Remy looked thoughtful. Daphne had a hand on her throat and looked dismayed.
“It’sblack.”
“I know, I love it.”
“I just—I just, isn’t it a little dark?” The words came out in a rush and Daphne hurried on, “I mean I know it’s the Raven Ball, but you’re getting engaged, for the gods’ sake. Engagements are happy, Elysia, and happy is not black.” She sniffed and prodded at the gown as if it might magically reveal itself to be the pink of a blushing bride.
Remy continued to study it for a moment with one hand drifting to her hips. “Art tends to have a message, doesn’t it?”
Elysia held the fabric of the dress between her fingers, her voice equally musing. “Yes, yes it does.”
Soon the gin was flowing and the girls were cackling. If she allowed herself to, then Elysia could have easily forgotten what was coming, but the events that were to come were a steady, ever-increasing drum beat in her mind. Every sip and laugh felt surreal, as if it were someone else being buffed and coiffed into someone who might wear a crown.
She kept waiting for someone to grab her and tell her not to do it, for someone to beg her one last time to leave. But she’d expertly avoided Jessa, Beatriz, and Gage this last week. No one had been able to catch her in spite of them stalking her front door and badgering the residents of the House.
She tapped a no longer muddied nail upon a deep wine-red lip stain, the shade so dark it might as well have been blackened and dried blood. “It’s perfect.”
Face painted and body gleaming, she stood in front of the Pleur. “It’s time.”
The soundof string instruments carried up the stairs to where Elysia stood, waiting to descend onto the dance floor filled with all of Kava’s finest. Her silver satin slippers tip-tapped while the guests in front of her were announced one by one. Finally, she glided up beside the man who was booming out their names as if anyone truly cared who was about to walk down the Crown-red-carpeted stairs.
But yet, as she stepped into the light, she felt a pause sweep through the crowds below. The air stilled and breaths were held. The elder gentleman calling the names gestured for her to begin, and as she did, he cried her name.
“Lady Elysia Parker, daughter of the Crown.”
Her gown might as well have been the most eloquentfuck youshe had ever offered. What her mother had not seen with the dress limp in its garment bag was that the fabric was alive. The threads became vines and leaves that cascaded up her throat. The blackened greenery acted as nature’s hands as it strangled and wrapped around her neck. The same decaying vines and leaves caressed her shoulders, running down her arms to end with a leaf like a teardrop upon her hands. Dark tulle roses fell down her body to the floor, leaving a trail behind her that marked her steps.
No mundane hands could have ever cut such cloth. It was obvious there was magic infused into every stitch and bit of its production.
King Garrison’s gaze met Elysia’s like a blast of the coldest night, and she smiled warm enough to dazzle the entire city in this room.
A hand touched her elbow as she at last reached the bottom of the stairs, and she knew whose eyes she’d find behind it.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” His words were low, reverberating amongst the nerves that fluttered in her gut.
She turned on an inhale, eyes wide with innocence. “As you mentioned, Prince, I believe in—how did you put it?” Her head tilted and voice gained an edge. “Steamrolling my opponents.”
Elysia slipped into a curtsy, aware of the many eyes she doubted would leave their sides tonight. As she lifted back up, one brow went up as well, and she held out a hand.
“Will we be pretending one last time? Or are you going to do something stupid and rash?”
Annoyance slipped through his fixed face. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs a reminder not to do something stupid.”
“Then dance with me.”
His large calloused palm swallowed hers, and then they were sailing chest to chest across the black-and-white patterned floor. While the prince may have preferred the rhythms of the streams and trees, he was more than capable of leading her through every dip, whirl, and leap.
Breathless and cheeks growing pink, she laughed and laughed as they moved. At the sound of her true laugh, Topp Blatz couldn’t help but smile, eyes crinkled and freckles barely there, and it was a beautiful, heartbreaking thing to behold. She looked up at him with glassy eyes and a full heart.Thiswas the memory she would hold on to, the feel of him warm against her and looking at her like she was someone to be loved or even adored.
Her mother had reached deep into the essence of every Raven Ball of the glorious past and pulled out radiant shades of charcoal that she cast out like a glamour across the ballroom. Smoky grays and plumes of night tricked the eye into believing they walked through a beautiful rolling fog. Dim candlelight flickered, creating the faintest warmth to soften the dark.
She had recreated the soot that fell upon every inch of their home and made it look like something beautiful instead of dead. Casting her gaze around, Elysia wondered at the effect her mother had managed to create.
It was a night for secrets, for trysts, and the strange magic that happens when one believes no one is looking.
The song slowed, and she brushed the back of her fingers against the stubble on the prince’s face. Voice near breaking, she spoke. “I may have wanted to hide behind your crown—but I was always glad it wasyours, and not someone else’s. I never pretended. I may have omitted, but I never pretended about my heart.”
They came to a halt, dresses and dark polished shoes still dancing around them. His gaze turned penetrating as he caught her fingers and pressed them to his mouth.
