Page 94 of A Dance of Lies

He wets his lips, like he isn’t sure where to begin. He shoves a hand through his hair, then, with the other still holding my arm, pulls me against his chest. It surprises me so much that I stand there for a minute, arms dangling, until the familiar warmth of his embrace draws an exhale from my lungs.

My eyes begin to sting and the emotions of the past few days catch up to me, siphoning my strength. I press hard against him, clutching his sides.

I thought he was through with me, through with the mess I leave wherever I go. Instead, he breathes against my hair, his thumb rubbing the small of my back.

I know this is wrong, but I need his comfort. “What happened the other night—”

“We’ll discuss it later,” he whispers, breathing into my hair. “We will figure it out.”

How I wish I could tell him everything; I wish it so much my mind aches holding it in. The other night, I’d wished Anton had seen it, too. For a moment, I swear he did. The enormity of my past,the way I’m suffocating beneath it, the way my chains grow denser, heavier, each day.

And I’m so afraid. Not just of Illian, but of myself. My ability to disappoint Emilia, to not rectify the past.

Most of all, I fear my own body—a body I no longer understand.

I fear the time might come when the pain is too great, my fatigue too deep, that I can no longer move, let alone dance. I sometimes think the only thing holding me upright is grit. Dogged determination. Because if I can’t dance, I am not useful to Illian.

Copelan tilts my chin, watching me now. I wonder what he would do if I indeed gave him my truths. He already knows about my father. What would he do if he knew the rest?

But no, I couldn’t. I recall Anton’s warnings, Illian’s threats.I am watching you, always.

The truth of it seals my lips yet again.

Still, I can’t seem to break away, so we stay in this embrace until voices cleave through our reverie, splitting us apart.

“Copelan, my, what a timely surprise.” Princess Aesir parts the willow branches like a curtain, her lips tipped up in a lupine grin.

“Princess,” Copelan replies, his tone surprisingly flat. We give a short bow, in sync.

She sweeps her braid over her shoulder, looking more Brisendali than ever with an ultramarine tunic and leggings plated in silver-embellished leather.

The princess of a kingdom preparing for war. Why she feels the need to show it here is unclear. Unless she plans to fork some fish from the sea, the ensemble is entirely ridiculous.

“It so happens that we were coming to find you,” she’s telling Copelan. “I was told you might be here.”

Copelan scratches his head. “We?”

Another wind blows through, and I rub my arms against the chill.

“Yes, we,” she says, blinking innocently. She glances about, seemingly looking for someone who should be there.

Then a woman with raven hair and moon-white skin slips into view.

I recognize her instantly.

Esmée Fontaine looks just as she did all those years ago: simple yet beautiful, slender and elegant with her bowed lips and big eyes, cheekbones carved to perfection. I search her willowy frame for evidence of her injury, when she snapped her wrist before Illian, but find none.

Illian’s former favored dancer, one of the most revered women in all of Miridran, is here.

She does not notice me. Instead, she offers Copelan a wistful smile. I follow her gaze, an odd feeling in my belly, only to find him as still as the statue over my shoulder.

And it hits me then, who she is to him.

I had a partner my first year here,he had told me.It didn’t end well for her.

The Gathering, nine years ago.

She involved herself with a Crown.