Chapter 11 The Equinox Ball #2
He bites his bottom lip, eyes shifting firmly into violet.
“One distracting dress, coming up.” With that Draven summons the Magician.
He steps forward, his free hand hovering beside me, moving up and down without ever grazing my skin, before lifting to the golden-threaded collar of my tunic.
I freeze. A vibrating tingle races along my body wherever the fabric touches, shifting and expanding.
The material unfurls around me, tightening or elongating in places until I’m clad in a silver ball gown of smoke rendered solid, laced with spider silk.
It drapes across my form, leaving little to the imagination.
The color fades as it rises, as if I’m a storm cloud, the hem darkest gray.
The dress hugs my waist and chest, while sheer sleeves puff at the shoulders, tapering into tight silver cuffs around the wrists that shimmer in the light as if woven from metal blades.
My hands rove across my chest, tracing the neckline that plunges nearly to my navel, and around to my bare lower back.
The gown flows to my ankles but slits reach nearly up to my hips, where the fabric pulls tight.
There is too much of me exposed to the world.
“You said do my worst,” he reminds me, eyes taking in too much.
“Prick,” I hiss, but I cannot hide the desire written all over me, my breaths too short, my chest too flushed.
Our gazes explore the other, leaving me heady.
I don’t know when things changed between us—whether it was during those long nights of training or if it’s been subtly building ever since he mentioned he was a changeling, too.
When I stopped seeing him as just my captor and instead as someone I want to conquer.
Draven’s lips are inches from mine. His finger crooks under my chin, tilting my head up. This is it. His mouth parts, and I swear I see a glimpse of those fangs, his breaths ragged.
But then my hair is righting itself, the frizz of the day smoothing away, straightening to a silken waterfall down my back, draping well past my shoulders.
His fingertips rub against my earlobes and dangling diamonds weigh from them.
The lightest touch of his thumb against my collarbone and a choker appears at my neck, and there adorning the center is the pendant my father gave me, somehow elevated by the rest of the riches I wear.
When my hand moves against it, my fingers trip over jewels that could’ve bought my kingdom and everyone in it.
“It’s too much.” I feel silly. The woman staring back at me in the mirror is nearly beautiful and dressed like royalty.
“It’s not even close to matching all you deserve.” His breaths caress my neck, his words curling in my ear. “But it’ll have to do.”
“What is this game?”
“I want to remember this. You. Right now. Anytime Nevaeh threatens my people or tries to start a war. I need to know not everyone there deserves my wrath when I’m left to rule.” Draven’s gaze keeps settling on my lips, as though my mouth holds all the answers nestled on my tongue.
“That required all this?” I gesture at the dress, the jewels.
“It certainly helps.” He grins coyly, gaze taking in every inch of me. “My father insisted I bring a worthy date, and it is your last night here.” His shoulders drop as he looks me over. Is it regret lining his ever-changing eyes?
My heart plunges into ice as I wonder if the riches are some sort of misplaced pity.
But then he shakes his head, his voice low. “When I allow my father to hand you to them, I want them to know you hold value, so they don’t try to discard you.”
“And what do you get out of it?” I ask, trying to swallow down the thirst he’s left me with.
“A solid night’s sleep.” His words don’t hold any sarcasm.
Instead, his gaze is too full, too wanting, that it snatches my every errant thought.
His eyes dart away. “And freedom from my betrothal, of course. There’s one more thing.
” He flips the Moon into his hand, and his face transforms to a mask of kohl and bone-white paint that makes him look like a skeleton king.
His tone turns soft. “It’s part of the history of the Equinox, the acceptance of the changing seasons, harvests, our own beginnings and endings. ”
My hand lingers over his softly now as he traces it up one half of my face, using the Moon to make up mine, too. Split vertically, one half is me, the other his painted match.
He promises, “Just until I let you go.”
I observe myself in the mirror. I look a bit terrifying but for the first time feel as if the intimidating armor I’ve tried to build these last years is finally in place. The shell finally matches the tempest gathering inside.
“It’s time to go. We’re more than fashionably late for the ball.
” He holds a hand out to me, darkness wafting off his shoulders, and a portal opens behind him.
I gather my dress in my hand, hurrying his way.
His arm loops around my waist, his glance stealing the breath from my lungs, like a bellows gathering all the available air.
“Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“It’s good to make an impact.” He passes me an arrogant smile. “First-years are always premiered later in the evening, brought in like treats for the Court to devour.”
My lungs grow tight, and the reality of being transferred into another kingdom weighs on me. I hiss through my teeth, “If anyone touches me, am I allowed to stab them?”
“No, but I can.”
WE ARRIVE IN a palace that could fit the Lord of Westfall’s manor within its entry alone.
I run a thumb along my father’s pendant to ground me.
My nerves fray as I’m drawn between knowing I will miss Sedah and the anticipation of seeing my dad again.
I’ve missed him every single day, and out of everyone in my family, he and I were always the closest. For so much of my life, his voice has been the one guiding me toward the moral path, the right way.
A compass always pointing north. I worry my lip when I think about all the morally gray paths I’ve walked to get here.
What if he no longer sees me as the sweet daughter he left behind?
Draven’s gaze travels over me and I clear my expression, asking, “Where are we?”
“The capital of Sedah. This is the Court, one part of the Royal Palace.” He’s scanning me, and I’m unsure if he’s going to ask about the momentary emotion that flits over me. I dance our conversation away from that intimacy.
“You grew up here, Princeling?” It’s opulent to the extreme, the walls black marble, the carpet at our feet plush and crimson, and every accent is made of gold.
“Not in this wing,” he whispers, his eyes bright at the indignation on my face. Entitled, privileged, pampered—“Shields up, love.”
Draven leads me down an enormous flight of steps.
Every head lingering in the ebony and ruby-painted hall turns my way, noting my diamond-lined slippers, my plunging neckline, the lace of my sleeves covering as little as leaves in a pool.
I am smoke, a ghost, a rippling fog, and he is the darkness, the unforgiving night, his suit so onyx it seems to warp the eye, never catching the light, only the glints of gold accents along it showing like stars in the midnight sky.
We pass druids dressed in resplendent gowns and rich suits.
They wear either makeup as a veneer or dainty skeletal domino masks, and most are tattooed up to the neckline, yet every one of them takes note of Prince Draven and then, belatedly, me.
It’s difficult to not shy from their obvious stares and the way so many seem to dissect every inch of this gown and my light brown skin beneath it.
I’ve never had as many eyes on me in my life as when I came to Sedah.
“Stop craning, start preening.” He whispers, “You look gorgeous.”
Draven turns away, as if he didn’t just utter that riling commentary into the curve of my ear, causing my toes to curl.
Now he nods to every passerby, as if they’re all just as interesting as I am.
I glare at him, silently daring him to look back at me, so I can search those ever-changing eyes for a hint of honesty.
He doesn’t meet my gaze but his arm crooks around my lower back, pulling me against his heat, bathing me in his heady scent.
Why does he have to vex me like this? The warmth he gives ebbs and flows.
Quick as the summer tide that first leaves me burning and then cold as the shortest day of winter.
I lift my chin and look ahead, trying to blur those bright-eyed gazes to the background, but they graze me all the same, like hounds nipping at my heels.
Passing them by, we enter a room that’s a little of everything I imagined and yet so much more.
Four thrones are placed at the end of the hall, black and gilded in gold, the backs arched and pointed toward the ceiling.
The king’s sits highest, and all are already occupied except for the one left for my date.
The room itself is decorated as though we’ve sunk into the bottommost pits of the deepest sea.
It’s a show of sheer power, staggering in its brilliance.
The walls are jet-black, with great columns of onyx crystals puncturing the space here and there, electricity undulating inside each, like bottled storms that flash and ripple within their glass.
It illuminates the hall in unfiltered pulses of whites and blues, like the heartbeat of a great slumbering beast. Druids linger in pockets, eating or talking, or both, but all consumed by conversations, or else gyrating to the ethereal music echoing through the throne room, invigorated by the atmosphere.
Like dominoes ticking over, the crowd heaves and their eyes find him, then me.
There’s a flurry of curtsying, and bowing, and some glaring. Then the music softens to nothing, revealing the whispers underneath.
Prince Draven walks forward as if he doesn’t notice any of it. I wish I didn’t. I long for whenever their eyes will quit piercing through me like needles. I hate that my mind tries to diagnose what each of them is thinking, sorting through the cancer of their cruel looks.
Draven whispers to me again, but this time his eyes slide to mine and stick. “Just look at me.”
I nod, swallowing down my fear and worry.
We stay together, and my gaze doesn’t leave his face.
Even if he glances forward, his attention always floats back to me.
I try to keep a smile hitched to the corners of my mouth, challenging myself to look at every angle of his cheeks, his chin, the fine bones around his brow and eyes as if I will need to recreate it to perfection later, but truly I’m looking for a single flaw.
Something to make this feel easier. It should be easy. Any good daughter would think it was. I finally get to be reunited with my father, I just never thought it would feel like leaving something else behind, too. Every beat of unease in my heart feels traitorous.
My hand twitches, and I’m unsure if it’s the tarot deck I want to reach for, or those gloved hands of Draven’s.
His shoulders flex near imperceptibly, given away only by his black velvet jacket scrunching over muscles, a slight shift of those wings.
He lifts his chin, fingering the gilt buttons at his chest.
“Watch your step,” he tells me in a hushed breath, and I look forward, realizing we’ve reached the thrones.
King Silas is the only one in attendance without a mask or makeup, and I swallow a gasp before it can sustain any air.
I study him closely—he is as beautiful as any of them, his skin pale, but his angular features strangely alluring.
The edges of his face bear a few stylistic tattoos in black, symmetrically matched against his cheekbones, an upward-sweeping crescent moon across his forehead like a set crown.
Parting his hair, those antlers are bone white and ridged.
Wisps of night float off his back, eddying swirls that line the space between those dragon wings.
The king is handsome, compelling, yet I can finally tell he and Draven share no blood.
For the prince is staggering in his beauty, more striking than any other I’ve seen.
King Silas looks down on us, eyes flitting between us as if he can sense something growing there, but I’m unsure if it gives him pause or makes him eager to be rid of me.
Prince Draven smiles, bowing his head, though I know more is expected of me, so I copy the curtsy we practiced.
The corner of the king’s lips pulls up in a smirk at my clumsy movements, but he doesn’t seem dismissive, thank the gods.
“She learns quicker than you,” King Silas tells Prince Draven.
I watch only his feet, noticing the intricacies of the throne, scales chiseled into its sidings like a great black python. For all my spite, I’d love to glare him down, but the love for my father keeps me in a perfect pose of submission. For now.
“She’d have made a better heir to be sure,” Draven responds facetiously. “Unfortunately for our kingdom, she has somewhere holier to be. When will our guests arrive?”
Draven’s so casual, thumbs looping into his pockets. With that strange electric energy highlighting his suit, the crushed velvet pattern of little skulls mixing into the ivy and thorny roses stands out more starkly.
“They’re already here.” King Silas looks behind us.
I turn, my breath catching desperately in my chest as I spot the seraph king entering the hall, my father at his side.