“Mulan found it easier to face the morning by pretending that her clothes were armor. The stiff coronation robe Ting was smoothing down over her shoulders. She imagined it woven with threads of spun gold, the embroidered phoenixes stitched with blazing-red iron. Her sash, hanging loose down her back, was a shoulder guard of blue iron, and the phoenixes on her shoes were spikes and spurs.
“Please keep your head forward, Empress.”
A handmaiden gripped a handful of hair, pulling it taut enough to make Mulan’s eyes water. The hair, at least, was easy to imagine as a helmet. By the time the maid finished wrapping it around multiple combs and adorning the layered buns with everything from flowers to jade to tiny golden bells, Mulan’s coiffure would stop arrows far better than anything the imperial blacksmiths could craft.
The maid inserted one last pin and stepped back. “All done.”
She pulled the train of Mulan’s robe out as Mulan stepped in front of a full-length mirror. Mulan’s reflection was warped and metallic on the coppery finish, but she could see that she was made up as intricately as the finest ladies of court, her face powdered white, her eyes lined with charcoal, and her lips painted red as her sash. Her eyebrows had been shaved and drawn back in with blue-black pigment. Tiny silver beads adorned her yellow-tinted forehead, and three flowers had been painted on her right cheek.
“Armor,” Mulan said under her breath.
“Your Majesty?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself.”