Chapter 10
Ten
He did not answer at once, but something within him shifted: a narrowing of the eyes, a stiffening of his shoulders as though he was deciding whether my words were truth or a lie.
As if, even when he was getting what he wanted, he wasn’t sure if he should believe it.
It made me realize what power I had, giving him hope. He expected me to follow through.
Airen turned back to the piano, his stride unhurried.
I watched the long line of him, the way the candlelight found the edge of his jaw, then lost it again.
It pained me to realize I’d spent my entire life learning how to control my body, how to force it through the paces of dancing until it became effortless.
But I’d not learned how to master my emotions, nor the sensation of wanting someone else.
It sat within me, unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
It was a relief not to be in the center of his gaze, yet I wanted his focus back again.
That pull and tug—that shift between wanting and not wanting—was beyond me.
“You already know how to close the rift,” he said, sitting on the piano bench.
“You’ve spent your life learning that dance, but this one is its opposite.
Everything they taught you to seal, you will learn to open.
” His hands settled on the keys. “It will fight you. Your muscle memory will try to return to the old dance, but you will have to teach your mind and your body to resist.”
I nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve learned anything new.”
His green eyes held mine. “You were made for this. That is the cruelty of what they did. They took the one body in the world that could undo their lie and taught it to keep the lie instead. They wasted you.” His jaw tightened. “I cannot forgive them for that.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed him. Not yet.
But his words turned something in me. I was accustomed to being watched, but no one spoke of my worth in terms other than sacrifice.
Yet his words alluded to something deeper, and I needed him to look away.
I was not used to being seen, to being anything other than a tool.
As though understanding, he pressed the first chord. The sound moved through me like a hand pressed against my spine. The pull came with it; the same lure he’d used to bring me to my feet that first night. My body leaned into it, hungry, traitorous, aching.
“Remember, I’m not forcing you. You’re making a choice. The music might feel like a compulsion, but lean into it. Don’t resist. You are still in control.”
He played again, and I closed my eyes. This was the oddest way to learn a dance.
Usually someone showed me the steps, not instructed me to feel based on the music.
My body did what it had always done: curved inward, gathering, folding down toward the earth the way I’d been taught since I was young. Closing. Sealing.
The music fell silent. I tripped, shocked out of the moment, eyes opening.
“No,” he said. “That is the seal. Feel where your weight wants to fall. Inward. Down. This dance is its opposite. Up, out, and open.”
He rose from the bench and crossed the stage toward me. My pulse climbed with each soundless step until he stopped close enough that the cold went out of the air between us. Wine and spice and that bright thread of citrus, and beneath it something older.
I had to tip my head back to hold his eyes.
“Lift your arm,” he instructed.
I lifted it.
His own hand rose to follow the line of mine.
Not to move it, only to shadow it. His fingers hovered a breath above the inside of my wrist, close enough that the fine hairs there rose to meet a touch that never came.
I felt the heat of him against my skin like an unfulfilled promise.
I knew the weight of that hand; he’d laid it over mine the night I signed his bargain, and my body had not forgotten the feel of it.
My breath went thin. He did not close that sliver of air between us, even though I wanted him to, yet I could not bring myself to utter the words aloud.
“Here.” His hand drifted upward, tracing the air along my arm, my shoulder, the side of my throat. Never touching. Always that breath apart. He paused near my waist, and I felt the ghost of his touch so vividly that my whole body leaned toward him.
“Your center is here,” he said. “Not your feet. Let it lead. Let the rest of you follow.”
His voice had dropped low, as though he spoke of more than the dance. This was about trust now, the relationship building between us.
“Turn,” he murmured.
I did, forcing my body to move against my natural inclination.
I opened myself, reaching, and for one strange, weightless moment, the movement was not mine, nor something the piano forced on me.
It was something else entirely, born of the space between us.
There was magic in it, that I was certain of.
A shimmer burst from me, a new sensation, a power I’d never tapped into before.
Then the cough came.
It tore out of my chest without warning, doubling me over. I tasted the familiar copper at the back of my throat. I turned from him, mortified, one hand splayed across my ribs as if I could hold myself together.
When it passed, Airen had retreated, but was watching me carefully.
At first, I thought the look on his face was displeasure, but this searing green gaze held hints of fear, of frustration.
I didn’t think it was meant for me. His next words confirmed it.
“It is what they have taken from you, and would have you give more, until there’s nothing left of your soul. ”
“It is the sacrifice—” I began.
“It is theft,” he said harshly. Turning on his heel, he marched back to the piano, something like determination coming over him. “This dance is meant to save you. Heal you.”
That sensation came again—as if I stood bare, transparent before him, as though he read my mind—and his concern was exclusively for me.
Not for the dancers, those who lived in the Sacred Palace, or for the city itself.
It was something I’d never had, someone who looked out for me, simply because I was worthy of it, worth it.
I turned away, not sure how to react, my skin prickling when he looked at me. This was difficult enough, and the way he woke new emotions in me made it harder.
Thankfully, he began to play. It was slow, haunting, but I forced my body to lean into it and move, slowly, surely, the opposite of everything I’d learned. Years of muscle memory and movement tossed aside. And suddenly there was no music at all, just movement.
He was there again, his arms lifting, instructing, mirroring.
Counting the steps. We moved as one, barely a hand’s breadth away, not touching, just dancing.
We moved the entire length of the stage, together yet not together.
It terrified me, what we were doing, the thoughts I’d never thought before, the movements I’d never done.
We came to rest at the center of the stage, breathing hard.
My hand hovered just over his heart, while his was lower, near my waist. It would take only one step to be inside the circle of his embrace, pressed against him.
These were not things a Lead Dancer should want.
This was temptation and desire, the angst of girlhood years rising like a flood.
I’d believed longing had been danced right out of me long ago.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, his head bowed while mine tipped up. But he drew back.
The cold came rushing into the space where he had been, and the loss was like a note cut off before it could resolve.
My arms fell to my sides as he retreated, as though I’d been under a spell.
My heart slammed against my ribs with fury.
But the cough was gone. The urge had vanished.
I gathered my hazy thoughts, reaching for something, anything, to excuse my behavior, to escape what was happening and the riot of confusion that ripped through me.
“I have to go,” I said. “Before they miss me.”
He didn’t say a word, only swept out a hand, pointing to the way that led back. I fled, taking the steps down and weaving between the seats. It was only when I stepped into the passage that the whisper of his voice reached me. “Return soon.”