Dellara materialised behind her. ‘Nothing take your fancy?’
Marietta opened another armoire and peered inside. A dress comprised of nothing but iridescent peacock feathers gave her a silky wave. ‘I would not have thought my choice of wardrobe would be of the remotest interest to you.’
‘You’re entirely right; I’m buried under a veritable snowstorm of things to do today.’ Dellara’s voice was slow, indolent, her smile a deadly thing, better suited to creeping through forests, hunting across tundra. She waited. ‘I am rather gifted when it comes to fashion, I’ll have you know. If my life hadn’t set me on this path then I could have risen to prominence in the Silk Quarter.’
Though masked in her disdain, Marietta heard the note of truth shining through her words. ‘In that case, I concede.’ She stepped aside, letting Dellara feast her attention on the armoires. After a cursory glance, Dellara stared at Marietta’s face.
‘Is this necessary?’ Marietta asked coolly.
‘You have a similar build to another woman who was here not too many years ago. Her clothes ought to suit you fine until the dressmaker pays you a visit.’ Dellara tapped a magenta-polished nail on matching lips. ‘You have a regal face,’ she said; ‘perhaps we can work with that.’ She delved into the nearest armoire.
Marietta frowned. ‘You’re mistaken; queens are beautiful. I am not.’
Dellara looked back over her shoulder, the shadows darting round the edge of her irises thickening like smoke. ‘No, you’re mistaken. Queens are powerful.’ With a flourish, she extracted a gunmetal-grey gown that skimmed along the collarbone and bared shoulders, with glittering silver thorns dripping from the belted waist. It came to a finish in knee-length, jagged flutters.
Marietta considered it. In Nottingham, she had dressed for ballet or for society. Function or etiquette. The gown Dellara was proposing was for her own enticement only. ‘Will you and Pirlipata not mind lending me access to your wardrobe? I do apologise for intruding on your space; as I mentioned, I was unaware that this would be the situation.’
‘Yes, I realise that.’ Dellara gave her a searching look. ‘I have my own armoire that’s off limits to you.’ A wisp of sadness tugged the corner of her lips down. ‘And Pirlipata wears only gold.’
Marietta didn’t wish to probe that sadness. Dellara busied herself with fishing through a drawer with fresh determination. ‘Wear it with these,’ she added, passing Marietta a pair of thin, light trousers in a rich sapphire shade before flopping back onto a chaise as if the whole experience had been greatly taxing.
Her mother would have been scandalised at the form-fitting trousers that clung to her hips. To Marietta, they were as liberating as her ballet dresses. She pirouetted on the polished lilac stone floor, her skirts flaring out, emitting a scent of winter jasmine and snow.
When Marietta’s summons from the king came, she was prepared. Two faceless guards escorted her down the stairs. She marched ahead of them, down the candy-cane-striped steps, discomfited by their presence and their masked faces, blank as dolls. Perhaps the forest was more dangerous than anyone was letting on to necessitate them. Her view stretched to rows above and below, the central throne room the core of the palace. The single door was guarded by another pair of faceless guards. Next to it, remnants of a lost mosaic clung to the sugar wall.
Golden cage-lifts glided up and down, the glossy obsidian flooring now emptied from the grand ball she’d danced her way into the previous night, leaving the throne on prominent display. The king reclined there, outfitted in an icy blue creation beneath a shocking lime cape, shot through with gold. He was deep in conversation with the captain.
‘Ah, here is my enchanting dancer from a distant land.’ King Gelum broke off their exchange, absorbing Marietta’s presence. The faceless guards were dismissed as she curtsied.
‘Good afternoon, Your Majesty,’ Marietta said.
A muscle twitched in the captain’s jaw. She disregarded it as the king continued to speak.
‘I shall be holding a banquet in a few days and I will require you to dance for my esteemed guests. Now, my little dancer, would you care to show me how you perform when the floor is yours alone?’ He swept a hand out to encompass the empty throne room.
‘Why certainly.’ What a change it was to dance for someone appreciative.
King Gelum clicked his fingers and a couple of musicians sprang to play.
The music was slow and thick as honey. Marietta’s dancing drizzled out of her in soft pliés, silky glissades that glided across the floor, and luxurious penchés, one hand grazing the floor as she dipped down, a single leg lifted high behind her. As she danced, she caught a faint glistening from the corner of her eye; the delicate lines of thorns were rippling. Her gown was enchanted. Marietta smiled, performing a slow revolution of her arabesque on demi-pointe. Her heart skipped as she broke into a string of pirouettes, her smile stretching wider across her face, the air tasting sweeter, her thoughts lighter than a soufflé.
The music slinked to a finish.
‘Utterly delectable,’ King Gelum declared.
Chapter Twenty
The following days took on a dream-like quality. Marietta rose late, feasted for breakfast and bathed. And every evening, she danced in the finest silks and gossamer gowns for the king, her spirits soaring with each leap she took across the throne room until she felt she might brush the stars. With each word of praise the king uttered, she shone brighter, danced harder. But tonight, she began to tire as her feet cramped and her chest grew tight. She glided to a halt in a chassé and performed her révérence – a curtsy to end the performance.
Captain Legat stood on the periphery, observing the scene. When she gravitated towards the carved snow-bench behind him, she noticed his eyes flick to the king, a flicker of concern dancing over his face.
‘I did not give you my permission to cease,’ King Gelum bellowed.
Marietta looked at him with a start. ‘I am afraid I was tiring; I must rest for a moment to catch my breath.’
The king twirled his long fingers against his throne. His twining ice rings clinked against the arms. A clink for each minute trickling by that Marietta refused to look away from his hard gaze, refused to yield.
‘You must keep dancing.’ Captain Legat’s whisper, deep and silken butterscotch, poured into Marietta’s ear.
‘I cannot. I require a break,’ she said, suddenly distrusting the look in King Gelum’s eyes.
‘I have travelled throughout my own world and others and have yet to meet another woman as talented as the likes of you.’ King Gelum’s words purred at her.
‘I am no more talented than a legion of women. We are all more capable than you know,’ Marietta said, her concern growing.
‘It does not bode well for you that you possess such an urge to challenge me. Though I must confess, I will enjoy it immensely.’ The king’s fingers stopped clacking against the throne and Marietta froze. She had not missed the violent promise in his words that echoed Drosselmeier’s. King Gelum smiled. ‘You shall dance for me now as your king commands’.
Before Marietta could protest, her legs suddenly jerked away from her. She found herself walking as if she were a marionette doll, an invisible hand pulling her up on strings until she was en pointe. She gasped. Whatever strange magic was at play it twisted itself around her like the ribbons on her ballet slippers, pulling her into odd contortions that mimicked dancing. With it came a memory. Of Drosselmeier watching her during her Company audition, of her legs spinning out of her control. The magic tugged her through the motions, disconnected and hyperextending until she cried out with pain. And yet still the music whirled on, the faceless guards watched, and she was forced to dance faster and faster.
She summoned the rage that had stormed through her like wildfire before the clock had struck midnight upon Drosselmeier’s stage. She closed her eyes, resisting the magic. It was to no avail. She opened her eyes as her body danced wilder.
The rage settle
d deeper. Coiling within her, it contoured itself to nestle around her bones, becoming one with her. ‘Please stop this enchantment,’ Marietta beseeched him.
The king looked amused. ‘Then you shall not stop until I command you.’
Marietta set aside the blistering pain in her feet and rose en pointe, not allowing the king the satisfaction of seeing her wince. The music grew louder. She pirouetted across the throne room on the horizonal axis. Each time she spun, she whipped her head around desperately searching for an exit, a means of escape. But the door was heavily guarded and she couldn’t see any way out. She glanced down at her blush-pink pointe shoes only to see that they now bloomed crimson with blood.
‘If you struggle against me, if you give King Gelum the opportunity to lay down his might, I cannot help you.’ Captain Legat’s whisper came fast, urgent as his arm scooped her up, taking all of her weight.
Gathering her last reserve of strength, Marietta arched back against him, lifting her arms above her head into the crown-like couronne. She felt the captain still as she pressed into him, heard his sharp intake of breath. After a pause, he reacted, firming his hands about her waist, before she could try to evade him.
Taking the moment to compose herself, to steady her growing anxiety, she stepped free of the captain and turned to address the king. ‘It has been an honour to perform for you, but perhaps it would be best if I took my leave of you as it seems I am not suited to be a guest of the king after all. I really must be returning home.’
‘Oh my little dancer, you are naïve. When you leave here it will be because I no longer possess the desire to see you dance. And your departure shall not take you through those doors.’ He snapped his fingers and the magic seized hold of Marietta once more.
She was pulled up onto her toes, her limbs contorted into positions that ripped a scream from her lips. He continued speaking but Marietta could scarcely hear past the pain that swelled and consumed her. ‘I suggest you spend your time dwelling upon how better to entertain me rather than foolish notions of leaving the palace.’
Glistening snowflakes trickled down Marietta’s dress in a river of melted pewter. Her tulle drooped. Still she danced on her toes, never once given a moment’s respite.
King Gelum laughed. It was thin and high and cold, a shard of ice stabbing through Marietta. His glimmer of interest was colder. This was a king that revelled in pain like tyrannical monarchs of old. Marietta’s heart beat harder, aware of her own vulnerability as she glanced around the grand room and saw it for the first time as it really was – a gilded cage. This close, his perfumed suit was overbearing, the clove-spiced mandarin bitter. An enchanted mouse ran across his jacket and dived beneath his collar. ‘My palace is enchanted,’ he said in a low, intimate voice. ‘It recognises that you’re mine. And it will keep you ensorcelled within it.’ Slowly he feasted his eyes on her bloody ballet slippers. She fought not to flinch. ‘Soon you shall learn your proper place, my little dancer.’ In a whirl of his garish cape, he resumed his seat at the throne and summoned a server. A girl dressed in a striped red and white skirt held out a box of tiny cakes to him.
‘Now for the question of your punishment,’ he said, regarding the cakes.
‘Do you not consider this sufficient punishment?’ Captain Legat asked. ‘I presume you wish for her to continue dancing.’
The king slowly bit into a cake; its chocolate casing splintered. ‘She will dance when commanded, regardless of her punishment. A true artist soldiers through mere discomfort in the pursuit of their craft.’
Marietta’s blood beaded onto the ice. ‘I dance only for myself,’ she whispered.
King Gelum frosted over.
Captain Legat stilled. He met her eyes and gave an imperceptible shake of his head.
‘I dance for no one else. My dancing has always been and shall always be my own,’ Marietta repeated, weak and unable to articulate her rage and passionate defiance. ‘This is not dance, this is cruelty.’ The magic spun her in place, a wicked parody of her words.
King Gelum’s frosted exterior cracked. He bestowed a charming smile upon her. ‘How quaint the world you hark from must be.’ Marietta regarded him warily. ‘Dance for yourself, you shall. Henceforth, I am withholding all sustenance from you until you have earnt your keep. Unless you wish to perish, you will perform for me.’
He released Marietta from her magical bonds. She sank onto the ice with a cry.
King Gelum strode from his throne. ‘Take her away. I cannot bear the sight of her after her brazenness.’
Captain Legat knelt beside her. He offered a hand.
Marietta disregarded it. She rose to her feet, crying out for the second time as the pain threatened to overwhelm her. The captain quickly escorted her out of the throne room.
It wasn’t until they were ascending the stairs that he spoke. ‘I warned you not to set foot in the palace to begin with. Now, not only have you courted the attention of the king, but you’ve incited his wrath. If you had heeded my caution in the stables, you would already be safely returned to your own world by now.’
Marietta could scarcely think. Her legs were numb, her pointe shoes tattered and stained. ‘Why are others always blamed in arousing a man’s anger?’ she asked quietly. ‘You know nothing of me nor my life yet you make assumptions ascertained from the brief period in which you’ve known me. Well, Captain Legat, I hasten to inform you that you do not know me, nor is my return to my own world the simple matter you believe it to be.’
She glanced up after his silence had lasted several beats. He was frowning.
‘Other than the obvious, why is your return not a simple matter?’
She had not expected an apology. Neither did she expect his response to rankle her, not when she remained in such pain, her feet growing numb and unfeeling, her prospects bleak and fearsome as an eternal night. ‘I do not wish to discuss it. Besides which, I believe you’ll find that you were the one who brought me to the palace.’
The captain now appeared equally rankled. It satisfied Marietta to see his mask splinter, his eyebrows ride high. ‘Now who is being accusatory? You were the one who chose to enter the ball, who then resolved to dance, after I had expressively forbidden you from both.’
‘I did not choose to be brought here, or indeed to this world,’ Marietta said, continuing to climb the spiral staircase. She bit back a wince and he held his hand out to aid her. She did not take it.
Captain Legat withdrew his hand, his expression shuttering. ‘Do not fear, the next time I happen to encounter you in a forest, I shall most certainly leave you at the mercy of the shadows.’
‘One cannot help but ponder why you are now pretending to be chivalrous.’ Marietta fixed him with an imperious stare. ‘If you truly wished to warn me then why not help me now? Find a way in which I can escape.’
His face gave nothing away. ‘I am afraid I cannot.’
‘Then I have nothing more to say to you.’ With that, Marietta attempted to march ahead of him. The pain overwhelmed her. The staircase twisted around her and darkness cloaked her in its velvet embrace.
Now and then, awareness pricked the darkness like a wink of starlight. She was weightless, soaring up through the centre of the palace on wings. For a moment, she believed she had died until she felt the sway beneath her and realised she was being carried by the captain. She opened her eyes to protest as she felt a hand smooth her hair away but a tide of weakness swept over her and she faded once more.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Marietta next opened her eyes, she was recuperating on a chaise back in her suite. Dellara and Pirlipata were tending to her feet, wrapping them in snow-white bandages. Her pointe shoes had been cast off, reduced to scarlet rags. Her head whirled as she attempted to sit up.
‘Do not move,’ Pirlipata said kindly. ‘You’ve suffered a great shock and must rest.’
Dellara evaluated her. ‘Still under the impression you’re dwelling in some wondrous story?’
Mar
ietta groaned and sat up. ‘Why did you not say something?’
‘I instructed you to leave the moment I first laid eyes on you,’ Dellara said.
‘Perhaps you ought to have been more specific,’ Marietta said. ‘I had no way of knowing this lay in store.’
‘We are not allowed to warn newcomers,’ Pirlipata said. ‘It is forbidden, punishable under the king’s treason laws.’
Marietta surveyed her bandaged feet. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. No one was to blame for her current predicament, save herself. She had disregarded multiple warnings for petty vanity’s sake and a craving for defiance and admiration as if she had been a girl once more, hoping for Madame Belinskaya to cast her in the principal role of Coppélia.
‘Surely this is not the prison in which the king intended to incarcerate me?’ she asked.
‘You’re not in the prison; those are carved out beneath the palace. You’re one of King Gelum’s pets now, no freer than the prisoners, but I’d rather lounge in this gilded cage than let sugar-rot lay siege to my bones in that dark pit,’ Dellara said, reclining on a nearby cushion.
‘I should have refused his offer to host me,’ Marietta said bitterly. ‘A gilded cage is still a cage.’
Pirlipata sat beside her. ‘If you had refused, he would only have ordered his guards to seize you. Do not torture yourself with what-ifs.’
‘I still do not understand why. For what purpose?’
Dellara leant forwards with a wicked smile. ‘From what I witnessed in the throne room, you’re to be his entertainment.’
Marietta’s breath grew ragged with fear. She had escaped Drosselmeier’s wicked grasping ways only to stumble into another terror.
‘Dellara, must you frighten her so? The woman is pale as snow and ice cold.’
‘My apologies,’ Dellara said drily. ‘I had meant your dancing. Rest your worries, the king couldn’t bed us even if he wished to; the man is impotent.’
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