Long May She Reign(3)

When they reached the front of the room, they bowed to the king before continuing their performance. One of the jugglers clapped, the sound chasing through the room like thunder, and their rings seemed to transform into knives.

I looked past them to the high table. The king’s best friend, Torsten Wolff, sat two seats to the king’s left. He looked distinctly unamused. But Torsten Wolff always looked distinctly unamused. If he ever smiled, his face would probably shatter. He was much younger than the king, probably in his early twenties, but they were inseparable. It often seemed as though the king gave Sten all of his worries to carry, leaving himself as the carefree side of the pair.

For once, I felt a connection with Sten. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

One of the performers clapped her hands, and the juggling knives burst into flame. The court gasped and applauded as the group continued to juggle, continued to dance and contort, the flames flying through the air so fast they became a blur. More performers ran in from the sides, holding torches aloft. They threw them into the paths of the burning knives, so they caught fire, too, and then the performers bent back, faces to the ceiling, mouths open wide, as they seemed to swallow the fire.

Then they started to breathe fire, shooting streams into the air. It caught on ribbon hung across the ceiling, too thin to be visible before, and raced along it, spelling out the king’s name.

The crowd applauded again, and the king grinned. “Ah, now, our performers need a volunteer.” He glanced up and down the high table in faux contemplation. Torsten Wolff looked like he had swallowed a lemon, and I thought the king would choose him, a punishment for his lack of enthusiasm. But then: “Fitzroy! Why don’t you come up here?”

Fitzroy. Even I heard the danger in that word. William Fitzroy was the king’s bastard son, and although most people referred to him by his surname, the king’s name for him changed with his mood. He was “my son” when Fitzroy was in favor, or “William” if a name was really needed. Fitzroy was a hint of dismissal, a reminder of his place in court. A surname they invented for the bastard son, the boy who wasn’t supposed to exist.

But Fitzroy sauntered forward without hesitation. His blond hair fell across his eyes, giving him an air of casual confidence, and he was smiling, like he couldn’t wait to suffer what his father had planned.

“Whatever my adoring fans demand,” he said. People laughed, and danger flashed in the king’s eyes. The performers positioned Fitzroy in the middle of their group, and then began their show again, tossing flaming rings to one another over Fitzroy’s head, sending knives spinning inches from his arms, breathing fire so close that his hair must have been singed.

Fitzroy did not flinch. He mugged for the audience as the flames flew past, like nothing was more fun than nearly dying for everyone’s entertainment.

Fitzroy, I decided, was an idiot.

The performance ended, Fitzroy bowed, and his father flicked a hand to send him back to his seat without a word.

The performers departed the way they’d come, tumbling and dancing. The backflipper passed behind us again, and as she did, her foot caught on my shoulder. She didn’t pause to apologize—she probably hadn’t even noticed, so focused on her performance—but I jerked, shoved forward by her momentum, and my heart sputtered into triple time.

The conversation in the hall started again, and Sophia and Claire leaped straight back into interrogating Naomi about her brother. I couldn’t concentrate on the words. They were at once too loud and too far away to understand. My hands began to shake.

The kick had triggered something in me, the awareness that people were too close. There were too many of them, and I couldn’t leave, couldn’t escape, couldn’t do anything.

No, I thought. Not here. I was safe. I was fine.

It was too late. There were too many bodies, too much breath and too many eyes. It was so loud, so crowded, and I couldn’t leave.

No, I told myself again. I would be calm. I tugged at the pins in my hair, and looked around the room again, searching for something to ground me. The fountains of wine, the cascading flowers, the doves that still seemed confused about their inability to fly through the windows. Everything was safe. I’d be all right.

I tugged at another hairpin, my hand shaking, and it slipped free, sending a section of hair tumbling to my shoulder. I grabbed it and tried to shove it back in place.

“Freya?”

I pressed my palms against my knees, willing my hands to still. I tried to force air to the bottom of my lungs.

“Freya?” Naomi said again. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, up and down and up. The world had turned fuzzy, and all the sounds were too loud, and people were so close, even those far away seemed to loom and press toward me, and I couldn’t breathe, and—

“Come on,” Naomi said. “Let’s get some air.”

I couldn’t leave the table, it wasn’t allowed, but Naomi was already standing, not touching me, just standing and waiting, and I felt myself standing, too.

Naomi led the way to the doors at the back of the hall. They hadn’t seemed far away before, twenty feet at most, but the distance stretched out now. Everyone was watching us leave, I knew, thinking about how odd we were behaving, and my father would be watching, too, glowering . . .

The doors stood slightly open, and we stepped out into the gardens beyond. An October chill was in the air, and I gulped it in, stumbling farther from the palace. Calm. I was calm.