All of them, assembled beneath the grand chandeliers, while I remain an afterthought. The Rosenmahl family, whole and shining in its supposed dignity—except for Lieben, except for .
The injustice gnaws at , and my teeth grind against the at, against my own bitterness.
But then—a jolt. Soone bumps against from behind, sharp enough to snap from my spiraling thoughts. My hand falters, and a glass of wine topples, purple liquid spilling across the white cloth. I curse under my breath as the purple stain spreads, seeping toward lissa. She pushes her chair back too quickly, the legs screeching against the polished floor, though the sound drowns beneath the orchestra’s rise.
In her retreat, she collides with another. A man, his head balding, his posture stiff. His voice—low, apologetic—murmurs near my ear before I can even turn. I nod, though my brows knot. lissa stumbles further, creating ripples as those behind her rise in turn. Confusion spreads.
The sight of one standing prompts another, and another. Like dominoes, half the hall begins to shift to its feet.
Misunderstandings spiral quickly in such places. So believe it is the call to dance, others see their neighbors rise and follow instinctively, desperate not to appear out of place. Soon enough, couples drift toward the ball floor, hands finding hands, movents aligning to the rhythm of the singer’s divine cadence.
The transformation is swift. In the space of sixty heartbeats, the hall has changed shape entirely. Half of the guests now stand, n’s hands circling the waists of their wives, won’s hands sliding across the shoulders of their husbands.
I frown, staring into the reflection of the spilled wine. The liquid pools across the tablecloth, spreading in uneven veins, and in its shimr, I catch the fractured image of the chandelier, glowing in a bluish hex.
My gaze follows upward until it lands upon her—the daughter of the man I am about to kill. My throat tightens, and I gulp, forcing down the mory that claws at . The day I was infected by the spores of the Mushroom of Truth. The day I, in my naive weakness, confessed everything to her.
The words had spilled from my lips, unfiltered, unbidden, as if truth itself had demanded my tongue as its vessel. I had told her all. Strangely, that day had left lighter, as though a burden had been peeled away, even if it should have destroyed .
Now, as my thoughts shift from my family’s indifference to her, I feel sothing rare—relief. She is like , the youngest child trapped in a web of expectations, smothered beneath the weight of her lineage. She must be like . She has to be, enduring the sa difficulties, bound to the sa chains, plagued by the sa thoughts.
Yet I stop myself.
No. She is not like . She is orange-blooded—royale. She is born into privilege that insulates her from the cold my kind suffer. I only hope she shares my burdens, and that my earlier thoughts ring true. Because it makes what I am about to do bearable.
I will kill her father. I will kill the king of Zentria—the man who dared to take for himself the na of Queen Elisia, descendant of Elisia the First. At that thought, I nearly drown.
The weight presses against my lungs, crushing, but I catch my breath a heartbeat later. My arms fold to support my head as I sink into the chair, a frown etched deep into my face.
“Are you good?” Simon leans toward lissa, his voice mockingly sympathetic, as though her small accident—spilling wine—were a jest that set the gala into motion. Nearly half the hall has risen to dance because of her.
With his broad fra and calloused, work-tainted hands, he bows theatrically, lowering one knee as if to ask for her hand in marriage rather than a dance. His hands stretch out—not just one, but both—toward her. She smiles, her face bright, completely forgetting the near disaster of her dress being drenched. She laughs.
“Let’s dance,” she says, and they disappear into the growing crowd, forgetting about .
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