Chapter 19 The Theater
The Theater
Idine with Brinette before dressing for the theater.
She insists upon it, claiming I cannot possibly enter a room unarmed.
Armed, in this case, means informed. She eats lightly and speaks constantly, leaning across the small candlelit table in my chambers as if the walls themselves might repeat her words.
“The Duchess of Valmere will be there,” she murmurs. “She despises your sister but adores scandal. Smile at her, but not too warmly.”
“And Lord Harrow?” I ask.
“Harmless,” she says. “Unless he’s drinking.”
I let her catalog the nobles for me: who will stare, who will pretend not to, and who already resents the crown I never asked for.
When I rise to dress, she squeezes my hand. “They’re waiting for you to falter,” she says softly. “Do not.”
Later, as Maridale fastens the last pearl at my throat, whispers drift through the corridor. The Prince did not attend dinner with Jessamy. He ate alone in his chambers. I do not ask questions. I do not intend to care.
The theater is already full when I arrive, and Junis is nowhere yet in sight.
The royal seats are not hidden away in boxes; they are set among the nobles themselves, where power is meant to be witnessed.
Silk rustles, fans flutter, and laughter spills too easily from painted mouths, all of it circling the same subject: the wedding, the unveiling, the crown that rested on my head like a dare rather than a declaration.
Beneath the chatter and rustling silk, the orchestra tunes in the pit. The sound reaches somewhere deep in my chest. I have always wanted to see the theater, and it is everything I imagined it would be. For a moment the room feels suspended, waiting for the story to begin.
I am disappointed to find the very men I had planned to avoid already present.
Neither the King nor the Prince had planned to attend.
I know this because the court had been very careful to tell me so.
Yet here they are, flanking me as though it had always been inevitable, Sevrin moving with lazy authority, Colsar rigid at my side, his hand never once offering mine.
My sister sits several rows ahead, surrounded by her friends. The seat beside Sevrin remains empty. She wears a color dangerously close to mine, near enough to invite comparison and just different enough to suggest competition. When she turns and sees me, her smile is immediate and poisonous.
She leans close to one of the girls beside her and whispers.
They laugh, and I do not need to hear the words to know them.
I am certain they are gossiping about the ball, about how the Baron has not invited his own daughter, the Princess, and the latest rumor that the Prince will attend with another.
Colsar hears it too, and neither corrects them nor looks my way.
I cannot help glaring at him. He knows his silence is permission.
My sister rises suddenly, turning toward me with theatrical surprise as though she has only just noticed my presence.
She steps into the aisle, wine already in her hand, her smile widening.
Her wrist tilts. Red wine spills over my bodice, seeping into the chiffon, blooming across my chest.
Gasps ripple.
“Oh,” she says lightly. “How clumsy of me.” Her friends murmur apologies they do not mean.
I stand very still. Sevrin says nothing.
He only watches me, one brow lifting in faint inquiry, as if curious what I will do now.
Colsar’s expression is flat. Distant. Almost expectant.
I feel heat crawl up my throat. My fingers tighten around my fan.
For one foolish moment, I consider swallowing it all again, lowering my head, leaving quietly.
Then a voice carries from the aisle. Clear, polite, and entirely unbothered. “Princess Asharin.”
A man steps forward, dressed in the livery of the theater, his posture formal, his smile practiced. “Lord Eravic Vaelor heard you would be attending this evening,” he continues. “He requested that you and his apprentice be offered his box seats, as a wedding gift.”
The room shifts and heads turn. Whispers sharpen. House Vaelor is both admired and feared, and known to favor no one. And yet, the Princess has been gifted box seats.
Before I can speak, Junis appears in the aisle, already moving toward me as though he has only just arrived. He bows with easy confidence, just enough.
“If it pleases you, Princess.”
It does. I glance once toward the King. His attention is fixed on me now, something dark and hungry stirring beneath his amusement.
I glance at Colsar, and for the first time since the wine spilled, something cracks across his face. It is something like loss.
Junis offers his arm. I take it, and we turn away. The box seats are high above the crowd, private and insulated from the noise below. The door closes behind us.
Junis exhales and reaches into his coat. “Before I forget,” he says, handing me a folded letter. “Lord Eravic said you would know how to read it. He said to use what you have.”
His eyes meet mine, knowing, not surprised.
I tuck the letter away without opening it. “Thank you,” I say.
He grins. “I figured you would say that.”
We take our seats high above the crowd. Junis produces a small flask and unscrews the lid. He glances at the glasses on the table and grimaces. “The wine here is dreadful,” he says. He passes me the flask instead.
I drink. The burn is immediate and welcome. Below us, the play begins. The stage floods with light, brighter than anything in the hall below. A woman steps forward in silver silk, her voice rising clear and impossible, filling the theater until the walls themselves seem to breathe with it.
For a moment I forget the court. I forget the crown, the whispers, the eyes that weigh every movement I make. Here the world is simple. A girl can become a queen. A villain can be defeated. Love can be declared aloud instead of hidden behind contracts and silence.
I feel something loosen in my chest as I watch.
I think I could love this place. The music, the color, the sheer audacity of it all holds me for a moment.
Yet even as the stage pulls at my attention, the weight of the room presses in from every side, and the stares make it impossible to forget where I am.
Junis leans back, relaxed now, nothing like the shy cousin he pretended to be at breakfast. “First rule,” he murmurs, eyes on the stage. “Never react when either of them wants you to.”
I glance sideways. “You know them well.”
“I know how power behaves,” he replies. “And I know how men like them unravel when it stops answering.”
He tells me who hates whom. Who is sleeping with whose wife. Which noble is quietly bankrupt. Which advisor feeds information to which faction. He speaks with the ease of someone who has listened far more than he has spoken.
“I don’t like my family much,” he admits. “Too much land. Too little horizon.”
“And Eravic?” I ask.
Junis smiles then, real and uncomplicated. “He gave me the sea.”
I follow his attention downward. Sevrin has not taken his eyes off our box. Colsar has not looked away once. I lift the flask again and drink. Let them stare. I lean closer to Junis, lowering my voice as the orchestra swells below us. “Do you know how I met Lord Eravic?”
He glances at me sideways, already amused. “At court, I assume. Somewhere expensive and insufferable.”
I shake my head. “I dressed as a boy. Rubbed dirt into my face. Gambled with him at a tavern.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks at the memory: the cards, the laughter, the reckless kiss I had wagered and lost, and everything that followed.
Junis chokes on his drink. He coughs hard, slaps a hand against the armrest, then turns to stare at me in open disbelief. “You did what?”
“I won,” I say defensively. “Mostly.”
His eyes light with something dangerous. Delighted. “Then we absolutely must do that again tonight.”
“Tonight?” I echo.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “We will need cards. And poor judgment. And Nyara.”
“Nyara?” I ask.
“My twin sister,” he replies, already grimacing.
“You will rarely see her at court. She is considered a scandal and a disappointment because she chose to become an opera singer instead of something suitably dull. She was meant to perform here tonight, but decided at the last moment that she would rather stir trouble.”
I raise an eyebrow.
He takes another gulp from his flask and grins. “In truth, she was not in the mood to perform. She decided she preferred Lady Esmeraldis’s sewing event to an evening surrounded by Yvara Dyvarin and her friends.”
Had I known Yvara would be here, I might have chosen the same.
“That sounds harmless,” I say.
“Oh, it is anything but. First of all, there was no invitation extended to her. Second, there are few things our dear cousin Esmeraldis despises more than opera. She will be mortified when her own cousin is unveiled as the evening’s entertainment in front of all her dearest friends.”
I smile. “I like your sister already.”
“She is an alarming amount of fun,” he continues. “And a menace at cards.”
“She plays cards?” I ask.
“She cheats,” he corrects. “But yes. If that is what one insists on calling it.”
I laugh again, real and unguarded, the sound slipping free before I can stop it.
Junis watches me for a moment, thoughtful now. “You laugh like someone who has been alone for too long.”
Something in my chest tightens. I lift the flask and drink.
Below us, the play unfolds in dramatic excess, but my attention drifts downward.
Colsar has not stopped looking at us. His jaw is clenched, his hand tight around his goblet, knuckles pale.
He looks furious, not with Junis, with me.
Beside him, Sevrin lounges with careless ownership, one arm draped around my sister as she presses herself against him, her head resting on his chest as though she belongs there.
His fingers move idly along her leg, languid and unhurried.
And yet his attention is not on her, but on me. Even from this distance, I can feel it. The way his interest intensifies rather than fades. The way something dark and intent coils behind his composure.
My sister lifts her face toward him, smiling, unaware or pretending not to be. Her eyes shift briefly toward the box seats, toward me, and her smile turns brittle.
Junis follows my line of sight and makes a soft sound of understanding. “Oh,” he murmurs. “That.”
I look back at him. “That?”
“You are doing something very unwise,” he says lightly. “And very effective.”
I lift my chin. “I am done being careful.”
His grin is slow and approving. “Then tonight,” he says, raising the flask, “we gamble.”
I take it from him and lift it in return. The box feels suddenly like the safest place in the kingdom.
And, perhaps, the most dangerous.