Ayla Thorn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

The invitation arrived at breakfast, and by noon Ayla Thorn had counted every gown in her wardrobe twice. None of them would do. The crown prince had opened his court to unwed daughters of the peerage, and the audience was in three days. Ayla meant to leave that hall engaged. She had planned it since she was twelve, when her father drank away the last of the Thorn silver and told her she would have to marry the family back into relevance. She intended to marry it higher than that. She spread the gowns across her bed and made herself look. Faded rose. A green two seasons out of fashion. A cream silk with a wine stain no laundress had lifted. Any of them would put her in the back row, behind the daughters of houses with real coin. A lesser noble in a tired dress did not catch a prince's eye. She would be marked and dismissed before the first course. She went to her mother's rooms and asked for the pearl earrings. Her mother handed them over without looking up from her needlework. Ayla walked them to a jeweler in the market before the hour was out. She took less than they were worth and did not haggle. Speed mattered more than price. With the coin knotted in her handkerchief, she climbed the hill to the dressmaker whose windows faced the pale towers and blue spires of the royal castle. The woman had a gown already cut, ordered by a baron's daughter who had not come to collect. Soft pink silk, silver thread worked along the bodice and skirt, small embroidered flowers trailing to the hem. It fit close enough that an afternoon of pinning would finish it. Ayla ran her fingers along the beadwork and asked the price. The dressmaker named it. Ayla emptied the handkerchief onto the counter. She was short by a third. She smiled, the smile she had practiced in every mirror since she was a child. She told the dressmaker she was a Thorn, and that in four days she would be betrothed to a man who could buy this shop and the street it stood on. She offered a signed note for the balance, payable the morning after the audience. If she failed, the gown returned and the woman kept the coin. The dressmaker studied her. Then she took the pen. Ayla walked home with the gown boxed under her arm. She had a dress that would put her in the front row. She had also signed her name to a debt she could only pay by winning the prince, and she had done it in her mother's earrings. There was no second gown behind this one. There was no second plan. She set the box on her bed and began to plan the audience.