Chapter 72: The Twilight Before The Crown (7)
Vaelira sat quietly among the other noble daughters, her back straight and posture immaculate, every inch of her presentation carefully maintained.
Her fingers were delicately wrapped around the slender stem of an untouched wine glass, the lace of her gloves brushing faintly against the cool crystal.
She did not lift it to drink.
She hadn’t since sitting down, and no one had remarked on it.
The chair beneath her was comfortable, upholstered in fine fabric and designed for long evenings of idle conversation, but she felt no ease in it.
Comfort, she had learned, was something offered freely but rarely meant sincerely.
Her shoulders remained set, her breathing measured, as if she were prepared to stand at a moment’s notice.
Around her, the room lived.
Laughter spilled freely from polished mouths, light and practiced.
Chatter rose and fell in overlapping waves, punctuated by the soft clink of glassware and the rustle of silk skirts.
Names drifted through the air, families, alliances, scandals, passed in murmurs just loud enough to be overheard.
Flitting glances were exchanged with meaning sharpened by years of social training.
All of it washed around Vaelira like wind through leaves.
Heard, but never felt.
She remained still at the center of it, present but untouched, observing rather than participating, as though separated from the gathering by a thin, invisible veil no one else seemed to notice.
She hadn't been briefed on any particular partner.
No suitor’s name was handed to her before the ball.
No note, no warning, no whispered suggestion from the Atherveil retainers.
And she was fine with that.
Or at least, she told herself she was.
She wasn’t here to entertain some polished fool who thought her hand in a dance was a prelude to an alliance.
Let the house suffer if her disinterest offended the wrong person.
Let the rumors bloom like rot.
She almost welcomed the backlash.
But as the music began to swell and the ballroom floor cleared, leaving only the pairs who had found one another, by fate, by plan, or by coercion, something within her shifted.
One by one, the girls who hadn't been asked to dance, some surprised, some pretending not to care, rose from their seats and quietly stepped away.
They melted into the shadows at the edge of the hall, clustering near the pillars or archways like forgotten echoes of the performance.
Their silks no longer caught the chandeliers’ glow.
Their jewels dulled without attention to reflect.
Vaelira stayed seated, watching them.
Some leaned into one another, whispering snide remarks, clinging to gossip like armor.
Others stared across the marble floor with wide, wistful eyes, looking at someone, some one, who hadn’t asked them, or who couldn’t.
A few tried to smile.
Most didn’t.
And still, the music played.
A dance in six-eight time, sweeping and slow, made for moonlight and dreams.
Vaelira’s eyes drifted to the dancers in the center of the ballroom, bathed in silver, stepping in perfect rhythm, their expressions soft, their gowns and suits moving like water as the magic-infused chandeliers dimmed and the actual moonlight flooded through the high glass domes.
She’d never wanted a dance.
She’d never thought she wanted a dance.
But watching it now, watching the way the light curved around those lucky few, those chosen or brave enough to ask, or foolish enough to defy their house’s wishes, she felt something stir inside her chest.
A strange ache.
Longing.
Not for a person.
Not for a suitor or a smile or a hand to hold.
But for the freedom to want.
The freedom to feel something so useless, so decadent, as being pulled into a dance just because she wanted to.
She didn’t want a match.
But she wanted to be asked.
The realization stung like a paper cut across the soul, shallow, but undeniable.
She set down the wine glass, its weight too sharp now.
Too real.
This entire event was a puppet show, each step of every dancer choreographed decades ago in ledgers and lineages.
Their movements weren’t theirs.
They were pieces, dressed and displayed, gently nudged across the marble floor like chessmen by powers far beyond their grasp.
And yet, somehow, they smiled.
Somehow, their laughter still felt real.
Vaelira blinked, her throat tight.
She couldn’t name the feeling rising in her.
A tangle of yearning and disdain, hope and futility, wound so tightly that she feared unraveling even a single thread would leave her hollow.
She rose.
None of the others at the table noticed.
They were too busy watching the floor.
Too busy pretending not to.
Vaelira walked slowly, slipping past velvet curtains and stone archways, away from the music and the slow spinning pairs.
She didn’t want to see it anymore.
She didn’t want to want it.
***
The balcony was colder now than before.
The mountain winds sharper.
Stars clung to the sky like distant promises, and the forest below whispered with leaves and night-birds and ancient magic far more honest than the music inside.
She leaned on the railing, her breath misting in the air.
“Just a little more,” she murmured to herself.
“I can bear it. Just a little more.”
But even as the words left her lips, they rang hollow.
Because somewhere in her chest, something throbbed softly, a yearning without shape or name.
A child’s longing in a gilded cage.
And behind her, the music played on.
Soft, and beautiful.
And just out of reach.
The cold bit deep.
Vaelira stood still at the edge of the balcony, her eyes closed as the night wind scraped at her face, threading through her hair like unseen fingers.
The air out here was sharp, crisp enough to burn the lungs a little with each inhale, and she welcomed it.
She needed it.
Unlike the warmth of the ballroom, thick with perfume and pleasantries, this chill was honest.
It didn’t try to pretend it was anything but what it was.
It didn’t flatter.
It didn’t smile.
Her right glove lay on the balustrade, fingers curled slightly. Her bare hand, calloused and pale, pressed against the cold stone, feeling it, grounding herself through its coarse texture and bitter bite.
She focused on the chill, trying to let it numb the ache that curled quietly beneath her ribs.
That dull ache she couldn’t quite name.
Just a little longer, she told herself.
Footsteps.
Shaky.
Uneven.
Hesitant.
Her eyes snapped open, breath catching.
She turned sharply, pulling her hand away from the stone and fumbling to pull her glove back on.
But it was too late.
Standing just beyond the archway, half-lit in the moonlight, was him.
Lucien.
He froze at the sight of her.
Eyes wide.
Hair slightly tousled.
A cravat crooked at his neck.
The suit he wore looked pristine, but he didn’t.
His steps were unsure, and though his posture tried to hold a semblance of strength, it was clear he was still mending.
Not just from wounds.
His gaze locked with hers, and the balcony suddenly felt a lot smaller.
Vaelira’s breath caught again, but for a very different reason.
Lucien blinked first.
Then, slowly, a half-smile tugged at the edge of his mouth, lopsided, uncertain, but real.
“…The weather’s quite chilly, no?” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck as he took a cautious step closer.
Vaelira blinked, still mid-motion with the glove, stunned at the sheer absurdity of the question.
She stared at him for a moment.
A sound cracked through the frost in her chest.
A soft sigh.
And then a laugh.
Genuine.
Light.
Freeing.
It slipped out of her like the first breath after breaking the surface of deep water, unexpected, honest, and utterly unrestrained.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, the tightness in her chest eased.
And she laughed again.
Vaelira brought a gloved hand to her face, wiping at the corner of her eye as the last of her laughter faded, replaced by a lingering smile and the faintest shimmer of mist across her lashes.
She looked at Lucien, head tilted, expression halfway between amusement and disbelief.
“After all this time,” she said, voice warm but dry, “that was the first question you could come up with?”
Lucien blinked, still standing there with his hand halfway in the air, red creeping up his cheeks like fire licking at his collar.
“What? It was a good question!”
Vaelira snorted, shaking her head, the laughter not quite leaving her expression.
“Oh, absolutely. Very insightful. 'The weather’s quite chilly, no?'” she mimicked in a mock-serious tone, tilting her chin up as though delivering royal commentary on cloud formations.
Lucien made a sound of mock offense, arms crossing loosely over his chest.
“Alright, then, Lady Atherveil. What would you have said, hmm?”
She smirked.
“Something like…” she paused, as if genuinely considering it, then looked him straight in the eye.
“I don’t know, ‘how have you been?’ maybe?”
Lucien broke into a grin, ducking his head with a low, embarrassed laugh that shook his shoulders.
“Ah… yeah. Yeah, that… that’s a much better question.”
Vaelira rolled her eyes fondly, watching him through lashes still damp with tears.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The moonlight settled between them like a fragile ribbon of silver and soft.
