds that whispered with each breath I took.
Clara had tugged my hair free from its braid, letting the loose white strands fall like winter snow around my face and down my back. For a moment, I hardly recognized myself.
I’d grown up thinking of my hair as something odd, something that made me different. Now, against the soft sheen of the gown, it looked deliberate, almost regal.
Clara stepped closer, fastening a delicate chain around my throat. The pendant, a single teardrop emerald, rested at the hol
