No. The darker half of me obliterated my pleasant thoughts. He thinks I am weak, and he likes it. He likes being stronger than me.
We twirled around and around. I fought a dizzying rush, not only from the dance but the prying emotions of the nobles and their needling curiosity at seeing the sovereign Auraseer dance—and with the emperor. I battled their energy and tried to push them away, and then the writhing darkness did it for me. Like a billowing cloud of smoke, it overcame them. And as it dissipated, their auras were replaced in my mind with images of poison, sharpened knives, the knot of a noose, pooling blood.
Think, Sonya, think. The darkness couldn’t wholly be me.
I looked past the swirl of jewel-tone dresses to Floquart. He leaned on one elbow in the careless Esten way that wasn’t careless at all. His eyes were fast on me. I was a threat to him, though I didn’t know why.
Valko glided me around once more and pulled my gaze until it fell on Anton, who conversed with the most pompously dressed woman in the room. One bell tolled the quarter hour. Fifteen minutes until midnight. I imagined the prince’s boot tapping with impatience.
The emperor and I circled near Count Nicolai Rostav and his noblemen friends. The count’s lips were only slightly curved, as if his smile had faltered when he heard the bell. His panic reared up and beat again like a trapped butterfly inside my chest.
I searched for Yuri as I spun three more revolutions, but the guard was gone—as well as Pia. Had they sneaked another moment away together? Would Yuri leave her in time to join Anton, or did each man in the prince’s league intend to act his part alone?
Once more, I wondered where the Esten Auraseer was. Perhaps she had slipped back inside the ballroom through the orchestra door. But I couldn’t find her among the group of Estens gathered near the dais or with the servants on the outer edges of the room.
Valko and I spun again. My knees buckled at the sight of a new man. He wore an ill-fitting kaftan of brown silk, surely not his own. And, unlike the Riaznian nobles, this man sported a trimmed beard despite the emperor’s decree. Feliks was here. Feliks, the commoner. The man from the city. The man Anton had passed the reins of his troika to upon our arrival—and his secret letter.
How had Feliks gained entrance to the ball?
“Are you all right?” Valko asked, catching me upright again.
“Yes.” My breathless voice, however, revealed I was not. “But I suppose I’m not as clever a student at dancing as I’d hoped to be. Even with a master for a teacher.”
He held me closer and twirled me around with more tenderness, more vigor. Nicolai’s panic, which had stuck inside me, grew stronger. Nausea gripped my stomach—my own ailment for not eating all day.
It took me a moment to locate Feliks again. He’d moved closer to the doors. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the ballroom, especially the quadrants containing Anton and Nicolai. At last, with a flex of his fists, he turned on his heel and abruptly left.
At that moment, Nicolai yawned. He gave a short bow to his friends, ambled around the edge of the room, and exited after Feliks.
It was happening. Whatever plan they were enacting, it was happening right now. And they were doing it together. Yuri had already left; he’d never reentered after disappearing a second time with Pia.
My heart thrummed with anticipation. I looked past Valko’s shoulder to Anton. I tensed as I waited for him to follow the others. In brief flickers, I watched him as I spun around in the waltz, finding careful moments to glance away from the emperor. A long minute passed in which the prince continued conversing with the pompous lady.
Leave, I silently pleaded with Anton as I revolved again. I needed to be right about this. I needed Anton to realize how clever I was and think me capable of joining his league. I would join him, that I knew. His cause had to be noble. I would believe nothing less of him. Perhaps it could be the means of giving him the glory his birthright could not.
When I thought I might burst, when I entertained a maddening thought of grabbing the prince’s hand and yanking him from the room myself, he finished speaking to the woman. In another three flashes of my vision, their conversation ended naturally. She gave the last word, curtsied, and initiated the farewell. After Anton parted from the woman, I studied him through a new series of stolen glances. He stopped at a banquet table, took a sip of aqua vitae—adding to the illusion he was in no rush at all. And then—at last—he walked out of the room.
My mouth went dry. My legs shook violently. The dizzying turns of the waltz seized me. I dug my hand into Valko’s shoulder. I would not faint. Not now.