Winter's Ball

by Giselle Ava

  He left and the door shut before Sarina could protest.

  She looked at Sir Tam. He was a simple man of no significant appearance. An average face with a little bit of fat filling out his jaw, blond straw-like hair with a few dawning threads of grey interweaved within it. He filled the entire corner of the room and his left arm blocked out one of the windows. Steel armour reflected the dun morning light through the ice-encrusted glass. Smoke rose from the chimneys outside, melting snowflakes which settled across the bricks and awnings. Sir Tam looked back at her with eyes that looked like winter itself, and he said nothing, just gave a very slight nod.

  The first time she glanced at her pocket watch was at a quarter to eight that morning just before she knocked on the door of Yorik’s apothecary, right on the corner of a busy street filled with city folk, early visiting nobles, and armoured guards.

  The man who answered the door was definitely Yorik but with an eyepatch over his left eye, a blistering yellow burn on his face, and no beard. He didn’t say anything, just stood aside and let her enter the dark, woody store. He shut the door behind her and then strode back to his desk. Sarina passed the shelves of ointments, chests covered in mould and dust, and followed him to the circle of light produced by a glass ceiling, where he immediately dug a vial from a drawer and handed it to her.

  “Take a seat,” he grumbled.

  She sat down and examined the blue label on the vial. This was the new experimental medication he had spoken of. One tablet when she needed it, no more than six per day.

  “I hope these will be a little bit kinder to you,” Yorik said, indicating the pills. “I would expect them to have some of the same side effects that you’re familiar with, but I have found a way to tame them. There are...a few things I want you to be aware of though, and let me know after a couple of days how you’ve been faring with them...”

  “Go ahead,” Sarina said. “Tell me the cost of normality.”

  “The side effects may include minor delusions and possibly symptoms of psychosis, although you have to be aware that this is highly unlikely—”

  “Great,” Sarina said cheerfully. She was used to Yorik’s side effects, so she thought nothing of it. She’d had it all before and, really, the alternative was to slip into the bottomless pit of darkness which she had been hanging above for most of her life. She tucked the pills away inside her coat pocket and then looked up at him. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Oh this?” He stood by his desk, not sitting. “Just burned myself trying to concoct an anti-aging serum. Won’t be trying that again. I’ve had pus coming out of my eye for three days.”

  “Ew,” Sarina said matter-of-factly.

  “And avoidable, yes,” Yorik agreed. “How have you been?” He pulled out a chair and joined her in the middle of the grim room, in the uneven circle of light.

  “Well, it’s that day again,” Sarina said.

  “Does it bring back those memories?”

  She nodded, staring into his one good eye, an amber bordering on outright orange. Motes of dust haloed his face. It appeared that this morning, unlike most mornings, he’d done a little bit more than just dunk his face into a basin and call it a bath.

  “How does it make you feel?” he asked. “Angry? Sad?”

  She saw those hollowed-out eyes. Blinked it away.

  First it was nothing. The assassins had stripped the city of its color, had poked a hole in her heart, and like air from a leaking balloon, her emotions had slowly drained away. Then it was grief, hearing their voices in the hallways, her mother calling out from rooms that didn’t exist. It was fourteen months before she was able to step foot back into the library, and by then her empty heart was being filled with something else: anger.

  Anger at the man with no eyes, because he’d taken away nearly everything from her. She would dream of him often, and of her headless mother, her throat slashed nearly all the way through. Sometimes he would visit her in her dreams, and speak to her.

  He had seen her there, hiding like a baby, and now he was coming to kill her. And he would. He would drive the knife into her stomach and then slash her throat.

  There was a time when she stopped thinking about him. It may even have been a period of some three weeks, but then, like a disease that’s been suppressed but not destroyed by one of Yorik’s concoctions, it came back. Her palms were filling with sweat.

  They were there in every shadow. A man with a knife that he stole from the kitchens. A dwarf dropping poison into the water supply. It was Mikka himself with a dagger when she was sleeping. It was Sir Tam—who had not been there for her mother, or her father, or her brother—who would pull out his sword for the first time in seven years, and stab her with it.

  And every winter’s ball, it was the man with no eyes, come to finish what he started. The circular black glasses, barely large enough to cover his disgusting eyeholes, his hairless face, resembling a monk from the north, hairless but for those cunning, thin brows.

  She refocused her attention on Yorik.

  “Haunted,” she told him.

  “Haunted,” he repeated, same as always. She felt ashamed, that it should last this long, that she could not, even trying as hard as she did, she could not move on. That shadows should scare her throughout seven years of peace. That her body should sense danger even in the presence of allies. No, of friends. Sir Tam and Mikka. Yorik.

  Despite everything, it still haunted her.

  “Have you been doing the exercises?” Yorik said.

  Sarina nodded, though she did them rarely—sometimes not even when the world seemed to fold in on itself, not even when she thought she might explode. But she would try to do them more often. There just wasn’t enough time.

  Yorik leaned closer to her, his amber eye appearing to intensify under the overhead sun rays. The wrinkles in his skin became more pronounced, the white in his ginger hair clawing its way out. “You don’t owe these people anything, Sarina. You don’t owe them your heart, not a smile, not that you will wake up each morning and stand before them and tell them how much you’re going to do for them, how you’ll make this city as great as it was before that night. Sarina, you need not compare the girl you were before that night to the brilliant, intelligent young lady you are today. You simply need to do what you must, what you feel is right, and let things happen as they occur, without glancing down at that damned watch.”

  She looked down to see it in her palm. She closed it with a gentle clap. For a brief moment, the metal shell reflected her tired, pale face, her pudgy cheeks, dirty hair, messy makeup...

  Yorik put his hand over it, over hers. “Tonight, you owe them nothing.”

  Thunder rumbled as Sarina walked through the regular commotion of the city streets, her red skirt billowing about, coat buttoned up to the collar, a scarf hugging her neck. A storm had blown through last night, covering the streets in a layer of crystalline, white frost. Sir Tam walked a few feet behind her, armor clanking, footfalls heavy.

  Brick buildings rose crookedly from the frosted street, tin awnings laced with stalactites dripping water onto the residents underneath. Lanterns hung from upright street lamps, which were bent, swaying as sheets of wind leftover from the storm blasted through the cramped little roads. Sarina lifted her red hood over her head, and then, tightening her scarf around her neck, she quickened her pace to the castle grounds.

  The clang of steel on armor rung out across the courtyard. Training dummies made of cotton were whipped and eviscerated to her right, on the pepper-coloured ground, and to her left a handful of men were hanging lanterns with colored glass from streamers. She glanced to the heights of Lavus City’s spiraling castle. Mist enshrouded it, moving like the caressing hands of a massive, tentacled monster.

  It was a beautiful sight, a castle older than the Lavus name itself. As the morning sun crept over the horizon, it sent streams of sun rays down through the battlements and towers, and vaguely illuminated falling snowflakes, which twinkled like stars
. They said that Lavus City was the greatest city in the world, and Castle Lavus was at the very heart of it. They called it one of the many wonders of Ivalon, and on most days Sarina was inclined to believe it. The castle had hurt her, but it had also loved her, and she was proud of it.

  She was inside the fitting room wearing one of her mother’s old dresses from when she was a little bit younger, staring at herself in the full-length mirror. The tailors danced around her, measuring her forearms, her chest, her waist, her neck, her armpits, her spine. She turned each and every way, letting them climb over her with their measuring tapes.

  She gasped as one of them clamped the dress tight across her back, causing it to grapple at her body like two giant hands. A needle went into her side and she flinched away from it. Her arm flew up and one of the women began tightening the material at her bicep.

  She was turned around again, bare feet freezing, toes red.

  “This is going to look lovely on you, dear,” one said.

  “It does look quite pretty,” Sarina said, observing herself from another angle, briefly, before another woman yanked her back to the way she was standing before and pricked her elbow with a sewing needle. The dress had sequins on it, which sparkled under the chandelier light, bounced off the mirror and shone into her eyes. It was a deep shade of blue, but not depressing, and highlighted the red in her hair.

  “Sarina,” one of the women said, a plump woman with bright red cheeks, “are you all right, dear? I’ve been growing worried for you. How pale you look...”

  “I’m fine,” she replied bluntly.

  “A few less of those cakes, maybe.” Another.

  Sarina tilted her neck, letting her hair fall across her face and her shoulder, the auburn strands catching the light and becoming brighter. It contrasted neatly against her blue eyes. “But they taste so good,” was all she said, returning the woman a wry smile.

  “I don’t like those pills you’ve been taking...”

  Sarina dropped her arm and one of the women knelt down by her legs, testing the bloom and billow of the dress, kneading the layers of fabric with her hands.

  “There are far better ways of dealing with stress,” the woman said.

  Sarina was turned around, away from the mirror. She faced a wall with a crooked painting on it, of the beach with green fields and a blue ocean. There was also a table in the fitting room, with a clock on it—nine thirty in the morning—and a newspaper which was dated back about a week, some books on modern day fashion, and two naked mannequins.

  She was spinning again as the women continued to bicker.

  “You should get married. Your mother was married at your age.”

  “I have a cold heart but I’m not mean,” Sarina said.

  “Oh don’t be like that.” The woman with plump red cheeks grabbed Sarina’s forearm and raised it as high as it could go, as another one turned her ninety-degrees to the mirror. “You are a very pretty and intelligent young woman now. Any lord would be lucky to have you.”

  “No, trust me, they wouldn’t want that.”

  The women helped her out of the dress and she threw back on her warm stockings, red skirt and fluffy coat. She slid her hands into her pockets.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “It will be ready for you tonight.”

  She walked onto the second-floor landing of the empty ballroom, Sir Tam following a short distance behind her. The chamber seemed huge when there was no one inside, just the spots of servants and cleaners, a few Lavus lords and ladies testing the floors. She leaned up against the gold parapet, resting her chin on her forearms. The ballroom was mostly blue and brown and bits of gold, everything very expensive and gaudy, as they were “putting on a show to the rest of the world.” She sniffed the scent of food cooking in the kitchens, and felt a sudden bout of nausea.

  “Lady Mithriv.”

  She rolled her head to see her uncle strolling up to her, straight-necked, wearing a fine cobalt military-esque uniform with gold buttons and a cape. Some would say he was overdoing it, but this was tame by Uncle Andreius’s standards, so she thought nothing of it.

  He stopped a few feet from her, rigid. Uncle Andreius had been on an extended appointment during that winter’s ball seven years ago, and as a result had lived. Upon returning, he had rejected any notion of grabbing hold of power, instead becoming a simple lord.

  “What?” Sarina said.

  “Have you made up your mind regarding the placement of additional guards throughout tonight’s and the week’s festivities?” Uncle Andreius said.

  Sarina turned from him, straightening her back and staring at a point beyond even the great wooden doors of the ballroom. The last time she’d spoken to Uncle Andreius about this was two nights ago. Then, it had seemed the only option. She’d employed additional guards every winter’s ball since that one. It was an order she never even had to think about, but tonight...She pictured Yorik, his experimental medication, her own unbearable paranoia. What did they think of her, so afraid of shadows, seven years later?

  You don’t owe them anything, he’d told her. And yet...

  She needed to get over this. She was being a little child, employing guards at every single corner, in every room, men who shouldn’t be on duty, men who should be enjoying the festivities. She still had Sir Tam, and Mikka, and the regular appointment of guards.

  But what if? she asked herself.

  But no. How could she move on if she was still so tied to that event, if she let it dictate every single decision she made, if she outright refused to let herself move past it?

  “Lady Mithriv?” he said again.

  She hated it when they called her that.

  “It’s no problem,” Uncle Andreius said abashedly. “We can employ them—”

  “No,” she said, surprising herself. She looked at Uncle Andreius’s shocked, then pleasant expression. “There will be no need. Let them enjoy the festivities.”

  Uncle Andreius took a moment. “Yes, of course.”

  And with that, he walked away. Sarina watched him until he was out of sight, and then she felt her hand reaching down to take her pocket watch. She paused, but then grabbed it anyway, flicked it open and held it up to the light. The black hands ticked ominously. It was five minutes to eleven. Guests arrived at seven on the dot. She would need to bathe again, work on her makeup and then her hair, do some of Yorik’s breathing exercises...

  She looked at Sir Tam, who was still staring down the corridor to where Uncle Andreius disappeared. His eyes flicked to her, paused, as if expecting something.

  She simply walked back to her room.

  3: Indigo

  A throwing knife bit into the center of an archery board with a quiet thunk, sending out a blast of icicles and wood flakes. Engraved on the handle of the knife were two letters written in cursive, one slightly bigger than the other, both slightly uneven: T. V.

  Tasha Vasil.

  She sheared another knife against the grindstone, sending off a hiss of sparks, and then piffed it into the archery board, landing it slightly beside the first, off-center.

  “Shit.” She grabbed another engraved knife from the tin can, weighed it in her hand. A light snowfall settled over the sparring courtyard of Castle Lavus, glazing all of the weapons in a thin sheet of ice. She ran her glove across the knife’s blade, cleaning it, then repositioned herself roughly thirty feet from the target. The knife flew.

  It hit one of the other knives and they both clattered to the frosted dirt. Tasha walked over to them and collected the knives. The sound of steel on steel chimed around her, heavy boots on rugged ground, armor plates sliding. Tonight was the winter’s ball, and then there’d be an extended week of festivities. The night brought up feelings of anger. She dreamed of it often. Seven years ago, she’d been a scrawny little eleven-year-old girl with blonde pigtails. She had been injured by an explosion, and her memory of the event was fuzzy. All she knew was that her parents both died, likely unheroically, which forced h
er into the custody of her father’s brother, who she killed on her eleventh birthday—a present to herself, because nobody else got her anything.

  She picked up the final knife and walked back to the table with all her gear on it. The castle loomed before her, high and proud. The windows were lit with amber light, and the light melted snow which dribbled past. She began stretching.

  The order had come through that Sarina, despite her paranoia, had decided not to utilise additional guards for the first time since it happened. That meant more work for Tasha, who had received the order to be on guard, mainly because she had the best eye in the city but also because she was good at killing, if it came to that.

  Tasha had never quite gotten along with Sarina, but nevertheless the two orbited each other. They had both survived the Killing Night, and though their paths had diverged, they always ended up in the same rooms. And though she did think of Sarina as a paranoid freak at times, she respected her duty and therefore would make sure the night went as planned.

  She was down low stretching her hamstrings when Alyos approached wearing indigo leggings and a very smart-looking vest over a white shirt. He had a peculiar walk, so even if she wasn’t looking at him, she’d know he was coming just by the sound of his footsteps. Not to mention the sound of jangling clocks, which he wore as necklaces, as adornments across his clothing, and even smaller ones as bracelets, all of varying sizes and designs.

  Alyos slapped a newspaper down on the bench, immediately soaking it in melted ice. Tasha glanced at it and slowly stood up, rolling her shoulders.

  “What’s that?” Tasha asked.

  “Would you believe it,” Alyos started, “a scandal in the court. On the eve of their thirtieth wedding anniversary, Lord Gavrial is caught cheating on his wife with the younger and, need I say it, far more attractive girl—who, mind you had only just turned seventeen—the gorgeous Lucie Samuir. I could hardly believe it myself.”