The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(112)
I understood, now, and how it might be unforgivable.
FORTY
THE BALLROOM WAS heavy with the beat of music, but the dancing hadn’t yet begun.
I lingered on the threshold, watching everyone mingle. Though I recognized people from both kingdoms, they weren’t as separated as I’d thought they’d be. Francesca spoke with Jasper and Cora Calloway. Lady Chey flirted with Kevin, who watched his tutor, Alana Todd, as she sipped from a glass of wine. Sergeant Ferris smiled at Paige.
The two kingdoms merged into one right before my eyes.
One figure stood apart. He wore solid black, with high, elegant boots and long tailcoats. The way he moved around the room was just like Black Knife: fluid and focused. When a soldier came up to him and spoke into his ear, he offered only a clipped nod and quick dismissal.
“Your Majesty?” The herald lifted an eyebrow, and I stepped forward. He turned to the ballroom to announce me: Her Royal Majesty Queen Wilhelmina Ileen Elizabeth Korte.
I forced myself to smile as the music seemed to swell and every eye focused on me. I was impossible to miss, dressed in another gown of Aecorian red silk that glittered when I moved. The style was more modern than the coronation gown, but the designs across the bodice and sleeves were similar. This gown, too, boasted a useless cape, but it was shorter and lighter, made of a flowing layer of tiny-beaded silk.
Now that everyone was staring, I made myself look over the crowd appraisingly, as though I’d just arrived and hadn’t been watching everyone for an entire minute. I met eyes, smiled warmly, and thanked people for coming tonight.
I said the things a queen would. I walked the way a queen should. As I greeted people by name, I ignored the discomfort knotting in the back of my thoughts. It was too late to change my mind. I’d gotten what I always wanted, and now I had to live with it.
A tall, dark figure stepped in front of me. “Dance?” Tobiah’s tone was somewhere between exhausted and annoyed, but when I met his eyes there was something else. There was something desperate and starving in his gaze, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe with the way he was looking at me.
He hadn’t moved; he was a still shadow of a king, so striking and familiar, but foreign all the same. His face had barely shifted from the cool mask of a monarch, but I’d seen it. Like I’d learned to see behind the Black Knife mask, I could see through this one, too.
“I would love to dance.” My heart pounded in my throat as I took his offered hand, and together we made our way to the center of the floor. The music shifted, and people cleared away.
The dance took us in measured steps around each other, like two predators circling. We couldn’t speak about anything important, not with so many people watching us, but our eyes stayed locked.
To others, it must have looked fierce, like there was a battle between us, but the reality was deeper: I saw straight into his grief.
This was a king who’d lost everything. His father. His fiancée. His kingdom. His home. He’d been helpless to stop it; it was all so much bigger than him.
As the dance brought us closer, I whispered, “I understand.”
The tension around his mouth relaxed as the music faded. “I knew you would,” he murmured. “Better than anyone, I knew you would.”
“You know me.” My life, my secrets, my faults.
“I know you.” A faint smile pulled at his lips. “Curtsy, Wilhelmina.”
We’d stood a moment too long. I stepped back and dipped into a curtsy, while he bowed, and the guests applauded as though we’d saved the whole world from the wraith right there.
I held up a hand and the noise died. “I’m not going to make a speech tonight. I think we’ve had enough speeches for one day—for the year, perhaps—and we’d all like to see more action.”
A few people cheered.
“Let’s start with dancing and celebration. First thing tomorrow morning, we will face our problems: the Red Militia, the wraith, and the poverty our people have struggled under for so long. Tomorrow, we will begin the process of restoring Aecor.”
More cheers rose up, and I had to call over them: “Thank you! Now please dance.”
Tobiah walked me off the floor. “That was good.”
“No one actually likes speeches.” The music started up again, and everyone was talking and moving to take their positions. “They come for the gossip and food. And to show off their wealth. For me, it’s about the food.”
“Always food with you.”
“Live on the streets a few years and life will be about your next meal, too.” I hesitated when I saw the line of people near the chairs brought in for everyone with “Highness” or “Majesty” attached to their names. Flags were draped over the backs, and mine stood taller than the others, as though there might be confusion about who sat where.
“You’re doing a good job at the showing-off-your-wealth part.”
I frowned and slid the back of my hand along the edge of my cape. “I’m not even sure where these gowns are coming from.”
“You look like a queen.”
I forced a note of teasing into my voice. “And you look like a vigilante.”
He looked at me with complete seriousness. “If that’s what you want me to be.”
Every possible response caught in my chest. Yes? No? I wanted Tobiah to be himself, with or without the mask. But I couldn’t say that, not here, and not in front of all these people. Some conversations were best held in the dark.