Outside, Inside
The ballroom had been transformed into a lush, green, impossible affair. The stone walls and the stained-glass windows Sorrow admired had all vanished behind a curtain of fragrant ferns and leaves. Above their heads a tangled network of vines masked the ceiling and wound around and through the buttresses, playing home to brightly coloured birds that darted like tiny comets between the foliage. The flagstone floor had been covered by soft, springy moss, and many of the guests were taking advantage of it, moving barefoot through the room, shoes dangling from fingers, or left somewhere for later.
Over a hundred oil lamps hung suspended from the roof, lighting the room, though much of the outskirts were in shadow, and Sorrow could see people moving there, silhouetted against the living walls. And as she and Luvian moved into the space, she saw tiny green lights glowing in between the leaves. Starflies, she realized. Rasmus had once told her he kept some in a ventilated jar by his bed at night as a child, catching them at sunset and releasing them the following morning, falling asleep to their dancing.
The entire hall was a natural grotto; even the tables and chairs had been replaced by large tree trunks and stumps, some with screens of grass partially around them, allowing for privacy. Beneath the delicate sound of a Rhannish pipe and violin playing softly, Sorrow imagined she could hear the burbling of water, a pool or a waterfall right there inside the room.
It was stunning; even in her numb, lost state Sorrow could see that. But though she knew it, objectively, to be wondrous, she felt nothing. No joy or marvelling at this unexpected, magical transformation. Not even the sight of the starflies that she’d long coveted was enough to pierce the shell that had formed around her after Charon’s confession.
Unlike Luvian, who’d pulled her to the walls to run long fingers through the fronds, shaking his head, his smile childlike and wide, as the Starflies danced around his hands.
“This must have been Vespus,” he murmured to Sorrow, snagging them both a drink from a passing waiter. “He must have used his ability to do this. I know we said it was pretty useless, but we might have been wrong. This is amazing.”
Sorrow took the glass he offered and drained it in one.
“Steady,” Luvian said, though he took the empty one from her and gave her his. “What do you want to do? Circle around, say hello? Find Irris and Charon? Sit and eat, and then go chatting? Or we could dance?” He gestured to where the Duke of Meridea and his consort were already moving gently to the music.
“Sit,” Sorrow said. Definitely no Charon. And she didn’t know what she was going to say to Irris – Irris knew her too well to believe a headache could be behind Sorrow’s expression. Despite the make-up, she looked as though she hadn’t slept for days. Sorrow wondered how Charon had explained their fight, and also whether he’d told Irris to leave her alone, and that was why she hadn’t come to get ready with her.
Luvian took Sorrow’s elbow, guiding her to one of the tables partly shielded by a wall of tall grass. He sat beside her on the log, watching as she drained the second glass.
“Sorrow, unlike our fine Rhyllian friends I’m not gifted with either an ability, or the skill of mind reading, so you’re going to have to spit it out,” he said. “Something’s wrong. Don’t lie. Tell me.”
“I’m fine. I told you already, it’s a headache.”
“Still? Can’t you take something? What if I find Rasmus; he can heal, right?”
“No,” Sorrow barked. “Just … forget it, Luvian. I’ll be fine. As soon as you stop coddling me.”
His mouth pursed, his brows drew into a frown as he looked at her, before giving a carefully uncaring shrug.
“I’ll leave you in peace,” he said stiffly, and rose, striding out towards where Fain Darcia was standing with a circle of Rhyllians. Sorrow watched as they made room for Luvian, as he slotted easily into the group, and the conversation. Fain Darcia leant towards him and spoke, and Luvian gestured to her. Sorrow looked away.
A waiter passed and she took another drink, cupping it in both hands. She scanned the room for Charon, wondering if he’d managed to navigate it in his chair. Thoughtless of Vespus, really, she realized, to create an environment the Rhannish vice chancellor couldn’t manoeuvre with ease. Knowing Vespus, it was deliberate.
Lord Vespus was standing beside his half-sister and Prince Caspar, hands behind his back, seemingly enjoying a conversation with them. Prince Caspar held Aralie in a sling across his chest, leaving his hands free to gesture as he told his wife and Vespus some story. There was no sign of any tension between them, and Sorrow wondered what the red-haired baron, Harcel, might have said about his seeming lack of favour, if they hadn’t been interrupted.
“Hello.” She turned to see Mael peering around the side of the screen. “May I join you?”
Sorrow shrugged, and Mael sat where Luvian had before.
“I saw your advisor go over there, and Arta is at the buffet, so I thought I’d come and see how you were before someone insists we don’t talk.”
“I’m fine,” Sorrow said without looking at him.
“Isn’t this brilliant?” Mael continued. “Lord Vespus did it, as a Naming gift for Aralie.”
“It’s not so brilliant for Lord Day. He’s in a wheeled chair. I can’t imagine the ground is easy for him to travel.”
“Oh, no, the plants withdraw when he moves, look.” Mael pointed to where Charon had steered into view, Irris beside him. As Sorrow watched, the moss seemed to part in the path of his chair, allowing him to pass.
He turned to see Sorrow and Mael sitting together, and frowned, but Sorrow returned his gaze levelly, giving nothing away, until he gripped his wheels and moved deeper into the room. Irris looked between them both, and raised questioning brows. So Charon hadn’t explained their fight, then.
For a moment Sorrow wanted nothing more than to cross the room and pull Irris aside. Irris loved Sorrow enough to tell her the truth; Irris always cut to the heart of an issue like a knife through butter. Irris pulled no punches, never balked, never quavered. Irris would soothe her, rally her, as she always did.
But what could Sorrow say to her? Irris couldn’t know the truth; Charon had been explicit in that. And Sorrow didn’t think she could lie to Irris’s face. So she shrugged, and saw hurt flicker over Irris’s face. Her mood darkening further as her friend hurried after Charon, she tuned back in to what Mael was saying.
“… so Lord Vespus instructed them to do it,” Mael said, and as Sorrow watched the moss moved seamlessly back into place in Charon’s wake.
“How very good of him.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
Sorrow’s tone was bored as she replied, “What on Laethea gave you that impression?”
“And you hate me too,” Mael said suddenly.
Sorrow turned to him. “No,” she said honestly. “I don’t hate you.”
She had, for a while. Well, she’d hated the brother who’d died, and was therefore always perfect in her father’s eyes. And she’d hated the boy at the bridge, and the boy who’d stood beside Harun the night he’d died. She didn’t hate this boy. Whoever – whatever – he was.
But he couldn’t know that.
“It’s all right,” Mael continued, when Sorrow remained silent. “I understand. What you went through, growing up, because of me. What you’re going through now, again, on my account. I’d probably hate me too. It wasn’t my idea, you know, to run against you.”
“Then why are you?” She was truly curious. If what he was saying was true, then he did it knowing it would make her feel bad towards him, and yet he persisted in trying to befriend her. It made no sense.
“Because it’s my responsibility to,” he said simply. “I wasn’t lying when we first met and I said I wasn’t interested in being the chancellor. I truly wasn’t. I thought I’d come home, and Father would get better, and start to fix Rhannon. Lincel had told us what life in Rhannon was like, and I believed if I came back, things would change. Because it was my fault, in a way. Me being gone was what started it all.”
He paused, as if waiting for her to deny it, but Sorrow didn’t reply, her eyes fixed on the far end of the hall.
Mael sighed, then continued. “But he died. He didn’t have a chance to fix anything. So the task of healing Rhannon is my responsibility. It’s on me. I caused it, I have to mend it. I have to run against you, to prove to the people that I know that. If they don’t choose me, so be it. But how could I ever face them if I didn’t stand up and say to them I’d at least try to make things better, after they suffered so much for me?”
She believed him. Quite simply, and quite suddenly, she believed him. She’d never had a chance to hear his presentation in Prekara. She’d assumed he was saying the things she’d written in her manifesto, about wanting to heal the country, and its people, because he thought it’s what might help him win. But he meant it; every single word was drenched in sincerity. He had the same light behind his eyes that Luvian got when he was urging her to do something. That look of total and utter dedication, come what may. He really wanted to fix things. He really thought he could.
“How could I face you, too?” he continued. “You suffered, perhaps most of all. I hate that. You’re my little sister.”
She couldn’t help the harsh bark of laughter that escaped her.
The light in his gaze dimmed, and he swallowed. “I hope, when this is over, no matter how it ends, we can move past it. I won’t hate you if you win. I’m doing this because I think it’s right.” He rose and looked down at her. “And I won’t give up trying to make you like me. Or caring about you. We’re all the family each other has, and that means something to me.”
He walked away, only the barest slump to his shoulders.
She envied him. He truly believed he was Mael Ventaxis, not a shred of doubt in his mind. She realized then that she’d inadvertently done to herself what she’d hoped to do to him. In trying to prove he didn’t deserve a place in her life, she’d destroyed herself. It didn’t matter now, whether he was or wasn’t Mael Ventaxis. Because she wasn’t Sorrow Ventaxis.
As she watched him go, she caught Luvian’s eye, head tilted in inquiry. She nodded to say she was all right, though it was far from the truth.
She could see Luvian making his excuses to the group, planning to return to her, and she didn’t want it. Didn’t feel she could take him being light, and droll, and making clever comments. She didn’t have enough in her to laugh at them. No, Luvian wasn’t what she needed.
Sorrow rose swiftly and moved behind the tall grass, pausing to put her glass down before moving deeper into the room, taking advantage of the low lighting.
Across the room Mael had joined the Duke of Meridea and another man, who Sorrow assumed from his floor-length coat and the gold tattoo across his forehead was the ambassador of Nyrssea. She stood behind a palm and watched as they talked, Mael as at ease with them as Luvian had been with his crowd.
And she knew that this time last night, she could have been the same. Could have joined a group with confidence, because she belonged there. Belonged in this room of dukes and queens and ambassadors and politicians. Was their equal. But now she knew the truth. She was a cuckoo in the nest.
That was why she’d thought she’d recognized Mael, she realized, all those weeks ago. It was like calling to like. Imposter to imposter. Fool to fool. Two silly children who thought they knew what they were because they’d been told it. And now here they both were, fighting for a seat neither had the right to hold, both the puppets of people who’d decided their fates for them, whether for good or ill.
Mael and the Nyrssean clasped forearms, beaming at each other, before Mael left them, crossing the indoor woodland to where Lord Vespus still stood beside his sister, bowing before the queen, who welcomed him with a large smile. As Sorrow watched, she turned from Vespus, drawing Mael with her, Caspar following them, and a dark look crossed Vespus’s handsome face, his hand rising to smooth his hair back behind a pointed ear before he strode away, to where Aphora stood feeding one of the ruby-and-emerald birds with crumbs from her palm.
Despite everything else that was happening, her curiosity was piqued. Why was Vespus out of favour with Melisia? Was it a new development, or an older resentment?
Sorrow looked for the baron, only to see him standing with Eirlys and Rasmus in the far corner of the room. Both Rasmus and the princess were dressed in metallic finery; Princess Eirlys in a gown of gold and Rasmus in a frock coat of silver, over midnight-blue trousers.
As though he felt her gaze, he turned, his violet eyes meeting her dark ones across the room. Sorrow looked away first.
Heart sore and alone, she left her post in the shadows and moved towards where a buffet was being served by Rhyllian chefs and began to fill a plate, noting with little interest that florals and botanicals were the theme of the meal. Cream soups in tiny glass tureens topped with purple and yellow blossoms. Salads made from a mixture of leaves and blooms, breads with herbs and seeds baked through. Slices of rare beef with rosehip sauce, minced lamb and rosemary wrapped in vine leaves. And the desserts … lavender and lemon cakes, rose and pistachio pudding, geranium ices melting in pools of liquid hot chocolate…
She took her plate and retreated again, trying a little of this and that, finishing the lot without meaning to. She hadn’t known she was hungry. Rhyllian food seemed to do that to her.
It was as she licked the last of the lavender syrup from her fingers that she became aware of eyes on her, and knew before she looked up that it was Rasmus.
He was alone, leaning against the wall, the leaves behind him curling around his body, as though they knew him. Her heart gave a thump, and she stilled with the instinct of something knowing it was being hunted. Slowly, she rose, leaving her plate, skirting around the table and moving towards the back of the room, her pulse speeding as she did.
Rasmus followed.