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Chapter Twenty

T he morning of our second signature performance comes before I’m ready.

I take extra care in my preparations, gliding kohl along my eyes in heavy strokes, tapering it with a flourish at each crease.

I shimmy into my costume. Annais helps me lace together the nude, satin bodice.

The bones inside are thin, flexible, allowing me to move freely, and on top is a sheer gossamer, shimmering with azure stones, like beads of water pearling atop my skin.

The skirt has a similar effect, dark satin scrunching into ruffles on each of my hips, intended to look like storm clouds.

It stops beneath my thighs, bare skin peeking through, and Annais ties another piece around my waist—tendrils of crystals that swish and dance like rain as I walk down the hall.

Matching strands glitter against my half-pinned hair.

Down a narrow corridor, I find the back entrance to the Hall of Thrones.

Inside, the usual array of Crowns and courtiers await, but outside, Laurent sections the performers into groups, each behind their own divider.

There’s a platter of plucked pomegranate seeds, sliced amlas, and a selection of cured meat, which I avoid, but at least I see Marian come and go, a smile on her face.

I don’t know how she does it.

The triplets perform first. They mime a Razami children’s tale while a storyteller narrates, though perhaps mime is too simple a word, what with their acrobatics. Through the curtained doorway, I catch glimpses of their act, but amid their performance, Copelan arrives.

Until now, I hadn’t seen his costume. His eyelids shimmer with gold; his hair is swept elegantly off his face. Tan breeches hug his legs, his neck looped with a brass carcanet.

And he’s shirtless.

Gold swirls around his chest, the design unfurling across his arms, neck, and shoulder blades. He doesn’t notice me at first, but when his eyes find mine, they sweep over me like a sandstorm.

My mouth dries.

Last night, after everything, I had sought him out.

Pulled him from another practice and thrown my arms around him, needing to feel safe, if only for a moment.

Needing an escape from all my anger and fear, both of which feel lodged in my very heart.

And he let me do it, stunned as he was, until I left without a word.

Now, it’s a struggle to look away. But I drag my gaze back to the Hall of Thrones, only to find Illian in my line of sight. Like my first night, he’s perfectly positioned so that he can see me—only he isn’t looking at me.

He’s watching Copelan.

I know that look. It’s the look he’s given a thousand men before when their proximity to me was too close. I think of all the ways Copelan is about to touch me, the ways I will touch him in return.

But this is the position Illian forced me into.

So I wipe it from my mind, checking the pouches sewn into my outfit, and breathe.

Servants bring out decanters of wine. After another troupe finishes, sitar players thread into the crowd, distracting the audience from the bayans and tablas now being assembled across the space.

Musicians take their place once more. Sconces are lit, enclosed by cerulean sea glass.

They pitch a dim, bluish light across one crescent of the room, and on the other side, torches cast a scarlet haze.

Heat dips down my spine.

I pretend there isn’t water beneath the floor.

I pretend Emilia is watching.

Our song begins with the resonant hum of a zither.

Copelan steps out, releasing a trail of sand behind him. He scatters it about in patterns, whorls, matching the tempo as he meanders slowly toward the center of the room—spinning, focused on his task, oblivious to the storm behind him—

The storm that is me.

Once a year, the infamous Brisendali storms from the north invade the Razami desert—angry winds and ice-chilled rain that stir its dunes into a maelstrom of fury.

I pirouette onto the dance floor at the strike of a bayan.

I spill millen like rain. It plumes around me in clouds—a new, deep blue mixture that billows outward, upward. Winds pour into the room, blown by fans brandished by every member of our audience—a gift we left on each seat, with instructions.

Copelan is the desert, the sand that is Razam, and he pivots, sensing my disturbance.

I kick up sand with my feet, sullying it with the rage of a tempest most foul. And though I don’t look at Copelan, I feel his approach like a shift in the winds.

The drum slams down in a resounding wham.

He shoves me, quick as lightning. I exaggerate the movement, lurching forward before throwing myself back against him. Absorbing it, he bands my waist, tucks his head against my hip. We bend, jump, the momentum hoisting me into the air—

He catches me. Lifts me over him in a wide arc, spins—

Wham.

He tosses me away. By some miracle, I land on my feet.

I whip toward him. Our battle has begun.

Wham.

I run and leap. He catches me around the waist mid-arm.

I’m curled in on myself, legs poised off the floor as he spins, both of us releasing our opposing forces—sand versus rain, ferocity versus control.

His gold coats my hair, my blue shadows his skin.

When my first pouch runs dry, I slip from his hold, ready to escape, but he snatches the sheer fabric of my sleeve and yanks.

It rips free.

Cool air kisses my skin and I’m left in only my low bodice and skirt.

Illian will be furious.

I am furious. At everyone. I ignore the rattle of my bones, the pain shooting fire along my nerves, and throw my fury into my dance.

Wham.

Bounding onto Copelan’s shoulders, I burrow my hands into his hair. He bounces us both. I spring into the air, and once more, he cradles me in his arms before swinging me upright, my chest to his, our breath mingling. I wonder if he tastes my rage.

Wham.

I slide down him, slowly, slowly, his hands supporting me. My fingers find his jaw, his neck. The warm, smooth skin along his chest. I smudge the gold there, my hands coated in it.

His pupils dilate as he dips me into a split.

Wham.

I release him and fall backward, spine curved as I touch the ground. He slides over me, covering me with his body. His heart thunders with the bayan, just like mine.

He props himself on his arms, legs lifted in the air, chin just over mine.

His breath is hot on my lips.

We stare at each other.

Wham.

This dance, it feels feverish. I slide out from underneath him, rising. He rises, too, an eagerness to his stance. I raise my leg, poised to dart away. He grabs my foot. Uses it to circle me, rotate me, faster, faster, like a hand guiding a wheel while my other foot anchors on the ground.

It’s as if I’m flying.

My curls drift around me as if I’m underwater, millen showering from my hands.

And Anton’s favor comes to life.

A million raindrops made from light shatter across the walls and floor, little echoes of prisms carefully placed before a glow torch. Even from across the room, I manage to catch his smile, alongside Prince Sundar’s.

And Copelan—

He’s smiling, too.

Wham.

We are a torrent of rain and wind, sand and clouds.

I lower my foot as the beat changes pace. Copelan pries his fingers into the ribbon around my waist.

Wham.

He twists me around into the crook of his arm.

I fall back, draping across it.

Wham.

Featherlight, he uses the crook of his finger to skim my collarbone. Then it travels lower, gliding a path down the center of my chest—

Wham.

He whisks me up, hand threaded in my hair. Knotted in it.

Wham.

The song comes to a close, the desert’s might overcoming the storm, the message I wonder if they’ll ascertain. I’m ready to pirouette away, to draw back my force.

But Copelan doesn’t release me, his chest heaving. His gaze tracks up my throat, hooks on my lips. And I don’t have time to think, to back away, because one minute, he’s staring at me, and the next—

He’s gripping my neck and pulling my mouth to his.

My surroundings tunnel as his other hand fists my curls, drawing me closer. Waves of dizziness lave over me, from both the built-up tension, the fury—

He breaks away, fast as a snapped sitar string.

Everything goes still.

I don’t think I imagine the intake of breath from the crowd or the loud barrage of his heart. It’s all I can do to stay upright. My ears ring wildly. And he’s gaping at me, his eyes molten.

Time stretches like a wrung-out cloth. I can’t tell if he wants to yank me back or toss me away.

Then, as if returning from a trance, he grabs my hand and lifts it, sinking us into a bow.

Claps fill the audience. We break for the exit. But as we reach the divider, I turn back.

I don’t see Illian’s gaze, the press of his lips, no.

I see only his fist, clenched white at his side.

Back in my room, my hands shake ferociously as I scrub millen from my pores. I want to bury myself in blankets. I don’t want to return. Not to mention, my muscles feel as though they’ve disjointed from my body, and even that doesn’t compare to my addled mind.

After our dance, Copelan disappeared without a word. He left me outside the Hall of Thrones, panting, not knowing what to think or how to feel.

I should pretend it never happened. But the sting of it lingers like a barb under my skin.

What he did was both a long time coming and something I never thought would happen.

Something we both wanted and refused to do, because there was a line.

I don’t know how it was drawn, but we both felt it, both respected it.

Then Copelan blazed right through it as if it were made of wet parchment.

Copelan, who lives in constant fear of the Crowns.

Copelan who, until recently, never broke the rules.

He smashed his lips to mine in front of the whole Gathering, then fled as if I’d burnt him.

I slide into a simple green gown, its satin grazing my ankles, then coil my hair into a loose chignon before gathering slippers for my throbbing feet.

I cannot have him.