Chapter 43 #3
Then he spotted JingYi. Reiyana, the guest of honour, stood beside her, radiant in sapphire, every inch the Princess of Aethonia. JingYi was more subdued in her aubergine silk, but no less regal. Kaelen and Alarik hovered like bulwarks against the approaching nobles.
He made his way toward them. Murmurs reached him, the words half-hidden behind fans and champagne flutes.
“A X?en Omega princess, they say. Also, a healer.”
“Is that why she’s standing so close to Princess Reiyana? What has she done to earn that position?”
“And her face . . . Tch. If I had a birthmark like that, I wouldn’t leave my room.”
“Did you see her limp?”
“Why is she here, then, if she can’t dance anyway?”
Hearing his shallow fears given voice, he felt only disgust—for these nobles, for the system, and most of all . . . for himself.
What, precisely, was so wrong with her face? Her gait?
Marzius, though Alexander could barely stand the man, had been right.
If it were a man with a wound like that, he would’ve bought him a drink.
Sat him down and eagerly asked for the story.
Praised him as a warrior. Toasted his courage.
But a woman? Her single mark became an offence to beauty.
A flaw too great to forgive. A reason to look away or, better yet, relegate her to the shadows.
Now, he knew: A thousand beauties might adorn a palace, but he had no use for them. No desire for them. A thousand dances could not fill a lonely chasm.
But a woman with conviction, a mind sharp enough to challenge his own, and hands that stitched broken things together—
That was the kind of beauty he’d never had the sense to recognize.
He watched his wife as she watched the dancers, wistful wonder softening her features.
Of course—she’d never seen an Aethonian ball before, where every hem shimmered with gold thread and every movement followed intricate patterns drilled into nobles since childhood.
The music was sweeping, meant to showcase elegance, breeding, grace.
She stood apart from the crowd, half-shadowed by a marble column, her shoulders tense with the effort of appearing at ease.
His legs took him to her side before he could think twice, and the words left him before he could stop them.
“Dance with me.”
Her head snapped toward him. “What?”
“You heard me. Dance with me.”
A startled breath left her. “I don’t dance. I never learned how.”
“I don’t either. Not in any lordly sense. But it didn’t stop me from asking.”
She glanced toward the floor, at the sea of moving bodies. “People will see us.”
He heard what she didn’t say: Wouldn’t you be ashamed?
Once upon a time, he might’ve been. He’d feared how she’d move, feared her limp would draw sneers. Worried she might stumble. Worried others would laugh, or scorn.
Now, he didn’t give a damn.
“Let them see.”
Her eyes widened. He held out his hand. For a moment, she didn’t move.
Then—slowly, tentatively—she placed her fingers in his.
He guided her to the edge of the dance floor, close enough to join, but not so central as to make her even more uncomfortable. The music had changed to a more sedate tempo now, more a turning promenade than the elaborate sequences from earlier.
“I still don’t know the steps,” she mumbled.
“That’s alright.” His voice was low, lips close to her ear. “You’re the most perceptive woman I know. You’d be able to follow just by watching them.”
Her right hand was small in his, the other trembling slightly on his shoulder.
She moved stiffly at first, unsure, glancing down at her feet as though afraid she might misstep, swallowed by the room’s expectation.
But he held her steady and let the rhythm settle between them.
He didn’t try to lead with any real precision, only enough to guide their motion in a gentle turn, his movements fluid enough that hers could follow without strain.
“I’m counting too much,” she rasped, brow furrowed.
“You don’t need to,” he said. “Just look at me.”
The world around them fell away. The music, the dancers, the watchful eyes—all of it dissolved into the space between them. He saw her then, just her. And in her eyes, he saw the same fear he felt, the same desperate hope. Something shifted in his chest, unlocked.
Gradually, her gait shifted. Her shoulders loosened. Their timing found a common beat. She was still learning, still feeling the motion, but no longer braced for it. He matched the shorter reach of her right leg and the pattern bent around them.
“You’re doing well,” he told her, his voice low.
“I can feel the limp.”
“I feel only you,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll match the rest.”
Her breath hitched—almost a laugh—and for the first time all evening, a true, unguarded ease shone through her gaze.
The sight of it—not trust yet but something like it—flickering back to life, was the most terrifyingly beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed.
It felt like holding a candle flame in a hurricane—precious, precarious, and entirely in his care not to extinguish.
The music swelled. They turned together, a single smooth revolution.
The court and its stares fell back, drowned out by the drum of his own heart.
The only thing that mattered was this: she was in his arms, and she chose to stay.