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“Sweet, sweet child. The answers you seek are not written or recorded. They only exist in living memory.”
“Then—” I bit my tongue. I’d been about to ask why he’d destroyed the scrolls of Sianna if they held no answers, but I already knew why. He’d done so to manipulate me—to force me to bargain.
“You want something from me,” I said.
Mercurial laughed. “You think you’ve just made some clever observation. But I told you as much in as many words. And I tell you this now, just as plainly. I intend to get it. One way or another, Mercurial always gets his way.”
Before I could react, he vanished into a puff of smoke that I suspected only I could see as Tristan walked unbothered through the wisps. He held my mask before me, bowing as if he’d been on some noble quest to bring me a rare gift.
“I fought a hard battle, but I have emerged victorious. Your mask, your grace,” he said formally before stepping behind me to help tie it over my eyes.
Mercurial reappeared across the temple, beside a set of curtains hung to close off various adjoining rooms and halls. He pulled the curtain beside him away from the wall, eyes still focused on me as he clothed his body with the drapes. Tightening the material around his waist, he looked like he was wearing one of Arianna’s dresses. Mercurial winked, holding his palm to his head as though he were posing for a portrait. With a wave, he vanished.
Tristan finished tying the ribbons behind my head, then secured his own mask to his face. It was silver with a blue border that matched his mage robes.
“Nearly died for this one,” he said with a laugh. “Is it just me, or is this night getting more brutal?”
I forced a laugh. “Considering present company….”
He stepped closer. “Are you doing okay? I saw your face last night, you looked so upset.” Tristan squeezed my hand.
I sucked in a breath. Upset when Jules had been mentioned? Upset when the Imperator had humiliated me? Or upset when the Emperor had shown his disdain for my Ka?
“It’s nerves about tomorrow. I’d rather not think about it.”
His face darkened, but he nodded. “Of course.”
One by one, the crystals hanging from the walls winked out, signaling the Valyati Dance of Darkness. The spelled torches flashed from Batavia red to a simmering orange to a golden yellow and on through every color of the rainbow before they blinked out. We were left with only the eternal flame, which was now glowing bright white.
The seven Watchers stood beneath the fire and held up banners made of soft winter velvet dyed in each of their sacred colors, blocking out the remaining temple light. There was just enough lightness seeping through for me to see silhouettes after my sight adjusted. My vision was just a little better than it had been the night of the Oath Ceremony. Valyati’s Dance of Darkness was meant to be one of mystery, a fast choreography of swiftly changing partners spinning to and from each other until the song ended. Once that happened, a new song would play, and you were bound to dance with your last partner—no matter who it was.
Tristan blew me a kiss and vanished into the crowd. He’d managed to catch me at the end of the dance the last two years in a row. Everyone knew that to properly play the Dance of Darkness, the first part of the dance required a strategy—stay as far away from the person you truly wanted to dance with. This allowed you to make your way to them at the end. There were counts and beats to consider, as well as the number of partners across the floor. Being in the dark meant miscalculations were likely to happen, especially when the opening of the dance was a frenzied quick-step shared with strangers.
We began, taking our places across the dance floor. I noted Haleika nearby, recognizing the shape of her curly hair in the dark, and Galen’s familiar figure seemed to be heading across the floor—as far from her as possible. But one more familiar silhouette glided in the opposite direction, and Haleika’s head turned to follow. Leander.
A hushed silence filled the room, and then the music swelled, fast and upbeat. I stepped forward, performing the opening routine alongside the rest of the Lumerians in my row. We swiveled our hips, stomped our feet, and sauntered forward. A hand reached out for me, and I was pulled into a soturion’s arms. I barely had time to process his appearance in the dark before I was twirled away and landed in the arms of a mage whom I thought to be one of the girls in Meera’s friend group, but it was too dark for me to be sure, especially with her mask. She smiled widely at me, twirling me around until I ended up in the arms of another soturion woman, then a male mage, a bald male soturion, a mage with curly hair, and then a soturion again.
The beat quickened, and I traveled through more partners, losing track of whom I’d danced with and whom I hadn’t. The masked faces all began to blur together. I was passed from one set of arms to another, some thin, some thick, some bursting with muscle, all dancing, swaying, stepping, stomping. I scanned the room while keeping the beat, undulating and twirling up to my new dance partners again and again and again.
The music intensified, new instruments joining the harmony, the volume increasing, the pace quickening. We were at the end of the song, the moment we’d be duty-bound to dance with whomever was before us.
I twirled away from my current dance partner, searching for Tristan. He had to be close. He always found me in this moment, had perfected his strategy. But when I caught a scent of mint and salt, its owner danced past me, taking the hands of a blonde girl in a red mask. Naria. Tristan was dancing with Naria.
My stomach dropped.
The Watchers held up black banners, hiding the eternal flame. I was cast in almost total darkness. I was alone. No dance partner. No Tristan. No idea where anyone was. A chilly air swept around me then warmed as the opening notes of the next song sang through the ball—the lover’s dance, the ballad of Auriel and Asherah.
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling alone and cold in the dark. Everyone around me was dancing with someone, was held by someone. And then there was me, standing alone on what was possibly my last night, sharing what had once been a beautiful holiday with Jules’s killers. The killers who had their blades out for me and wouldn’t hesitate to murder Meera and Morgana if they made one misstep.
I wasn’t even sure I cared Tristan was with Naria. I’d always hated the way she openly coveted and courted what was mine, but I knew now my feelings stemmed from what Tristan represented for me—protection and salvation. Though I still loved him like a friend, like the friend I’d grown up with, any love I felt for him otherwise or had tricked myself into feeling was gone. And it had been that way for months. Maybe years. At least now I could finally see it.
I took a step back, my breath shaky as I scanned the room for a friendly face, but I only saw black shadows cast against the darkened walls. The music swelled around me, as did the feeling of loneliness, of being left behind.
Then a familiar scent wrapped around me, a cool cocooning aura kissed my skin. Musk, and pine.
Warm hands covered my eyes from behind, further plunging me into darkness, and a smooth voice with a northern lilt crooned in my ear, “Hello, lover.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
