State of Sorrow (Sorrow #1)(47)
If only you’d had another child to care for and cherish… Rasmus’s ghost muttered, and Sorrow’s lips twitched.
“I have done things I’m ashamed of,” Harun said. “Behaved in ways that didn’t behove the chancellor of this great nation. I have let you and Rhannon down, and I owe my Jedenvat, and my late mother, eternal thanks for working so hard in my absence, and for keeping the land together.”
Phew. For a second I thought he was going to mention you. That would have been awkward, the Rhyllian voice joked. But Sorrow wasn’t tempted to smile any more.
“I vow, though, as of today, I am a new man. I will preside over a new Rhannon. For my son has returned.”
The Jedenvat broke into applause at the end of the speech, and Harun nodded cheerfully, accepting their praise. They stepped forward then, eager to shake the hand of the chancellor and his son, and it was easy for Sorrow to allow herself to be moved aside, back to the outside of the group.
Someone called for wine, and the servants hurried away, returning with carafes and glasses, filling them to the brim and passing them around.
“What about music?” Mael asked. “Is there… Do you have music?”
“We shall have music,” Harun roared, and the company cheered.
Melakis left the room, returning with a pair of cases, which he opened to reveal two Alvus wood violins. He claimed one, and Aphora lifted the other. They busied themselves stroking rosin down the bows, plucking the strings, and then, without saying a word, they raised the instruments to their chins and began to play, as though they’d only been waiting for the opportunity.
Sorrow had never heard live music before in her life, only ever the songs Rasmus had hummed to her, and she froze as the voice-like melodies of the twin violins filled the room. Someone handed Sorrow a glass of wine and she took it, though didn’t drink, too transfixed by the sound. She could feel it, she realized, across her diaphragm and in her chest; every leap and trill of it became part of her. The melody was happy, she could recognize that. Joyful and rousing, and there was dancing, real dancing.
She wondered if Rhannon had folk songs. She’d have to find out. Irris would know where to look. She could bring them back, they could hold—
She stopped herself as she remembered she wouldn’t be the one bringing them back now. It would be him.
She scowled as Mael bowed to Irris, who looked horrified, but took his arm and allowed him to sweep her in small circles around the tables. Samad shrugged at Kaspira, and the two took up a stiff, formal posture, arms rigid, as they began to move. Harun looked at Sorrow, then held out a hand to Tuva, who tried to demur, but Harun wouldn’t accept her refusal. He pulled her into an awkward stance and began to chase his son around the room.
No one asked Sorrow to dance.
It was the kind of party Rasmus had told her broke out in Rhylla all the time. Almost every time a group gathered, for whatever reason, at some point a violin would be brought out, and as though the music was a spell, the people would be compelled to dance and to revel. But not her. It was as if no one could see her.
She stood still in a room that moved and swayed and celebrated, but she might as well have been a ghost. The dancers whirled around her, the music played, and the others steadily drank, while she remained the eye of the storm.
No, someone had seen her.
“Living up to your namesake?” a voice hissed wetly in her ear, and she turned to find a bleary-eyed Balthasar lolling next to her.
She swallowed her reply, forcing herself to remain calm. Grandmama always said you couldn’t argue with drunks or addicts, and the Graces knew she’d learned that lesson well enough over the last four months.
But it seemed Balthasar wasn’t planning to leave without a fight.
“I won’t forgive you for locking me away,” he said. “I won’t ever forget it. And I won’t let you forget it either.”
Sorrow bit her tongue, fighting the urge to tell him to get the hell away from her as she subtly scanned the room for help. Bayrum was sitting, seemingly chatting amiably with Kaspira while the others danced. There was no sign of Charon, and she frowned.
“I don’t know what I’m happiest about.” Balthasar’s voice was softly slurred, and Sorrow’s hold on her temper loosened with every word. “Mael returning, or your play for power being forever thwarted. No, wait. It’s the second one. I don’t care if he isn’t the real thing. He’ll do. Because he means I don’t have to pretend to obey some uppity little bitch who should have died with her mother.”
Sorrow’s fury detonated, and she slapped him.
The whip-crack sound of her palm meeting his cheek was lost in the frenzy of the music, and no one noticed the warden of the South Marches stumble under the force of the blow. Sorrow’s chest was heaving as she sucked in breath after breath, her palm stinging from the slap. She watched him rub his cheek in wonder, before vicious eyes met hers, and she recoiled as his arm began to rise, fist clenched, to return the blow. But then he mastered himself, and took a step back.
“I won’t be the only one rejoicing that the Age of Sorrow ended before it could begin,” he said, no longer sounding drunk at all.
He bowed to her, smirking, and turned, taking a new glass from a tray a servant was holding and staggering away. Sorrow realized she was shaking, her entire body trembling through shock and fright. She really thought he’d meant to harm her. And who would have stopped him?