Ah! Now here is a welcome diversion. I lift my own goblet as heartily as any of the rest of the company, toasting myself beforedraining the contents of my cup in a single draught. Droplets of red wine spatter on the gold silk of my bodice, like blood. I close my eyes, relishing the immediate rush of numbness spreading through my limbs. It cannot take away the pain or the fear, but it can make them notmatterquite as much, for a little while at least.
I drain my cup, and a servant appears to fill it again. Another toast comes swiftly on the heels of the first—someone must, after all, salute the king, who just managed to unburden himself of a daughter today. “Here, here!” I cry, and drain my second portion to the dregs.
Two goblets of wine on an empty stomach, and suddenly the world seems much brighter, much merrier than it did a short while ago. And the pain awaiting me in the next hour or two? That’s a problem for future Ilsevel.Ineedn’t concern myself with such things, not when there’s more wine to be drunk.
The court musicians begin to play. One of the pipes is ever-so-slightly out of tune, and my quick ears immediately pick it out from the rest of the cheerful noise. I throw back my head and laugh maniacally at the sheer awfulness of it, which no one else can hear.
Mother leans over once more and snarls, “Pull yourself together, Ilsevel.”
I merely laugh again and stand, catching myself on the table for a moment as both wine and pain cause the room to spin. “I am ready to dance!” I declare, my voice pitched rather high.
Artoris starts to rise from his place beyond my father, but I don’t give him the chance to claim me. Another wild laugh spilling frommy lips, I slip away from the high table and down to one of the lower tables set to the side of the banquet hall. Selecting a random fellow, who looks simultaneously frightened and pleased, I drag him to the dance floor. I’m much too intoxicated to recall the exact steps of the dance, but who cares? I may not be gods-gifted with Aurae’s natural grace, but I’m spritely and determined to feel none of the pain even now clutching at my gut. So I move my body, move my feet, even as tears spring to my eyes.
My partner, whose face I cannot quite discern, leans in close and whispers, “Are you quite all right, Princess?”
I only laugh at him.
Other dancers approach the floor, and I push away my first partner and blithely steal someone else’s. No one protests—I am the bride, after all. This is my night, or rather, my portion of the night. For when the dancing is through, the night will belong to the bridegroom, as everyone knows. What happens to me then may be subject to some speculation, but it doesn’t take a great imagination to conjure all the ways a husband may punish his new wife for indiscretions at their wedding feast.
The songs progress, one after another, and I dance on. Claiming partners at will, interrupting the patterns of the dances without a thought. No one speaks out against me, and only once do I hear Artoris’s voice sternly speaking my name. It’s easy enough to flee him, plunging deeper into the crowd, which by now fills the floor. It almost feels like magic, so multitudinousare the merrymakers and their gorgeous raiment. I could almost believe someone cast an illusion spell to make the crowd appear denser and offer me a little shielding from my husband’s gaze.
I make a turn, my arms over my head, my long sleeves fluttering like wings. As I come fully about, I find myself facing a broad chest, which strains at the seams of a dark green, velvet tunic. I tip back my face, bleary eyes struggling to make sense of this new partner. Long black hair, unbound, falls so as to cover his ears, and a strong jaw is made even stronger and sharper by the definition of a neatly-trimmed beard.
I lift my gaze farther, focusing for a moment with exquisite intensity on a pair of beautifully formed lips. Great gods! How had I never noticed before that lips could be so very beautiful? Almost as though they arebeggingto be kissed. Artoris’s lips are not like that, though I’ve kissed them often enough. Too thin, too needy . . . while this mouth seems to promise a sumptuous generosity that makes my stomach feel suddenly cavernous with craving.
I don’t bother to look more closely. I simply reach out, grab the front of that tunic, and pull the man into my wild dance, laughing at the sheer audacity flowing in my veins, pulsing in time with blood and wine. A powerful hand slips around my waist, gripping me fast. Strange that it feels so supportive. Not like Artoris’s caging grip. This is the sort of grasp which can sustain one through tempests, an offering of strength, even goodness.
I whirl again, wholly given over to the madness of song, nolonger even caring for that one sour pipe, which winds its way through the rest of the melody. I throw wide my arms, bend my spine, lean my head far back, allowing my center of gravity to veer wildly off course as I spin and spin, kept upright only by that powerful hand. My skirts form a billowing maelstrom around me and this faceless new partner of mine.
Suddenly I open my eyes. I don’t know how it happened, but I am no longer standing in a torchlit and crowded space. Shadows crush in on every side, and cold stone walls echo hollowly with dancing music from far away. I blink hard, my vision doubling, but manage to recognize the long gallery into which I’ve somehow been drawn. Drawn by that large hand, which still rests at the small of my back. Another hand grasps my fingers, assisting me as I stagger along.
I shake my head. “Where . . . what . . . ?” I cannot think straight, struggle to form a coherent question. With an effort of will, I pull my brain into some semblance of order. “What are we doing out here?”
“I had to speak to you,” a deep voice murmurs from the darkness over my head. “Privately,zylnala.”
Zylnala.
That word again.
“Songbird,” I whisper.
Then I crane my head, peering through shadows. A gleam of moonlight falls from one of the high gallery windows, splashes across the face of my escort. It’s the beautiful stranger from the garden.
“You,” I breathe.
14
TAAR
It is both torture and delight to watch her whirl across the dance floor, spun from the arms of one partner after the other, surrounded by Lyria’s illusion spell.
The illusion came together rather well, just as we planned. Lyria crafted it by planting runes around the floor while the castle household was distracted by the wedding ceremony in the chapel. I feel the pulse of those runes and their power now, subtle but discernable to myibrildiansenses. It tricks the eye into believing there are more dancers on the floor, allowing Ilsevel to be lost in the assembly. To most observers, that is.
I could never lose sight of her, no matter how strong the illusion. In that golden gown, so very different from the Licornyn garb I’ve known her to wear, she looks like a caged eagle—wildly beautiful and defiant, but trapped. Removed from her proper element. Herhair has been piled up on her head, but it escapes its little jeweled pins to fall in tendrils across her bared shoulders. I must resist the urge to storm the dance floor, rip that crown from her head, and plunge my fingers into the mass of dark coils, loosing it from all bonds.
But I stand by, hidden behind a pillar at the far end of the banquet hall. Waiting for my chance.
Lyria would not let me attend the wedding itself. “It’s best you do not,” she’d said. “It will be heavily guarded.”
