Wind flowers, p.8
Wind Flowers, page 8
His hand wound around my back and lifted my other arm, and I did my best not to faint, the room spinning before we even began our dance.
But then we were spinning with it, my stomach churning in time with the orchestra. The music accosted my ears, just senseless, screeching noise as I fought to stay present in my body.
I couldn’t do this.
But I was, against my will and despite myself, as Drakkar held me tightly.
“A lovely evening, is it not?” he drawled in his Northern accent as he twirled me around, his own doll to animate. The lights of the ballroom blurred together, my eyes unfocused as my head continued to twist in a dizzying spiral.
“Yes, beautiful.” My response was automatic, impersonal, a line I’d been given only to regurgitate. But my soul was miles away, my mind disappearing to the warm streets of a city of smoke and starlight.
Broad hands gripped me closer, chaining me back to this body, this night. “You know, you seem familiar, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have forgotten someone as lovely as you. Have we danced before at one of these?”
My legs shook, anxiety trembling through me. I turned my head, hiding my face. “You must be thinking of someone else. I don’t normally dance.”
A slow smile split his face.
“First time, then? Don’t be nervous, precious, I promise to be a gentleman tonight,” he breathed against my cheek. “We’re betrothed, after all.”
That tiny, undying spark of rebellion reared its head again, my jaw grinding over my words. “Not officially.”
“Semantics.” He dipped me low in time with the music, my head rushing at the sudden shift in gravity. He tugged me back up, a chuckle in his chest reverberating up my spine. “But I promise to treat you well. I’ve been told I’m an excellent dance partner.”
He winked, the innuendo raising all the hairs on my body.
I couldn’t do this.
Finally, blissfully, the music came to a stop, and so did the spinning.
My legs were as malleable as flower petals beneath me, too boneless to stand on their own. But Drakkar did not let go, his hand still sprawled on my back, his fingers still clutching mine.
“The song is over.” My voice was a whimpering half-plea, but I didn’t care. I needed to get out, to get away….
I could. Not. Do. This.
“Another will start in a minute.”
I pushed against his chest slightly—not hard enough to draw attention, but enough to put some much-needed space between us, so I could breathe and think. A half-cocked idea finally floated to the surface, and I stumbled over myself to get it out. “H-how about some refreshments first?”
He smirked, brushing a curl back over my shoulder, his fingers leaving a chill in their wake. “I’m already refreshed by your beauty.”
My heart fell to the floor, tired of beating too hard.
There was no escape. No choice, no—
“May I cut in?” A dark voice spoke behind me, and my spirit soared before I even turned around.
Dark hair was slicked back to match the pitch-black suit he wore, his mask just a simple ebony silk scrap across his face.
But even in the lowlight of the chandeliers, even behind a new mask, there was no mistaking those eyes anywhere.
Green tea and honey, a laugh like nightshade.
Breezy dizziness, rooftops like sparkling treasure.
For the first time all night, I took a deep breath, my lungs hungry for clear air. For his air, warm and bright and real.
“You’re here.”
Eight
SHIN
The russet clay steps of Anastova loomed high above us, the Palace-on-the-Hill an indomitable presence. Baskets of lush, exotic plants hung from every light-post, their shadows across the steps like fingers reaching, ready to snare us.
I tugged at the itchy collar of my dress shirt as Mal and I made the slow ascent up and up, the air too humid in these parts, the wind a slow, sluggish thing coiling around me like a cobra ready to squeeze. But there was no turning back, even if the air whispered warnings in time with the merry music wafting from the grand ballroom.
“Remember the plan?” Mal murmured through red-painted lips, her wild curls tamed in a bun at the nape of her neck. A fox mask sat atop her button nose, matching the flowing, burnt-orange dress she wore. She was a vision—a living flame, a fire-fox tail swishing in the breeze. It was bold, but that was the point.
Lure and liar. Damsel and devil.
One last ruse. One final job.
If we could just make it through tonight, we’d be free, our lives no longer chained to the dregs of Hiku City. Aya’s life no longer dangling on a single, worn thread.
“I find the princess, you distract the suitors,” I repeated as I offered Mal my arm, escorting her up the last few steps. Jade-and-pearl encrusted doors opened wide to invite us in, a beast’s yawning maw ready to swallow us up.
“Naveen and the twins will be waiting for us at the stables near the conservatory. We have three hours.” Mal let go, halting just outside the door. Even behind her mask, her glare bore holes into my forehead, the air warming to a blistering hot around us as Malina’s rage simmered. “Don’t screw it up again.”
My fingernails carved crescents into my palms. “Are you implying I messed up last time?”
She sucked her teeth. “We wouldn’t be in this shit if you hadn’t stayed too long.”
“This isn’t shit, it’s a job. A very profitable one, at that,” I hissed under my breath, just loud enough for her to hear. Other partygoers passed by, paying us no mind as the enchanting scene inside lured them in. Still, I dared not raise my voice a decibel. “You ask me, I say I fixed our problems.”
Mal held her breath, the pixie of a girl usually content to stay angry when she was in one of her moods. But ever the professional, she shoved it down, exhaling a warm breath as her jaw unclenched. “No surprises, Shin.”
I smirked, glad to have my friend back. I needed her support just as intensely as I needed the wind at my side. I flicked her nose, a familiar tease. “No promises, Mal.”
I ducked just out of reach before she could swing back at me, her irritated laugh nipping at my heels as I dove into the crowd of nobles, ready to disappear into their ranks.
The ballroom sparkled brighter than a star, half-a-dozen crystal chandeliers radiating a kaleidoscope of fragmented color across the enormous room. But the people shone just as brightly, a fresco of jewels and silks and masques of every hue decorating the patrons.
Dressed in all black, I faded into the background like a shadow, but that was perfect. I needed to be forgettable, intangible as the wind that carried me.
I danced my way through the murmuring crowd, not a single self-absorbed noble looking my way. Good. The less that noticed me, the better. I simply had to find an easy vantage point to watch from, and wait for my opening. And as soon as there was a lull in the festivity, as soon as I could get the princess alone for a moment, I’d strike. I snagged a glass of champagne off a passing silver tray and downed it in a gulp, letting the fizzing, bubbly liquid give me wings.
If only it’d given me sense, too.
An old man in silver servant’s livery stood at the bottom of a grand marble staircase as horns blared, the royal family manifesting at the top.
The crowd went still, sucking in a breath of anticipation in unison.
“Now announcing King Boris and Queen Vera of Dunyas, and their beloved daughter, Princes Catirina, Heir Apparent to the throne of Dunyas!”
Applause broke across the room, and my chest dropped.
Queen Vera glided down the stairs in a gaudy emerald contraption, weighed down in jewels that probably took two-dozen miners in the Jaltan mountains a year of dawn-to-dusk work to dig up. Next to her, the bumbling King Boris beamed, his white teeth stark against his dark skin—his smile probably designed from the same porcelain farmed and forged by work-worn, southern Dunyasian hands.
But for once in my life, it was not the greed that made my stomach stir.
The Princess walked behind them, her steps wobbly and unsure, each one matching the tempo of my slow-beating pulse. Her hand reliantly clutched the gilded rail, and fingers around my own heart squeezed. The soft pink dress swished around her form, a light wind tossing the southernmost strands of her hickory hair.
And even with the pearl-mask covering half of her face, even though pink flushed her bronze skin in a way soft green did not…
I’d recognize her anywhere.
I’d seen her in every dream I’d had for a week.
The girl from the bar.
Princess Catirina.
My mark.
In a single breath of a moment, the crowd swarmed the royals, and I lost her again. Talk buzzed around me in different keys, like an orchestra of mismatched players tuning before the overture began. My ears strained against the chorus, trying to pick out the single instrument of her voice.
But then the real music started, swelling as an upbeat waltz breathed life into the grand room. The crowd moved with it, nobles lining up to dance, bows and curtsies the first choreographed steps of the night. It was a routine I’d learned long ago, one where partners swapped in and out, meeting each other again, old and new—
And in the middle of the dance floor, ignoring the structured flow of the dance, the princess swayed in the arms of a tall blond man in a gray suit.
Drakkar.
The wolf that’d already tried to sink his teeth into her once.
A wolf that clearly hadn’t learned his fucking lesson.
Forgetting my mission, forgetting exactly whose mother employed this endeavor, I moved, too.
But a mousy brown head of ringlets blocked my path, a pale girl in a violet dress curtseying before me, a jeweled tiara nestled in her complicated up-do.
Wide brown eyes blinked up at me, the young noblewoman flushed with embarrassment. “May I have this dance?”
I raised my head, watching that swath of alluring pink float further away, but unease settled in my stomach.
I couldn’t just storm up to her, couldn’t rip her from Drakkar’s arms—
And I couldn’t flat out reject the poor girl in front of me. That kind of disrespect for decorum would turn too many heads, would betray my position as other…
And put me farther from my target.
I nodded, offering her a hand. With shaking fingers, she took it, and we both were moving in tempo.
My feet took a moment to remember the steps, stumbling at first, but my muscles could not quite forget the three-two-one that had been hammered into me as a boy.
The dance brought the girl close, but I kept my arms stiff as I led, allowing a breath of space between us. I looked over her short head again, to where the Princess still danced out of time with Drakkar. But the girl smiled up at me, brown eyes crinkling with the action.
“My name is Hana of Sora,” a flute-like voice chirped, matching her tiny stature perfectly. “What’s yours?”
I blinked at her, panic fluttering in my chest from a moment as I scraped for an answer.
Princess Hana, if I remembered correctly.
I was not supposed to be here. To be dancing with a princess, with anyone that could potentially remember seeing me here at all.
But I had to give her an alias before I stuck both of my feet in my mouth.
“I, uh...Vo-ix. Vox, I mean,” I picked the first Dunyasian name I could think of. “Of Dunyas.”
Lashes batted in a frenzy. “Vox. What an interesting name. I don’t think I’ve seen you before—”
The music paused and shifted, the signal to the dancers that a partner switch was in order.
Relief flooded my veins as I spun her away, “Have a nice night.”
Her face fell, but a man in a green suit and a bird mask quickly recovered it for her, offering his hand with a genuine grin.
I took the pause to scan the room again, looking for the Princess—
She was only halfway across the room now, just a few bodies between us, but the Nehir bastard hadn’t let her out of his hold, his hand pressing into her back in a far more intimate way than the dance called for.
I darted around two more noble girls, cutting in front of a round older man in a red cravat who was closing in on a girl half his age. I didn’t care about the woman he danced with, but it put me closer to my goal, one more rotation before I could get to the Princess.
“Hey, that’s—” he protested as I stepped up to his dance partner, offering her my hand with a bow, but he didn’t finish the sentence as she graciously took the bait I offered, spinning in time with the music.
Luckily for me, she was quiet for the first movement of the routine, barely looking my way. Perhaps she was just grateful to have avoided the other man’s attention, which suited my needs just fine.
The choreography brought her as close as her overstuffed, cream-colored dress allowed, the rich fabric carving ample space between our frames.
But the swan mask that covered her face was familiar in a way I hadn’t expected. Her dark, straight hair had streaks of rebellious scarlet in it, and it was tucked tight to her head in a design that sparked recognition in my most hidden parts.
The Jaltan pursed her lips as she asked a question that set my heartbeat to double-time. “Do I–do I know you from somewhere?”
I turned my face away too fast, fear thrashing against my ribcage.
“Unlikely,” I coughed, faking the heavy, vowel-stretching Dunyasian accent as best as I could. “New around here.”
“It’s just—” she started, then stopped. “Nevermind.”
She stayed blissfully silent for the last of the partnership, twirling away when the music demanded without a look back, onto the next partner.
Relief blew away the sweat from the back of my neck as I set my sights on my final destination.
One last dance.
The music stopped as the song reached its conclusion, and the players readied their next symphony.
Drakkar still held her, but her small hand pushed at his chest, and it was the only invitation I needed, interrupting just as I had a week ago at the Crescent.
“May I cut in?” I cleared my throat, eyes locked on Drakkar’s face. Bruises peeked from beneath his mask, and a sick sense of triumph rattled through me.
But it was the Princess who responded, a small breath blowing from her round lips as she swiveled to face me. “You’re here.”
Something in my chest leapt at the words, a bird learning to fly for the first time on the back of a new breeze.
Why was I here? By the Breath, what was I doing?
Why couldn’t I stop?
One dance. One look. One night.
Drakkar’s smile darkened to a grimace as he tucked Catirina under his possessive arm. “Don’t worry, friend, we’re fine here.”
He didn’t recognize me from the bar; otherwise, he would’ve already pitched a tantrum like Kas used to when we didn’t let him eat candy before bed. And Ecei had instructed us to keep quiet with her son about her dealings, so he surely didn’t know my ultimate goal.
But I couldn’t help myself as I took another step, breathing him in, my smile made of daggers. “This dance calls to swap partners.”
“Oh, my, I wouldn’t want to be impolite,” Princess Catirina jumped in, long eyelashes fluttering as she worked her con on him well enough to impress Malina. She squeezed the Prince’s arm before taking a careful step toward me—only her shaking hand betraying her actual discomfort. “Drakkar, how about we dance the next one?”
The Prince’s eyes flicked between us as he ground his teeth, but he tucked his metaphorically tied hands behind his back. The lovely scene around us was a prison of decorum that even a prick like him couldn’t break free of. “I’ll go get us those refreshments.”
He stalked off without another glance back, and Catirina loosed a breath as she watched him go, full lips curling upward.
“I feel refreshed already,” I scoffed; something roared with victory in my chest as the orchestra began their next tune, the first velvety violin notes of a slow waltz singing through the air. With a deep breath, I extended a hand. “Princess Catirina?”
This time, when she placed her warm palm in mine, a jolt of electricity ran up my arm.
And then, we were dancing.
Flying.
My feet followed the steps by muscle memory; but this time, there was a lightness, my mind captivated not by the routine, but by the opal-and-pearl mask in front of me, by the silk between her shoulder blades that brushed my fingertips, by the glorious warmth of her hand in mine…
“Lord…” she started, and then giggled, the sound brighter than the flute’s distant trilling. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Shi—” I started, and then stopped, remembering the lie I was supposed to tell tonight, the ruse I was supposed to be keeping as tight as the mask on my face. Guilt surged in my stomach, and I missed a step, tripping over my own two feet and almost toppling us both. “Shit, sorry.”
The princess tossed her head back in a laugh that sent her satin curls cascading over her bare shoulder. “Your name is Shit Sorry? You must not be from around here.”
Delight stirred again in my middle, chasing away the lingering taste of dread from the back of my tongue. Renewed and revived, I carried her along to the music again, spinning and twirling in time with the orchestra’s swells and dips.
“My name is Vox Koishi.” I offered a lie and a truth together, some strange part of me desperate to be seen, to be known. “You’re radiant.”
That stare flicked up to me, and only then did I realize I’d said the last bit aloud. Heat flushed the back of my neck as I searched for a cover up, but found my tongue lame and useless.
“Thank you.” She beamed, sheepishly hanging her head, an action that brought her unconsciously a step closer, barely a breath between us. She looked up again, the corners of her mouth downturned. “But it’s the dress.”
A flurry of emotions slammed together in my chest, so fast it was hard to differentiate them, like trying to pick out specific snowflakes in a blizzard. I was in too deep already, wandering too far off into the unknown. I had to get back to my base, had to remember the mission that brought me here, and what—no, who— was at stake if I failed.
