by Chanda Hahn
“I can.” Was that a smile that formed under the white mask? I wasn’t going to believe it. “Forgive me, for I may have misjudged you.”
I waved my hand at him dismissively. “Everyone does. I’m used to it.”
He grabbed my hand out of the air and held it. “It shouldn’t be that way.”
“No, it shouldn’t. But it is. Even now we are being judged.” I nodded to the king who had finally joined his wife on the dais and sat on his throne. I remembered what he had said about picking women based on their wealth. “I bet they are already selecting their future daughter-in-law, based on—” I paused for effect. “—the size of her family fortune.”
The man laughed. “And how extravagant their dresses.”
“Or shoes,” I added.
The man choked and began to cough as I tossed back Prince Evander’s joke to his face. I lost sight of Dorian for a second, but saw his tall form leading a woman out of the room. Seconds later, he returned, and I could feel the heat of his gaze on me. He was just waiting for his chance to kick me out.
I ground my teeth together in anger.
The prince didn’t need to be here, because Dorian and the guards, were already doing the work of selecting his next wife. It was sickening. My stomach dropped, and I wanted to yell, stomp my feet, and scream. This was wrong!
I remembered Mother Eville telling us she had once been engaged to the prince of Sion, but that when her family lost her money, he broke off the engagement. Her father had approached the other princes to see if they would marry her, and they laughed because she had no dowry. It was only when they saw her and her beauty did they realize they were a fool. Even King Ferdinand had proposed to her, but she turned him down. The choices the kingdoms made over the years were not good—or kind. She watched as they fell into greed and darkness and fought against each other, making deals to claw their way to the top.
Brokenhearted, Lorelai perfected her craft and raised us to be the tools of justice. I watched as the king shook his head and pointed to a girl, and one of the guards escorted her out of the room. Queen Giselle, sitting next to him, pointed to a particularly beautiful gown and nodded in affirmation.
It was a glorified beauty pageant, and I knew I was no great beauty, if not for my glamour. What was I supposed to do here? How was I going to get revenge for my family? Rosalie probably would have cursed them with the pox. Maeve would have probably set fire to the whole palace and burned it to the ground. Meri would have sung and flooded the whole room with water.
I was here and not sure what to do. I could make people’s dresses sparkle. I was left with an empty feeling and a question that I didn’t have the answer to.
As soon as the dance was over, the guard stepped back. I saw Dorian move briskly toward me. He was going to escort me out in front of this kind guard and embarrass me.
“I need to leave,” I said abruptly, depression creeping up on me like a hungry beast, which meant I was about to lose control of my emotions and, therefore, the glamour. In a few minutes, I would be standing in the middle of the room wearing my simple brown dress and glass shoes.
“But you haven’t met the prince yet,” the guard stated.
“It doesn’t matter. I… don’t matter.” My self-confidence lowered with each step I took toward the open doors that led outside.
Chapter Nine
As soon as I stepped out onto the patio and the night air brushed against my skin, I felt calm and could breathe easier. I descended the stairs and stepped into the lower gardens, finding myself surrounded by tall hedgerows. When I followed the footpath further, I discovered a wooden bridge that crossed over a stream. The stream was filled with colorful paper lanterns. I stopped on the bridge and watched as the lit lanterns floated under me. Every twenty paces or so was a stone gazebo with benches. The one closest to me had a string quartet that played music as other guests, like me, sought solace among the gardens.
Once I was able to calm down and get my emotions regulated, I felt my control on my glamour strengthen. I could feel a slight strain on the back of my mind from controlling Tess’s glamour from a distance, but I wasn’t worried.
One of the paper lanterns became ensnared in some rushes by the edge of the bridge, but I couldn’t reach it from the grassy edge. I found a dried reed from the riverbed and went back up on the bridge and leaned over, trying to knock it loose. It was the challenge of doing it that kept me leaning forward on my tiptoes. Then I felt myself falling over the railing.
“Whoa!” I yelped, but strong hands grasped my waist from behind and kept me from falling.
“Careful now!” the voice warned, as he pulled me backward, my stocking feet touching the wood bridge.
“Thank you, I—” I turned around and looked into the amused eyes of the masked guard from ballroom. His hands were still on my waist, and he was looking at me closely.
“Look what I fished out of the stream,” he said.
I blushed and looked down as my dress was in a bit of disarray. I tried to smooth out the wrinkles.
“Well, are you going to throw me back or keep me?” I challenged.
He looked at me silently and didn’t move.
My face burned with embarrassment at my forwardness. I tucked a stray curl behind my ear and tried to move away, but he stopped me. “Wait.” Very carefully, he reached up to untie his mask.
I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew. Sometime during our dance, during our conversation, I figured it out. But it was still surprising to know I was right. That it wasn’t a guard at all but Prince Evander pretending to be the guard.
“I’d like to keep you,” he said. His amber eyes searched my face, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
My hand reached up to cover my mouth in surprise.
“Why are you hiding out here,” Prince Evander asked, “when the ball is inside?”
“Why, isn’t it obvious?” I teased, thinking back to when the prince had gone swimming in the same stream farther downhill. “I decided to go for a swim.” Keeping my face serious, I turned and beckoned to the stream.
He looked at me like I was a fae that had sprouted three heads, and I desperately wanted to take back the words I had spoken. I shouldn’t have been so informal with him. I closed my eyes, and then heard it.
A deep chuckle. “What an odd girl you are.” Evander couldn’t contain his amusement.
The simple statement crushed me, for I had heard it many times before.
Odd.
Weird.
Different.
None of them were said in a positive tone, much less by royalty, and this time it hurt even worse. The smile fell from my lips, and he saw.
“No, wait. I followed you out here for a reason.”
“What reason is that?” I asked.
“To tell you, you were right. Most of the women in there will go home tonight, sight unseen. And of those remaining, one of them will be my future wife.”
“Why the charade?” I asked. “Why pretend to be a guard?”
“Why not? Tonight, everyone is pretending to be someone else. I thought it would be fun to get to know a few of the ladies without letting them know I’m—”
“A prince,” I finished.
He grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “It was quite eye-opening, hearing what they said about me or to my guards when I was just an ordinary man behind a mask. It made it quite easy to send most of them home.”
Our conversation came back at me like a whirlwind, and I quickly replayed all of my snarking comments and words. I was not polite, quite blunt, and not at all charming. He came to send me home.
“I have made up my mind, and I would like to—”
“I understand,” I interrupted him before he could ask me to go. “You don’t have time for someone that isn’t here for the right reasons.” I sighed. It was foolish of me to tell him I was only here to appease my mother.
“What?” Evander said. “No, I want you to stay.”
Never in my wildest imagination would he have asked me to stay. “Stay? Why?”
He looked completely perplexed by my confusion. “I just asked to keep you. You were listening to our earlier conversations, right? This ball is to help me select my future wife.”
“I understand. I just…. I’m just…. Are you mad?” I thought to myself. But by the surprised look on the prince’s face, I realized I had said it out loud.
My hands shot to my mouth again, and I mumbled through my fingers, “I’m sorry, Your Highness.” Terrified that I had insulted the future king, I did the only thing I could think of. I bowed. No! Wrong. I grimaced and curtsied. But then felt so confused, I did a mix of both and looked up at Evander’s face.
His lips were pinched in a firm line, and my shoulders dropped. He looked angry.
Then his shoulders began to shake, and he bent over and laughed at me. Straight up, belly-aching laughed.
My mother would not be proud if she were here to see this. “I should go.”
“N-no. Sto-o-p. P-please don’t g-go!” Prince Evander couldn’t stop laughing, and he reached out to grab my hand. When his laughing had died down, he wiped at his eyes and gave me a serious look. “Yes, I must be mad. Because I would like you to stay. Here at the palace. Each of the chosen will be given a room here so that I can properly court them.”
This was what every girl dreamed of. Except me. I never wanted to marry a prince. I couldn’t rule a country. I wasn’t strong or courageous like my other sisters. I was sent here for revenge and answers, and yet I found myself wanting to have a normal dream, like a normal young woman. Dancing at a ball with a handsome stranger.
“Why? I already told you that I’m no heiress, and I have no great family lineage. I would bring nothing to you or the crown. We would make a very bad match.”
“See what I mean? You’re talking me out of courting you, and I don’t even know your name. The reason I want you to stay is because you were honest. No, you were brutally honest. You told me to my face that you were here for the ball and nothing else. You didn’t even mention coming for me.”
“I didn’t come for you,” I said, leaving out that I only came to find out who killed my mother.
“Ouch, even now your words cut like a sword.”
Again, with my mouth. All night my own words had been bitter, contrite, and hurtful. There was no class or decency. I was forward, direct, and a few times outright silly.
“But, yes, you are nothing like the others, and quite frankly, having you here would irritate my parents.”
“If they only knew.” I inwardly chuckled.
“Will you stay?” he asked. “You will be given a room here and you have the freedom to come and go as you please.”
“I….” I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.
Maybe I imagined his look of relief. “So now you know my secret.” He flipped the mask in his hands and looked up at me, a smile at the corner of his mouth. “But I’m afraid I don’t know yours? Who are you?”
My hands trembled as I reached up to untie the ribbon to my mask. They froze on the ribbon, my eyes glued to my glass slippers that were peeking out from beneath my glamoured gown.
“Evander!” a man came storming across the grass toward us, his mask in his hand.
“Ah, Dorian!” Evander turned. My head snapped up at hearing his name. I stepped behind Prince Evander, letting his much larger frame hide mine. “What have you discovered so far?’
“The witch seems to have come alone and had no other agenda than to cause a ruckus. She is safely locked away and won’t be able to bother anyone. As to your future prospects, there are around twenty that have been selected based on the king and queen’s criteria, including the ones you personally chose. The others have already been sent home,” Dorian stated.
Evander shook his head. “And to think, I haven’t even met them.”
“Don’t worry, Your Highness. The ones being sent home are all being compensated. We carefully vetted them, and I can honestly say that if you asked tonight, all would marry you sight unseen.”
Evander sighed. “That’s the problem, I haven’t seen any of them. This is stupid.”
“Evander, it’s tradition. It’s how it is always done. Now, it’s time to formally greet them. You’re already late.”
Evander gave him an exasperated look.
“Your duty cannot be cast aside,” Dorian chastised.
“That’s funny you should be the one lecturing me,” Evander said, “when you’re the one who’s late for everything.”
“I’m never late. I just make an entrance.”
“But there’s one more I want to invite,” Evander said and waved at me to come stand by his side.
“Really, Evander. I don’t think you need any more. There are quite a few beauties that would make excellent princesses. I could even give you their names right now.”
“Uh, Dorian, she’s right here,” Evander whispered, and I could feel the awkwardness in the air.
I gathered my courage and stepped around him into the moonlight and revealed myself.
Dorian’s face turned down, and I saw his displeasure. “No.”
“You don’t have any say,” Evander said.
“Well, I should, and I say no. That one will bring you nothing but trouble.” He pointed at me.
“Dorian,” Evander warned, his voice dipping low. “You don’t have the authority to undermine me.”
Dorian’s jaw clenched, and he gave a cursory bow, his hand waving in a dramatic flair. “As you wish.” As Dorian bowed, his eyes bore into mine, and I could see his anger burning within. He spoke between a clenched jaw. “I will add this flower to your collection.”
Something about the way he said it made me uncomfortable.
Evander turned toward me. “I will see you soon. Maybe then you can tell me your name.” He gave me a wink and Dorian a pat on the shoulder before heading into the ballroom, leaving me alone with a quietly seething Dorian.
Dorian turned and offered me his arm but didn’t say anything. I ignored it, picked up the hem of my dress so I wouldn’t trip, and headed back toward the ballroom. Dorian gave a frustrated grunt. His long legs caught up to me in two strides.
“So, you got what you wanted,” he said sourly. “You have been invited to stay on at the palace.”
“It’s not really what I wanted,” I said, stopping on the steps outside of the ballroom.
Dorian spun on me. “Then what do you want? Because a few moments ago, you didn’t want to leave, and now you don’t want to stay.”
I placed my hands on my hips and raised my chin. “I want to spite you because you seem to despise me.”
“I… I don’t. It’s not that—”
“The more you deter me from coming, the harder I will fight to stay. You’re not treating anyone else with as much contempt as you are showing me.”
“It’s because I’m trying to help you. He’s not who you think he is,” Dorian snapped.
I waited for further explanation, but he clamped his mouth shut and looked down in remorse. He reached into his inner jacket pocket. “Here.”
“What is it?” I asked as he put it in my hand.
“A token. To prove that you’re one of his chosen.”
“It’s beautiful.” I held it up and admired the gold coin with a moon stamped on it. I had never owned anything as beautiful or as expensive as this and probably never would again.
“Yeah, well, all of them will get one like it.” He pointed into the ballroom. Evander stood among the final twenty women, giving them instructions.
“The token you receive will match an assigned room. This will be yours for the remainder of your stay here at the palace. For instance, if you received a rose, then our servants will escort you to the rose room. But each day there will be fewer of you as I begin the search to find my future queen.”
Squeals of delight came from the twenty women. I stood outside looking in and was pleased to see that Tess
was among the few selected as well. I felt a hint of pride that I had helped her get this far. Now it would be up to her. The others I didn’t recognize because of their masks.
“See, you are not so special,” Dorian said, gesturing for me to join them. His words hurt. They cut like a dagger on my already fragile heart. “You are going to miss the introductions to the king and queen.” He came up and whispered in my ear. “Or have you taken my advice and decided that this is no place for you? Because now the claws come out, and it is about to get ruthless between the women. And the prize is not a prince but a throne.”
I gripped the coin in my hand and felt a renewed sense of will. “Then let the games begin.”
My answer surprised Dorian. I headed toward the exit.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the Broken Heart tavern to retrieve my belongings.”
“Prince Evander will be suspicious if you don’t stay on,” he said.
“I will be back tomorrow morning,” I said as I detoured through an open door and headed outside. I was heading down the stone steps when he grabbed my wrist.
“You shouldn’t go back there,” he warned.
I sighed and spun on my glass slippers and almost fell on the stairs. “First you say stay. Then you say go home, don’t come. Now that I’m here, you are saying to not leave. You are a difficult person to understand.”
“That’s because I have ears everywhere. The king is looking for a daughter of Eville, Sparrow, and I happen to know that your transport driver picked you up in Nihill, and if I know that, then so does the king.”
“If he knows it, it is because you told him,” I snapped.
“No, he didn’t hear this from me.”
“Why is he scared of me?”
“He’s not scared of you. He’s scared of the prophecy.”
“And yet, I know nothing of this prophecy,” I snapped at him.
Dorian became quiet. He whistled, and his black coach pulled up. I began to associate the black coach with Dorian’s black heart. He opened the door and ushered me inside, his hand on my elbow. Once inside, I shook off his touch, and he sat on the padded bench seat across from me.