“I just want you to know that we can discuss it when you’d like. I don’t want you thinking I keep things from you, it’s only that not everything holds importance. You understand this?” He squeezed my shoulder. It sent a wave of assurance through me that said I didn’t have to worry about anything Lox did or didn’t tell me. But then there was something else, one of those Echren-induced thoughts, that made me think about how he would have found out that I knew about Tobias, who would have told him, and when. The strength of his hand on my shoulder, usually comforting, was just the opposite.
Lox was waiting for me to acknowledge him. I knew I was trying to show no expression, I just didn’t know how well it was working. I got a nod off. He smiled wider, then he released my shoulder. “Go on, then. Enjoy the party. We’ll talk afterwards.”
It took me a minute to turn back in the right direction; it felt like I’d lost my balance. Now I faced Ellia once more, and she was looking at me. At least she had been. As soon as I’d turned, she looked away. Her face was red. I steadied myself; I forgot about why I’d been coming over before. I walked past her, ignoring her wrist. I picked a drink up off the table and swigged it distractedly, but I didn’t have long in silence. Two soldiers close to the table were talking, and it was them Ellia listened to, so I did as well.
“Yes, I’ve used it,” one was saying. “It’s not any sort of magic, it’s the simplest thing, just a brick of lead. But then when it hits the beasts’ throats, when they shoot their fire off, it melts down instantly and burns their insides.”
“I thought it burns their throats.”
“Starts in the throat, then moves down, And if the chimera’s a really tough one, the lead might get a chance to harden, then it suffocates them. It’s a thing of genius really, and it only takes one good shot.”
Ellia blinked slowly and looked down, her eyes a little wet but otherwise she showed no reaction.
My hand started throbbing. I looked at it and realized I’d been squeezing my fingers around my glass. I relaxed them quickly and set the cup down, stilling the shaking in my arm. Then I turned around and watched the dancers.
A song was just ending. I knew that standing where I was, was going to get me a handful of requests to dance. I didn’t mind. I could already see the three closest ladies eyeing me. As the next song started, one drew very near, but after only a few notes a murmur fell across the crowd, and she stopped. No one else started either. Some cleared the floor, knowing it was a song that they wouldn’t be able to dance to. Because it wasn’t Akadian. And before very long everyone was talking about its origins.
“It’s Shaundakulian, isn’t it?”
“I hate it when minstrels play foreign songs, it’s perfectly useless.”
“Isn’t it a lovely tune though?”
“I’ve heard the Shaundakulian waltzes are a beautiful thing.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the dance?” Those standing closest to Ellia grazed her with looks. A few lords tried to lead their partners in dancing, claiming that they’d learned the steps before. But clearly they hadn’t. Soon the partiers were making no attempt to hide their comments, and disapproval at the loss of a spectacle.
“Too bad Nain was sent underground, don’t you think a Katellian Prince would know a Shaundakulian dance?”
“Shouldn’t Molec be able to?”
But if Molec knew, he clearly wasn’t about to say. He was one of the only people left in the hall still ignoring Ellia.
Almost everyone was still talking, but there were excited comments being directed towards Lox. He’d just said something about the song and a woman asked, “Do you know it, Commander?”
Then another, “Will you dance with the Princess?”
“What a proper reward for his victory.”
“Then you could teach it to us afterwards?”
Lox chuckled. “Of course I don’t know it,” he said. “But don’t you recall Lieutenant Dracla is Shaundakulian? I thought he might humor us.”
My arms were still crossed. While most of those present in the hall turned their attention to me, I looked at Lox. He smiled a little, it was a sort of optimistic expression, the type he gave me when he rewarded me with something, like when he’d given me Tosch so many months ago, or even when he’d given me Ellia. I just didn’t know why he was doing this after telling me not to be kind to her. And I wished I didn’t know why he thought having me dance with her would be some type of reward.
While the rest of the room waited for my answer, I switched my gaze to Ellia. Her expression had shifted from how it had been most of the night. She still had her arms crossed. She still had her scowl, but her eyes held more of what I was used to seeing for years in Shaundakul. Not hateful, not cold. Something that said I had the power.
Forcing my shoulders loose I gave a light shrug to the crowd, then I walked towards her. The chamber immediately filled with claps and excited murmurings. I stopped in front of Ellia, who was shaking. Then, as I had seen so many times before but had never done myself, I crossed my arm at my waist, bowed my head down, and held my hand out to her.
I wasn’t expecting it, but I found suddenly that I couldn’t breathe. The gesture I’d made was one specific to Shaundakul, something that asked for the woman’s acceptance. I’d seen men do the same thing to Ellia a hundred times, I’d seen her give her hand to them a hundred times. A deep knot grew in my stomach, and it only abated when her hand fell into mine.
I lifted at once to my full height, and without further pause for custom led her to the center of the open floor. But no matter how quickly I moved, my reaction had caught me off-guard and I no longer felt very sure of what I was doing. The music cut off and started again from the beginning. We faced each other, our hands touching opposite, my right to her left. Her eyes were steady and on mine, as if she wasn’t afraid at all. I didn’t look away either, and kept my expression blank; controlled. Because I was in control, no matter how it felt.
That’s what I thought.
But I was wrong.
It came like a slow dawning. At first I was immune. We turned around each other, switched hands, turned again. Akadians were shapes at the edge of my vision; the music was steady and familiar. Neither of us missed a movement, despite my lack of experience. There was a point where we were meant to look back, away from each other, but I didn’t, and she didn’t either. Then it got to the part where I would take her waist and she would take mine; just one hand while our others stayed loose at our sides. It came fast, and even through her dress I could feel the curve of her side, how perfectly my hand fit there, how easy to control her—but it only lasted a second, then the music drove us apart. And again it repeated—so that it felt like I was being jerked back and forth between two states of mind.
When it finally neared the point where I’d be guiding her completely, my building anxiety was such that when I touched her, my grip turned firm and holding, not something that either of us could decide to change our minds about. Her brows dipped in response. It broke me from the sort of trance I’d been in, made me realize nothing was the same as it had been a minute ago. I couldn’t see the rest of the room, I could only see her, but I was aware of everything that was going on in it, everything that had happened that entire night—it was all screaming at me. Screaming that I knew perfectly well why Veera was acting crazy. Screaming that it wasn’t just my imagination that something was wrong with Molec. That the description of Lox’s weapons had made me sick. That Lox had spoken with Ellia before the party, that he’d hurt her and done I didn’t even know what else.
And then the past rushed forward on me. I saw Uldin Keep, heard Ellia crying as the goblins brought the dragons down, felt her sobbing while I held my hands over her ears. And I remembered the dances in the great hall, with her staring at me, all the while pretending that I didn’t know what she wanted. And I remembered climbing to her room, and seeking her out after my father had died, all the while pretending that I didn’t know why I was doing it.
That I didn’t know it was to see her eyes, see the way she was looking at me now. The way she knew me, the way she loved me, like no one else loved me, ever, and they were never going to.
But here was the clearest fact of all, loud and silent both, but absolute.
I’d betrayed her. The one I was supposed to protect, the one who deserved the best from me. This person, this person here that I was holding. Ellia. My Ellia. I’d betrayed her.
The music hadn’t stopped, and the steps I knew to take without having to think about them. My movements only became more controlled all the time, because it was like everything was fitting into one exact picture that couldn’t be changed or stopped. I got the sudden urge to take her away from here, away from these people. I didn’t want the noise; I only wanted her. I thought how easy it would be, how small she was under my hands. I could pick her up, carry her wherever I wanted. But that wasn’t part of the picture. The Akadians weren’t the reason we couldn’t be together, I was. I’d had my chance; now there was nothing to say; now I was going to be alone like Veera had threatened.
She was still just staring at me, seeing all of me. It didn’t matter anymore that we were close, she was unreachable. Touching all of her wouldn’t have been enough. Her eyes were the nearest I could get, so I didn’t look away from them. But soon the song would end, and the party would continue. I would have to go on choosing, and fighting, and living. All like I’d never realized how badly I’d ruined everything. All like I’d never realized what I’d done.
ELLIA:
Before the music had even stopped, Akadians began to crowd the floor. Someone must have instructed the minstrel to begin the Shaundakulian song over, because it started again from its beginning and Akadians began to duplicate what I and Cyric had done. Our hands still touched, but then a passing couple came between us and broke them apart. Then Akadian women started asking him to show them how to the dance. Men, likewise, approached me. I was so flustered, I couldn’t even think to answer, or argue, or respond to them at all. I tried to see Cyric, to make him see me, but he just stood in the crowd, his eyes as dazed and distant as they had been since our dance had ended. I saw another flash in my mind of the building crumbling, I put a hand to my forehead.
Then I heard a whisper in my ear, louder than the other voices, accompanied by a hand on my back. “For the love of skies, Ellia, open up your mind,” it hissed. The words echoed back in my head, confusing and impossible. The first phrase was a Yanartian one, and the latter part didn’t even make sense. As soon as I registered this much, I turned. There was a soldier there, just one of many that crowded around me. But as he lifted his head, his eyes with them, I nearly shouted his name, and it was no Akadian one, just as he was no Akadian soldier. It was Gael! Albeit dressed in Akadian clothes, but certainly Gael nonetheless—I’d spent enough time fighting with him in the eastern kingdoms to recognize that no matter what he was wearing.
My eyes widened. He raised his brows at me, reminding me of his words. Open my mind? I thought. Then he started to walk backwards. I panicked and almost reached for him, until I remembered what was all around me, and realized that he must have been in disguise here. I thought back once again, anxiously, to his words, and the moment I repeated them a second time, I felt a rush of hope for what they might mean—as well as an explanation to the flashes that had been afflicting me all night. The feel of them was suddenly, explicably, familiar, and I stopped fighting them.
I nearly toppled, there in the middle of a dance floor. I thought I must have grabbed the arm of a nearby lord, but I wasn’t seeing him. I was seeing Luffie, feeling her mind and her thoughts. The images in them filled my head. And it wasn’t seconds before they changed from a desperate, furious attack to penetrate my mind, to a scathing rebuke that I had so long ignored her. The connection still wasn’t perfect, she couldn’t have been very close, but she knew I now realized she was here. She wasted little time in greetings before describing to me that I needed to get outside. I tried to ask her what was going on; the things she showed me were like the images I had seen all night. The building crumbing, I hardly understood how it was possible. She stressed that I just needed to obey her, that she and Gael would be outside waiting for me. At this news, at the thought of actually seeing her, I exhilarated. I acknowledged her and gathered up my dress, but I hadn’t made it two steps past the surprised circle of lords before I froze.
My eyes found Cyric, still standing as he was surrounded by Akadians. My breath escaped me. I thought of him arguing to the Echrians to fight for Akadia. I thought of Lox’s threats, how Cyric had brought me back to him. I marched forward quickly, parting the other dancers. I grabbed his hand. He jumped, and glanced down at me, but only for a moment, then he looked back where he had been. I realized only then that he was looking with concentration at something. I followed his gaze, knowing I shouldn’t be surprised when I saw that it was Lox he watched. The commander stood on the edge of the dance floor, his arms crossed, his ear bent to a servant at his side; I hardly gave it attention.
“Cyric,” I called, pulling at his arm.
He looked at me again, and I thought he grimaced a little, his hand very warm in mine.
“Cyric, come with me,” I begged. His brow dropped. He looked back at Lox.
Now I didn’t give him a choice. I took his arm with both my hands and tugged him through the crowds. I spared glances for those closest to us, trying to see if they noticed. I did not see Gael, but Luffie had already told me that he would be where she was. When we got to the door before the balcony I worried that Cyric would resist, but he came right after me and he wasn’t trying to look at Lox anymore, I had his full attention.
The air hit us like a cold wall, there was even a breeze this high up. No one stood on the balcony. The sound of the party, its music, and people was immediately muted. The torches had been put out on the entire area. I saw steps going down towards the left and headed for them, Cyric’s hand still in mine.
“Ellia wait,” he said.
“There’s no time.”
He stopped me before I could reach the first step. Being stronger than I was he succeeded easily. I swung to face him. “Cyric, please, just—”
I cut off at his expression. At first his gaze was unfocused, I knew this was because he couldn’t see well, though after a moment, his eyes found mine easily enough. The rest of his features were quite different than I had ever seen them. His brows were pulled together, and his mouth was a grim line; his throat was constricting.
I thought of Luffie, then I narrowed on him. “What’s wrong with you?”
He blinked, his expression straightening, but not much; he looked away at the same time. “We need to go back inside,” he said.
“I just want you to come with me,” I urged. “Just for a minute. Please.”
He narrowed, incredulous, but he kept his gaze diverted.
I tried to ask Luffie how long I had, but nothing very clear came through. It did not seem that Gael was there with her yet though.
“Cyric—” I started, preparing to launch into a long stream of pleading—anything, I would tell him anything to get him to follow—but as soon as I’d said his name, I saw his chest rise sharply. His expression didn’t shift, and his eyes didn’t move back to me.
Still…
I felt my throat closing up with my own thoughts, but I reminded myself how little time I had and that made me braver. I freed my hand from his, which made him glance down at them, but then I used both my hands to reach up to his face and turn his head towards me. I made him look at me. His expression was dark, and his eyes were trying hard to be the same. I thought of the only time I’d been brave enough to kiss him, the morning he’d left me alone in Akadia to go train, the second time he’d separated from me since we’d been captured. I’d been so scared then, because of his new Akadian friends, and because of how happy he’d seemed. Little had I known all that would happen. And yet here I was and it all felt the same.
I close
d my eyes tight and leaned up on my toes, moved my hands to his shoulders enough to help me lift, and I kissed him. So much less skillfully than he could—Our noses crushed together and I could barely reach his lips. Only when his hand came back around my head, holding me up, was my kiss really all I could make it. Then I dropped back on my heels. And his fingers fell from my hair as if he hadn’t meant to touch me in the first place. I felt the cold first and heard the wind that I’d forgotten was there. Then I opened my eyes. He was already looking at me, but his expression… he looked as if I’d just tortured him—or betrayed him even.
I frowned, thinking how, from his perspective I was about to. Uncertain that it would even work, I reached for his hand, and then, closing mine tight around it, I turned. This time there was no resistance. I raced towards the steps. At first, though he followed, his grip was loose and unresponsive, but this soon changed. The stairs were dark, only lit by the moon or a little by the distant torches of the city, like twinkling lights below. So high up as we were, most everything was far below us, and we were winding the dark side of the castle. The fact that Cyric didn’t understand my urgency and probably couldn’t see, didn’t stop him from keeping pace with me, but I thought he was probably just that much better at descending steps. He had a powerful grip on my hand now.
I tried not to think as I went where Luffie had directed me; I kept my mind open only enough to hear what she thought, in case she had a warning, but I could not let her see into my full mind at present. When we passed an empty platform for the third time, Cyric glanced back at it, and then he wanted to know where we were going and why so fast. He’d barely asked it when we rounded a corner, and there, on the end of a ledge, drenched in gold light from the nearest torch, was Luffie.
Fallen Kingdom (Fallen Trilogy book 2) Page 20
