by Zoe Marriott
The healthy colour was slowly returning to his face as he gaped at me. “Marry Shell?”
“Yes? That girl you’ve been madly in love with almost the whole time I’ve known you? The one you brought to my court presentation, remember?”
Instead of wincing at the reminder of this bad behaviour he seemed to sag forward in relief. “Theoai, I’m not going to marry Shell. How could you think I’d do that to you?”
I stared at him silently, arching a brow. He had the grace to drop his eyes for a moment before rallying. “No, but really! Shell is – is lovely and beautiful and sweet – but – you’re going to be my queen! The mother of the future kings of Silinga! You’re going to rule beside me. No woman, no one, will ever matter more to me, or be more vital to me, than you.” He looked around wildly, as if checking he wasn’t in a dream, then reached for my hands in that familiar gesture, clasping them tightly. “I don’t love Shell. I couldn’t. Girls like her come and go. She is temporary. Empty. Like her name. You and I are for always, like you said at Skalluskar. Of course I intend to marry you.”
It was exactly what I had wanted to hear. Not only now, but for days and days, since we had first met on the ship. That there was no threat to my position here, that I was important, and worthy, and wanted. That no matter what, I was going to be Queen. It was what I had always wanted to hear.
Yet now he had said it, I felt no triumph, no elation. Only disappointment. Disappointment with him. He didn’t love Shell? He never had? All I could think of was that look of glowing adoration she had aimed at him. Her immediate, unconditional trust in him. She had killed Skirpir to save him, even though the act had nearly broken her heart. And yet Uldar called her empty. He had given her a name that signalled, right from the beginning, how worthless he thought she was.
I stared up into his beaming face. He may have been child-like in some ways, but in others he was far more a man than I had realised.
“Does Shell know that?” I found myself asking.
His gaze flickered away from mine. “Well. I should think so. She and I... um. We haven’t... You know. Lately she’s different. I think she’s... rather gone off. Me, I mean.”
It took me a long breath to put together all the fragments of this sheepish sentence. But that meant... Then that malicious little maid of Miramand’s had been wrong, or – or she had been lying. Lying to Osia in the hope that Osia would pass the lies onto me, or maybe in the justified hope that I would overhear.
Shell had never been Uldar’s mistress, she had never lain with him, touched him... Relief and happiness were all twisted up with a strange drop in my stomach that I could not have explained, even to myself. Uldar had never been Shell’s.
Shell had never been Uldar’s.
A thud echoed through the Mimirsk, making Uldar and me jump.
Looking happy to be released from the conversation, Uldar relaxed, laughing. “Don’t worry, it’s just the Priest hacking through to us with his ceremonial ice-pick. He’ll put in a couple of whacks and then the mage – ”
He didn’t have to finish. I could see for myself. Cracks spider-webbed the frosty ice-screen, and on the next blow it shattered into lacy fragments. As the Priest appeared, beckoning us out, a great cheer went up in the ballroom. It was done. We were formally betrothed. A contract nearly as binding as marriage itself.
Uldar offered me his arm with a cheerful grin. “Thank Morogana that’s over and the party can begin. I hate hats.”
I allowed him to lead me back into the brilliance of the ballroom, mentally reeling. Despite the agonising, plotting and fear of the past days, I realised, he had never really had a single doubt about going through with this. If he had been sullen, or distant, it was only because he felt guilty or bored or resentful in that moment. It did not occur to him to tactfully hide those feelings from me the way I had carefully hidden my real intelligence, my exasperation and my annoyance from him. If he had taken up with some other girl, it was not because he had a true passion for her, but only that she was there, and beautiful, and it had not occurred to him to resist.
His parents had told him that he was going to marry Princess Theoai, and though he might play at rebellion, and scandalise the court by parading around a girl they assumed was his lover, he would never really defy them.
Miramand ought to have known him well enough to understand that.
And then there she was, with King Radugana, waiting for us. I was oddly shocked to see the King standing; I had only ever come into rooms where he was already seated. Upright, he was a towering ruin of a man, massive shoulders hunched, unsteady on his feet. He seemed to have lost weight even since the first time I had met him. No wonder. I had never seen him eat, only drink. If I were in charge of the Silingana, every cask, bottle and barrel would have been thrown into the sea long since.
With Uldar’s help I peeled the headdress and veil off my head, so that the King and Queen could give me formal kisses on both cheeks. Radugana leaned on me a little too heavily. I had to brace myself to avoid staggering. When his large, cold hands released my shoulders, I realised there was no smell of alcohol on his breath this time. His eyes, though puffy and bloodshot, were clear.
“Look after my boy, Princess,” he whispered in my ear. “He’ll need it.”
He tottered away to his place at the head of a long table. Miramand ignored his shambling progress, eyes shining.
“You see,” she said softly. “I told you if you followed my advice all would be well.”
I found it difficult to hold her gaze. Was I losing my grip on reality to suspect...?
“Music! We must have music!” Uldar cried, flinging off his hated hat with obvious glee. “It is my betrothal and I intend to dance until dawn!”
Another cheer went up. Miramand’s sharp eyes lingered on me. She hesitated for a moment, then moved, stately and unrushed, to take the chair by her husband. As a quick, merry tune began, Uldar caught hold of my hand, tugging me after him.
“You’ll never have danced this one. It’s only for Silingan betrothals. Come on!”
I was swept into the centre of the floor, where a circle of men was forming within a circle of women, within a circle of men. Uldar pushed me into place among the girls – Katja caught me with a smile – and rushed into the smallest circle himself.
The dance was chaotic, girls snaking around each other, clapping left hand to right, stamping and twirling while the men jumped, whooped, and rushed through the rows of women at carefully timed intervals. It would have been hard to keep track of all the steps even if my mind weren’t doing a much faster whirl of its own, feverishly examining Uldar’s words and the conclusions they brought me to.
By the time the song ended and everyone paused, panting, laughing and sweating, I had lost track of both Katja and Uldar, and was more than ready to sit quietly for the rest of the evening.
Then a new piece of music began, quite unlike the other. A flute rang out, a silvery, haunting refrain that sounded almost like a sweet human voice. Everyone around me murmured with surprise and delight, and one by one they started to clap again. Not applause this time: keeping time as a heavy, deep drumbeat came into the music, creating a pulsating rhythm that contrasted starkly to the light, quick notes of the flute, and the strings that joined it.
Just as I was beginning to wonder if this piece was for dancing at all, the others began to move, backing up, making room for –
Shell.
30
She stood at the centre of the space, clad in a simple gown the colour of seafoam, with her hair bound tightly back from her face and neck to expose her delicate bones. The ball room was vast, and she was not a physically commanding person. She had no fierce voice to call us to silence, and no rank to quell us. Yet the vibrant force of her personality captured the attention of every man and woman there.
One of her bare feet stamped lightly. The dancers clapped once. The other foot stamped. They clapped again. Stamp. Clap. Stamp. Clap. The rhythm of the music p
icked up, like a heartbeat kicking in fear or passion. Stamp-clap. Stamp-clap. Stampclapstampclapstampclap, building building.
Shell’s arms flew up, curving around her head. She leaped, weightless, one leg extended fully before her, the other curving up behind so that the sole of her foot almost touched her skull as she bent back on herself.
I believed for an instant that she would never land.
Yet even as her feet touched the ground again, she was still untethered from it, unbound by its rules. She spun on the ball of one foot, turning in place faster and faster, like a tornado, green fabric blurring around her – then stopped, perfectly poised – and started to dance.
She danced as I had never seen her dance before. It was a variant of the same one we had just been doing – stamp, clap, whirl, jump – but the difference between our movements and hers was the difference between a domestic cat hopping out of a chair, and a leopard plunging down on its prey. There was no sensuality today, no yearning, invitation, sadness. Only joy. The joy of moving, of being alive. Of being free.
I’d tried to tell myself that I had learned to be unaffected by Shell’s dancing. It was a lie. Her exultant, liquid grace, the wild, uncontained beauty of her – no one could ever grow used to seeing Shell dance, not if they had a million years. Around me the others were still clapping in time, whooping, swaying, but I was just as frozen as I had been the very first time.
Look at me.
Look at me.
The ache of it was unbearable. My lips moved without my volition: “Look at me.”
She did.
Something happened as our eyes met. Some spark of energy arced between us, like lightning blasting through the clouds to find its home in the earth.
Her hand lifted, palm up, beckoning – and I moved, darting out of the crowd of watchers toward her.
Our fingers touched, entwined. She squeezed tightly once, twice, eyes fixed on mine. Then laughed silently and spun me in a giddy circle. When she stamped, so did I. She released me, and we clapped left hand to right above our heads, whirled in place, stamped again, circled one another, closed in and then twisted away.
Our eyes never parted. They never had to. I could read them, read her, as if she were a beloved book I had memorised as a child but then, somehow, forgotten. Until now. Every tilt of her head, every tensing of her muscles, the tiny smile-line that quirked to the left of her mouth, the faint arch of her brow.
Stamp, clap, whirl. Touch. Release. Return.
It was the closest thing to flying. Like being on the back of my horse, galloping over the dunes with the north wind at my back, my Mother and sister beside me, pleased and happy and laughing... But really it was like none of those things. Like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was like only one thing in the universe: dancing with Shell.
All around us other dancers had closed in, clapping and stamping, following our movements. From the corner of my eye I saw Uldar and Katja dancing together. But none of them were really there. None of them really existed. They were like a painted backdrop in a play, static and flat. No one was real but us.
Is this what freedom feels like?
With a thundering crescendo of drums and a final silvery note of the flute, the music ended. Shell and I almost collapsed into each other, holding one another up, panting.
Her sweat smelled like salt and rain. Like the sea.
My hand was pressed awkwardly to her sternum. It throbbed beneath my palm. Her heart. Her heart was beating right under my hand. A jolt of some indescribable feeling – something like hunger, something like pain, something like the terrified lurch of falling in the dark – made my core clench. I sucked in a sharp breath.
Her look brushed across my lips, up to touch my brow, returned to meet mine searchingly. Her gaze was a touch on my face – a kiss. The warm swell of her breast pressed into the heel of my palm as the rhythm under my hand sped, fluttering faster and faster, just like the music.
Slowly, Shell’s hands tightened on my waist. The most innocent movement, steadying me. Drawing me close. That was all. Wasn’t it?
There were people all around us – my betrothed was here somewhere – chattering, applauding, readying to dance again. But inside I was still falling. The rippling, hollow ache of it was tightening my spine, surging within me, and I couldn’t – I couldn’t –
I let go of her as if her skin had scalded me, backed away, and stumbled into a man standing nearby.
“I’m – I’m sorry – I am fatigued,” I babbled, directing the words to him, because now that I had dragged my eyes from Shell I did not dare look at her again. And I was a coward, and she could not speak to call me back, but I knew if I saw her do it with her eyes, I would not be able to refuse.
So I ran away. I turned and fled from her, across the ballroom, faster than I had run into her arms a few minutes before.
The crowd parted and then closed behind me, blocking me from the other girl’s sight. I found a silvery pillar, part of one of the twisting staircases, and flopped back against it, wishing it was natural ice so I could feel its cold through the sweat-soaked fabric of my dress. So my blood would stop throbbing, burning inside me.
I wasn’t naive. Or stupid. I knew what I was feeling. The thing I could no longer hide from myself, that I must always have felt for Shell, under my jealousy and resentment. But I had no earthly idea at all what to do about it.
I didn’t want to think about it.
Easier, and more awful, to think about the rest.
Everyone had seen. Everyone had seen my madness. Uldar, Katja, the Priest, the King – Miramand.
You are the sun, and she is the dirt.
The sun had dirty fingerprints all over her now. I pressed my face into my hands, trying to slow my breath.
I am calm.
I am calm.
I – Triple Gods, what was I thinking?
After a lifetime of restraint, a lifetime in which only my illness had ever defeated my control, all it had taken was a glance from Shell and I had flung all common sense, all dignity, to the wind. Miramand must be astonished and incensed at my apparent betrayal. Perhaps she was looking for me even now. Though I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted her good opinion or approval anymore, I had to know. Cravenly, I peered around the edge of the pillar, searching the crowd for the Queen so that I could try to deduce from her expression what the possible consequences of my sudden spurt of wildness might be.
She was still at her place by the King’s side, seated at the long table. The staircase where I hid was surprisingly close; I could count the King’s teeth in his gaping mouth. He slumped to one side, asleep or passed out, face tilted back against the padded rest of the chair.
Beside him, Miramand was white and still, distant, the way she always seemed to become when forced into proximity with her husband. I could not read her eyes – but I could follow them. They were fixed on the dancers. Leaning in the other direction, I saw that Shell and Uldar were together again, dancing a more restrained, courtly dance now, turning in slow circles on the blue floor. Uldar was smiling down at the castaway girl a little wistfully. I thought she looked... sad. Because of him?
Because of me?
I tore my gaze from her face and went determinedly back to studying Miramand. But the Queen’s face was turned away now. She was pouring wine into a silver goblet. Odd. Miramand did not take wine, not ever. Her brows were drawn together in concentration as she twisted at something on one finger – a ring – and touched the goblet on its rim so that her palm, and the ring, hovered over the wine. Then she twisted at the ring again, and gently swirled the wine in its cup. The gestures, including her faint air of furtive haste, were startlingly familiar. She was doctoring her drink. Some medicine for her heart, that the doctors had prescribed? Strange that she would choose to take it here, in public. Unless my antics had brought on a spasm of some kind...
Before guilt could submerge me, Miramand beckoned to a servant and passed the goblet to him. She spoke, giving
instructions, then sat back. Her face was as still as ever, but I could see her tension as she tracked the servant. Where was he going?
The footman walked to the edge of the area where people were dancing. The piece of music had finished and Shell and Uldar were applauding, moving off the dancing area and away from the other dancers. The servant stepped forward and offered the goblet to Shell.
It was only then, triple curse my fogged and feeble brain, that I realised what was about to happen.
I burst from behind the pillar, a cry lodged in my throat – words I knew Shell would never hear, not in this echoing room of voices, not with the music beginning again. No, don’t drink, don’t drink! She’s trying to kill you!
Shell nodded at the footman, but wrinkled her nose at the goblet. I had never seen her take much pleasure in wine, either, I realised. She looked around, as if to find somewhere to put the drinking vessel down, and I had a fraction of a moment to feel relief before Uldar, flushed and breathing hard from his exertions, snatched the wine cup from her hand. And downed its contents in one gulp.
The effect was nearly instant. He coughed, then choked, clutching at his throat. The goblet fell from his hand to bounce on the granite floor with a clang that I felt rather than heard.
“Get out of my way!” I was yelling, pushing at startled courtiers as Uldar’s face went purple – then blue. Shell had her arms around him, easing him down, her eyes wide with horror. Uldar was shuddering in her embrace. His mouth suddenly filled with something white – foam – that spilled down his chin as he convulsed. “Let me through, let me go to him – ”
There was a high-pitched scream as others began to notice the appalling tableau unfolding before them. The music ground to a halt. The guests and dancers and courtiers all turned to stone, slack-jawed and staring. And still I could not reach Uldar and Shell, crumpled together on the ballroom floor, could not get the stupid gawpers out of my way, could not move my heavy legs fast enough.
