Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Choking down a mix of pity and revulsion, I keep moving, pausing when Orrin does, always staying back a couple feet, trying to look submissive, head bowed.
I take a goblet when he offers it to me, but I do not drink, as planned.
He grows bolder as the night wears on, clapping his cohorts on the shoulder, jesting with them as if he’s at ease, flirting like a rake, as if he’s getting drunk and comfortable. Only I know he’s not.
When he throws back his head and laughs, the way his face catches the light has me breathless.
He looks so young, it’s easy to see what he once was, what he could have been, if Elisavet hadn’t stolen it from him.
I envision him with white threaded through his black hair, and something in me yearns to see it manifest.
I despise her with every fiber of my being. If he weren’t going to kill her, I’d like to tear her apart myself. If only I could!
Elisavet is at the head of the room, seated on her throne, drinking from one of her goblets as a human servant rubs her calves and thighs, massaging them with oil. She meets my gaze, lifts one eyebrow and doesn’t look away until someone obstructs her view, crossing in front of her.
But where is my sister? I sense Aven, I do.
But I need her visible, in my sight line, and preferably, near the door, so that when Orrin strikes, she will be easy for me to get to.
Because when he kills Elisavet, there may be chaos, violence.
I need to keep her safe. I squeeze my shaking, human hands into the folds of my tulle skirt. I wait.
As hours pass, the rowdiness picks up. The demons are cruder than they were at the last party, in manner, in spirit.
At last, Aven appears, wearing a gown the color of fresh snow, silver bracelets snaking up her arms, a delicate circlet of diamonds upon her head, ruby-red lips and lids shaded and smoky, looking like an angel of death.
I can hardly keep my eyes off her, though it’s obvious she doesn’t care that I’m here.
I stand, miserably, waiting to dance. To get this charade over with.
The other demons keep me fairly distracted.
But their antics irritate Elisavet, it seems.
Her eyes flash with annoyance, all signs of her easy manner gone when she motions me over. “Get ready. It’s time. We need some entertainment. Everyone is getting bored.”
Again, two of her servants take me to a room to warm up my muscles. They do not speak to me, and this time I don’t speak to them either. There’s no point. They’re too weak to even ask for help, let alone help me.
They wait outside the room, a bedroom of sorts. I can smell Elisavet in here, on the white blankets laid over the cold floor, in the sheer curtains that give it a degree of privacy. I twist my mouth, imagining her lying in here, tangled up in lovers, in death.
I let out a low breath of despair and vaguely warm my muscles without caring. I can’t cry now. It is time to perform. I have to be amazing. I need to awe them all. Orrin’s safety depends on it.
The silent servants gesture at me from beyond the curtain, and I follow them back into the main room.
The demons slumped around the room don’t even wake with Elisavet’s piercing voice as she orders everyone to quiet down, to clear the floor for me.
The rest of them stare at me, waiting. It’s so silent, I can hear the drip of water, the ocean outside lapping at the shore, the breathing of each demon. I don’t look at Aven.
“Before she begins,” Elisavet states, voice thundering in the cave, “I hope you will all once again welcome our favorite dancer!”
Many of the demons clap or whistle, a few look hungrily at me as though starving for some kind of brutal pleasure…or brutal pain. The rest sit, nursing their wine, smoking from golden pipes, disappearing and reappearing in a thick haze of sweet smoke that stings my eyes.
Elisavet claps the longest of all, the sound grating my ears. Her eyes dig into mine. “And now, a gift for you, little pet, for regaling us with your talent. From one of our newest members.”
She snaps her fingers, and out of the back of the cave comes Aven, blue gaze gone dull and black. She carries a tray, and on it, a single rose lays. Not red, like my shoes, like the ones thrown on stage at the Clover, not pink, my favorite, nor yellow, but white. Bone white.
Aven crosses the floor toward me, same expression as last time she looked at me. She says methodically, “A gift for you, from Her Majesty.”
My heart goes cold. I jerk my eyes to Orrin, who slinks closer to Elisavet, casually. Goblet in hand. Knife hidden. Just beyond him, Elisavet sits. Watching me, darkly, waiting. She knows. She has to know what Aven is to me. Still, I pretend, just in case. There is too much riding on this act.
Looking back at my sister, I take the rose with trembling fingers. “Thank you, it’s beautiful,” I manage in a whisper. I want to scream. I want to grab her by the wrist and run, whether she’s willing or not. Aven steps away, turns her back to me.
“A beautiful flower, though it’s hardly enough, given your performance.” Elisavet smiles when I look back at her, trying to gauge her tone, her meaning.
I attempt an innocent expression. “Thank you. I’m glad you liked my dancing last time. I hope you will again this evening.”
“The dancing?” Elisavet strokes the arms of her stone seat. “Dancing. Hmmm.”
I don’t reply. Just beyond, Orrin lies in wait, taking silent steps in the shadows, toward her throne.
Nobody else seems to notice. All focus on me, on Elisavet, even the demons who were lazing around, intoxicated, seem to perk up.
They sense the tension. It’s sharp, obvious.
I taste it in my mouth, coppery, a burning on my tongue, stifling my cries.
I want to tell Orrin no, not now, the moment is not right.
I want to shriek and run and run and run away, hand in hand with him, with Aven.
I move closer to her, and she turns to face me, sensing me. Her eyes empty.
Elisavet plays with her pearl necklace thoughtfully. “Do you know, there was something about you that drew me in, little dancer? When I first saw you, I was quite taken with you, you know. But there was a familiarity about you. Now, I quite feel silly for not realizing.”
I don’t reply, only hold the rose so tight the thorns gouge into my skin. Hana and Jinny appear more like sisters than Aven and I do, at least if you don’t look closely…as far as coloring and build and personality, but she must know. There’s enough about us that is the same.
She goes on, “A couple of months ago, I came across a desperate soul. The want in her was powerful enough to draw me from a dead sleep.” Elisavet casts her eyes to find Orrin, who freezes just in time, sipping his goblet casually, leaning against the stone wall.
The knife behind his back, visible, I hope, to no one.
“As fate would have it, I’d only just arrived, to follow my most faithful friend.
In any event, she was so desperate, she would have given anything for me to take away her pain.
“You see, this woman had lost both her husband and her child, a baby boy.” Elisavet sneers, and I resist the urge to reach across the room and strangle her as Aven’s hollow eyes flare with something that resembles pain.
Could she be remembering?
The way my tiny nephew slid warm and motionless into my bloody hands as I lifted him from Aven’s body, then buried him for her in the garden behind the house.
While I sobbed, digging out a rectangle of dirt, she lay there in her marriage bed, numb, and poor Sélie wept in the back room as she washed the sheets then ended up tossing them in the fire when she couldn’t get the stains out.
Aven must remember some of it. Must remember losing Darius. That day was her real death.
Elisavet continues, “Being a merciful queen, I took her in, allowed her the space to make her deal. Put her to work in the meantime, because nothing is free, of course.”
Across the room, in the shadows, Orrin gets closer to Elisavet’s throne. Do it, I think frantically. Do it now.
“Imagine my foolish surprise,” Elisavet says in a sickly sweet voice, “when I discovered she was the sister of the same dancer I’d come to admire so very much, whom I had invited to my home, whom I had welcomed amongst my family.”
I open my mouth to protest but her sharp eyes snap to me. “I know you asked about her at the last party. My servants are my eyes and ears, and extremely loyal to me. It didn’t take long to figure out why or to confirm it with your sister.”
What have I done? I look desperately at Aven, but she stares resolutely ahead. Away from me.
“Humans are such stupid, spineless beings,” Elisavet says.
“I know there is one of my own behind this deception. Someone who knew that we had a very coincidental connection among one of my new members and their captive. Someone who knew that it wasn’t coincidental at all.
And I would very much like to know why you didn’t tell me you were up to something… Orrin.”
Before I can deny his involvement, two demons step out of the shadows and grab him, ripping the knife from his hand.
He struggles but the bigger demon squeezes him tighter—the same demon who tried to run into me last time.
I step forward, panicked, before Orrin freezes me with a short shake of his head.
The second, older-looking demon brings the knife up to Orrin’s face, and I swallow a scream as he drags the blade from temple to jaw. Both brutes grin, mean, as the blood runs down Orrin’s face. It’s not deep, just enough to bleed. To scar.
I hold my mask. I stare into my love’s eyes, forcing myself not to run to him, to shove them away from him, to fight for his life. Although he is seething with rage, his eyes also hold a note of reassurance, even now. I’m alright, they say to me. Stay still.