The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,73

I—”

A memory surfaced. No. It was long before that. Before I ever laid eyes on her. The note. The gall. A voice demanding to be heard. The same things that angered me now had intrigued me back then. But even that wasn’t what had captured my imagination. It was the day she had left me at the altar. The day a seventeen-year-old girl had been brave enough to thumb her nose at both my kingdom and her own. A refusal of epic proportions because she believed in and wanted something else. That was what had first captivated me.

It was her bravery.

I looked up at Sven. He stared at me as if he could see the unsaid words behind my eyes, as if I were a horse he had just forced to drink from a dirty trough of my own making.

“It doesn’t matter.” I snatched the empty mug from the post and walked back to the party, feeling his scrutiny on my back.

* * *

She was dancing with Captain Azia when I returned to the head table, smiling and enjoying his company. He clearly enjoyed hers too. Next she danced with a pledge who was no more than fifteen. He was unable to hide his infatuation and had a ridiculous smile pasted on his face. And then there was another soldier and another. I saw a few on the perimeter of the dance area staring at her bare shoulder, her kavah in plain view. She had cut away a sleeve and part of one shoulder on her dress to expose it, undoubtedly a message for me. The Morrighese vine tangled around the Dalbretch claw, holding it back. How differently I saw the kavah now.

And then I spotted the bones.

My fingers curled into my palms. I thought she had left the miserable practice behind us in Venda.

Where she had gotten so many bones I didn’t know, but against her fine blue velvet gown, a long chain of them dangled, swinging through the air as she danced like a disjointed skeleton. She avoided my gaze, but I knew she was aware of my presence. Whenever she paused between dances, she fingered the monstrosity hanging at her side and smiled like it was as precious as a jeweled belt of gold mail.

Another round of the farache began, and I watched her dancing with Orrin, stamping her foot toward him, retreating back. They circled and clapped their hands high over their heads, and then slapped them together, the sound ringing through the field, echoing off the high walls. Orrin laughed, oblivious to my stare or her maneuvers, and I marveled at how he lived so fully in the moment. Whether it was dancing, cooking, or pulling back his arrow for the kill, only the moment mattered. Maybe that was why he was such a skilled archer, and a fearless one. I didn’t have the luxury of living only in a single moment. I had to live in a hundred fractured moments that held our futures in the balance. I had a new understanding of my father—my mother too—and the decisions they had to make, sometimes compromising something they wanted for the greater good of something else.

The dancers sidestepped to the right, a new partner circled back from the opposite end, and I saw Lia matched with Kaden. I had been so focused on her, I hadn’t even noticed him farther down in the line of dancers. Their hands clapped overhead, and then when they circled, I saw words pass between them. Only words. She had spoken with Orrin too, but this time the unheard words burned through me.

“Your Majesty?”

Vilah caught me by surprise. I sat up from my slouched position. She curtsied, her brown cheeks blushing warmer, then she held her hand out to me. “You haven’t danced all night. Do me the honor?”

I took her hand, trying to shake my flustered state, and stood. “I’m sorry. I’ve been—”

“Occupied. I know.”

Instead of me escorting her to the dance floor, she led the way, and instead of going to the end of the line, she squeezed in to Lia’s right. I reluctantly took my place opposite her, realizing how easily she had duped me. I raised a questioning brow, and she smiled, stamping toward me to begin our dance. I stamped back. We circled, we clapped, and it seemed it was only seconds before it was time to move to the right—to a new partner.

Lia and I stood opposite each other. She dipped her chin in