Cheers filled the Presence Chamber. Loth, Ead was pleased to see, clapped as hard as anyone else.
“Now,” Sabran said, “we think a dance is in order.” She motioned to the consort. “Come, play the Pavane of the Merrow King.”
This time, the applause was thunderous. Lintley murmured something to Margret, who smiled and placed a kiss on his cheek. As the dancers took their places, Loth stepped down from his seat and bowed to Ead.
“Viscountess,” he said, mock somber. “Would you do me the honor of a dance?”
“I shall, my lord.” Ead placed a hand over his, and he led her to the middle of the room. “How do you like the match?” she asked him, seeing him glance toward Margret.
“Very well. Lintley is a good man.”
The Pavane of the Merrow King was sedate at first. It began like the ocean on a tranquil day, becoming tumultuous as the music swelled. It was an intricate affair, but Ead and Loth were old hands at it.
“My parents will have heard the news by the time you reach Goldenbirch,” Loth said as they skipped with the other couples. “Mama will be even more vexed that I am not betrothed myself.”
“I think she will be too relieved that you are alive to care,” Ead said. “Besides, you may prefer never to wed.”
“As Earl of Goldenbirch, it would be expected of me. And I have always longed for companionship.” Loth looked down at her. “But what of you?”
“Me.” Ead glided to the right, and he followed. “Would I ever take a companion, you mean?”
“You cannot go home. Perhaps you could … make a life here. With someone.” His gaze was soft. “Unless you already have.”
Her chest tightened.
The dance separated them for a moment while they formed a whirlpool with the other pairs. When they reached each other again, Loth said, “Crest told me. I suppose she heard it from the Night Hawk.”
Saying it out loud would be dangerous. He knew that.
“I hope you did not keep it from me because you thought I would judge you,” Loth murmured. They both turned on the spot. “You are my dearest friend. I want you to be happy.”
“Even though it shames the Knight of Fellowship.” Ead raised her eyebrows. “We are not wed.”
“I would have believed that before,” he admitted. “Now I see that there are more important things.”
Ead smiled. “You really have changed.” They joined hands again as the pavane grew faster. “I did not want to burden you with worry for us both. You care too much.”
“It is my way,” he said, “but it would be a greater burden to know that my friend felt she could not open her heart to me.” He squeezed her hand. “I am here for you. Always.”
“And I for you,” Ead said. She hoped it could be true.
As the pavane came to its end, she wondered if they would ever lie carefree under the apple tree again, sharing wine and talking until dawn, after everything they had been through. Loth bowed to her, a smile creasing his eyes, and she curtsied back. Then she turned, intending to slip away to her chamber—only to find Sabran waiting.
Ead watched her as the floor cleared. So did the rest of the court.
“Play a candle dance,” Sabran said.
This time, there were gasps of delight from the courtiers. The queen had not danced in public once while Ead had lived at court. Loth had confided to her, long ago, that Sabran had stopped dancing the day her mother died.
Many courtiers would never have witnessed this dance, but some of the older servants, who must have seen Queen Rosarian partake, set about plucking candles from the chamber sticks. Soon the other servants followed suit. One candle was given to Sabran, another to Ead. Loth, who was close enough to be caught up in the affair, offered a hand to Katryen.
The consort of instruments struck up an aching tune, and Jillet Lidden began to sing. Three men joined their voices to hers.
Ead curtsied low to Sabran, who mirrored her. Even that small action made her candle flicker.
The circling began. They held the candles in their right hands, and their left hands were held back to back, not quite touching. Six rotations around each other, gazes locked, before they were summoned by the music to opposite sides of the line. Ead circled around Katryen before she returned to Sabran.
Her partner was a magnificent dancer. Every step was precise, yet sleek as velvet. All those years she never danced for her court, she must have trained herself alone. She sailed around Ead like the hand of a clock, drawn closer by the heartbeat, no step faster than the last. When Ead turned her head, their foreheads met, and their shoulders brushed, before they parted again. Ead lost her breath somewhere along the way.
Never had they been this close in public. The scent of her, the short-lived warmth, was a torture no one else could see. Ead circled around Loth before she reunited with Sabran, and her blood was as loud as the music, louder.
It went on for what felt like an eternity. She was lost in a dream of haunting voices, in the lilt of flute and harp and shawm, and in Sabran, half concealed by shadow.
She hardly noticed when the music ended. All she could hear was the drum in her chest. There was an enraptured silence before the court burst into applause. Sabran cupped a hand around her candle and blew it out.
“We will retire for the night.” A maid of honor took her candle. “I bid the rest of you to stay and enjoy the festivities. Good evening.”
“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the court answered, bowing and curtsying as their queen walked away. At the door to the Privy Chamber, Sabran looked over her shoulder at Ead.
That look was a call. Ead snuffed her candle and handed it to a servant.
Her corset felt tighter. A sweet ache blossomed in her belly. She stayed for a little while in the crowd, watching Loth and Margret dance a galliard, before she left the Presence Chamber. The Knights of the Body stood aside for her.
The Privy Chamber was dark and cold. Ead walked through it, remembering the music of the virginals, and opened the doors to the Great Bedchamber.
Sabran waited beside the fire. She wore nothing now but her stiff corset and shift.
“Make no mistake,” she said, “I am wroth with you.”
Ead stood on the threshold.
“I shared all my secrets with you, Ead.” Her voice was hardly there. “You saw me as the night does. As my truest self.” She paused. “It was you who drove away Fyredel.”
“Yes.”
Sabran closed her eyes.
“Nothing in my life was real. Even the attempts to take my life were staged, designed to influence and manipulate me. But you, Ead—I believed you were different. I called Combe a liar when he told me you were not what you appeared. Now I wonder if everything between us was part of your act. Your assignment.”
Ead searched for the right words.
“Answer me,” Sabran said, voice straining. “I am your queen.”
“You may be a queen, but you are not my queen. I am not your subject, Sabran.” Ead stepped inside and shut the doors. “And that is why you can be certain that what was between us was real.”
Sabran gazed into the fire.
“I showed you as much of myself as I could,” Ead told her. “Any more would have seen me executed.”
“Do you think me a tyrant?”
“I think you a self-righteous fool whose head is harder than a rock. And I would not change you for the world.”
Sabran finally looked at her.
“Tell me, Eadaz uq-Nāra,” she said softly, “am I a greater fool to want you still?”
Ead crossed the space between them. “No more a fool than I,” she said, “to love you as I do.”
She reached for Sabran, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear. Sabran gazed into her eyes.
They stood face to face, barely touching. At last, Sabran took Ead by the hands and placed them on her waist. Ead slid them to her front and set about unravelling her corset.
Sabran watched her. Ead wanted this to be another candle dance, to savor the long climb of their intimacy, but she needed her too much. Her fingers looped beneath the laces and pulled them through the hooks, one after another, and at last the corset opened and fell, leaving Sabran in her shift. Ead slid the silk from her shoulders and held her by her hips.
She stood naked in the shadows. Ead drank in her limbs, her hair, her eyes like foxfire.
The space between them disappeared. Now it was Sabran who did the unlacing. Ead closed her eyes and let herself be stripped.
They embraced like companions on the first night. When Sabran placed a kiss on her neck, just behind the shell of her ear, Ead let her head list to one side. Sabran glided her hands up her back.