by Vela Roth
Wallflower
Cassia had been wise to dine sparingly, for what little she had eaten out of obligation felt like a stone halfway between her throat and stomach. She could manage her body’s reaction during a brief encounter with the king, followed by a retreat to her rooms. Here in front of all these onlookers, with hours to go before she could privately master herself, it was another matter.
As the guests quit their seats and the servants dragged the tables to the side of the great hall, Cassia wondered if there was any possible way for her to leave before the dancing began. But it was useless to imagine a way out. She must stay. If the king ever decided to invent some treason she had committed, she would be the executioner’s bride. She must not give him any transgression that he could elaborate into an act of disloyalty, even an insult to her half brother on his temple day.
She would settle for finding a quiet corner where she could stand with Knight until it was time to leave. Tenebran superstitions had their uses. The festivities must end before midnight to allow everyone time to get home before the forsaken hour. If Cassia could just stay on her feet despite her traitorous stomach, she would manage that long.
She could only hope none of the ladies would be in the mood to show the bastard a bit of generosity and engage her in conversation. Or worse, that Lord Adrogan’s and Lord Ferus’s absences might give some of her other would-be suitors ideas. Such men were most troublesome when the king was not in sight, but the gaze watching from the dais might not prove deterrent enough for the more foolish lords.
Or for a lackey looking out for Lord Ferus’s interests. When Cassia spotted Lord Beccus, she concealed herself behind a knot of other guests and hastened to find a wall with which to spend the evening.
She positioned herself between two tapestries and leaned back against the wall for support. Knight braced himself against her, and she focused on his strong body holding her up. She managed to still the tremors in her limbs, although they continued in her belly. What a distraction her body was every time she was near the king. What a wasted opportunity her weakness made of this night, which she might have spent in keen observation of the court…and the embassy.
From whispers in near-deserted hallways and rumors that flew from one mouth to another in temple, Cassia had gleaned only enough to match the Hesperine emissaries’ names with their faces. She had counted on this chance to better inform herself. She had been a fool to look forward to it and to think seeing the Hesperines again would make it worth her while to endure this.
The minstrels began to play, and lords and ladies formed up in the now-empty center of the hall to begin the dancing. The Hesperines stood out of the way. The watching crowd gathered in knots around anyone who had liegehounds. Except Cassia and the king.
She observed the hall from under her lashes, doing her best not to look at the head of the room. She didn’t want to know if the king was watching her. She looked instead at the guests, sure to let her gaze dart across the whole crowd and not rest too long on anyone.
Where was Deukalion? His black silk hair and shoulders had been ahead of her the entire banquet. Nowhere to be seen now. Strange, as his considerable height should make him easy to spot. He was taller than anyone else in the room.
She did see Lord Beccus again, who roamed the edge of the room as if she were not his target. She watched out for him from the corner of her eye while studying the embassy.
All Hesperines had been human once. Was it their magic, then, which made them taller than mortals? Which made their hair grow so long? Were there spells in the various braids they wore or in the trails of embroidery on their robes? Surely only magic could produce that strange, impossibly soft fabric they called silk, whose origin was a mystery to everyone but them.
The Hesperine called Arkadia captured Cassia’s attention. The lady had the posture of a battle-hardened warrior, a contrast to her soft curves. She was both dangerous and lovely. Everything a Hesperine should be. With a figure only the truly wealthy could afford, she was the full-bodied, womanly sort many men would slaughter to possess, but she was tall enough to look most males in the eye, including the Hesperine beside her.
With his athletic build, he looked as if he could slaughter for her, but his expression was too gentle for violence and held no possessive glint. Cassia identified him as Master Healer Javed. For someone whose skin never saw the sun, he was remarkably brown. As he spoke with Lady Arkadia, his lips danced in patterns utterly new to Cassia’s eyes, and she longed to understand the language he spoke.
Lady Arkadia and Master Javed were clearly devoted to one another, although they never touched. He angled his body toward her. She moved when he did. Most conspicuous of all, they appeared to be wearing braids of one another’s hair. A dark, curly braid was attached at her blond temple, and a golden lock was bound amid his mane of curls.
Lord Beccus drew nearer and nearer to Cassia, weaving his way through guests and greetings with the appearance of aimlessness. She debated abandoning her refuge for a different stretch of wall. But if he proved determined, they might keep this up all night. Her trembling legs and quivering belly wouldn’t tolerate a chase around the room, no matter how circumspect. Cassia made a point not to meet his gaze, hoping her inattention would discourage him.
She made a covert study of the embassy’s Master Envoys, Kumeta and Basir. She had never seen anyone with skin so dark. Was it the result of nocturnal sorcery or an unfortunate encounter with a war mage’s fire spell? So the temple mages would say. The same mages argued that the Cordian complexion was a mark of Anthros’s favor, the result of living in proximity to Corona, the Divine City. They also called Cassia’s Cordian mother forsaken for being a concubine. Cassia refused to heed their illogical judgments upon her or Kumeta and Basir.
The longer she saw the Master Envoys, the more she noticed the beautiful variation between them, the different richnesses in tone that defined their faces. They were two shades of the night they shared. Their gazes, grave and unreadable, eased only when they looked at each other. They also wore one another’s braids. Cassia could not say they looked older than Master Javed and Lady Arkadia, but she beheld in Master Basir and Master Kumeta an unmistakable weariness.
If Cassia kept looking at the Hesperines, perhaps she would grow accustomed to the sight of them. Perhaps their beauty and perilousness and kindness would cease to prod at the ache inside her.
Lord Beccus made his way unerringly to Cassia. She would have to endure the encounter.
He put a hand to his broad jaw and looked her up and down. “Well, well. Look who is not where she ought to be.”
Cassia cast her gaze downward in a modest pose. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”
“As we speak, our mutual friend Ferus is exhausting his horse so he may join you for a dance in the east. You’re at the wrong festival, girl.”
“I am precisely where my father wishes for me to be.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” He made to take a step closer, then took one look at Knight and remained where he was. “That beast looks like a frightful dance partner. Say you jilt him and take a turn with me instead.”
She kept a hand on Knight’s shoulder. “You have not asked my father for permission to dance with me.”
He smiled broadly, leaning toward her. “Come now. You won’t ever get away from the wall thinking like that, mouse. Just a little dance. Ferus wouldn’t want me to leave you lonely while he’s away.”
Indeed, he would want his friend to occupy her on his behalf, to advance his case and discourage other suitors. My, what a compelling advocate Lord Beccus made. “I must decline, my lord.”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt, dangling hands callused from sword work at a girth swollen from too much ale. “A little less caution, and you can escape your father and have yourself a husband.”
“The king’s authority is absolute.”
“I see how it is. Nothing like a challenge to keep Ferus wrapped around your little finger. You cer
tainly know how to tempt a man.” Lord Beccus chuckled low in his throat. “Well. You stay in your tower, my lady. You can count on Ferus knocking it down as soon as he returns.”
At last he sauntered off and let her be. Knight growled at Lord Beccus’s retreating buttocks, and it was a wonder the man walked away with both of them.
The ordeal was over. That should make it easier for Cassia to control her stomach. She distracted herself by returning her attention to the crowd.
The leaders of the embassy made her curious indeed. They were not of remarkable height, but undeniably of great stature. They appeared mature and in their prime all at once. Lady Hippolyta’s dark auburn hair fell all the way to her ankles, adorned only by one braid of the palest blond that ran over her brow like an athlete’s headband. Master Ambassador Argyros was equally elegant, but far more solemn. His gaze was dark, his hair clearly the source of the token Lady Hippolyta wore.
Like all the male Hesperines, his chin was shaven, but his hair was the longest. Bound in a single thick braid with a shot of dark auburn woven in, it nearly touched the floor. He wore a medallion of office and a mantle of silver silk embroidered with a tablion of white flowers Cassia could not name. He was too striking to be either handsome or beautiful. She would have called him for a mage, rather than a warrior, had she not known him to be neither. His stillness marked him as a Hesperine.
Perhaps the length of a Hesperine’s hair was an indication of age. If so, Deukalion was indeed the youngest among the Hesperines, and the only one who wore no braid.
She scanned the crowd again. She was not mistaken. Deukalion was nowhere in sight. Had he issued such a bold invitation only to withdraw?
“Good evening, Lady Cassia.”
Any other voice speaking so suddenly beside her would have made her startle and, given the state of her stomach, most likely gag. But Deukalion’s words eased into her hearing so smoothly she did not jump.
She looked to her right. He stood but a pace away.
Then the velvet beauty of his voice wore off, and she realized two things. He had used his power to present himself without startling her, and what he was doing in this moment was sheer madness.
Invitation
“No one can see or hear me. Except you.” Deukalion’s voice enveloped Cassia, light as a feather, deep as an ocean. “Do give me some credit. I know better than to be seen speaking with you in public, especially in front of the king.”
The breath rushed out of her, and she couldn’t quite catch it again. In the face of the sudden Hesperine threat, Knight seemed to think the safest place for her was crushed between him and the wall. She dared not utter a word to call him off. Everyone was watching.
“No one can hear you two, either,” Deukalion reassured her.
“Het!”
Whining, Knight took his weight off her, then continued to growl insults at Deukalion.
“A pleasure to see you again, as well, Knight,” the Hesperine said amiably. “Don’t worry. If anyone looks this way, they will see your lady idling against the wall with you as if all is well. They will notice no details and feel no urge to continue watching. If asked tomorrow what they saw you doing, they will realize they didn’t notice, for they were too focused on something else.”
“I credit you for such subtlety,” Cassia replied when she had recovered her breath. Why was her heart still racing? “Will you not teach me this trick? I could certainly use it.”
Deukalion chuckled, and finally she looked up and met his gaze. The well-lit room made his reflective eyes glow as brightly as they did in the black of night. She had never stood this close to him before.
“This is madness,” she told him.
“Not at all. Although I do think it unwise to keep it up all night. Eventually my people will notice I am not, as I told them, on the grounds with the deer.”
She glanced between the Hesperine beside her and his companions across the room. What had he to gain by making her believe this was their secret, which he kept even from his own people?
Her trust.
No…he must recognize by now her trust was not on the table. He was smart enough to know better. She did give him credit for that.
“I kept our agreement,” he said. “I have not told anyone I spoke to you.”
The other Hesperines seemed focused on each other and the crowd at large. They didn’t appear to pay her any particular mind. But she could almost feel the king’s gaze on her. She dared look at him.
He was looking everywhere but at her.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
“Oh, a few dances before my companions wonder why they can still sense my power in the room, when I’ve supposedly left. But only a couple of dances before I’m too famished to think straight.”
She stopped herself before she whipped her head around to look at him and instead turned her gaze slowly. She could not say whether he appeared famished, for she had no idea what a deprived Hesperine looked like. Now that he mentioned it, however, she thought that if he were human, she would suggest he pay a visit to the Kyrian infirmary. Despite the plentiful glow of the torches, his pupils were dilated, and he appeared even paler now than he had by the light of the moons when she had seen him last. All the color seemed to have drained from his face, even his lips.
But he did not look like someone who might devour the blood in her veins. Not with those large, soft eyes beneath long, dark lashes. That half-smile on his enviable mouth. And the power to stand here unseen across the room from the king’s mage.
A shiver moved down Cassia’s spine. She could have told the king he would never be able to understand, much less control, the Hesperines. But even she had not known just how true that was.
“It would be terribly inconsiderate of me to keep my champion from his evening meal, after he has so graciously sat through ours. I shall not detain you.”
“Very well, my lady. You have had all day to consider your answer. Will you join me on the grounds?”
What a strange moment, to be speaking with him surrounded by the entire court, as if he were not the most condemned of heretics and she were not a concubine’s bastard. As if he were a courtier who could offer a cordial invitation to escort her on a walk, and she were a lady of consequence at liberty to accept and enjoy his company with her attendant strolling behind.
What a strange pair they would make in truth, confronting each other by a crumbling fountain with Knight as her handmaiden. But she had always liked Knight better than Perita, in any case. And if Deukalion had been such a courtier, she would have said no.
“Yes. I will see you later tonight.”
He smiled his close-lipped smile that looked genuine and enigmatic at the same time. “I look forward to it.”
“Good meal,” she wished him, as she had before.
When he disappeared again, she could not stifle a gasp.
Belatedly she realized her knees were no longer threatening to buckle, and the sweat that had soaked her was now dry. Her stomach had ceased its rebellion. Their conversation had proved more expedient than a retreat to her rooms to allay her response to the king.
Just a little longer now, and she would be able to escape. She rubbed Knight’s back, and he blinked in contentment as he panted off the heat of the crowded room.
Was it her imagination, or for the rest of the evening, did the king not look at her at all?
New Terms
It seemed an eternity before the first casualties of the wine, too incapacitated to dance, broke the moratorium on leaving the festival. Cassia escaped with the drunkards and overtired ladies and made it back to her rooms before the halls became any more filthy.
Perita was gone. It would surely take her until dawn to congratulate her guard on his accomplishments in today’s contests. Cassia stood by the remains of the fire and undressed herself. She freed her scalp from its pinching decoration and discarded the headdress on a chair in a heap of pins. The ugly bronze festival gown was next. Le
t her handmaiden serve her purpose and put them neatly away when she returned.
Cassia once more chose her green gardening dress for her venture. The gown was dark enough that it wouldn’t stand out in the shadows. Even so, it was a greater challenge to reach the queen’s wing tonight, for there were so many people about. But with an extra degree of patience, she made it without being seen by anyone sober enough to pay attention to which way a slip of a woman and a big dog were going.
By now Solia’s door opened on silent hinges, and even the door out to the derelict garden had quieted. Cassia’s pulse ran away with her, and goosebumps broke out on her skin, but not the unpleasant way they had earlier under the king’s gaze. He was floors away in the great hall. He had no idea she was here. Knight bounded out into the garden as if he heartily approved their new nightly routine.
“Slow down,” Cassia told him in the silence of the tunnel under the wall. “Don’t get too excited, or you shall be disappointed when we aren’t doing this any longer.”
When she pushed open the hatch at the end of the tunnels, mist blew across her face. She sniffed as Knight climbed out ahead of her, then followed him. A full rain might hold off until dawn, but this was certain to be their last dry night for a while. If she could call a night dry, when its dampness crept through every seam of her clothes and into her bones.
At least the mist clung close to the ground, and the clouds overhead roiled in and out, never fully obscuring the moons. She could not risk a torch, and without the moonlight, she would be forced to give up her explorations.
“Don’t get too excited,” she reminded Knight.
He heeled, but his tail still wagged.
Through the trees ahead of them, the bright circle of the clearing came into view, awash in plenty of light, as if the figure waiting there drew the moons’ glow to him like moths to flame. Perhaps he did. He sat on the rim of the basin, lounging with more ease than he had in his chair in the great hall.
