Lydea turns about, liquid smooth, entwining the fingers of one hand with mine and putting the other at my hip. Her fingernails graze my skin through my gown. I suddenly wish I had a lot more wine, but then we’re dancing.
I’ve never been a skilled dancer, despite my recent lessons. But with Lydea leading, I don’t need to be. She dances well enough for the both of us.
“Why do you want to dance with me?” I ask bluntly. “Is this some attempt to humiliate me further?”
“Does it look like I’m humiliating you?” she asks with a delicate arch of her black eyebrow. We glide and twirl across the blue-veined marble in a shimmer of rubies and silver links.
“I can’t say this is humiliating, no,” I say, trying to pull myself together, “but I can’t fail to remember the last function like this. Your family punished me and shamed my father.”
“Do you forget what happened after, or were you too drunk? Or maybe you just want to forget, because of my family?” Lydea’s hand tightens on mine. “Remember, it wasn’t me who forced your father to bow. That was my father.” No amount of warm honey can hide the bitterness in her tone.
I’m surprised. “You really don’t like him.” It’s not a question, and I should be more careful than that. Not only are others close enough to eavesdrop, but our ever-present, if currently invisible guardians can likely hear everything.
“Ah-ah,” Lydea says, leaning forward to breathe the admonishment into my ear, sending shivers down my neck. “Don’t expect me to spill my guts when you haven’t even stabbed me yet.” She draws back, red lips pouting. “You haven’t even tried to kiss me again.”
Blood blossoms in my cheeks in a rush, and the princess laughs, damn her.
“So you do remember what happened last time.” She sounds delighted.
Kiss, I suddenly think. If there’s one way to whisper in someone’s ear that won’t draw attention, that’s probably it.
I don’t give myself time to reconsider, because then I’ll be too terrified to ever do it. I bring my mouth to Lydea’s jawline only somewhat discreetly, unable to resist planting a kiss there—purely for appearances’ sake, of course—before I reach her ear.
She smells so good.
“Can I trust you?” I murmur as low as I can. My words could be sweet nothings for all anyone knows. Or I could be nibbling her ear. I try that out, just in case.
“Yes,” Lydea breathes. “Japha and me both. But leave Delphia out of anything risky, and beware of Kineas and my father.”
“Will you help me,” I say, barely audible, “find a way to escape them?”
“Depends,” Lydea says, “on—”
The sharp blare of a trumpet cuts her off. A burst of white doves takes flight from the clamshell dais, dissolving into a rain of red rose petals that fall as if from the white branches high overhead. Before I have time to do much more than bat a petal away from my nose, King Tyros is speaking over the crowd, his voice magically amplified.
“We have celebrated the passing of the crown from my glorious father to us, and now today, we celebrate our glorious future. I have some announcements to be made regarding my children and my sisters’ children.”
Lydea’s face has gone hard. I search for Japha in the crowd and catch their rueful gaze.
“First,” the king continues, “may my youngest daughter, Princess Delphia of the line of Athanatos, and my niece, Princess Crisea, daughter of Penelope of the line of Athanatos, come forward.”
I blink at the same time as Lydea, her icy facade cracking. Murmurs rise in the crowd. These aren’t the names anyone has been expecting. The two girls, one with a crown of dark hair, one wreathed in the snowy curls of her Skyllean mother, step onto the dais.
“Too long have we gone without respecting the goddess,” the king booms. “My sisters had three children together, even if they came from two mothers.”
But only one father, I think, before I realize with a jolt where this is headed.
“The third child should always serve that third and final aspect of the goddess: the crone. Let it not be said that I, myself, refuse to lead by example. So it is with great pride that I declare that my youngest daughter, Delphia, will accompany my niece, Crisea, to begin apprenticeships in the necropolis. They will bring honor to our family by devoting themselves to the goddess in this regard.”
The room falls absolutely silent. Lydea is crushing my hand in her own. Her eyes are fixed on the dais, her face paler than ever before. Yet it’s nothing, nothing, compared to Delphia’s expression. The girl is nearly as white as her hair, terror in her eyes. Crisea—perfect little warrior, Japha called her—looks ready to vomit.
And yet, neither of them protest. The king hasn’t left any room for argument. They stand silent, motionless, staring out over the heads of those assembled as if already separate and striving for lifelessness. I can’t help but pity the both of them, even Crisea.
“Your Majesty—brother…,” comes a choked voice from the crowd. Penelope takes several hesitant steps toward the dais, raising a pleading hand. “Please—”
The king’s voice cracks like a whip. “You shirked your duty to the necropolis as my third sibling, but I begged our father to allow you to care for your daughter and follow your own path as a warrior, against his better judgment. Perhaps that is why the goddess didn’t see fit to grant you another child.” His lips twist in obvious disapproval. I figured the royal family had seen my sudden arrival as a blessing, but perhaps the king views me as more of a curse that could have been avoided. “Now that your daughter is grown, allow her to carry your burden with grace, dear sister, and to make amends with the goddess on your behalf.”
After such a public reprimand, Penelope can’t do much else, even if her daughter has just been as good as sentenced to a slow death. Penelope falls silent, head bowed, shoulders shuddering. Tumarq stands next to her, his face a carefully blank mask, but I can see tendons standing out on his arms, his fists clenched.
Tyros waves a hand, and two black-swathed figures sweep forward to escort Delphia and Crisea from the dais. I haven’t spotted shadow priests outside of the necropolis often, only at the most important public ceremonies. They aren’t supposed to be enjoying life, after all, instead embacing death. The sight of them makes me want to take a step back. Or maybe run.
It isn’t their death shrouds, the likes of which are often worn by lay people in honor of the dead, but their masks. Just as blood magic most powerfully controls fire, water, and living or once-living material—flesh, bone, fiber, and wood alike—death magic holds dominion over air, earth, and metal—the inert, the never living, the void. Death magic, I’m learning, is responsible not only for the shades wandering about, but for most of the stone- and metalwork in the palace. The black-shrouded figures before me wear masks made of elaborate strips of dark iron winding around their necks and faces, leaving gaps only to breathe and see by. The ends of the strips rise in spikes around their heads, forming jagged, disturbing fans. They’re utterly terrifying.
King Tyros doesn’t even look at his own daughter as she’s taken away by them. He’s colder, crueler than I guessed him to be—even crueler than Lydea guessed him to be, based on her stunned expression.
“I don’t understand,” she murmurs. “He loves her more than any of us.”
“Onto other matters,” the king says, smiling and clasping his hands before him as if this were a celebration and not something more like a funeral rite. “Japha nu Tumarq, my first sister’s child and inheritor of her powerful bloodline, we must announce your betrothal.”
My stomach plummets.
Japha strides forward through the crowd, not hesitant in the least, their flower-wreathed head held high. There are some things we must suffer with grace. Or at least with excellent clothes … Japha is living up to their own words with the highest standards.
“Japha,” the king continues, “I am pleased to present your future wife, Helena of Radeus.” He spreads his arms, and a young woman w
ith a curtain of wheat-colored hair and a gold-embroidered cream peplos steps forward to meet Japha. She’s lovely and … shockingly sweet-looking, for a royal.
Now Japha’s jaw nearly drops.
Helena, I think. Helena was meant for Kineas.
But Lydea appears unsurprised. She doesn’t clap when the ballroom explodes with applause. “And now we cheer and forget that my father just condemned my sister and cousin to a tomb until they die from lack of light and living.”
I’m not clapping or cheering, despite Japha’s turn of good fortune. And yet I don’t know what I can say about Delphia that will sound sincere enough. “I thought two bloodlines shouldn’t marry. Isn’t Helena due to inherit her own in a couple years?”
“No.” Lydea’s voice is flat. “You wouldn’t have heard; it was an embarrassment kept quiet. Helena doesn’t have a drop of power in her blood. She was never even warded. Her parents finally had to admit it. They’re trying for another child, or so they say. My guess is they never wanted Helena or any child of theirs to carry the burden of a bloodline … let alone to face the necropolis.” She flinches, cursing under her breath. “Delphia. And I thought I would bear the heavier burden.”
I retake her hand and squeeze gently. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Something flashes in Lydea’s eyes, and I can’t tell if it’s gratitude or pain. She opens her mouth to say something, but the king’s voice rises instead.
“Princess Lydea of the line of Athanatos, my elder daughter.”
Lydea drops my hand as if it burns her, her face glassing over like a frozen lake. She comes forward on silk-smooth steps, without hesitation. Meeting her fate like a queen instead of a princess.
The king’s smile looks staged as he peers down on her from the dais. “You, my daughter, are hereby betrothed to Alldan Cannar, prince of Skyllea, third in line for their throne.”
I nearly gasp in shock as a man steps up from behind the dais. His forest green hair is crowned in golden stag horns and wreathed in vines and white flowers—more than a match for any of the headpieces here, and that’s saying something. His tunic, so deep green it’s almost black, is embroidered head to foot in thorny gold branches and cut in an unfamiliar style, though perhaps my father might recognize it. His dark coppery skin gleams with a metallic sheen, and his eyes are a brilliant violet. I can’t help staring.
A Skyllean prince? From what my father has said, Skyllea and Thanopolis are enemies, especially after what the royals here did to Cylla—forcing her into marriage, childbirth, wardship, and an early death alike. Never mind that the entire polis thinks that Skyllea and its unwarded, wild-hued bloodmages are mad.
The Skyllean prince, Alldan, doesn’t have a bloodline, and neither does he seem to be in Thanopolis against his will. He’s flanked by a small, official delegation of other bright-haired individuals—the most subtle hair color among them a purple black—and he wears a polite, welcoming smile. It seems like this, his engagement, is precisely why he’s come. Perhaps the two peoples are trying to mend their rift and fight the blight together, despite what happened to Cylla and my father.
What will the Skylleans think, then, when they see my father? That’s probably why he wasn’t allowed to come to the ball, I realize. Who knows what version of events the royal family has told the Skyllean delegation? And now, if everyone is striving for peace, maybe our chances of crossing the blight to Skyllea and being welcomed there have just grown a lot slimmer.
King Tyros stares down at the newly betrothed couple as if they’re rats in a bucket. And despite how beautiful they look together with their silver and gold attire, raven’s wings and stag horns, it doesn’t seem the rift between Thanopolis and Skyllea will be closing anytime soon, if Lydea has any say. She gazes at Alldan with cool disinterest, her black-winged head refusing to bow even as he takes up her sigil-lined hands and kisses them. He doesn’t seem terribly eager to touch her himself, despite the smile painted on his face. His vivid violet eyes seem to shine as if from behind a mask.
Ah, the joy of arranged marriages, I think. My heart aches a surprising amount for Lydea, but for the hundredth time, I thank the goddess—maiden, mother, and crone—that this evening’s entertainments have nothing to do with me. Even if my hope of escape has dimmed.
“And finally,” the king says, facing the crowd. “It is my greatest pleasure to announce the betrothal of my son, Crown Prince Kineas of the line of Athanatos”—he holds his arm out to the loathsome squid at his side—“to the daughter of Silvean Ballacra of Skyllea … Rovan Ballacra.”
Oh, I think, as the seconds trip by like several missed stairs. Shit.
12
I hardly notice the king’s nod to the Skyllean delegation after his announcement. I barely hear him say, “Our apologies Silvean couldn’t be here tonight, but he sends his regards.” I don’t see Kineas’s reaction. All my thoughts, my entire world, stutter to a halt. The pronouncement isn’t horrible so much as it’s unreal. I simply can’t believe it.
I don’t meet Kineas’s or the king’s eyes, or those of anyone around me on the crowded lower tier of the ballroom. I stare at the floor in front of my feet, at the red rose petals like spilled blood against the blue-veined pale marble.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m turning, stumbling away from the dais, but hands catch my arms before I make it five steps. I don’t even know whose. They tug me, laughingly, as if I’m merely a shy, blushing bride, right up to the foot of the dais. The strings of rubies trailing from my dress glitter and tinkle, the red flashes too bright, the delicate sounds oddly loud.
I taste copper. I’ve bitten my tongue. Maybe I can dip my finger into my mouth, wet it with blood, and hurl everyone—the king, Kineas, whomever stands in my way—out through the towering, twining windows, before this becomes real.
“Rovan,” the dead man says over my shoulder, as I’m pulled to the front of the dais.
I’ve entirely forgotten him. I want to keep forgetting him, but the warning in his tone gives me pause, despite myself.
King Tyros smiles down at me, his eyes bright in a way that makes me want to recoil. “Honor your mother, now,” he murmurs softly. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”
Another threat against my mother. Ensuring I’ll cooperate. Just like the dead man, using the invisible leash he has around my neck to keep me at heel. I haven’t fully experienced his power over me yet, but I know he can drop me if I try to run. Hurt me.
I can understand, now, how my father felt at the banquet. Not to mention how he felt when he was hauled off to the palace and betrothed against his will all those years ago. Alone and powerless, just as I am now. My heart breaks for him as it never has before.
I should never have blamed him. None of this is his fault. He’s doing his best, trying to stand against forces that want to smash him into the ground. He’s still putting one foot in front of the other. So what if his head bows occasionally?
I shudder to think what this will do to him. Even more than the Skyllean presence, this must be why he’s been kept from the ball. I’m glad for it.
I stare back at the king, unable to do much else. If I once thought of his face as hard as settled marble, now I can see through the cracks to what lies beneath, and it’s terrifying. He’s enjoying this.
Japha was surprised at their uncle’s change in behavior since he was crowned. Was that other face a mask, waiting to be torn free as soon as he was king and could act how he pleased?
Japha is at my side, whispering urgently in my ear—I didn’t know, I promise I didn’t know—and Lydea says something else to me, squeezing my hand, but her voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. I hear what the king proclaims next, though, his iron gaze still locked on mine:
“And now to celebrate, the newly betrothed couples will dance. Japha and Helena, Alldan and Lydea, Kineas and Rovan, please take to the center of the room. Others may join in at a respectful distance.”
And then Kineas stan
ds before me. The prince has extended his hand to me. What’s more, he looks to have been holding it there for at least a few seconds, long enough for impatient fury to ripple across his face. He smiles to hide it.
“Are you simple, or is your common upbringing rearing its ugly head?” he mutters under his breath. “Take my hand and assume your position, idiot.”
Numbly, I rest my palm in his. And then I’m dancing with Kineas. Crown prince.
My betrothed.
I vaguely think I might vomit down the front of his midnight blue himation. Its golden embroidery matches the gold laurel wreath glittering in his pewter hair. He looks every inch a royal, and I despise every inch of him.
I come back to myself in a sudden, horrible crash, like a wave smashing me against a rock. I’m here, in this ballroom. This is happening. My hand is in Kineas’s, his other touches my hip, and I’m following his lead. I still remember how Lydea felt in his stead.
So different. So good. And now this.
I can’t stand it.
“I had no idea my father would do this,” Kineas says through the bared teeth of his fake smile. “Though I suppose with Helena turning out to be a failure of good breeding, your bloodline makes you a logical replacement, if the rest of you is entirely unworthy. Imagine my disappointment.”
“Oh, I can,” I breathe. Just breathe. Don’t speak.
His smile drops, fury replacing it again. “I’m sure you’re delighted. You’re an ignorant peasant, and now you will be queen.” He smirks. “If you live long enough.”
“Your mother certainly didn’t,” I say, before I can help myself.
The look he turns on me before he stares out over my head in polite disregard is one of pure, blackest hatred.
We dance in silence for a few more seconds, but those seconds may as well be years. I try to ignore him, focusing over his shoulder, but all I can think is: This is my life now. It’s all I can do to not tear away from him. To tear out of my very skin.
“I can’t … I can’t stand to look at him,” I nearly gasp, when I can’t bear it any longer.
In the Ravenous Dark Page 12
