by Stock, L. J.
“Go. Have fun.” My father laughed, his kiss on my forehead snapping me out of my unproductive thoughts. “I do expect a dance later, however.”
I smiled and stood up before sitting down again just as suddenly and realizing my mistake. I was supposed to wait for Damon to rise first, help me from my seat and escort me to the dance floor. It was ridiculous, but at the same time, chivalrous. “I look forward to it.”
“Go,” he mouthed and smiled, and I practically floated from my seat as my hand found the one offered to me by Damon. Spinning, I walked side by side with him to the dance floor that was slowly beginning to fill with bodies around the edges as the first song started its slow rise to life.
I felt my heart patter in my chest as Damon and I faced one another. He bowed and I curtsied, both of us smiling brightly before meeting in the middle, where our hands came together, one above and one below. I'd only learned one dance for this ball, and this was it. Melody had promised that the rest would be up to the gentleman's lead, something most men in this dimension had been raised to do, whether of noble blood or not.
We’d barely started to move together when I heard Damon's chuckle and lifted my eyes to meet his. The mirth that shone back at me made me realize I'd started staring at my feet, and I rolled my eyes at myself. It was the only way I could remember the steps, but at the same time, I should have known Damon would never have let me fail.
“Stop counting,” he whispered as we stepped into one another, chest to chest, before he slowly circled me. The trick was to follow him with my gaze, which came naturally.
“Sorry.” I snorted smugly. “No one in my dimension has danced like this for at least two centuries.”
He moved behind me slowly, his breath rushing over my bare shoulders as we both clapped, and my head turned to greet him on my other side.
“This is your dimension now,” he teased.
I smiled and took my time circling him, barely aware that there was anyone else in the room. “Dual citizenship.”
Damon laughed and pulled me to him, my back against his chest as our arms crossed and hands met, making a cage around me. He moved us in the series of complex twists, pulling me to him as we weaved through the other dancers who now surrounded us.
“You look so beautiful, Cass,” he whispered as he leaned in.
I blushed and ducked my head for a second before remembering my place and lifting it again proudly. His compliment buzzed through me and I couldn't help myself from looking at his lips, willing them to mine.
Our laughter was mutual, and even if it was just in our heads, we were in our rightful places, beside one another and having fun, even while a palace full of people watched us. If felt like the most natural thing in the world to be this relaxed in his company, and I got lost in the daydream. Unfortunately, as with most things that brought me any kind of pleasure, it was over too soon.
“I should have known,” a slurred voice said from our right. I wasn't sure if I appreciated the interruption or not. Selfishly, I'd forgotten the several hundred people surrounding us, and by the blink of Damon's eyes, he had, too. I just wished it had been from anyone other than the man rocking in place. His formal attire looked worse for wear considering he was a noble. If I’d had to hazard a guess, I would have said he’d drank himself stupid, decided he needed to say something and fallen off his horse on the ride over here. Maybe even thrown up on himself a couple of times by the smell of him.
“Baron Sideris,” Damon said pleasantly, before lowering his voice. “You were told to stay at home.”
“It's my right by birth to be here, Damon,” the baron roared, swaying on his feet. He stumbled and pointed directly at Damon. “The same cannot be said about you, commoner.”
“I would advise you to choose your words carefully, Baron,” Damon said, squeezing my hand in reassurance as he stepped between the baron and I. He was trying to keep the confrontation low key with as little disturbance as possible, but there were a few small groups who seemed to converge closer to listen to what was being said.
“Why is that, do you suppose?” the baron asked, flinging his arm out. The tankard he was holding overflowed, barely missing my dress, and putting a further divide in the space between Damon and I.
“Leave, or we will escort you out.”
“The king’s lap dogs, acting without orders?” The baron barked out a humorless laugh and pointed a finger at Damon, a finger of accusation. “You are nothing, a no one. You will–”
He never got to finish his sentence. Rasmus barreled past him, his wide shoulder sending the baron off balance and effectively shutting him up. Damon and Rasmus exchanged glances, but it was a second long, and before I was aware of the arrangement to distract me, the song had changed and Rasmus was sweeping me away in his arms. His departing words were to Damon as he spun me out and back to him at dizzying speeds.
“I do believe the king warned him of what would happen if he chose to join us this evening, Damon.”
I had no idea about that particular order, and my opinion on the matter didn’t seem to hold much bearing. Watching Damon look to my father for permission, I saw him receive a nod before I was twirled again. My next view without the room spinning around me was of Damon and Aiolos, both escorting the baron from the ballroom, the slurred and indecipherable shouts of the baron’s insults being swallowed by the music and the voices chattering with excitement surrounding us. Apparently the drunken baron was one they all seemed to know well.
“So, did you see it?” Rasmus asked finally. He twirled me out from him and pulled me close, his arm around my waist as he danced us across the highly polished floor. He was so much taller than I was; it was hard to keep up with his wide stride.
“See it?” I asked, taking my attention from my feet and meeting his bright eyes.
His responding laugh made me very nervous. I wasn't scared of Rasmus, and I didn't think it was possible I ever could be, but that didn't mean his propensity for practical jokes didn't set my teeth on edge. He was the joker, the comedian, and the unpredictable variable in the king’s guard. As much as I loved him for it, I knew there was a larger part of me that wasn’t going to be happy about whatever the glint in his eyes was all about.
“Oh no. What did you do?”
Smiling, he opened up his uniform jacket and showed me the tiny video camera he had concealed inside. I moved to grab it and he pulled away, twirling me again to keep me from catching my bearings. Inevitably, it kept the camera far out of my reach.
“You may be the crowned Princess of Mortisali, my friend, but Alexa still scares me more.”
“Oh come on, Ras. Like I need this immortalized.”
“Actually, I think you do. You were magnificent up there.” He pulled me close, giving me a brief hug before spinning me again. I couldn't help but laugh as he caught me easily. He guided us across the polished floor flawlessly, and we spoke quietly amongst ourselves until the song changed and I was handed, with a bow from Rasmus, to my father.
I smiled up at the man who had been more of a father to me in the months I’d known him, than the man I’d believed to be my father for the twenty-four years before. Stepping close, he gave me a spine-cracking hug before the song picked up into a quicker tempo. My father danced with the same grace he executed with everything he put his mind to. He led me across the floor with such ease I felt like I'd been dancing for years.
“I'm sorry about the baron, sweetheart. I told him to stay away.”
“Not your fault, Dad. He's stubborn, and…” My voice faded as I caught the look he gave me. I tipped my head to the side in curiosity. “What?”
“That's the first time you've ever called me Dad.”
“No, I–” He was right. All these months I'd been calling him father when I'd addressed him, with the exception of the dream, but I didn’t think he’d remembered that. It hadn't been a deliberate thing – I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t done it sooner – but I could see how much it affected him. I glanced
up at him and tried to read his expression and was met with another one of his resplendent smiles, the corners of his eyes creasing with every ounce of love he felt for me. For the first time in my life, I felt it.
“I like it,” he whispered happily. “It's more personal.”
He pulled me in for another hug, his arms tight around me. Leaning my flushed cheek against his shoulder, I smiled. I wanted to hold onto this night forever. It felt like one of those crazy dreams that you felt compelled not to leave. Unfortunately, like all good things, it didn’t last. We both jumped apart when a bang as loud as a shotgun sounded through the ballroom. It silenced the music and the guests simultaneously, every head turning to the doors as they bounced from the wall. We barely had time to draw a breath before people started screaming.
Invasion
The screaming, shrill and filled with fear, temporarily suspended reality. No one seemed to breathe for a beat. No one dared move, and then everything turned to hell, chaos reigning supreme. A flood of color poured from the front of the room and traveled toward the back. The undulation of fine fabrics in ranging hues seemed to crash toward us in angry waves.
People were trampling others in their need to escape, and they were heading directly toward us. It had taken me a moment to notice. My mind had been stuck on the horror of seeing the sheer terror on a woman’s face as she went down before I realized the very real danger we were in.
It must have been seconds, but it felt like a lifetime before the guards circled us in a line of defense from the panicked crowd. For a moment nothing happened. Everything stopped, like the calm before the storm, and then the guards billowed around us as the crowd came against them, the screams and pleas deafening. I was torn somewhere between self-preservation and the need to help, and a glance at my father told me he was struggling with the same dilemma. We seemed to be the only ones worried about anyone outside of the wagon circle however.
“Your Highness, we have to get you both out of here. We have latros,” Alec said appearing through the wall of forest green, his shoulders rolled back, the epitome of calm in the face of danger.
I looked through the line of guards and saw the wave of black starting to bleed into the color from the doors of the ballroom. Their red masks were probably the most disconcerting part of their uniforms as they divided and conquered one noble person at a time. They were all identical. There was no differentiating one from another as they streamed in like an army of agitated ants, not so much as pausing as they took down the men and women around them.
“Rasmus?” My father's voice was clear and calm as he looked to his personal guard as though he knew what would have to happen. Fear and concern tightened my gut, even as Rasmus appeared through our protective circle.
“Your Majesty.”
“We have to split up. We’re too easy a target grouped together this way. Damon is still in the castra, so I need you to get Cass to her room so she can translocate to the farmhouse. Alec will get me to safety. No matter what happens, I need you to look after her.”
Rasmus put a hand on his chest, his usual mirth and smile gone. “I will guard her with my life, Sire.”
My father nodded to me, his hands gripping my arms as his lips brushed my forehead in haste. “You get out of here and you stay at the farm until someone comes for you. Do you understand me?”
“Protocol. Of course I understand, Dad.” I knew that if I deviated, someone could get killed, and I refused to have that on my conscience. Another guard shoved through the others and handed my father an empty chalice, his expression grim as he shook his head.
“Veneficus,” Rasmus hissed beside me. “We need to move. Now!”
In the meeting we’d had after my dream, they’d discussed this very scenario. The veneficus could control the elements enough with their magic to remove it from a specific area. No one was sure how wide or vast the area could be, but the chalice wasn’t a good sign.
“Unfortunately, just as I suspected,” my father said in concern before turning to me. “Cassandra, do not be a hero. You save yourself.”
Another scream tore through the crowd, the feeling of urgency now beating through my veins with the staccato beat of my heart. If we didn't get out of there soon, there would be no escaping at all. All of the hiding and preparations would have been for nothing. There would be no saving anybody if I was dead.
I threw my arms around my father in a quick embrace and whispered into his ear. “I love you, Dad. Be safe.”
He unraveled me from him, his hands squeezing my arms before he pushed me toward Rasmus, and gave me a nod that said more than words could have ever portrayed.
It took everything in me to gather my courage. I knew what I was about to face. I knew that this would be a fight. Everything about this protocol was supposed to ensure my survival. I would do everything in my power to make that happen, because it wasn't just my life I was trying to protect. I had to keep Rasmus alive, too. Everything I did directly correlated to his survival through the night.
Rasmus moved first, his body like a battering ram as he pushed through the blur of color that surged around us the moment we squeezed through the wall of Regius Custos. I would never forget the look of terror of the woman that clung to my arm. The pallor of her skin said enough but the growing red stain on her colorful, silk-encased stomach was almost enough to freeze me. People were dying here.
“Cass, there's nothing you can do,” Rasmus shouted over the din, his hand squeezing mine as he pulled me free of the bleeding woman. She stood on her own two feet as I gave in to Rasmus' tugging, but in another heartbeat, she was falling to her knees, her frozen, glassy eyes still pleading for help.
My legs pushed me forward, the thin heels wobbling under the frenetic falls of my feet. I'd been running every day for months and I was more than capable of distance running, but stuck in these shoes, in this crowd, it was hopeless. It was just too dangerous to take them off and I couldn't keep my balance if I kept up that level of speed while running for a long period of time. More often than not, Rasmus would pull me along when I stumbled.
It was only when I tripped up the stairs of the dais did I realize we were at the wrong end of the room. If we were going to get out of there, we had to head to the other wall and pick one of the two exits, which were currently occupied by black suits and red masks. We were trapped.
“Ras?”
There was a flicker of his old humor as he looked at me, and I realized that I'd been stupid not to think there wasn't some hidden passage in here as there was everywhere else in the palace.
“Where?”
“Behind the mirror, on that wall the–” He never finished the sentence. As we raced across the dais, the windows behind the flags broke, the shattering loud enough to make my molars tremble. As we skidded to a stop, more black suits poured into the new gaps as the deeper green of the king’s army filtered in at the doors.
The sudden appearance of the army seemed to give the guests courage. I knew I should have been paying attention to the doors, but the sight of women in ball gowns and men in tails fighting dragged my consciousness from the danger I faced, to the hope that seemed to ebb into the room with an army of men.
“Cass, down!”
The urgency in Rasmus' voice was the only thing that could have gotten through to me in that moment. My body, after months of training, dropped into a crouch, my leg snapping out at the latros who seemed intent on charging at me.
He wasn't down for long. The moment he landed, he was scrambling to his feet again, his arms outstretched for me as I crab crawled backward, sliding on the satin train of my dress. It was when my ass hit the deck that my instinct and training seemed to coalesce. My foot snapped out with every ounce of strength I had, the heel landing on his throat. As a surge of adrenaline flooded my veins, I ignored the sickening gasp seconds before he fell forward, motionless.
I knew he wasn't dead because of the rise and fall of his chest, and I would later question myself as to whether that
had been the right thing to do. Unfortunately, in that moment, I just wanted to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. When Rasmus offered me his hand, I took it gratefully and gave him a nod as he pointed to the closest door.
I knew he wasn't exactly excited by the prospect of taking me through the crowd of soldiers fighting, but in reality, it would be easier than the wall of them behind us, blocking the path to the escape route. I could fight. I was skilled and capable, and we both knew it. I may have promised to run away but I would put my training into action while I did as I was told. In this case, it was the only option I had if we weren’t going to be overpowered.
I stuck close to Rasmus' back as he plowed through the fighting crowd like a bull in a china shop. As much as I hated to do it, I pushed and punched my way through as bodies ebbed around me. Not all of them were the enemy, but it was hard to differentiate with the amount of people closing in around us and grappling at us desperately. I’d made a promise and I intended to see it through.
Even with the bedlam surrounding me, I was surprised just how accessible my training was. I'd thought Damon had been a little anal in the way he'd driven the lessons into my head, but I was finally starting to understand. Even when the fear was real, it was within reach, and my body responded to it, moving with the same precision it always had and landing hits where they were supposed to land, with accuracy and a control that could only be attributed to hours of repetition.
We made it to the huge double doors faster than I'd anticipated; Rasmus and I working together seemed to push the crowds out of our path faster and with more accuracy. Unfortunately, the doors were now jammed with the enemy, half with their backs to us fighting our men outside the door, and half facing in to fight those trying to get out. All we needed was a small space, one that we could slip through and escape. I may have been throwing myself directly into the fight, but that didn't mean I wasn't aware that this was dangerous. I'd promised to leave as quickly as I could. Hanging around would not be conducive to carrying out said promise.