CHAPTER 3- Farewell
The music begins as a whisper.
A single string drawn slowly, carefully, as if the musicians themselves are unsure whether they are allowed to disturb the moment.
The hall is filled with light too much of it.
Candlelight spills across marble and gold, catching on jewels, on silk, on smiles that have never known restraint.
Everywhere I look, there is celebration. There is joy.
I stand very still at the edge of it.
My hands are folded before me, fingers laced tight enough that my knuckles ache. My dress is pale blue, soft as morning mist, the kind of color meant to suggest innocence, gentleness, belonging. It drapes over me perfectly.
I feel like I am wearing a lie.
The aisle still glows from the ceremony. White petals litter the floor where my sister walked toward her future. She had looked so beautiful it nearly stole the breath from my lungs. Her smile had been unguarded, radiant, fearless. She had not looked back once.
I do not blame her.
When he had turned, when Isaac had let his gaze slide across the hall and land on me something inside my chest had cracked open. Not loudly. Quietly. The way ice breaks beneath still water.
For a heartbeat, our eyes met.
There was no apology in his. No regret.
Only possession.
I had smiled anyway.
Because that is what daughters of kings do when their hearts are being buried alive. They smile. They lower their eyes. They survive.
Now the music shifts.
The whisper becomes a rhythm, low and steady, pulsing like a second heartbeat beneath my skin. Couples begin to move toward the center of the hall, skirts brushing the floor, polished shoes gliding over stone. Laughter swells. A glass shatters somewhere and is immediately forgotten.
Someone touches my arm. An invitation. A wordless expectation.
I step forward.
The moment my foot meets the dance floor, something loosens inside me. Not relief
no, it is sharper than that. Like a breath I have been holding for years without realizing it.
I begin with the steps I was taught.
Graceful. Controlled. Each movement measured to be pleasing. My arms lift slowly, elbows soft, wrists fluid. I turn once, then again, the fabric of my skirt following obediently, a pale wave curling around my legs.
From the outside, it must look beautiful.
Inside, my heart is splintering.
I let the music guide me, even as my thoughts pull me backward. Every note drags memory with it late nights whispered into candlelight, promises murmured against my skin, the terrible sweetness of believing I was chosen.
My first movements are small.
Contained.
I sway rather than leap. I circle rather than claim space. My steps trace patterns meant to soothe rather than disrupt. My smile remains fixed, gentle, careful. The kind of smile that reassures others I am fine.
This is grief, at its quietest.
It lives in the heaviness of my shoulders; in the way my arms feel weighed down as if I am moving through water. It curves my spine forward just slightly, draws my chin down.
Grief pulls me low.
It settles in my hips, grounding me, keeping me close to the floor. Each step feels deliberate, like pressing something fragile into place. My fingers curl and uncurl, grasping at air that offers no comfort.
The music deepens.
The drums come in soft at first, then stronger, insistent. Something ancient stirs in the rhythm, something that does not care for propriety or appearances.
I turn faster.
Once. Twice.
My skirt blooms outward, fabric lifting and catching the light like a flower torn open by wind. My hair slips loose from its pins, dark strands spilling down my back, brushing my shoulders, clinging to my damp cheeks.
I breathe in sharply.
anger I snaps through my body, sharp and electric.
My steps grow firmer. My feet strike the floor with purpose now, heels biting into stone.
I take up more space. My arms slice through the air instead of floating through it, carving lines where there were once curves.
I spin hard, abruptly, the momentum almost too much to control and for a brief, reckless second, I hope I fall.
But I don't.
I never do.
Across the room, I feel his gaze again. I don't need to look to know he is watching. I feel it like heat against my skin. When I finally turn my head, our eyes meet once more.
The music falters inside me. My chest tightens so violently I nearly miss a step.
He is smiling. Not broadly. Not openly. just enough to let me know he is enjoying this.
I pivot sharply, throwing my arm outward, letting the movement crack like a whip.
My next steps are fast, precise, almost violent in their rhythm.
I stomp instead of glide. I turn on the balls of my feet, breath quick and shallow, pulse racing.
The music swells again, strings climbing higher, notes stretching like something reaching for the sky. My movements change with it, softening without warning.
Anger bleeds into something warmer.
love pours through me in slow, aching gestures.
My arms lift as if cradling someone unseen.
My body sways gently now, rocking, protective.
My steps trace small circles, intimate and tender.
I imagine my sister's laughter. The way she clutched my hands when she was afraid as a child.
The way she had looked at her husband with hope so pure it almost frightened me.
Tears blur my vision.
I am happy for her.
Truly.
That happiness hurts more than my anger ever could.
I let the music carry that truth through me.
My smile trembles but does not fall. I spin slowly, reverently, as if honoring something sacred.
Each movement is softer now, weighted with care.
The hall seems to fade around me. Faces blur.
Voices become indistinct. There is only the floor beneath my feet and the music in my bones.
Then the rhythm changes again.
Faster now. Wilder.
The drums pound. The strings cry out. The tempo surges forward like it has somewhere urgent to be.
Fear floods me.
It shows in the way my breath stutters, in the way my steps falter for just a heartbeat before I force them onward. Fear trembles in my hands, in the slight shake of my knees, in the way my eyes dart unconsciously toward the exits.
Tomorrow.
The word lodges in my throat.
Tomorrow, I will leave this place. Tomorrow, I will belong to Achilles. Tomorrow, my body will no longer be mine to move like this reckless, joyful, unguarded.
So tonight
Tonight I take everything.
I laugh.
It bursts out of me, bright and loud and almost manic. Heads turn. A few people smile, amused by my enthusiasm. They think I am celebrating.
Let them.
I spin faster, skirts flaring wildly now. My hair whips around me, loose and uncontained. I dance like gravity has loosened its hold on me. I leap where I should step. I turn where I should pause.
freedom.
It lives in the abandon of my movements; in the way I stop caring who sees. My laughter rings through the hall, unpolished and real. I throw my arms wide, claiming the space around me like it might vanish if I don't.
I dance my grief into the floor.
I dance my love into the air.
I dance my fear into laughter so bright it almost looks like joy.
Each movement tells a story.
The bend of my knees carries my sorrow.
The lift of my arms carries my hope.
The sharp turns carry my fury.
The reckless spins carry my refusal to be small.
I am speaking without words.
And for once, the world is listening even if it doesn't understand.
The music reaches its crescendo. The sound swells until it feels like it might tear the roof from the hall. My body burns with it, muscles aching, breath ragged, heart pounding so hard it feels like it might burst free.
I don't stop.
I dance like a girl with nothing left to lose.
I dance like a woman who knows tomorrow will cost her everything.
And when the song finally ends when the final note lingers and fades into breathless silence I am still moving.
Another song begins.
And another.
I am still laughing.
Still spinning.
Still alive.
As if goodbye does not exist.
As if tomorrow is not waiting with open jaws.
As if this is not my farewell.
And for these few stolen hours, as the music carries me and my feet never still
I am free.