Chapter 7
Seven
When I walked out of the tunnels, they were waiting for me on the stairs of the amphitheater.
Verena turned first, her expression one of horror.
Then a Warden’s hand shot out, a finger pointing in my direction, followed by the order. “Arrest her!”
Instinct said flee, but the Wardens had me surrounded. Behind their veils, they always gave the appearance of being cold and impassive, but this time, as they turned on me, I felt it deeply. I was the Lead Dancer, next in line to be Rift Mother. How could this be?
My shoulders sagged, my feet went flat against the stone, and a broken weariness surged through my body.
The Wardens pressed close, hemming me in, but none clasped me in irons.
They waited, a wall of flesh that suddenly parted for a tall man.
Commander Tiberon. He loomed a head and shoulders taller than my slight figure, his impressive bulk shutting out the light.
I shrank away, even though there was nowhere to go.
He took a pipe from his mouth, his ebony skin wreathed in a billow of smoke for just a moment before he lifted a paper.
“Gazelle Dakari, Lead Dancer of the Sacred Palace, I hereby arrest you for the murder of Avent Gardelle, Rift Mother of the Sacred Palace.”
A tremor began in my limbs. “I didn’t do it.”
Even as the words left my lips, I questioned their truth. I couldn’t recall the night. There were gaps, moments of being blacked out, lying unconscious, standing in the shadow of the Hollow King. He claimed he was trapped, but surely, he was responsible.
“Enough. Hold your words.” Tiberon turned away. “Take her to the high chamber.”
Bodies pressed against me, and I was forced to move, ushered back up the hill through the columns into the Sacred Palace. The murmur of water followed us, the pools feeding one another—a sound that had comforted me all my life now comforted me no longer.
They marched me through the winding halls, past windows thrown open to the rough-cut mountain, where the echoes of the quarry rang.
I was placed in the starlit room, at least that’s what I always called it, the straight stone walls pointing to the heavens, the chamber wide enough to hold a crowd, standing room only.
On the raised dais stood what I imagined was once the throne of the queen who ruled here, long before the palace belonged to the dancers.
A queen. He had said. A queen who would not stop dancing.
Torches flickered. Figures waited in the shadows as I was led forward and pushed into a chair. So it would happen now. The inquest. I felt numb and cold and very alone. All eyes were on me as Tiberon took his seat, facing me. A young woman, the recorder, sat at the edge of the desk, quill in hand.
He cleared his throat and began.
“Gazelle Dakari, Lead Dancer of the Sacred Palace, hear the charge as it will be recorded. On the night of the last full moon, you led the sealing dance, by which the rift is bound, and this city is kept from harm. It is the sworn testimony of those who know the steps that you altered them, changes visible to no eye but a dancer’s own, then fled before you could be questioned.
You were absent the entire night, the only soul of this palace unaccounted for.
You knew Avent Gardelle, Rift Mother, knew what you had done, and that she would bring you to judgment.
So you killed her to silence her, then announced her death to avoid suspicion.
But you made a mistake in hiding your presence.
No one saw you after the dance or again until morning.
Hiding was your error, and it is the finding of this inquest that your guilt is plain. ”
“That isn’t true.” The words tore out of me. “It’s a lie. It was the demons—”
He raised a finger. “Demons, you say. Yet it was you who ordered the rift searched, and you stood by while it was done. The seal is complete. It will hold. So demons did not do it. It has been decided. You will remain in custody while we discuss your punishment.”
My body went cold, as though I had drifted out of myself.
This could not be happening. Punishment meant execution.
The murder of a Rift Mother was the gravest of sins, the kind met with swift retribution.
However, the fact that my execution wasn’t scheduled for the morning meant something.
A true judgment required the old families, the council convening and voting.
Tiberon had summoned none of them, and whatever this inquest was, it was not law.
It was meant to see me locked up, nothing more. I hoped.
They led me down into the dark and locked me in a cell. The clang of the door rang along the stone and died, and then I was alone in the dark, in the cold.
I shivered, listening to the slow drip of water, wondering if the mice would come to nibble at my feet. A bleakness came over me. I had given the Sacred Palace everything. My body to the dance, my nights to the moon, my soul, month by month. Then a single accusation reduced all my labor to nothing.
The Hollow King would believe me a liar. He’d play his music, and I wouldn’t come. He’d think me treacherous. I pressed my hand to my chest and found, to my shame, that what moved in me wasn’t fear of execution, but fear of never seeing him again. Never exploring what his presence awoke in me.
“Gazelle?”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, the familiar voice promising reassurance. I went to the bars as the glow of lamplight came, then Verena’s face, her brown eyes wide.
“I’m sorry, Gazelle, I had no idea they’d blame you.”
“You believe me, right? I didn’t do it.”
“There’s blanket, food, water. What else do you need?”
I looked, and there they were, folded and set just inside the bars.
A thin blanket, a cup of water, a slice of bread.
I didn’t remember them being there before, but my hands were cold, and there was grit on my knees from kneeling on the dirty floor.
A hint of incense came, the scent of a candle that had burned too long.
I didn’t know how to explain it or account for it.
“Will you leave the light? I left a book tucked under my pillow. Will you bring it to me, if you have the chance?”
“I’ll do my best. I’ll talk to everyone, see what I can do.”
I reached through the bars for her hands and closed my fingers. “Thank you, Verena. Thank you.”
“I know you’d do the same for me.”