Page 36 of Thorn Season (Thorn Season #1)
T he ballroom sparkled in cherry red.
Tonight was Budding Ball, one of the most anticipated events of Rose Season, famous for how many courtships it kindled each year—especially among the eighteenth-season nobles.
Indeed, this evening’s festivities had swept like a cake knife across the tiers of the gentry to skim off the youngest, sweetest frosting layer of courtiers and whip them up into a state of romance.
Silk sheets flowed from ceiling to floor like spilled wine, creating a maze of screens—some falling close enough to form hidden pockets of space, meant for shared touches and stolen kisses.
The servers, dressed in burgundy trousers and bowties, sprayed partygoers with blood orange essence, and the mist coasted like a heady syrup through the air.
I stifled a laugh as I glimpsed Tari spritzing the essence straight onto her tongue, a ruby moon of rouge at each angular cheek.
Even Carmen, who I’d been avoiding since my attack, had insisted I sport proper Budding Ball attire, and had barreled into my chambers this evening with the most beautiful gown I’d ever seen.
Whorls of scarlet lace comprised the sweetheart bodice and gave way to tulle skirts, layered like unfurling petals and dotted with garnets.
I’d donned matching chandelier earrings, and Carmen had made me up with kohl flicks around my eyes, gold-flecked rouge, and a deep red lip.
I’d felt uneasy and strangely vulnerable with my eyes closed in the beauty chair, Carmen’s breaths whispering across my face.
At one point, when I’d peeked through my lashes, I’d found her looking toward my closet—and I’d stiffened, wondering if she was thinking about her own closet, and the pink feather I’d accidentally snagged when I’d hidden inside it.
The feather I still suspected had led to my attack.
Now she shimmied between the silks, a vision of red diamonds on slinky satin, and I pasted on my performer’s smile. There was something deeply sad about having to use it with the only friend I’d ever made at court.
“Your face matches your hair,” I said.
She mussed her crimson curls. “A burden I must bear.”
Tonight, the ballroom was split into kissers and receivers, with kissers sporting painted mouths in every luscious shade of red, and receivers sporting lipstick kisses across their cheeks, giving the appearance of blooming rosebuds.
Carmen, in typical defiance, occupied both roles—her scarlet mouth smudged from kissing, her cheeks boasting more “rosebuds” than anyone else’s.
I leaned over to plant my own. “Another rose for your garden?”
“On the cheekbone, darling. I’m working up a blush.”
I could’ve sworn she tensed when my mouth met her cheek.
As I withdrew, my gaze fell on Perla’s alcove.
Swamped in maroon skirts, she watched the party with a cheerlessness more suited to a wake.
I had to pity her. When Erik had aimed that arrow at her on the fields, my fear had been red-hot and quaking—but hers had been pale and still.
The freeze-up of a creature feigning death.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Carmen said. But her azure eyes were on Keil, currently being devoured—peck after peck—by a group of noblewomen.
My stomach made a strange flip at the sight.
“What do you think makes him so alluring?” Carmen patted her lips in appraisal. “I think it’s the mystery. Is he a Wielder? Isn’t he a Wielder?”
“You know what he is,” I said, referring to his telltale flinch from the dullroot glasses.
“Well, all right. But would his diplomatic immunity then allow for our romance?”
I barked a laugh. “Your romance?”
“Hypothetical, of course. There’s something tragically beautiful about the forbidden.”
“Public urination is forbidden. Is that tragically beautiful?”
“Oh, you take the fun out of everything. Some of us don’t have monarchs lusting after us like puppies in heat.
We must make do with our fantasies.” She sighed wistfully, and I couldn’t tell if she was thinking of the man she’d secretly met at Backplace, or—oddly—if she wasn’t thinking of him at all.
“Maybe a foreign ruler will sweep you off your feet,” I said, watching for her reaction.
Carmen just swigged her wine, smearing red across the rim. “Why play a king’s bride when I could play king? Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and charm the breeches off Rupert. His new scotch collection is in desperate need of pillaging.”
I waved her off and plucked up a wine flute. Keil’s eyes landed on me instantly, like he’d been waiting for Carmen to leave. He peeled away from the noblewomen and swaggered to my side, a red cummerbund adorning his white shirt this evening.
“Someone’s popular.” I nodded toward the lipstick marks crowding his face.
“Don’t worry.” He pulled at his collar, exposing the bare neck beneath. “I can find an exclusive place for you.”
“Is that place in your dreams ?”
He grinned. “Not even for tradition?”
“Not even if you paid me in lemon cakes.”
“Ouch.” He laughed around a sip of wine. “I heard some of the noblemen competing for the most kisses, and I like a challenge. A few ladies are offering dances to the victor.” He glanced down at me, eyes bright. “Care to add yourself to the prize pot? I’d try twice as hard to win.”
“You seem to be trying hard enough already,” I crooned. “I wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself.”
He laughed again—a deep, sultry sound that curled my toes. “Do you know,” he said, swirling the bubbles in his flute, “I still haven’t heard an explanation for tonight’s peculiar customs.”
I gave him a scathing once-over. “Yet you’re enduring them like a hero.”
His smile widened until that dimple flickered in his left cheek. And with sudden conviction, I knew I would’ve placed my first kiss right there. Right over that wicked little crease.
But my second kiss, I would’ve savored along the column of his throat... trailing low enough that he really would need to pull down his collar.
If only to distract myself from the abrupt flutter behind my ribs, I said, “The tradition started with King Emory, the most irresistible ruler of Daradon, whose cheekbones could cut glass. The noblewomen constantly squabbled over him.”
“With cheekbones that sharp, who could blame them?”
I smothered a smile. “One night during Rose Season, the ladies decided to end their bickering. They each donned a different lip color and declared that whoever marked the king with a kiss could have him. One by one, King Emory took the ladies strolling under a sky so dark they had to remove their heels to keep from falling. When the ladies congregated at dawn, they each claimed they’d seduced him.
Of course, Emory’s face would reveal the truth.
But when they located him, his cheeks and lips were spotted with every shade of red.
‘Why pick one,’ he asked, ‘when I could have you all?’”
“What a dreadful king,” said Keil.
“The women weren’t any better. They thought to own him with a single kiss.”
“Are all the characters in Daradon’s stories so unpleasant?”
I peered up at him. “I suppose Ansoran tales are brimming with do-gooders?”
“Far from it. Our most famous tale is that of the First Emperor Saxon, who conquered every kingdom on the continent with his sword, the Unbreakable Blade. Legend says Saxon imbued the sword with an unknown power—a power so great that his enemies trembled in fear when they beheld it.”
I chuckled into my flute.
“You think it’s far-fetched?” Keil asked.
“Not at all. For a children’s tale, I think it’s perfectly proportioned.”
“In that case”—he deposited his flute on a passing tray and offered me his hand—“would you do me the honor of celebrating such believable immorality with a dance?”
My specter tingled at my fingertips, as if to carry my hand into his.
I shifted toward him with a sweet smile. Pulled my specter back. “Win the game,” I said. “Then we’ll see.”
I slipped my flute into Keil’s hand and left him staring after me.
As it turned out, the theatrics of Budding Ball left little opportunity for dancing.
Once the ballroom heaved with enough music and wine, those who sought amusement assembled on the dance floor, where red ribbons hung from the ceiling amid the silks.
The kissers tied a ribbon around one wrist and weaved between the silk screens; the receivers followed the trail of these ribbons toward the promise of a kiss.
It was a tangled, boisterous affair, made all the more chaotic by Carmen wrapping every kisser in their own ribbon and twirling them back out into the crowd.
I was kissing the cheek of an Avanish nobleman when the princess caught me. She spun me round and round inside my ribbon so fast that even my eye roll lost its trajectory. Then, with a devious twinkle and a little more force than necessary, Carmen thrust me away again.
I unraveled—skirts twisting, head spinning, silk gliding against my skin. My ribbon reached its end and I landed with a huff against a hard body.
I knew before looking that it belonged to Keil.
We stood in a crevice, red silks rippling as the game raged unseen around us. I was breathing heavily, flustered from the twirling, and when Keil’s eyes dipped over me, I grew doubly flustered.
Someone jostled against me and I winced, feeling a sharp tug on my earlobe. My hair had tangled around my chandelier earring. I lifted my hand—and jerked as the ribbon held me back.
Keil shifted closer. And he slowly reached for my ear.
The surrounding noise seemed to muffle, voices bleeding away, as Keil disentangled my earring.
He worked with gentle care, freeing strand by strand, leaving patches of warmth wherever his fingers grazed—my earlobe, my neck, my jaw.
The little space grew heavy with our shared breaths, and he must have noticed my flush because he met my gaze as he finished, wicked amusement lighting his eyes.
“You’re free,” he whispered.