Two weeks passed like a slow illness.
That was the only way Sarisa could describe it.
Not dramatic enough to kill her, not merciful enough to let her recover, just day after day of fittings, guest lists, flower samples, seating charts, rehearsals, and endless, polished conversations in which everyone spoke of the wedding.
And now, somehow, it was time for the final arrangement of the dress.
Sarisa stood in the center of the fitting room while three maids moved around her in practiced silence, smoothing fabric, adjusting the train, stepping back, stepping in, pinning nothing because there was nothing left to pin.
This was not a fitting anymore. It was a presentation. The last version. The chosen one.
The room itself was bright with late morning light, every mirror polished, every surface draped in lace and silk and ribbon as if the whole chamber had been built for this one stupid ritual.
Her mother sat near the window in a pale silver chair, surrounded by two older attendants and a seamstress who looked ready to faint from the importance of her own work.
Aliyah was there too, sitting on a small stool at first, legs swinging, watching all of it with the grave suspicion of a child who knew adults were making nonsense look sacred again.
Sarisa looked at herself in the mirror and tried to feel something.
The dress was white.
Not cream. Not ivory. Not gold-threaded, jewel-heavy, suffocatingly regal the way she would have expected from her mother.
White. Pure, simple white.
The silk was rich, yes, and the cut was elegant enough to flatter her without effort, but there was almost nothing extravagant about it.
The neckline was soft and clean. The sleeves fitted without being dramatic.
The skirt flowed long and smooth to the floor, but without layers of glittering absurdity, without embroidery climbing over every inch like ivy trying to prove a point.
It was beautiful in a quiet way.
Which was exactly why Sarisa distrusted it.
Knowing her mother, she had expected spectacle. Something royal and impossible and heavy enough to make walking feel like punishment.
Instead this dress looked almost… innocent. Almost tender. Like it belonged to a bride stepping into love rather than a woman being arranged into a future that felt more and more like a beautifully decorated trap.
It was so simple that it made her uneasy.
Not ugly, no. Never ugly. She could admit that much. The dress was lovely, and on another woman, for another wedding, in another life, perhaps she might even have admired it.
But simple on her mother's order was never truly simple. Simplicity was a message too. A strategy.
A carefully chosen image of purity and softness and inevitability. Look at the future queen, all white silk and moonlight, marrying with grace and calm and no visible cracks.
Sarisa almost laughed at the thought.
Still, she was not going to complain. Complaining would only invite more options, more opinions, more hands on her body and more days of being measured for a life she did not want.
So she stood.
One maid stepped back and clasped her hands together. Another made a little sound of approval. The seamstress looked near tears.
And then her mother rose.
The queen walked toward her slowly, her expression strangely soft. There was real moisture in her eyes when she stopped in front of Sarisa, and for a second that startled Sarisa more than any cruelty would have.
She had forgotten, perhaps, that her mother was still capable of looking moved by something other than order.
"Wow," the queen said, voice low and almost reverent. "My little girl is finally getting married."
The words should not have hit as strangely as they did.
Little girl.
Sarisa had not felt like anyone's little girl in a very long time. Not through the court. Not through Aliyah.
Not through Lara's exile. Not through the past month of being arranged, corrected, and positioned like one more ceremonial object in the palace.
Yet hearing it now made something in her chest twist anyway.
Around them, the maids began murmuring at once.
"Her Highness looks radiant."
"So beautiful."
"She looks like moonlight."
"The dress is perfect on her."
Sarisa kept her gaze on her own reflection because looking directly at any of them felt too dangerous. In the mirror she looked calm. Tall.
Pale in the white silk, silver hair braided back from her face, hands resting at her sides with all the stillness of a saint in a painted chapel.
Then Aliyah, who had been silent for far too long and therefore was clearly preparing violence, wrinkled her nose and said, with perfect bluntness:
"The dress is too simple."
The room froze.
Sarisa shut her eyes for one very brief second.
There it was.
The queen turned immediately. "Excuse me?"
Aliyah slid off the stool and stood with both hands on her hips, looking up at all the adults in the room as though she could not believe they had failed to notice something so obvious.
"It is," she repeated. "It's pretty, but too simple."
One of the maids made a tiny horrified noise. The seamstress looked personally stabbed.
The queen's expression cooled by a degree. "No, Aliyah. It is elegant."
Aliyah was unimpressed. "Simple and elegant are not the same."
Sarisa bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling.
Her mother, however, was not enjoying this nearly enough.
"It is appropriate," the queen said, voice sharpening. "A bride does not need to be buried under jewels to look beautiful."
Aliyah crossed her arms. "But Mama Sarisa should look the most beautiful."
The maids glanced at one another, unsure whether to coo at that or prepare for execution.
The queen took a measured breath, the one she used when talking to children she wished were more obedient. "And she does."
Aliyah turned toward Sarisa, squinting up at the dress in deep offense. "No offense, Mama, but there were better ones."
That nearly killed Sarisa on the spot.
One of the younger maids made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh before she crushed it under a cough. The queen heard that too and did not look pleased.
"This dress was selected with great care," she said.
Aliyah tilted her head. "By adults."
"Yes," the queen said flatly.
"Exactly."
Sarisa looked away from the mirror at last and down at her daughter, who stood there so small and so utterly certain, dark hair tied back badly, mouth set in a line that looked painfully familiar.
"Aliyah," Sarisa said gently.
But Aliyah was not done.
"It's too quiet," she insisted, gesturing with one hand toward the skirt as if the silk itself had offended her. "It doesn't look like Mama Sarisa enough. It looks like… like some other lady."
The queen's mouth thinned. "You are five."
"And right."
"Aliyah," Sarisa said again, more warning in it this time.
Aliyah looked up at her, stubborn and bright-eyed and entirely unconvinced that adults knew anything useful.
"It's okay," she said, as if offering comfort to everyone else for their bad taste.
"When Mama Sarisa marries Mama Lara, I'm sure Lara will buy her the most beautiful dress ever."