Vienne tried to pull Luisa toward her, but Sena Anessa, looking at her across the room, shook her head warningly. Vienne let her arms fall to her sides. Kel could imagine what they were thinking. It was just a dance, and to run forward now to intervene would only underline how much of a child Luisa was, how unsuited to this position and this place. And they were, after all, the ones who had put her here.
Luisa began to dance. It was uncertain, awkward: She turned in a circle, the fan clutched in her hands. She was not following the beat of the music at all, only moving blindly, and in the flicker of the firelight, Kel could see the brightness of tears on her cheeks.
He felt Lin, beside him, tense. A moment later she was stalking across the room, her skirts swirling around her; she pushed through the crowd to where Luisa stood, shaking, and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “That’s enough,” she said, her voice rising over the music. “This is ridiculous. Stop.”
The music stopped instantly. The sudden silence was like a shock of cold water; Lin felt herself suddenly incredibly exposed, the center of a room full of staring strangers. Where was Mayesh? She had been looking for him ever since Charlon Roverge had begun speaking, but she had not seen him among the crowd.
With a squeak, Luisa dropped the fan, pulled away from Lin, and ran over to the side of her guard, Vienne. Good, Lin thought. Let her go where she feels safe. She glanced over at Charlon, who was looking at her with an expression that reminded her of Oren Kandel—the sulky resentfulness of a boy whose game has been spoiled by a girl he had taken little note of before.
At least, Lin saw with relief, Vienne—accompanied by Kel, who was directing her—was hurrying Luisa out of the room. Whatever else happened, the girl would not be tormented further.
A mocking whistle cut through the silence. Lin looked to see dark-eyed Joss Falconet looking at her with amusement. “Charlon,” he said, “it seems the Counselor’s granddaughter thinks she has the right to interfere in the evening’s entertainment. Are you going to stand for that?”
He dropped a wink at Lin, as if to say: It’s all just amusement, just a game, you know.
She did not smile back. Of course he thought games were amusing; people like Falconet were the players of the game, not the pawns on the board.
Charlon looked over at his father, as if for help, but none seemed forthcoming. “No,” he said gruffly. “I . . .” He cleared his throat. “Counselor’s granddaughter,” he said. “You have deprived us of our entertainment this evening. How do you suggest it be replaced?”
Lin suddenly felt close to snapping at him. At everyone in the room. A bunch of terriers, deprived of the rat they were tearing to pieces. “I’ll take her place,” she said. “I’ll do the dance instead.”
A stir among the crowd. She heard someone laugh: Lord Montfaucon, she was nearly sure. She was glad Kel had left the room. He was the only one here likely to have regarded her with sympathy, and she did not think she could stand it.
“Really,” said Roverge, and as he looked at her, she could see the sneer on his face. “What do you know of Sarthian dancing, Ashkari . . . girl?”
“Let her do it.”
The room went still. Prince Conor was still leaning back among the cushions of his divan, as if utterly relaxed. In fact, he looked almost sleepy, his eyes half lidded. Silver and gold dust glittered on his light-brown skin, where the angular bones of his face caught the light.
“Let her do it,” he said, again. “It will be something to amuse us, at least.”
Lin stared at him. In that moment she could see nothing in him of the young man whose wounds she had tended, who had said to her bitterly, Ten thousand crowns. The cost of a Prince, it turns out. I realize I have been a fool; you need not tell me.
His face was blank, a wall; his eyes narrow silver crescents below silvery lids. Beside him, Falconet was looking at her with curiosity, anticipation. The Prince’s face did not show even that.
Charlon shrugged, as if to say, As the Prince requests. He signaled, and the musicians behind the screen began to play. The tune seemed to Lin to have changed: No longer pensive and playful, it was slow and dark, the occasional bright note lancing through like a shaft of light piercing the darkness of an unlit street.
Though perhaps it was only her own jangling nerves, Lin thought, as Charlon, having retrieved Luisa’s dropped fan, presented it to her with an exaggerated bow. He backed away, eyes narrowed. He was not pleased with her, Lin knew. She had spoiled his game.
Now he wanted her to give him another one. They all did. Her only allies—Kel, her grandfather—were not in the room. She could, she supposed, simply run away. Flee House Roverge. It was hardly as if they’d set the dogs on her.
But then they would win. The Hill, the Palace, would win. And she would have managed only a few hours in this rarefied air before being shamed and defeated.
She raised her chin. Snapped the fan in her hands open, the black lace brilliant, laced with bright threads. She knew only one dance. She had never bothered to learn another, never been required to learn another. And she had never been grateful to have learned even the Dance of the Goddess. Not until this moment.
She let the music—different as it was from the music of the Sault—wash over her. She began to move, holding the fan as, in the dance, the girls of the Sault held their lilies. She turned, her body sweeping into the movements of the dance, the room blurring around her, vanishing. She was in Aram now, and it was overrun. Armies clashed on the barren-blasted plains, under a sky that was always dark. Lightning speared the clouds overhead. The end was very near.
She danced her terror, her excitement. She danced the howl of the wind through the broken walls of her kingdom. She danced the blackening of the land, the dim red light of the sun.
He approached, the Sorcerer-King who had once been her lover. The man she had trusted above all others. She wanted him with a fierceness that seemed to outpace the fire, the storm. She danced that fierceness now: her broken heart, her longing, the passion she still felt.
He begged her to stop, then. She was not to be a fool; to destroy magic would destroy him, who she loved, and destroy her, too. All he wanted was her, he said. He would put aside everything else: magic, power, kingship. She would be all he needed.
But he was not to be trusted.
Lin danced the last moments of Adassa—her defiance, her power, blooming like a flower of fire. She danced the shudder of the world as magic left it, draining from the earth, the rocks, the sea. She danced the grief of the Goddess as she stepped into darkness: The world was changed forever, her lover lost, her people scattered.
And lastly, she danced the first fingers of sunlight as they burst across the eastern horizon. The sun rising at last, after months of darkness. She danced the beginning of hope, and the glory of defiance. She danced—
And the music stopped. Lin stopped, too, hurled back into the present. She was gasping, utterly out of breath; perspiration ran between her breasts, stung her eyes. She was aware of eyes on her: everyone in the room watching. Charlon’s mouth was open.
“Well,” he said, “that was—”
“Very interesting,” said the Prince. His arms were outstretched along the back of the divan; his eyes raked Lin with a sort of bemused curiosity. She was suddenly very aware that her hair was plastered to her temples and the back of her neck, her dress clinging to her damply. “I had always heard the Ashkar were not particularly good dancers, so that was acceptable, considering.”