Nenah was getting nervous now, worried that the king would work out that she was a substitute. She asked whether she really looked like Alicia.
"Not at all," the court ladies remarked. The only thing the two of them shared was the color of their eyes.
Princess Alicia was the daughter of the late third queen. Since she had been chosen to succeed the astral priestess shortly after her birth, she had been raised in the astral villa. The debut of a new priestess takes place at the first star festival after she turns sixteen.
Nenah remembered her parents telling her that the hanging lights were the hopes of people, which the astral priestess prayed to see fulfilled. She'd had those times with her parents when she was young. Last year she had spent the festival with Saji and Colin.
Until the star festival after her sixteenth birthday, the priestess was not permitted to leave the astral villa, which meant that very few people apart from her attendants would ever have seen her face. Before the princess turned sixteen, she was to return to secular life so that she could marry.
Nenah didn't quite understand all of it, but either way, Azure would reward her success. The court ladies begged her to go along with the charade, and Nenah accepted and asked them to stop groveling. Prince Goldie annoyed her, but she felt bad for these court ladies.
The next days of training were so hard for her. She hated it. She wanted to quit. She got dramatic and told them she was going to die. One of the court ladies suggested they take a break, so Azure took her out for some fresh air, and her eyes glimmered. She had been cooped up the whole time, and now she saw that she really was at the royal palace.
As the breeze blew by, she noticed the nice smell coming from Azure and wondered whether all nobles had such a pleasant scent. She bet they were born that way, not like bottom dwellers such as herself. He was so important. Normally the two of them would never even set foot on the same ground. She wondered how she had ended up here.
Azure turned toward her then and said, "I truly need you, for the sake of my dear country."
Nenah took this in. She was needed. Someone needed her. That was enough to make her stay.
On the third day, Nenah marveled over the outfit she was to see the king in. The court ladies called her beautiful. That said, they still needed her to do her best. This had to go well. If they discovered that Nenah was an impostor, all their heads would be swiftly severed from their bodies.
In front of the throne room, they announced the arrival of Princess Alicia.
Nenah walked in, feeling the intensity of all of it. She bowed in front of the king and queen, her eyebrows shaking as she tried to hold herself together. The king told her there was no need for his own daughter to be so nervous and had her raise her head. She raised it slowly, and now she was seeing the king and queen with her own eyes.
The king was wowed by those piercingly blue eyes and remarked that no other hue could compare to their beauty. He apologized for beckoning her here on a whim. She responded that there was no trouble at all, and that she was simply pleased to be of service. The king smiled at her and said again that there was no need for her to be so stiff. He was happy his daughter was home, and he applauded her half brother Azure for looking after her from this point on, until the day she was married.
The queen scoffed, however, and mentioned that the astral priestess traditionally performs a dance for the crown prince's coming-of-age ceremony. She suggested that Nenah perform it for their son, Prince Muilam. This might be their only chance to see it, after all.
This made Nenah extremely nervous, because she knew nothing of the dance.
The king brought up that Muilam was still many years away from coming of age, but the queen insisted. Even so, the dance would be entertaining, especially since Alicia had been training for fifteen years. Would it not be a waste to send her off without having seen a single dance?
Some of the men at the back spoke in hushed whispers over the queen's streak of cruelty. They knew it was a display of her power over Prince Azure.
Nenah was at a loss. She couldn't fake this.
Luckily Azure cut in, reminding them that the princess had not yet come of age, nor had she assumed her religious duties. Were she to dance in her unqualified state, it would bring misfortune upon Prince Muilam's future. Not only that, but Muilam wasn't even present, since he was bedridden in his chamber.
The king accepted Azure's answer, and Azure called the meeting adjourned, since it also seemed that Alicia was unwell.
Walking out with him, Nenah thought the whole thing had been a complete failure. Even if her secret was safe, she felt she had let the prince down. She lay in bed thinking that someone like her didn't belong in a place as majestic as this. This was enough. Goldie wasn't worth risking her life over, and none of this was really her problem anyhow.
She was thinking of running away — but Saji had abandoned her. What home did she have to go back to?
Then she overheard the queen and Azure speaking outside.
The queen questioned what authority he had that prevented her from moving Princess Alicia to her wing. She told him that the god of stars had control over fate itself. Since he was so insistent on caring for the astral priestess, she asked whether he mistakenly believed himself the rightful heir to the throne.
He responded otherwise, assuring her that his only desire was to support this country to the best of his ability.
Remembering how Azure had told her he needed her for his dear country, Nenah's eyes glimmered.
The queen then called Azure's mother, the king's former wife, a weak-willed woman, timid and fearful, and said that he could learn a thing or two from his mother. She tossed her fan into the water beside them. She gave the fakest gasp and told him that her fan falling was his fault, and told him to go and fetch it.
Nenah gasped, wondering what the queen's problem was. Then she jumped straight into the water, splashing it all over the queen, pulled the fan out, and presented it to her.
The queen was furious and got ready to smack Nenah, and as Nenah shuddered back, Azure stood in the way and told the queen that it was a most pleasant day for a little dip. The queen began to scream, and her court ladies had to hold her back and get her away.
Nenah apologized to Azure, saying that the queen was so awful, and she had felt like she had to do it. Azure pulled her along quickly until they were somewhere private. Nenah apologized once again, and then, seeing Azure shake, she wondered whether he was angry.
It turned out he was laughing.
Azure had predicted this outcome back in the throne room, since the queen was such a wicked person. Everything had gone according to plan. So he offered Nenah her reward.
She thought about it, and then she took off her wig and told the prince to praise her. She really wanted him to praise her and to make it feel special.
He thought she must be joking. But the court lady could see that Nenah was lonely.
So Azure threw a towel over her head, placed his hand on top of it, and said, "You did well. I'm proud of you."
It made her smile.