Chapter Thirteen
Roze did, in fact, buy me new clothes. When we come back to my room, a dress for tonight’s fete is hanging in front of my wardrobe.
I ask him how he knows my measurements, and he just snorts and lets his eyes fall down the length of my body and back up again. I glare at him and try to calm the rush of heat that climbs up my body.
Roze leaves to let me get ready, and I study the dress he chose for me. I have to admit … I don’t hate it. It looks like death itself—lovely and dark, like falling asleep and never waking up. I slide it on and study myself in the mirror.
Black gauzy fabric is interwoven with gems in moody hues—garnet, amethyst, and lapis—forming an intricate pattern that reminds me of the brocade on Roze’s tie from yesterday.
The dress wraps tightly around my torso, falling loose at the flare of my hips.
I feel like a dark jewel, a glittering nightmare. It suits me.
Roze and I agreed to meet in the entrance hall of Vandenberghe. I arrive at the apex of the grand staircase that sweeps downward toward the entrance doors of the school.
The great chandelier casts gloomy light over the damask wallpaper and velvet carpets, barely illuminating the gilded scrollwork on the railings and walls. I make my way carefully down the treacherous steps in my heels, the chandelier blocking my view of the floor until I round the turn.
And there he is.
If I am a nightmare, Roze is the night itself.
He wears a suit black as ravens’ wings. The jacket is textured with velvet roses, and his tie, squared against the tattoo on his throat, is detailed in shimmering green thread.
His snowy hair is combed back in a way that looks both genteel and criminal.
He is blazingly gorgeous, wearing that same austere, bored expression that has my blood instantly burning to wrap my shadows around his throat.
He glances up, and our eyes meet.
I would be lying if I said I don’t enjoy the way his lips instantly part. He closes them quickly, his mouth set back in its grim expression, and I descend the stairs with my head held high.
He’s keeping his face blank, but his eyes are glued to me.
They pass down my body from my head to my toes, like they’re tracing every inch of me, cataloging, measuring, memorizing.
Those eyes travel back up again, and when they meet mine, my breath stops cold.
I swear his eyes could lance a girl straight through the chest, like a moth pinned to the wall for his study.
This would all be romantic if we weren’t pretending, if we didn’t hate each other, if the order to kill me didn’t still mark his forearm.
“You look …” He gives me another long perusal. I watch the moth on his throat move as though alive as he swallows and sucks in his cheeks. “Tolerable.”
“Tolerable?” I say, barely keeping my indignation in check.
“Did you expect me to get on bended knee? Compose an ode to your beauty?”
I glare. “A simple ‘you look nice’ would have been sufficient.”
He snorts but then extends a gloved hand to me. He’s exchanged his leather ones for ebony silk this evening, and as I take his hand, I try to ignore the warmth that cuts through the thinner fabric.
His skin is warm.
I brush away the thought. Or try to. But that thin slip of fabric is the closest I’ve ever been to touching the Prince with my bare hands.
Besides, of course, when I punched him in the nose.
He helps me down the last step and then extends his arm. I place my hand on his forearm like I think a princess would. But as we leave the school’s entrance hall and cross the glass bridge over the corpse-filled waters, I don’t feel like a princess. I feel like I’m being marched to the gallows.
The Kingdom of Aragoa is small compared to what it once was.
But the wealth we’ve held on to, the accumulation of centuries of dominating the western plains of the Hivernian Peninsula, is obvious as I walk under a ceiling painted with scenes so exquisite that I want to weep.
The walls of the ballroom are molded in gold and violet, and the black terrazzo floor is snaked with sparkling filigree.
I know Roze will mock me if I gush about the history that is contained in this room.
He probably grew up throwing tantrums on this very floor, persecuting some poor governess to within an inch of her life.
I nearly smile at the thought.
The crowd parts before us as we enter, my hand on Roze’s outstretched arm. I have to resist every urge to point my gaze at the floor.
Finally, we reach the dais where his mother is perched on her throne, her spine ramrod straight as she looks down her nose at us.
Her black mourning dress and cape, lined with dark fur, fan out around her feet.
The crown on her head is as sharp as her expression, and I force myself not to swallow as I approach the woman who wants me dead.
On either side of the Queen, the six princesses stand in a line like pawns. Each of them has the same cruel, feline smile painted on their ruby lips.
Roze bows low, and I sink into my best curtsy.
Don’t fall. Don’t show your fear. Look demure and unthreatening.
This is the test, the most difficult part of the evening. After this, it will just be dancing … with Roze … while everyone watches.
A hint of a smile spreads on the Queen’s lips as I right myself. Something about the look on her face makes me think that she’s mocking me.
“Prince,” the Queen greets her son.
“Mother,” he says, his voice void of emotion. “May I introduce Miss Viola Sinclair.”
I have already met her, of course, but this is for the Court’s benefit.
I offer another little curtsy, only because it feels right. “Majesty,” I say.
“This fete is in your honor, Miss Sinclair,” the Queen says. “I hope it meets your expectations. I know your tastes are … aspirational.”
The sisters’ smiles broaden.
I smile back, as though I didn’t understand the insult.
“It’s lovely, Your Majesty,” I say. “I’m grateful for your warm reception.”
She frowns. “Enjoy the ball with your betrothed, Prince Roze. I hope to see you both dancing.” She waves us off, and the music starts up again.
I take a deep breath as we step away from the Queen.
“Calm down,” Roze murmurs in my ear. “You did fine.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your life isn’t hanging on the whims of a bloodthirsty royal.”
“Isn’t it?” he muses, snatching two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and downing his in one gulp. He somehow manages to make even overindulgence look sophisticated.
He lowers the glass and smiles. “Let’s not fight, darling. It’s a party.”
I force myself to look away from that expression on his face, the one that makes him look like a boy, foolish and flirtatious, and not like the snake I know him to be.
I glance at that great moth on his neck out of the corner of my eye, the eyes of its wings level with my own as it twists with his turned neck. What would it be like to run my lips over that moth?
I set down the glass of champagne, deciding I’ve already had enough.
“You should know the important members of the Court,” Roze says over the noise of the party.
“There’s Fletcher’s father. Lord Llopart.
” He nods toward a gangly, potbellied Black man whose cheeks are already reddened from drink.
He laughs with a group of other middle-aged men, his eyes watering.
“And there’s Ed’s grandmother, the Dowager Countess Paschal.
She’s vicious—watch out for her.” The dowager’s wrinkled neck cranes over the crowd, a severe frown painted on her face.
Roze then points to a man sporting a decorated uniform and an equally impressive mustache.
“That’s Lord Basa. He was a general in the war.
But rumor has it”—Roze leans in close, so that his lips nearly brush the shell of my ear—“he’s killed three of his wives, one after the other, for failing to give him an heir. ”
“That’s horrible,” I breathe, but what’s really horrible is the effect Roze’s closeness has on my heart. It feels like the edge of an axe at my neck. But I can’t step away. We’re supposed to be in love.
“And her—” Roze whispers, pointing to a woman in a black mourning gown, a dolorous expression on her young face.
I silently beg him to back away. Apparently, he doesn’t get the message, because a gloved hand grazes down my arm, causing my whole body to tingle, as he continues to whisper, “Lady Toussaint. She’s rumored to have killed herself after the death of her brother, who, if you believe the gossip, was her secret lover. ”
I turn to him, shocked. “Her brother was her lover?”
“Nefarious, isn’t it?” he says with a wicked smile.
“It’s obviously untrue, is what it is. She can’t have killed herself. She’s here, isn’t she?” I ask, my mind very much on that hand on my bare arm.
“That ribbon on her neck,” Roze says, pointing to the black silk, tied in the back beneath the woman’s elaborate hairstyle. “It’s said to hold her head in place where it was severed. She never takes it off.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I mutter.
Roze chuckles. Something molten races to my core at the sound of it in my ear, and I jerk away, using the excuse of grabbing another glass of champagne to hide my reaction, deciding that I actually haven’t had enough.
I take a long gulp, and when I look back at him, his brow is arched and he’s frowning.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Is that actual concern I hear?”
He smiles like a devil. “Never.”
He extends a gloved hand to me. I must look foolish as I glance between it and his face several times before he gives me a long-suffering look. “Dance with me.”
“Why?”
He purses his lips and says under his breath, “Because we are expected to.”
Oh. Right. I set the glass of champagne down next to his on a nearby table and place my hand lightly in his.