Chapter 74: The Twilight Before The Crown (9)
Vaelira stared at his hand like it was something foreign.
Unfamiliar.
Dangerous, even.
For a second, she didn’t move.
The wind tugged at the edge of her dress.
The music from the ballroom floated out in fragmented phrases, graceful and poised, echoing off marble and polished gold.
Inside, dancers moved in practiced synchrony, spinning like clockwork under chandeliers.
Elegant.
Flawless.
Controlled.
And here she stood… in the dark… with her glove still half off and her heartbeat far too loud in her ears.
But Lucien didn’t push.
He didn’t shift or fidget or withdraw his hand.
He just waited.
As if he’d keep standing there all night, arm outstretched, if she needed him to.
Vaelira let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Then, slowly, almost cautiously, she placed her hand in his.
Her fingers curled into his palm.
“It’s cold,” she murmured, almost to herself.
Lucien grinned.
“Your glove’s half off.”
She didn’t smile, not yet.
But her lips twitched.
“…Do you even know how to dance?”
Lucien exhaled a laugh.
“Nope.”
Vaelira raised a brow.
“But,” he added, with a small shrug, “we’ll figure it out. Together.”
And that, somehow, was enough.
They took the first step in silence, hesitant, almost clumsy.
Her heel clipped the edge of his boot, and she murmured an apology.
His hand fumbled with hers, unsure where it was meant to rest.
Their rhythm wasn’t smooth.
Their posture was a little off.
And there was nothing graceful about the moment.
But something about it felt real.
Genuine.
Human.
The wind swept gently across the balcony, cold and clear, tugging at their clothes and hair like a mischievous child.
The stars blinked above them in a velvet sky, and the moon watched like a silent chaperone, its silver light casting their shadows long against the stone.
Inside the ballroom, the dancers spun in a perfect waltz.
Their movements were immaculate.
Their smiles painted.
Every gesture a performance.
But out here… there was no audience.
No script.
No mask.
Just two people fumbling through a dance neither of them had practiced, held together by laughter, shared glances, and the fragile thread of something unspoken.
“Left, no, wait, your left,” Lucien whispered, trying to guide her without stepping on her foot again.
Vaelira let out a small laugh, half frustration, half delight.
“You’re terrible at this.”
“And you’re no help,” he shot back, eyes gleaming.
She almost rolled her eyes, but there was warmth in her cheeks now.
A lightness in her chest that hadn’t been there earlier.
They moved slowly, swaying to the faint notes carried from the hall.
It was less a dance and more a shared rhythm, their steps aligning not with the music, but with each other.
They weren’t performing.
They were simply… being.
A gust of wind swept through the balcony, lifting Vaelira’s hair and fluttering the hem of Lucien’s coat.
The world felt wide and quiet, like time had slowed to watch them.
And in that suspended moment, where everything was imperfect yet strangely perfect, Vaelira let her head lean gently against his shoulder.
Lucien didn’t speak.
He only tightened his grip around her waist, just enough to keep her grounded, not enough to hold her down.
The music rose in a distant crescendo.
The light from the ballroom flickered through the balcony doors, warm and golden, but they remained in the cool silver hush of night.
Separate.
Still.
They weren’t part of the painted elegance inside.
But out here, in the moonlight, amidst the awkward steps and hesitant laughter, they had something else.
Something quieter.
Something honest.
And as they danced, badly, beautifully, beneath the stars, the world felt, for a fleeting moment, kind.
***
Their steps faltered, shifted, and then, strangely, began to settle.
It wasn’t that either of them had suddenly become a master dancer.
Far from it.
But their bodies had started to listen to each other.
A rhythm born not from training, but from proximity.
From trust.
From a long, winding history that twisted through shared secrets and silent understandings, even if they rarely named them.
Lucien exhaled through a quiet laugh, his gaze flitting between the distant ballroom light and the girl in his arms.
“I don’t mean to alarm you,” he murmured, “but I think we’ve discovered a completely new style of dancing.”
Vaelira’s brow lifted in mock offense.
“Is that your way of saying I’m bad at this?”
“No, no. I’m saying we’re bad at this.”
He tilted his head toward her.
“But I’d like to believe we’re bad together. There’s charm in that, right?”
Vaelira smirked and leaned conspiratorially.
“You know, I have been taught how to dance. Extensively.”
Lucien blinked.
“You what?”
“Years of training. Tutors. Rehearsals.”
She twirled her hand lazily in the air.
“I know the names of all the steps. The correct posture. The etiquette. I’ve even been told which expressions are the most ‘feminine’ to wear while dancing.”
“And yet-”
Lucien glanced down at their feet, barely missing a misstep, “-you’re doing none of that.”
“I think my toe is bleeding from you oh so graciously mistaking it for the floor.”
Vaelira looked up at him, eyes glinting with mischief.
“What can I say? I perform best with an audience.”
“Now that’s rich,” he scoffed, only for her to grin wider and, quite deliberately, step on his foot.
“Vaelira!” he gasped, jumping back half a step.
“That was intentional!”
“Whoops,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“You did say you didn’t want me to step on your foot. You didn’t say anything about me doing it twice.”
“I’m going to start leading this dance with steel-toed boots,” he muttered.
“Such gallantry,” she teased.
“So unlike the dashing gentlemen inside.”
“Well, the gentlemen inside haven’t been dragged through a jungle and blasted by winged stone lions lately.”
She chuckled at that, soft, warm, genuine.
“True. They wouldn’t last a second.”
They swayed again, slower now, the banter fading into something quieter.
Something that curled at the edges of their smiles and lingered in the spaces between their words.
The wind had gentled. It no longer clawed at them but instead moved around them like a shy observer.
The moon bathed the balcony in a soft, silver glow that turned Vaelira’s hair nearly white and cast Lucien’s features in shadow and light- boyish and tired, familiar and distant all at once.
Vaelira’s hands, once stiff with formality, relaxed as she stepped a little closer.
Her head dipped, brushing lightly against his chest, and after a moment’s hesitation, came to rest there fully.
Lucien stilled, startled.
Then, slowly, his arms tightened around her in return.
It wasn’t a possessive hold.
It wasn’t rehearsed, or meant for show.
It was just… there.
Real.
Protective.
The way someone held something precious, not because they wanted to claim it, but because it deserved to be safe.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
The muffled strains of the ballroom music drifted out again, but they were distant now.
The soft murmur of distant laughter and clinking glasses could have been a world away.
Out here, it was just the two of them.
Cloaked in moonlight.
Dancing to a song only they could hear.
Lucien’s voice, when it came, was quieter.
“I think this is the first time since the exam I’ve really stopped moving.”
Vaelira made a soft noise in acknowledgment, her breath brushing against his collar.
“I think this is the first time since the invitation I’ve really breathed.”
He tilted his head slightly, glancing down.
“You’ve always looked so… composed. Even back then. I thought maybe you liked these kinds of things.”
Vaelira gave a small, dry laugh.
“I hate these things.”
She pulled back just enough to look up at him, her eyes somber despite the humor in her tone.
“But I’m good at pretending I don’t.”
Lucien met her gaze.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“But sometimes… when the world expects a mask, you forget where your real face ends.”
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, his hand reached up, slowly, hesitantly, and brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek.
His touch was careful, like he thought she might vanish if he wasn’t gentle enough.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before,” he said softly.
“Like what?”
She asked.
Lucien thought for a moment.
“Like you.”
Vaelira’s breath caught.
There was no clever retort this time.
No teasing jab.
Just silence, and the weight of something unspoken sitting quietly between them.
The stars shimmered high above.
The wind wrapped them in its cold but strangely comforting embrace.
The music swelled faintly from the hall, structured and lovely in its own way… but out here, their imperfect dance continued.
Unchoreographed.
Messy.
Honest.
And far more beautiful.
For a while, they simply moved like that, awkward but content.
Not to impress.
Not to be seen.
But because, in that brief moment, they had each other.
Two pieces adrift in a world too vast and too cruel to ever fully understand.
Two hearts that had found a moment of rest in each other’s rhythm.
And neither of them said it, but both knew:
They wouldn’t forget this night.
Not the cold stone underfoot, not the stars overhead.
Not the laughter.
Not the silence.
Not the warmth of a hand held too tightly in the dark.
Not the feeling that, maybe, just maybe, they weren’t so alone after all.
