“There,” Ollava said after another sniff at my hair. “That should do it. Now, help her out, girls.”
Before I could object, the maids who’d been scrubbing my arms now used them to haul me upright, leaving me bare and red and steaming for all the systems to see. Not for the first time, I wished I could flee into the walk-in closet—which was much bigger than my captain’s quarters on the Kaitan and yet the smallest room in this suite—and maybe barricade the door.
But my humiliation was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning.
Solara lifted her infopad from among the iceberg sea of cosmetics jars on the desk, and held it up toward me for a few seconds. When she laid it flat again and pushed a button, a hologram of me appeared over the top. At least I didn’t have to watch a bright, fully detailed image of my nude body spin around in the air for very long before various fabrics and colors covered it.
“These are all my dresses. You are a bit sturdier than me, but a mod can be done in a hurry, don’t fret,” she said, never mind that I hadn’t been “fretting” about anything other than standing naked in front of everyone like a piece of meat at the market. I almost wished I could disappear entirely. A maid finally took pity on me and wrapped me in a soft, white robe.
“Hm, that one might work, if we shorten it. Or not. That one’s too bland. Too bright. No, no.” Solara was muttering, swiping away the options she didn’t like, which seemed to be most of them, in spite of the fact that they were all hers. I could hardly get a good look before they were gone.
“Aha!” she finally cried, but she waved the image away before I even caught a glimpse of it. “Just the thing to catch our dear Nev’s eye.”
“What?” I stumbled as one of the maids directed me to a chair in front of the wide, curving desk and mirrors, my skin definitely burning in a way that had nothing to do with hot water now. “Why would you want to do that? Isn’t he…?”
I couldn’t even say the blasted word. But why had I been so surprised? How could I have thought…what had I even been thinking?
I still wished Nev would stride through the silver double doors, swinging his Disruption Blade, and get me the blasted hell out of here like he had on the destroyer. That desire was second only to how much I wished I never had to see him again. On the Kaitan, he’d told me so much about himself, his family, his hopes and ideals, and yet failed to mention his fiancée. I’d trusted him to not mislead me, and yet he had.
Idiot, idiot.
I heaped the insults on. As if everyone else in the room weren’t doing a fine enough job.
“Betrothed,” Solara supplied. “Yes, of course, but it’s no fun if he simply dotes upon her. And I’ve seen how he looks at you. You do have a certain rustic charm.”
I hoped the heat of my skin wouldn’t combust the chair. Rustic charm, like I was a damned trinket from offworld, not the deftest flyer this side of the galaxy had ever seen. That, along with complementary colors, were two phrases I never wanted to hear again.
Nor did I want to hear that Nev had been looking at me like that. A day ago, it might have sent a thrill blasting through me as hot and powerful as a ship’s thruster. But not now. Because if it was true, despite him being betrothed, then that was a problem. For me, for him, for Ket, for the whole royal family. So why in the systems would Solara try to fuel the flames? Maybe she secretly hated Ket, who, I had to admit, was pretty deserving of hate.
“B-but…,” I stuttered eventually. Solara was watching me with an intensity I found uncomfortable—as uncomfortable as everything else, rather. “But if this is the event where they officially announce their betrothal, why would you want to make waves tonight, of all nights?
“Oh, it’s just a game we royals play—all in good fun. You wouldn’t understand.” Before I could simmer over that—or wish I could evaporate—she went on. “Besides, my brother could never be so dull as to focus his attentions on one person, anyway.”
At my astonished look, her laugh rang out again.
“Oh, you poor dear. You think he’s been waiting for Ket? Maybe that’s how it is on your planet, but I assure you, that’s not how it’s done around here. He’d never be so indiscreet as to muddy the bloodlines, if you catch my drift,” she said with sly enthusiasm. “But I have no doubt he dabbles wherever he wants. He could have anyone in the systems, after all. I know he’s been with a Xiaolan girl—not the heiress, Daiyen, but one of her cousins—and a Nirmana girl or two while he was studying at their Econom Academy. Oh, and then there was that friend of Ket’s, but maybe that was before their unofficial betrothal…” She began ticking them off her fingers as the list went on.
I tried to figure out what this feeling was, and then I realized it was like my guts were falling out through the bottom of the chair. I wasn’t sure why I was shocked. I should have known. Nev was a blasted prince, gorgeous and wealthy beyond imagining. Of course he would have been with other women. Dozens, by all accounts. Unlike me, he hadn’t grown up on a backworld ship surrounded by only family and friends so close they were like family, nor with blackness in his eyes to frighten everyone else off.
Suddenly, I felt just as naïve and quaint as they’d been saying all day.
Solara reached over and patted my cheek, snapping my eyes up to hers. I’d never wanted to bite someone so badly before. Talk about uncivilized.
“Don’t look so forlorn! It’s a party.” She grinned at me, her own eyes flashing—so much like Nev’s, but so different. “And you’ll be dressed to kill.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. At least not when she said it, though I might not have minded killing Nev at the moment. Perhaps with my bare hands, while cursing him for bringing me here, for making me a part of the “games royals play.”
After decreeing that her hair and makeup were done—the maids had dabbed her lips in the vividest red—Solara leapt up from her chair and began directing the maids in how to do mine. Before I knew it, my dark eyes were glittering with a charcoal shadow that swept above and to the sides. More shadows emphasized my cheekbones, and the deepest purplish-red stained my lips. Solara was ecstatic, exclaiming how “exotic” I looked. I thought I looked nothing like myself.
I reached up to touch my face as I stared in the mirror, but Ollava smacked my hand away. “Not until I set it.” She looked to Solara for final approval, then waved a glowing wand over my face, where I felt a strange warming, then firming sensation.
I prodded at my lips with a finger after that, and the color didn’t budge.
“Now for her hair,” Solara declared. She could have been directing ships into battle with how seriously she coordinated the placement of my endless, unruly waves. After enough concoctions were sprayed on them and more glowing wands waved and thrust like swords, they soon fell in something like a braid, though only in the loosest sense of the word. My hair more resembled a black waterfall, twining and cascading over one shoulder. In the various flowing twists, Solara instructed the maids to weave in strands of glittering white jewels, which were likely worth more than my ship. It was a waterfall sparkling in the starlight.
Unlike my face, I couldn’t help admiring it. But then, with a fierce heat in my chest, I decided that I would much rather have the Kaitan than a few strings of sparkly rocks. The Dracortes would not change that while simply fixing my hair. They could never make me value my ship any less, or take it from me in any way.
My dark eyes looked deadly in the mirror before I quickly smoothed my face. Still, I tried to hold on to the image of the Kaitan like an energy shield to deflect whatever else was coming at me.
“Done!” Solara decreed. “Your dress mod should be done as well, by now. I’ll retreat to my quarters to get into my own gown—with only four of you,” she added, as the maids rushed to attend her. “Ollava, you make sure Qole is properly looked after. We wouldn’t want her foiling everything we worked so hard to achieve, would we?”
“No, my princess.” Ollava said it like she meant it, and shot me a warning l
ook. I fired a glare right back at her before I could stop myself.
Deep breaths…
I had no choice but to surrender myself to five eager pairs of hands as Solara swept out of the room. I honestly believed they would have tackled me if I’d tried to run from them. These maids were destroyers, ushering me into a dress like the fleet had escorted the Kaitan into Dracorva. Both parties threatened an equally aggressive response if I didn’t comply.
One pair of hands even covered my eyes, blinding me, and I heard Ollava’s shocked voice say, “Silly girl! Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the dress before you’re wearing it?”
No, I’d had no idea, as a matter of fact. And I didn’t think this evening could get much worse, bad luck or not, but I closed my eyes, clenched my jaw, and let their hands have their way with me. And yet…without sight, being dressed was sensual rather than intrusive. Soft material slithered over and then hugged the skin of my chest and waist, falling over my hips like water to swirl around my legs. Nothing needed to be loosened or tightened, like it always did when I had my leather gear fitted to me on Alaxak.
My shame suddenly widened, deepened, darkened, like I was falling into a pit. Black fury caught me. How could I like even a small part of this? The dress held me flawlessly, no doubt thanks to the accurate image that Solara had generated of my body. They were treating me like a doll, a pet, and I was letting them. A maid lifted my feet, one at a time, and slid them onto a slope steep enough to nearly topple me. Firm ties lashed around my ankles, keeping me bound where I tottered. A hobbled creature, ready for display.
The hands soon guided me a few steps, and then Ollava told me to open my eyes.
When I did, I couldn’t help it. I gaped at myself.
If I had barely recognized my own face under makeup, I had no idea who this woman was, standing in front of me in the mirrors. She was dark, dangerous, tempting, so much like the whisper of Shadow in my mind.
And that was exactly what I was supposed to be. The glittering-sky darkness of my hair curled into the shimmering black swath of fabric that wrapped in a spiral across my chest and around my waist. Only a panel of sheer, nearly invisible material filled the gaps. The disparate pieces joined around my hips—almost baring too much, but not quite—before falling in luxurious dark folds. In between those folds, the material changed from black to near-glowing purple, before fading to blinding white. When I swished my skirts, or even shifted, really, I looked like dancing Shadow. If I actually moved a step, two high slits parted up my thighs, revealing the black straps of heels winding up my calves.
“Great Collapse,” I said. I had to admit I painted quite the picture, never mind that they’d only dressed me up like Shadow in order to parade me around. I was now both the strange, rustic girl and the exotic resource that they were using to save their royal necks.
“Our Solara knows what she’s doing, she does,” Ollava said proudly.
The princess herself came bursting through the doors as if the suite were for her own personal use, not mine. I gaped at her too.
If I was Shadow, Solara was blood. The red of her gown matched her lips and practically dripped down her chest, plunging almost to her navel between her breasts. It was nonexistent in back, only pooling at the waistline to fall in slippery lines to the floor. She was stunning.
I was even more shocked to realize she was staring at me in nearly the same way.
“Hm,” she said, with almost scientific reserve. “You look even better than I predicted.” Then she smiled, her face lighting like a supernova. “Come. The party is waiting for us. And, since neither of us is beholden to anyone this evening…yet…then I will be your date.” She gave a mock, flourishing bow, as if she were a man.
Solara Dracorte looped my arm through hers and dragged me out the door.
The ball was in the Dracorte citadel, but the palace was big enough and the ballroom far enough away that it felt like a walk across a city. Especially in the heels that were destroying my feet. I was dressed to kill, indeed; dressed to kill myself. It was appropriate then, I thought bitterly, that I was dressed like Shadow.
We weren’t alone for long as we took several turbolifts and then wove our way through a hallway that was so grand, the white arches overhead vanished into both darkness and twinkling lights that looked like stars. Several of those lights, through some clever manipulation, rained down like meteors, illuminating the guests’ faces.
Even the hallway was a storm of colors, perfumes, voices, and liquid-smooth or gem-encrusted fabrics brushing against my bare arms. The sensations and the sheer number of people threatened to overwhelm me; I had never in my life even seen so many people, let alone such opulence. It was too much, and I began to panic, my breath hitching. But Solara didn’t give me the chance to stop and pull myself together, threading through the crowd as smoothly and fearlessly as Arjan piloting the skiff through an asteroid field, or Nev wielding a blade, while I lurched and bounced around behind her like a maimed ship getting towed at full power in another’s wake. She was a born socialite, dodging greetings, questions, and even blatant advances from obvious suitors without pause, but always with a clever word or two. She only said I was her “special surprise guest” when anyone asked about me.
“Where is Arjan?” I asked as it occurred to me. I also wondered how the others were doing on the ship, but I was more worried about him. If the rest of the crew had followed my orders, then at the worst they’d be bored. My brother was out here, in all this.
Solara swiped a shimmering glass of something and passed it to me. “You’ll see. Drink to calm your nerves.”
Without much else to distract me, I downed the liquid in a gulp. My eyes and throat burned. Before I could even look for somewhere to set the glass, an unobtrusive server freed it from my hand.
I turned, startled by the unexpected motion, and almost groped a young woman standing nearby, deep in conversation with a much older man.
“I would be most delighted,” the man said to her, “if you would share a bit of insight as to the recent market upheaval. Your opinion is clearly more valuable than anyone else’s in this place.” He scoffed at our surroundings as if they were shabby.
I was about to scoff at his overblown flirtation, an advance as heavy-handed and swaggering as the one Solara was currently fending off on the other side of me, when something about the woman snagged my attention.
Her hair was shaved on either side of her ears, a center column frozen in a curling bronze wave, like an ocean roller, and her dress was a glittering midnight sheath, exposing sharp shoulders and collarbones. Her skin was sleek and coppery, shimmering nearly as much as her dress. That sly smile, coming from dark lips was what gave her away.
Basra. Almost certainly a woman at this moment, too. I almost shouted her name. So much for this member of my crew, at least, passing the night in boredom on the ship.
Basra met my eyes and held a painted fingertip to her lips—no doubt to keep me from identifying her.
I was too addled to do anything but nod dumbly.
And then Solara slipped her arm through mine and tugged me away into the crowd. Just like that, it was as if I’d only hallucinated Basra looking more stunning in a dress than most of the royal women at this party. Ancestors. I hoped at least Eton and Telu were both still safely on board.
What the blasted hell was Basra doing? Perhaps she was only trying to have a ritzy evening out with Arjan. But no, she wouldn’t have disobeyed my direct order to stay on the ship just for that. She had to be up to something else entirely. She could have turned or ducked away and I never would have been the wiser, so I suspected she wanted me to see her. I trusted her judgment, in that case…but I still would have liked to know what was going on.
And how in the systems could that man think my Shadow trader’s financial opinion was one of the most valuable in the galaxy? Basra should have been so outmatched here that any market advice of hers would have been laughable.
I didn’t have
the time, or the ability, to investigate. Golden doors loomed nearly as tall as the indistinct ceiling at the end of the hallway, and the crowd made way for us. For Solara, rather, with me in tow behind her.
What am I doing here? The thought was like a gasp. This was crazy. Basra fit in better than I did. I belonged here like Solara belonged on Alaxak, working behind the counter with Larvut in Gamut’s only bar.
I was tempted to turn around in spite of Solara’s arm riveted to my own, but the ballroom stopped me short. Music rose in waves of stringed instruments over a deep undercurrent of synthetic bass that throbbed through my heels into the soles of my feet. Sleek, glistening masses of people swirled and pulsed to the sound, as colorful as the molecular clouds where I fished for Shadow. The room itself felt as endless as the black space around those clouds.
But I couldn’t take in much of the scene before my eyes followed gaps in the crowd, like paths leading me, to a grand dais. All around the sweeping, tiered platform hung swaths of translucent material lit from within by holograms that made the cloth look like an actual nebula, billowing in unreal, entwining patterns. Underneath this imaginary sky stood Nevarian Dracorte.
Nev’s light brown hair was more neatly combed than I’d ever seen it, falling effortlessly along the sides of his ridiculously perfect face. But it wasn’t his face that made the air leave my lungs and my stomach plummet as if I were crash-landing. It was what was behind the face: the ironic arch of his brow, the challenging spark in his eyes, and the laugh on his lips. It was him.
A strange mix of both relief and longing hit me like a tidal wave. It suddenly didn’t matter that I was furious with him. He was the one familiar thing in the whole ballroom. My eyes clung to the sight of him as if he were an island and I was drowning. I desperately wanted him to take my hand again, to guide me through this without letting go, without letting me lose myself.
I hardly noticed the woman actually by his side, holding his hand: Ket, in a swooping gown of white and silver. That was how intensely I was staring. How crazy I was. Nev was a prince, heir to a throne, betrothed to a sharp ice-fish of a princess, and I was a rough, ragged fishing captain from a forgotten corner of the galaxy. We were beyond polar opposites…but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Shadow Run Page 21
