Midnight in Everwood(54)

She rose to her feet, disregarding the sidled looks, the whispers unspooling behind hands, the concern on Pirlipata’s face, seated at the king’s side. The music floated on, clambering up to a sweet harmony. Yet as Marietta resumed her variation, she suffered the acute anxiety known to dancers; something was wrong. One of her ankles pinched, lending a jaggedness to her motions, turning them unwieldy. She sprang up into a restrained jump and it gave out. She toppled down onto one of the sugar swans. Its delicate neck snapped, its head falling and shattering like ice.

‘You are making a spectacle of yourself,’ the king hissed and someone trilled a laugh. King Gelum’s eyes, limned with sapphire paint in a resemblance of birdwings, cut her a look brimming with promised pain. ‘Get up.’

Marietta arose with great difficulty. A sigh of disgust rippled through the diners. She glanced down; the broken sugar swan had sliced her left calf. Blood trickled down her leg. Worse, when she stood on both feet, her right ankle was unsteady, unable to sustain her weight.

The king’s lip recoiled. ‘I order you to dance.’

‘I cannot, I’ve turned my ankle,’ Marietta whispered. When she raised her eyes, she caught Captain Legat’s look. Caution scored through it.

The king’s silver suit sparked with lightning, illuminating him in an incandescent bolt of fury, his voice a clap of thunder. ‘I order you to dance.’

Marietta lifted her chin high and began to dance a series of slow balancés on flat feet, ignoring her protesting ankle. She was out of step with the music, a broken doll cast aside. The king tracked her. His eyes were hungry, straying to her bleeding leg. When he trailed a finger over his mouth, his tongue darting out to lick his lips, she swallowed back the bile creeping up the back of her throat. She wished she might dare to throw that shrinking powder on him that the market woman had gifted her. See him small and insignificant, able to quash with a simple step. Yet she feared his faceless guards would tear her limb from limb if she dared attempt it. She drew a ragged breath and danced through her pain.

‘If you continue to force her to dance, you’ll break her and she’ll never dance again. Is that what you wish?’ a smooth voice asked. Dellara appeared at Marietta’s side, hands clamped on her hips, her eyes inked over. Her skirt was a tangle of fluttering scraps of material in a deep plum that echoed her hair.

‘I do not recall summoning you, fairy,’ the king said, shifting his attention back to Marietta.

‘I don’t recall needing to be summoned.’

The king whipped to his feet, another lightning bolt shooting down his suit, his rage a palpable force. The diners seated nearest him edged away, sending a flurry of birds whirling up in a cloud of sapphire feathers and shrill tunes. Marietta backed away, stumbling on her ankle. Several Bellinnese women opened the doors of their gilded birdcages and whistled for the birds’ return.

‘Pretty,’ Dellara said to the lightning bolt. ‘Though you must be aware what the gossipmongers spread around the palace about your overcompensation.’ Her look was ripe with meaning.

King Gelum strolled over to her. He reached out, taking her face in one hand, wrenching it up, forcing her to meet his winged eyes. Fear cut through Marietta, rendering her immobile. A whisper passed between the king and Dellara, hushed as wings in the night. King Gelum’s suit ignited in a blaze of glory as he released Dellara and exited the throne room by means of a small door cut into the wall behind the throne. A cotillion of faceless guards leapt forward and seized Dellara. Marietta clamped a hand over her mouth, swallowing a cry. Dellara was dragged through the door after the king, her small stature overpowered with a frightening show of force.

The Bellinnese gathered themselves and fled in a twittering. As the throne room roared with chaos, Pirlipata materialised before her. She seemed to sense in which direction her thoughts lay. ‘There is nothing you hold in your power to help her now; interfering would merely cause you to share her fate and render her bravery futile. We must leave now.’

Marietta closed her eyes. A faint scream ricocheted from the hidden room. It ripped through her. ‘This is too much to bear.’

‘Bear it for Dellara; she will need us.’ Pirlipata grasped Marietta’s arm and supported her as they walked towards the staircase. The faceless guards allowed their departure, their heads slowly turning to watch their path as Marietta limped past. Another scream tore out and her step faltered.

Pirlipata held her steady.

Her focus had been too wavering to count the doors but Marietta knew they must be drawing closer to their suite; they were at the approximate height for it. As they continued to ascend, the frozen sugar peak glowed above, its pale frosted blue holding all the palace secrets within its whipped confection. Servers scurried past, steaming trays resting on their fingertips, their eyes gliding past Marietta and Pirlipata. Crafters plodded by, too immersed in deep discussion of sugar-work to pay attention to another victim of their king. Two women exchanged kisses and syrup-sweet promises in an open door before one stepped back inside, releasing the other to the night, her teal gown puddling behind as she swept past Marietta.

Once they reached the suite, their pair of guards locked them inside.

Marietta set to bandaging her leg as Pirlipata sank onto a cushion. Her golden sheath dress was tarnished.

‘I am responsible,’ Marietta said. ‘If I had not fallen—’