Chapter 44 #3
Raiden asked Vareena to dance during the second set.
He tried to make it casual. That failed immediately.
I knew because Vareena had been talking to me about the musicians when she stopped halfway through a sentence.
Raiden stood in front of her. “Dance with me.” His nerves had stripped away any attempt at a polished invitation.
Vareena looked at the hand he offered, then at him. “You practiced asking, didn’t you?”
“Several versions.”
“And that was the one you chose?”
“No. I forgot all of them.”
Her smile softened as she put her hand in his. “Then this one works.”
They joined the floor, and I watched because everyone did. Raiden could fight. He could not dance. At least not Elyndorian steps. Vareena corrected his hand twice before giving up and placing it where she wanted it herself.
Lidia appeared beside me. “He’s terrible.”
“He’s trying, don’t be mean.”
“That makes it worse.” She was smiling.
Emrin joined us carrying two small glasses filled with a drink that smelled strongly of honey and spice and gave one to Lidia. Vareena and Raiden made it through the first rotation without injury. By the second, they had stopped trying to match the formal steps exactly.
That made them better.
Vareena tipped her head back at a quiet remark from Raiden, laughter escaping her as the ribbon shifted through her hair.
He watched her the way people looked at things they had wanted quietly for too long.
After the dance, they did not come back immediately.
They disappeared through one of the terrace arches.
Lidia noticed. “Finally.” Emrin nudged her “What? It’s not like we weren’t all thinking it.”
“You could allow them some privacy.”
“I am allowing them privacy. I’m discussing it from inside while they make out outside.”
I laughed into my drink.
Dax found Neseryn during the third dance.
I had no idea how.
One moment she stood near an Umbrael delegation, dressed in black with a narrow silver chain at her throat, posture sharp enough that no one else had bothered approaching. The next, Dax was standing in front of her.
From where I stood, I couldn’t hear what he said. I did see her refuse. He tried again. Neseryn stared at him, and then Dax lifted one finger.
One dance.
Even across the hall, the meaning was obvious. She looked deeply unimpressed. Then she gave him her hand. I nearly dropped my drink.
Dax was a better dancer than Raiden. Neseryn moved beautifully, which should not have surprised me. She had been raised in Umbrael court society; that much was obvious considering her history with Kieran. Whatever else had shaped her there, she knew these steps in a way none of us had seen before.
There was none of the brutality she carried into the Crucible, none of the sharpness she used to warn people away. She moved with the music because she had been taught to, and Dax, infuriatingly, knew enough to keep up. For the first few measures, none of us said anything.
Lidia was the first to break. “Is that actually happening?”
Emrin lowered her glass. “I don’t know. Maybe someone spiked the drinks. It was probably him.”
Raiden had returned through the terrace arch without Vareena and followed our attention toward the floor. His brows lifted. “Are you guess seeing what I’m seeing? Did he threaten her?”
“Dax?” Lidia asked. “He’d worship at her feet before he threatened her. For someone who doesn’t care to give him the time of day, she sure has him whipped.”
Eiryx had drifted close enough to hear us. He barely blinked when he saw Neseryn dancing.
Emrin noticed. “You’re not surprised.”
“I’m surprised.”
“You don’t look surprised.”
“Should my mouth be on the floor like everyone else’s?”
Lidia turned toward him. “How much would it take to make you react normally to anything?”
“A great deal more than this.”
I kept watching.
Dax leaned closer and said a few words to Neseryn. I couldn’t hear them over the music, but I saw the instant she answered because his mouth closed. His grin disappeared too. That alone was worth witnessing. A few steps later, he tried his luck again, and Neseryn’s mouth twitched.
I leaned forward. “Did she just smile?”
“No,” Emrin said immediately.
“She did.”
“She almost smiled. It was like a millimeter of a smile. ”
“That counts.”
“It absolutely does not.”
Raiden stared at them. “I’m sorry, I’m still lost on the part where Neseryn Vexoria is dancing with Daxeran Balethorn. I don’t think any of us will ever not hear about this.”
“Believe me,” Emrin muttered, “I’ll hear about this until one of us dies.” The phrasing made me glance at her, but she was already watching her brother again.
I let the thought go.
The music carried Dax and Neseryn around the far edge of the floor, briefly hiding them behind two older couples.
When they reappeared, Dax had one hand at Neseryn’s waist and the other holding hers.
He wasn’t crowding her or trying to pull her closer than the dance required.
After what happened in the corridor two days ago, and again in the receiving vault when he had stopped himself before touching her, he seemed to have learned exactly where the boundary sat.
Neseryn noticed too. I could tell because she didn’t spend the entire dance preparing to punish him for crossing it. By the time the final notes faded, our entire group was watching.
Dax bowed.
Actually bowed.
Lidia nearly choked on her drink.
Neseryn responded too quietly for me to hear. Dax straightened and offered his hand again.
A second dance. Neseryn looked at the hand, then at him, and shook her head once.
Dax lowered it. He did not push. He had been given exactly what he asked for and, for once in his life, appeared wise enough to understand that asking for more would ruin it.
Neseryn turned away and the moment she started toward us, everybody suddenly found something else to do. Lidia drank. Raiden adjusted a cuff that had been perfectly fine. Emrin inspected the bottom of her glass.
I was too slow. Neseryn saw all of us. She paused, her attention moving deliberately from one of us to the next. “You’re all very subtle.”
Lidia kept a straight face. “I’m sorry, am I supposed to find you interesting?”
Neseryn’s attention moved to me. Whatever had existed on the dance floor was gone. I knew this version of her much better. Then she continued past us toward the Umbrael side of the hall. Dax arrived several seconds later looking insufferable.
Emrin held up a hand before he spoke. “Don’t even. I haven’t had enough drinks.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were about to and that’s more than enough.”
“I danced with her.”
“We witnessed it.”
“One full dance.”
Lidia stared at him. “We know. That is the shocking part.”
“I told you she likes me.”
“She tolerated you for four minutes.”
“Five.”
Emrin closed her eyes. “You counted.”
Dax looked at her as if this were obvious. “Of course I counted.”
I laughed. It was easy to. That was what kept startling me tonight. Everything was easy.
No one was bleeding. No ward-master was demanding answers. I wasn’t standing over a dead body or beneath a collapsing ceiling or trying to understand why a woman I hated had magic that reacted to my blood.
Dax had somehow convinced Neseryn Vexoria to dance with him, and this was apparently the most urgent problem we had.
I wanted to stay there forever.
Lidia turned to Vareena who had just made her way to us from the terrace, “So how was the kiss?”
“Lidia!” The cream skin of her cheeks flushed red.
Dax looked at Raiden, then at Vareena, then back at Raiden again, “Ohhh shit. You filthy Fire hound.”
Raiden pointed a warning finger at him. “I will light your ass on fire.”
Dax put both hands up. “Hey, you just spent five minutes ogling me and Neseryn. Fair is fair.”
Vareena caught my wrist. “Walk with me.”
“Gladly.”
She pulled me toward the western gallery before anyone else could follow.
I could hear Dax beginning his interrogation behind us anyway.
Raiden groaned. Vareena walked faster. We stopped in an alcove where one of the high windows overlooked the lower Sanctum grounds.
Music from the hall reached us softened by stone and distance.
I leaned back against the wall. “Well?”
She gave me a look. I waited. Vareena touched two fingers to her mouth. My grin came before I could stop it.
“Please don’t embarrass me.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“You’re doing worse with your face.”
“Was it good?”
Her cheeks darkened even more. “Lyra.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
She looked toward the hall, where Raiden was currently being cornered by Dax and Lidia while Emrin did absolutely nothing to help him.
Then Vareena smiled. Small at first, but the kind she couldn’t keep from growing. “It was.”
Whatever had been growing between them had lived in glances for weeks, in the way Vareena always seemed to find the seat beside him. In Raiden pretending he wasn’t disappointed when she left a room before him. In that folded cloth she kept slipping behind his injured shoulder without asking.
None of it had felt settled enough to touch.
Tonight it was. “I am so happy for you.”
Vareena turned back to me. “You’re being very nice. It’s weird.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No. I said it was weird not that I didn’t like it.
” She leaned against my shoulder, and for a while, neither of us spoke.
People moved beyond the gallery opening.
The musicians shifted into another song.
A servant passed carrying empty trays and gave us a quick bow before hurrying back toward the hall.
Vareena’s ribbon brushed my arm when she moved. Then she said, “I want to go into the lower market tomorrow.”
I turned toward her. “Tomorrow?”
“After midday.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been trapped inside these walls for weeks, and if I have to spend one more afternoon staring at old records, I may start setting them on fire.”
“I’m sure Lidia would help you.”
“Lidia would make it competitive.” I laughed, and Vareena nudged me. “Come with me.”
The answer should have been easy.