Chapter 20

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Chapter 20

A haze enveloped Oriane, a strange floating feeling that spread through her limbs. It made it easier to navigate the crowd, to shrug off the hands that reached for her and the pretty words people cast her way. The music was still very loud. It twined with the rapid pulse in Oriane's throat, the rush of blood in her ears. The room was far too warm. The press of bodies made her feel even fainter and more detached.

She kept walking, not knowing where she thought to go. A hand closed around her upper arm. Oriane did not stop, but the hand did not let go as the others had – someone was holding onto her, holding her back—

She whirled around, the action making her dizzy.

Kitt.

Thank the skies, it was Kitt, come to save her from the crowd. He looked wonderful in a cream-coloured doublet, crisp against his dark skin.

‘Let's get you some air,' he murmured, his words whisked away into the noise like smoke on a breeze.

Oriane nodded vaguely, or thought she did. It was hard to keep track of her movements anymore. She did not feel in control of her own body. Kitt's hand was an anchor as he steered her towards the back of the ballroom. There, a set of enormous doors had been 160 thrown open to the night, leading out onto a white stone courtyard that glowed with lantern light.

Revellers had spilled out here, too. A few pairs were dotted here and there, staring up at the starry sky or tangling together behind fruit trees and statues. But Kitt led Oriane past them all, down a set of stairs and out into a stretch of garden that reached towards the woods beyond. It was much more peaceful outside. Insects hummed a gentle chorus and the sounds of music and revelry were muted by the thick hedges. Oriane began to come back to herself a little, felt some of that odd dissociation start to melt away. But in its place was something worse.

For the past week, she had been relying on certain things to take her away from her grief. Sleep. Anger. The tea Andala made her. The weary haze that had settled over her more and more frequently. It was easier to feel fury, and better to feel nothing at all, than it was to feel what she knew she would have to eventually: the full weight of what had happened. The full responsibility of what she had done.

‘Oriane?'

Kitt had waited in silence while she stood with one hand on a stone fountain. He took a step towards her now, and even without looking, she knew his dark eyes were a well of sympathy. She would drown there if she looked. She focused on the water in the fountain, drowning instead in the night sky reflected back at her, a million points of light in another brimming eye.

‘I'm dying, Kitt,' she whispered, her grip hard on the stone. ‘It feels like I'm dying. I try to eat or talk or just move around like … like normal, but it's as though I can't get enough air, or keep hold of my—'

She inhaled sharply, then forced the air out in a rush, as if to remind her body it knew how to breathe. 161

‘I never should have left. It was so selfish . It's my fault. My father is dead and it's my—'

‘It isn't your fault. Wait,' Kitt entreated as Oriane spun to look at him, to protest. ‘Just hear me out, please, Oriane. I know how you must feel – as if your father died because you left your home. But sometimes things aren't as simple as that. They really aren't. We don't live our lives in a direct chain of cause and effect. It's easier to look at things that way, because it often gives us someone to blame when something goes wrong, even if that someone is ourselves. And having someone to blame can be easier than coming to terms with … with how quickly things can change. How unpredictable and cruel the world can be. How fragile we all really are.'

Kitt fell silent, staring into the fountain himself. Oriane watched him. Some distant part of her mind wondered what had brought him to this realisation – what had happened in his life that he should be so wise.

After a moment, he raised his gaze back to hers. This time Oriane let herself meet it.

‘He would never want you to blame yourself,' Kitt said softly, and finally, inevitably, Oriane's tears began to fall. ‘I did not know him, but I know that much.'

Oriane felt like a building collapsing. Her foundations cracked, and she swayed, but Kitt steadied her, gathering her into careful arms.

He held her patiently as she cried herself out. Oriane had no idea how long it took. Eventually the tears were gone, leaving a hollow in their wake. Numbness settled over her body, starting in her heart and spreading outward. She lifted her head and stared in dull dismay at the front of Kitt's beautiful cream jacket. It was damp with tears and smeared with gold paint from around her eyes.

‘I've ruined your clothes,' she muttered. 162

Kitt waved a hand. ‘It was a boring outfit, anyway. A touch of gold will do it good.'

Someone cleared their throat, somewhere behind them in the garden. Oriane spun around, slipping free of Kitt's arms. It was Andala. Her blue-black dress rippled slightly in the faint evening breeze.

‘They're looking for you,' she murmured. ‘The king – he requests that you join the assembly for the first formal dance.'

‘No,' Oriane said immediately. He wanted her to dance ? Like some trained bear at the circus? Rage flared in her, hot and sudden, like fire doused in fuel. It comforted her to see an echo of that anger on Andala's face.

‘I know. But I don't think he plans to give you a choice.'

Oriane clenched her fists and said nothing. Beside her, Kitt was standing still, silent.

Andala glanced at him. ‘Perhaps you—'

‘Oh, I'm a terrible dancer,' he said quickly. ‘You know that. You would be much better suited to the task, Andala.'

‘What?' Andala frowned at him. ‘Don't be stupid, I'm only—'

‘Will you dance with me, Andala, please?' Oriane interrupted quietly.

A beat. She knew she must seem pathetic, pleading, but she was beyond the point of caring. If she had to dance, she wanted it to be on her own terms, and not with a stranger.

Another quiet moment, and then Andala nodded.

They made their way out of the garden. The burn of anger had died away, leaving only cold grey ash, sitting heavy on Oriane's lungs.

‘Wait,' Andala said as they reached the top of the courtyard steps. ‘Before we go in …' She reached out and ran a thumb lightly along one of Oriane's cheekbones, then the other. ‘The paint,' she explained quietly. ‘It's smudged under your eyes.' 163

Oriane tried to thank her, but her throat had begun to close. It was so much louder up here. There were so many people around.

‘It's going to be all right,' Andala said. One slender hand was still curved around Oriane's face, hovering a breath away from her skin. ‘You just need to get through a few more hours. You can do this.'

She clenched her teeth, nodded. Andala dropped her hand before they made their way inside. Oriane's face felt warm where it had been.

People soon began to spot her. The crowd in the ballroom parted for them, a sea of faces on either side. At some point, Andala pressed a flute of liquid into her hand. Oriane drained it in one. Fizzing golden wine burned its way down her throat, and the bubbles seemed to flow the opposite way, directly to her head. She welcomed the dizziness as she would a fire on a bitter winter's eve.

‘Our Lady Lark is here!'

Tomas's voice resounded from where he was standing on a raised platform with the musicians at the front of the room. He looked at ease, delighted once more, a marked change from his demeanour during their last conversation. He beamed down at Oriane and his people cheered and applauded. The wine turned sour in her stomach.

‘It is time for the midsummer waltz,' the king said. ‘In just a few hours we will celebrate the dawning of the solstice day, but before then we must dance. Lady Lark will dance with us, of course – but first we must find her a partner …'

There was a slight commotion as people fell over each other to put themselves forward.

‘I have a partner,' Oriane called. The strength of her voice surprised her. She stepped closer to Andala and the crowd fell to silence around her. 164

Tomas only hesitated for a moment, his eyes flicking to Andala and back to the room. Then he clapped his hands together. ‘Excellent! Then if everyone will take their places, we shall begin.'

Another flurry of noise and movement. Oriane stood immobile while people flowed around her and Andala like a stream around a rock, pairing off and arranging themselves around the room. She saw Kitt taking the hand of someone she thought was Princess Hana – hadn't he said he would not be dancing? – and Tomas on the arm of a handsome nobleman in green.

Panic rose within her again, replacing the heady rush of the bubbling wine. Her emotions were so volatile, one crashing in to replace another like waves upon a shore.

‘I don't know how to dance,' she told Andala. ‘I should have said so before—'

But Andala did not seem worried. She pried Oriane's empty glass from her clawlike grasp and set it aside, then took one of Oriane's hands in hers, settling the other lightly on her own shoulder. Andala's other hand rested at Oriane's waist. ‘It isn't hard,' she said. ‘Just follow me.'

The air seemed to hum with anticipation as everybody stood in position, waiting. Then the band struck up their tune, a slow, graceful waltz, and after a few counts, the dance began.

Andala had been right; it was easy. Perhaps it was the lingering effect of the wine, but Oriane's panic started to subside as Andala led her in a series of steady steps. There were so many eyes on them, though. They felt like pinpricks on Oriane's skin. She kept glancing jerkily about, meeting a stranger's gaze only to tear hers away, the cycle repeating.

‘Just look at me,' Andala murmured, and Oriane obeyed.

The musicians played on. The dance continued. The people around them began to fade away. Oriane's mind was swimming with 165 drink and exhaustion. She felt tired but also, strangely, more alive than she'd felt in days. Andala had said to look at her, and Oriane found now that she could not do otherwise if she tried. Andala's eyes were so dark, so striking.

‘I would have liked you to meet him. You and Kitt,' she said abruptly. The words seemed arbitrary, erratic. Her mouth had formed them before she'd realised she wanted to say them. But Andala didn't need to ask who she meant.

‘I would have liked to meet him, too,' she replied quietly.

They kept moving, Oriane's feet following Andala's. Had they moved closer together? Was it the way of the dance?

Alone. Alone. The word sprang unbidden into her head, repeating in time with the music that floated around them. Her father was gone. She was trapped here, in a shining, gilded prison. She was alone, and she wanted – she wanted …

Her gaze was still locked with Andala's. And there was something in the other woman's look, now, something that said she knew what Oriane was thinking. But were her thoughts the same? Was she wanting , like Oriane was? Andala's eyes dropped—

There was an explosion of clapping and whooping around them. The music had stopped; the dance was over. Oriane looked around like a sleepwalker woken from a trance. When she turned back, Andala was looking at the ground. She had let go of Oriane's hand, her waist.

‘Thank you for the dance, my lady,' she said to the floor. And then she was gone, weaving through the brightly coloured crowd like a ribbon of dark smoke.