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Once I managed several steps, the bustle of activity resumed. As it did, that anonymous weight lifted, its retreat pulling a long-constrained breath from my lungs.
The Seven chattered to my left. Vale and Posy wove their fingers together and pecked one another’s cheeks, and Cadence ribbed them affectionately. The ladies fed each other strawberries dripping with cream. They wore silk gowns in a prism of colors, with off-the-shoulder necklines exposing the swells of their cleavage, and floral buds ornamented their free-flowing tresses.
I patted the braid in my hair.
What did those females talk about in confidence? Would they tell me if I asked them? Or would they lie because I was a future ruler, and they had no choice but to be cordial?
The Royals of the Seasons presided from the dais.
Silvia and Doria of Winter. The eldest of the monarchs. Spectacles perched on their noses, white hair frothed from their heads, and decades of regal authority creased the women’s faces.
Rhys and Giselle of Summer. A union of vitality. A robust husband in his late-thirties and a wife ten years his junior. Rhys had a jungle for a mustache and Giselle a whistle-like voice, so that she constantly sounded surprised.
Basil and Fatima of Spring. At twenty-six years of age, they were a jovial pair of monarchs who enjoyed finishing one another’s sentences, laughing from the pits of their stomachs, and nuzzling their noses together.
Avalea of Autumn. The widowed Royal.
The lone sight of my mother clenched my heart. Of course, she wanted me here with her. She had no one else, having been robbed of a husband from the time I was twelve.
My fault. Forever.
Privately, I craved home, where my thoughts had no time to detour and every bit of time for routine.
Publicly, I greeted the Royals and took my seat beside Mother. While settling down, I resigned myself to suffer politely until midnight, like the good heiress I was.
Visitors could be guaranteed three things at this feast. The first, an overdose of Spring fare to rouse the taste buds. Apricots in fluted dishes. Asparagus drenched in sauce. Pies bloated with pork. I chewed, distracted by the view of countless mouths drinking, swallowing, and engaging in far more blatant activities.
The second guarantee, sensuality. That was what Spring liked to call it.
Though I’d witnessed this facet already, the prospect increased with every moment. A trio shared a long pipe as thin as a reed, from which floral-scented smoke plumed; the fondling couple from earlier now bared two breasts from the woman’s bodice; and the latter pair hadn’t yet peeled themselves from the liplock.
The third guarantee was music. Eliot appeared, lute in hand. This was a minstrel’s domain, where words tumbled out of him to his heart’s content, and everyone listened. He once confided to me that he should like to die singing.
I’d been jealous about that. I didn’t know how I wanted to die, what I wanted to be doing when it happened.
Nor did I wish to ponder death. My father had done enough of that thing called dying.
Eliot began to play, his fingers deftly plucking the strings. He sang like honey, thick and sweet and pouring into the hall. It was all I could do not to lean forward, prop my elbows on the table, and rest my chin in my hands, proper table manners be damned.
The song described a forbidden tryst between lovers of opposing social ranks. I paid less attention to the lyrics than to my friend’s tenor.
When the song ended, I led the applause. This was our tradition, a detail camouflaged within the gaiety, my promise to trumpet him before anyone else did. He and I swapped a brief, conspiratorial look. I clapped and clapped and clapped.
Then I stopped.
Servants doused every mounted torch and candlestick, blanketing us in darkness. Twilight stole through the glass dome, illuminating the spot where Eliot had been, now replaced by a curtain of mist rising from two cauldrons set at opposite ends of the performance floor.
Within the haze stood a masculine outline. The figure was tall, a silhouette glazed in the half-light. From what I could tell, the specter wore dark hose stitched in metallic thread and no shirt, his naked torso sculpted with muscles.
He bowed with his arms spread, glossy black paint flashing from his fingernails. Something about the pose seemed both illicit and mocking.
My eyes slid across that carved male body, which shifted like a smoke—fluid, untouchable, and capable of blindsiding a person. Serpentine motions. Toned physique. With those attributes, he could likely spin into a full axis while balancing a stack of bricks.
Also, those movements matched the same provocative ones from the garden.
My breath hitched. Instantly, I knew.
Iknewwho he was.
