Chapter 80
THE CURSE
My Aurora. My Giselle. My Juliet. ‘Trix.’
Hearing her voice, hearing “a few months off forty”, pulls my lungs out through my ribcage.
I thought that as long as my parents’ decree held true – Never again may the Prince of the Silver Realm cross the border into the Restless Lands – my memory of Trix would be stuck, that she would never age beyond thirty mortal years.
But time has worked its alchemy on her. Time has not waited for us, and it never will. Time was only ever on our side when it disappeared, when I held her. When we danced.
I have waited so long to tell her “I love you”. Imagined so many distant worlds in which my parents would take this news well.
I regret it as soon as I declare it: somewhere on an upper level, Cressida makes her outrage known, abandoning all ladylike pretensions in a shriek that sends the crows flying.
Trix does not see the sneer on my father’s face – he hides it the moment he gets her attention.
I try to run to her. When that doesn’t work – because Uncle Wick just has to meddle – I open my mouth to shout that they are leading her into a carefully worded trap.
No Silver noble has ever been inclined to show kindness to mortals in my lifetime.
But, with his other hand, he twists the air and bars my words from reaching her.
Glen is powerless to intervene, unable to go against my parents once they set their minds on something.
At last, when they release their hold just long enough for her to realise exactly what she had agreed to, Trix turns back to me.
Why so distraught? my uncle says, hand circling his face while eyeing Trix, who has been magicked into a pair of silver pointe shoes and a gauzy silk dress. Her hair is down, and long, restored to its younger shine. Now you can look on your “love” forever. We all can look.
* * *
My mother sends Trix to dance in the middle of the feasting hall. I do not know how long it takes before Glen manages to drag me away.
‘You will only drive yourself to madness.’
‘Their gesture is law. There is nothing you can do.’
‘Her mind is somewhere far away now. It makes no difference whether you’re here or not.’
‘Sander,’ he says, leaning in close to call me the name that no one in the Silver Realm ever wants to hear again. ‘The feast is about to start. You need to sit down. Remember, they told her she wouldn’t be in pain. That was part of the deal. Take solace in that.’
She is dancing all her lead roles on a loop, from Aurora’s Act I solo to Juliet’s Act I variation, when the character is still a carefree teenager, just enjoying herself at the masked ball.
Right now, Trix is dancing Nikiya Act II, as effortless as a member of court on her bourrées.
It is this that finally makes me relent and take my seat next to Cressida: Trix’s feet must be relaxed to make those bourrées look smooth.
If they were stiff and in pain, it would look more like walking on stilts.
I still feel guilty for doing nothing except seething into my soup bowl, waving off the servants who try to refill my untouched wine. My parents have not derived such amusement from anything in who knows how long – there is nothing they love to hate more than ballet.
Mortals always steal. They are like the magpies, except, my uncle raises a tipsy finger, the magpies know when enough is enough.
This is not mere theft, my mother interjects, pointing at Trix, who is now dancing Titania, this mocks our very existence.
The Duke of the Onyx Realm feels emboldened to throw a pear slice at Trix’s head. He is drunk enough that he misses. She is an image onto which everyone can project their resentment and rage, a composite of every mortal who has ever lived and erred and died.
Let’s hold her there, my father decides, snapping his fingers so that Trix, in one of Kitri’s balances from Don Quixote, is suspended with her back leg in an attitude, an imaginary fan above her head.
A seam of sweat runs down her forearm, a vein embossed under her skin.
I wave furiously at my father until he deigns to look at me down the table.
How long will you keep her like this?
Were you listening not? He brushes his arms out in a cross for added emphasis on the “not”. She agreed to forever, so she shall dance forever.
But she is mortal. I stand up, inadvertently drawing some of the attention from Trix onto myself. To dance forever, she cannot! Ballet is hard on mortal bodies. If she rests not, she will die.
Well. My mother shrugs with one shoulder, reaching for another sip of blackberry wine. She taps a long finger to her temple. You should have thought of that, before you… strayed.
Your majesty, let us discuss other things, Cressida says with fluttery hands and a hard stare in my direction. Less tedious things.