Helki dropped to one of the cushions, pulling me with him. Calder had disappeared, but a quick search of the surrounding people revealed him leaning against one of the tree-pillars, his mismatched eyes ever watchful.
I folded my legs, the silk skirt slipping to the side, the bodice not allowing me to slump at all. “I’m sobering up,” I uttered, loud enough for Helki and Fjor—who flanked my other side—to hear, at least.
“What would you like us to do about it?” Helki asked brusquely, though the words were spoken quietly, directed to the top of my head as he leaned back on his hands, his giant arm brushing mine as we both surveyed the dancers.
“Nothing,” I decided, meeting Calder’s eyes again, a decision flickering in mine. I didn’t need his permission, but we were in this together, and he deserved to know what I had decided. What I was potentially about to put us through. “I’m going to face this tonight. I won’t run away from it.”
I received no reply from them and knew I had disappointed them. They could force the drug down my throat, but they wouldn’t. They rarely forced me to do anything, now that I thought about it—not that they didn’t trick me into doing all manner of things, or ruthlessly collect on the debts that I owed them.
“Best pick your dance partner tonight carefully, then,” Fjor drawled darkly. “It may well be your last.”
I nodded, standing and fluttering out my skirt. I walked along the line of their cushions, drawing the curious eyes of those surrounding us. Unlike the last time I had attended the King’s court, there were no members of the King’s harem scattered about the cushions, serving fruit and wine and generally draping themselves over the strong bodies of those men closest to the King.
This time, there was an invisible barrier.
The great masters weren’t in the mood for company.
Their gazes tracked me as I reached the last of them—Vale. I spun on my heel, walking back toward the first cushion. Andel. I crooked my finger at him, revelling in the way his eyes flashed, frustration glaring out of them. I was summoning him, and worse than that, he would have to touch me. A smile slipped free as I turned to the dance floor, catching sight of my bare feet against the wooden platform. I hadn’t realised that I had forgotten shoes until that moment.
Calder must not have noticed either.
When I reached the middle of the floor, I turned, startled to find Andel directly behind me, tossing his metal-threaded braid back over his shoulder. He wore a dark grey shirt laced once at the throat beneath a dark, buttoned vest, a larger coat thrown over the top, the collar large and thick. I looked the coat over, glancing at his gloves, and the leather boots folded over at the knees. He had covered as much of his skin as he could, and I flattered myself that it was in fear of me choosing him to dance with.
He grabbed me unceremoniously, and the melody changed instantly, as though the musicians had been hanging by their strings in anticipation, waiting to see if we would dance, or brawl. I could feel the leather of his glove against the patches of bare skin at my waist, slipping against the metal wings wrapping around my back. He dragged me against him, his steps precise. Already, I knew it would be the most compulsively accurate dance I would ever partake in, and I wished I could be watching from the sidelines instead of withering under his slit-eyed fury.
“You can’t dance for shit.” He dragged me along, his footing exact, his scowl growing.
“You can’t converse for shit,” I tossed back.
He pulled me closer, one arm enveloping me, his hand dipping around to my other side. It looked intimate, but he was only pulling me up to my toes to minimise my stumbling steps. I was now chasing him on light feet, barely touching the ground at all.
“Is it me, then?” he asked, his attention focusing somewhere over my shoulder. “Have you chosen me to marry?”
“Slow down, machine. It’s a dance, not a proposal.”
He snarled out a frustrated sound, and I no longer wondered why he was always so angry. It was because the entire spectrum of human emotion baffled him.
“Then why choose me to suffer this?” he demanded, a little too loudly. Not that I cared. He answered himself before I could. “Because I would hate it the most.”
“Sums it up nicely,” I confirmed.
“I could make you happy, you know.”
“I highly doubt that. Did a book tell you to say that?”
He didn’t rise to the bait this time, his voice calming to its usual anger-tinged boredom. “You’d be left alone. You wouldn’t have to bear my children. I’d be perfectly happy if I didn’t see you at all—wouldn’t that make you happy?”
I almost considered it … until my sense got the better of me.
“None of you intend to stay married to me,” I accused. “As soon as you have what you want from me, I’ll become a burden, and then there will be nothing left to do but get rid of me. If I was smart, I would choose the person most likely to kill me quickly.”
“If you were smart, you would find a way to continue being useful.”
“What is it you want from me, really?” I wasn’t expecting a proper answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask the question. “If all the stories are true, and the Fjorn is destined to either die or defeat the king of the afterworld, then what does marrying me give you?”
“The stories may not be true.” He turned me, his grip shifting, following the steps of a dance imprinted somewhere in his brain. He dipped me back, one hand slipping to my chest, anticipating the way I would seize up. He pushed me until I arched back, and then he drew me into his body again, pulling me back to my toes. “They’re only stories, after all.”
“Tell me something true, then. Something you know, because you’re the Scholar. You must know something.”
“Truth, koli?” He glanced back down at me again, pulling away just enough to meet my eyes. “You would be happy enough, if you picked me.”
“Another truth,” I demanded. “Tell me something I actually want to hear.”
“The Captain burns for you. It’ll be the death of him.”
I stumbled over my feet, but he only hitched me up higher. I could suddenly feel the press of his muscles through all the layers he had placed between us.
“I … why would I want to hear that?” I stumbled over the words, the familiar claw of panic raking up my spine, alerting me to the fact that I felt normal. Completely normal.
The drug had worn off.
“Because you’re desperate to be wanted. You need someone to choose you the way your mother never did. You burn more than he does. You burn even without the magic.”
His observation was painful. It cut all the way through me, leaving me reeling.
“He’s my Blodsjel. You’re mistaken.” I started to pull from his arms, but he held me prisoner, so painfully close that it was hard to breathe.
“When the world finds out what you two are, it will push him even further away. He won’t even be able to look at you.”
“I may not even live through tonight, but if I do, the world will never find out what we are. The Fjorn and the Blodsjel are a myth. A story. Stories are only stories, after all.”
He smirked. I could feel it against the top of my head, his chin pressed to my hair. He was so close. Too close for someone who hated to be touched, but then again, every inch of his skin was covered. I wasn’t really touching him at all.