Engaged

I press beyond the billowing chiffon curtains of the ballroom to seek refuge in the gardens. The further I go, the calmer I feel. I look in every direction but behind me, wanting to distance myself as much as possible from the party- my engagement party- and it’s sybaritic attendees. I look up to the familiar sight of moonlight echoed a thousandfold in the stars; I look left and right to the straight-edged hedges, glossy with pale starlight; I look ahead as I finally reach my refuge, the gilded fountain. I glance once behind me to make sure I wasn’t followed, and reach into the hidden pocket of my gown to retrieve my new silver lighter. I play with the switch, relishing the satisfying click and the flickering little green flame it generates. The emerald hue is produced courtesy of boric acid mixed into the accelerant.

It’s my favorite engagement gift, even though I don’t smoke. When I said as much, the socialite who gifted it to me laughed. “Give it a year, honey.” I pressed my lips together in an approximation of a smile to prevent the words in my head spilling out of my mouth unbidden. Living this life feels like being burned alive from the inside out. I wake up and go to sleep choked by the dark smoke of my family’s legacy. I don’t need cigarettes. I need an escape.

I sit on the marble edge and absently trace the swirling lines of pearls evenly stitched in the midnight expanse of my gown. My seamstress had murmured something about pearls being bad luck for an engagement party, but my mother insisted. She wanted my dress to look like a starry evening. My fingers find one star in particular to worry at until it pops out of the satin midnight. My hand closes around it. The smooth pearl in my fist and the gentle bubbling of the water help me almost forget that every elegant stitch of my indigo dress runs black with death and red with blood.

My inheritance is steel and flame and the blood-soaked fortune of my father, a weapon maker. Every honeyed dish I lift to my lips is financed by destruction, and each resplendent gown I drape across my shoulders is paid for with slaughter. I open my eyes, hoping to rid myself of the darkness in my bones.

I peer into the dark water and begin to roll the pearl between my fingers. I used to pretend the fountain was a giant scrying glass, and would toss tiny pebbles into the water alongside whispered prayers to my imagined patron goddess. I dreamed that one day she would rise up from the depths of the fountain and take me away from the gilded halls and polished floors and silken dresses. In my dreams, she’d bring me to a little cottage in the forest where the foliage was so thick the sunlight shone green like through stained glass. I had learned to bake bread: rich, hearty loaves with dried fruits and slivers of nuts and swirls of cinnamon and nutmeg. My baking amused my mother, unlike my attempts at riding bareback or weaving baskets from the ornamental grasses I plucked from the gardens. I try to smile to myself, but as sweet as the memories are, I am ten times more bitter. I am too young to feel so defeated. I used to wish for wilderness and freedom, but I have aged and now I find myself wishing for the day I am nothing more than ash, left behind to drift in the wind.

My train of thought is interrupted by a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I drop my pearl into the water. As I watch it sink to the depths, his voice envelops me. Smooth as gold and sweet as sin. “You’ve been avoiding me all night.”

I try and fail to swallow a rising tide of panic, turning to face the cold and inscrutable gaze of my betrothed. He is also the heir to a contemptible legacy of violence: the scion of a feared and respected military politician. His bloodstained rhetoric is a perfect complement to my family’s weapon-making fortune, and so we are to be grafted together so that the roots of war can sink ever deeper into the soil of humanity.

I draw in a deep breath, and try not to sneer on the exhale. "What is it you want?" Despite the tide of adrenaline rising within me, I am pleased to hear the words that leave me are laced with my trademark malevolence. It took months of practice to refine my unsympathetic tone, and years more to learn how to add a touch of ferocity. Fitting for a warmongerer’s daughter. Depthless, dissatisfied eyes search my countenance. He offers no reply, only his body pressing against mine as he ushers me back inside, past the white shroud of chiffon curtains, now hanging still. He presses me further still, until we are at the center of the dance floor.

"You know I’m not a dancer." I whisper through teeth bared in my winningest smile. His hand envelops mine, gentle and persistent. The musicians begin to play a Viennese waltz, and I catch the rhythm. I count in my head and try to keep up. My smile fades as I begin to focus. My mind may wander, but my body remembers the familiar rhythm as he sends me away and draws me back in a spin. As I come back to him, he presses his lips to my ear, and whispers darkly. "You seem to be keeping up alright." His voice, gentle and smooth, hums in my ear along with the instrumental music.

"What do you want?" I demand impatiently. He stares through me. I stare back, unwilling to look away until I have an answer. "You know what I want, Alice."

Unbidden, the memory of his fingers digging into my flesh returns. Our families were visiting again, and my mother charged me with showing him the grounds. “I’m sure you don’t want to talk with us old folk, dears.” She was right. Even so, he was not the most enthralling specimen of youth. He was handsome in an aristocratic way, but reticent and reserved. Bored with his stolidness, I led him to my fountain. As I gazed into the placid water, I imagined aloud that we could wash the bloody sins of our fathers from our own legacies. He had grabbed hold of me in an icy grip. It was there he told me with the cold assuredness of a blade slipping through flesh that we belonged to our inheritances as much as they belonged to us. He dropped to one knee, and spoke. “I am war and you are death. We were made for each other.” He opened a little velvet box and showed me a giant diamond ring, decorated with the bloody gleam of tiny rubies. It was there he told me we would be married, and at that moment, I had become aware that the flames of my future were beginning to engulf me.

Another spin shakes me out of the memory. I adopt an apathetic sneer, and depthless, dissatisfied eyes meet mine again. The song ends on a flurry of high notes, but as the other couples release each other, he pulls me closer. His voice buzzes against the side of my face. "And you know only death will stop me." He lets me go, and my mind wanders in circles. I make a beeline for the gardens again, but a midnight breeze has taken up the curtains again. I am caged. Guests drift by me, and their congratulations echo the arid plains of my heart. My thoughts, once frozen and silent, are now thawing as the heat of my rage creeps higher. I wonder if he remembers that day. I wonder if he remembers calling me death.

Soft lights make the rich surroundings glow. My hands wander my gown and I grasp the smooth metal lighter in my pocket. Resigned to my fate, I imagine the flames of my future making the ballroom glow impossibly bright. I feel content, if only for one moment, in my own grim element. Cold, depthless eyes are the only ones that watch me. As I hold a steady green light to a billowing curtain, I revel in the white hot relief of becoming ash drifting in the wind.