Her eyes flashed alarmingly black for an instant, and it wasn’t a trick of the light. “Of course I could never understand. I’m a savage, rustic idiot, after all.” Her tone was raw and harsh. “It’s for the best—my genetics are a bad match for just about anyone, anyway.”
“Qole…” She’d never looked down on her family or her history before. For a rare moment, I was at a loss for words. What had happened? Where did I go from here? All I knew was that I somehow had to hold on to her, not let her go.
The music chose that inopportune moment to fade to a lingering end, and Qole pulled away to bow curtly. She should have curtsied, but I wasn’t about to correct her.
Someone snickered, though, and I remembered we weren’t alone. We were surrounded, in fact.
“Your Highness, thank you for the dance.” She turned and attempted to walk away into the crowd.
Unfortunately for her, the crowd parted, letting her pass, and I realized that everyone around us was staring. Which meant the entire ballroom was staring. We were officially no longer being either surreptitious or unnoticed in our interaction.
“Oh, systems. Don’t pay it any attention, Ketrana. My brother always did like to play in the mud, and I suppose he hasn’t grown out of it.”
Solara’s voice, as pleasant as always, rang like the last clear note of the music across the ballroom from where she was standing next to Ket. Snide laughter followed it. A white-hot blade of fury sliced through me. Qole stumbled, almost flying into a group of people who backed away from her. Clutching at the skirt of her dress, she disappeared through the doors without another glance.
I strode after her, appearances be damned. I would make this right, and if it caused some gossip, so be it. I wasn’t going to let Qole suffer another major embarrassment in my home by my hand—or Solara’s.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” The deep tones of Father’s voice carried through the sound system and across the ballroom. “Please gather for the dance of the betrothed, as we celebrate the upcoming marriage of my eldest son, Prince Nevarian Thelarus Axandar Rubion Dracorte, to Princess Ketrana Akensia Sirine Gwenara Dracorte.”
My steps faltered, then died. I could dodge decorum on many things, but not this. I couldn’t flout my father’s wishes publicly. I had a duty. It almost felt heavier than I could shoulder, yet I couldn’t set it down.
Somehow, this seemed worse than all the dangers Qole and I had survived together. I had to abandon her to whatever she was feeling and dance with a fiancée I could not stand, never mind how I felt about any of it. How I felt about Qole.
I turned and walked back to the royal dais.
For a blinding minute, I hated everything about Nevarian Dracorte and his arrogant, revolting royal family. I wished they would all get sucked into a black hole so I would never have to see them again. A black hole, I thought with a bitter laugh that came out like a sob, had to be powerful enough to take care of even a Dracorte.
Without seeing, and walking as fast as I could in my blasted heels, I brushed by people in suits and gowns and even more ridiculous outfits I didn’t know the names for—some that were barely there—before I turned a corner and found myself in dimmer, less populated hallways of white stone shot with silver. Dark blue carpets ran the stretching lengths, and ornate alloy wall sconces emitted faint, frosty glows. I only paused long enough to wipe my eyes—idiot tears from an idiot captain over an idiot prince—before I continued moving, my arms hugging my half-revealed stomach through the whispery, twisting fabrics of my dress. The citadel was more than warm enough, but all the mocking eyes on me had raised my flesh like a chill. Made me feel naked.
How did Nev stand it? So many people watching him all the time…No, I told myself firmly, you are not going to feel sorry for him. Besides, he seemed to thrive under all the attention. I, on the other hand, withered and shrank, seeming to lose more of myself every minute.
…I had to get out of here.
I turned another corner so quickly that my ankle buckled in one of my heels and pitched me against the nearest wall…and almost into a white statue that looked suspiciously like Nev. No one was around to raise a too-sleek eyebrow at the biting curse that ricocheted around the high, narrower hall. For once, I was alone.
Sagging against the cool, smooth stone, I slid down until I hit the floor, not caring an atom’s worth that this was an inappropriate way for me to be sitting in this gown…or to be sitting at all. I cared so little, in fact, that I twitched aside the black, purple, and white folds of the skirt, baring nearly the length of my legs, to get at the buckles of my damned heels.
Once the shoes were free of my feet—or vice versa—and dangling in one hand by their long straps, I stood, shoved away from the statue of maybe-Nev, and set off down the hall again. Part of me wanted to drop the heels, but then another absurd part of me thought Solara might want them back, never mind that she probably had five hundred pairs. And that they might not even be in her size.
I crushed what felt like light-years of soft blue carpet under my bare feet. I wasn’t sure where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to head in the opposite direction of any invasive, mocking pairs of eyes, or any member of the Dracorte family. And if my march took me in the direction of my ship, and off this systems-damned planet, so much the better.
…Did I really mean that? In spite of Nev’s and my agreement, if that was all it had been, was I willing to abandon this place? Maybe, now that I’d seen the type of people who wanted to benefit from studying me. I’d almost believed, for a little while, that they were different from how they seemed. Nev had believed in his family’s goodness, rightness, after all…
But he obviously believed a lot of scat that no one but a reeking royal would swallow about the greater good, when all royals really cared about was themselves. Nev seemed blinded by the dazzle that he’d been raised with, and I almost couldn’t blame him. With all these vibrant colors, these masking perfumes, these luxurious textures and vast indoor palaces, I couldn’t even get my bearings. The ground underneath me still felt off-kilter, in spite of my feet being out of the heels.
No, I wouldn’t leave yet. But at the very least, I wanted to talk to my crew to regain some perspective. Even Eton’s belligerent arguments would be reassuring right now. The Kaitan was where I needed to be, a home away from home. There wasn’t any more Shadow on board, so I couldn’t sense that to find them, but somehow I’d reach my ship eventually.
Whipping around another corner, I skidded to a halt, as did my thoughts.