I See You (Part 2)

If there was one thing Pyrondia loved, it was the King’s Week. Once a year, right after summer ended, the king had a week where he could instate any sort of celebration he liked. One year, it was a food festival every day. A pie festival, a pastry festival, a cheese festival. That was my favorite year to date. This year, King Jeanson announced a week of masquerade balls. And now, he’s trying to give me the week off. Well, the nights at least.

“Your Majesty, I just joined the Inner Guard,” I protest.

“I’m your king, Lila, I can give you leave.” He doesn’t even look up from his papers.

“But sire-”

“Officer Laerson, it wasn’t a question.”

I clamp my mouth shut.

“You’re young, and you can work during the days, but the nights will be for the balls.” The king flicks his hand at me. “Your father is worried you’re overworking yourself.”

“My father!” I practically screech, indignant that my father had the nerve to stick his nose into my career.

King Jeanson sighs and peers over the top of his spectacles at me as I turn on my heels to leave. “A burned out guard never became captain, Lila.”

I keep my huffed sign quiet, but the king’s chuckle follows me out to the hall, where it meshes with Malakai’s, who was leaning against the wall waiting for me to step out. I flash him a "not now" look, as if that would stop him. He's never found my glares to be particularly intimidating. Malakai falls into stride next to me easily, his dark blue coat the epitome of perfection like it is every day. Like he is every day. I train my eyes in front of me and not on the one, immaculate hair that falls onto his forehead, or his clasped hands, or the grin on his face that is begging for me to join in on the fun.

“Not a word,” I say.

He holds his hands up. “I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

“Liar.”

“You wound me, darling.”

I stop at the top of the stairs that lead from the second floor of the palace down to the first, where my quarters are, and glare at him. “He put me on leave for a week.”

“He wants you to have fun.”

“But-”

Malakai places one hand on my forearm, and I flinch instinctively. “This could be interesting, Lila. Just take a break, for once.”

No wonder the king was putting me on leave. I’m an absolute blithering idiot. “Whatever.”

I start down the stairs and he snickers behind me. “Have fun picking out a dress!”

A dress. Lovely, just lovely. I own maybe three dresses, all of them just regular dinner dresses. Nothing to the level of a masquerade ball dress. I cross the main room of the first floor to the hall where the Inner Guard stays and push open my door. Unsurprisingly, Unika is sitting on my bed instead of hers, tossing her knife in the air carelessly. She’s never been good at sitting still, always wound far to tight. We met when I was in the guard’s academy and she was training for the army. I convinced her to join the guard instead and she pushed me to study medicine the way I wanted to. And now, four years later, here we are, sharing a room.

“He made me take leave,” I inform her as I shed the leather plates and metal armor onto the floor, letting down my dark hair from it’s braid.

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

Unika sits upright, and I glare at her until she takes her feet off of my bed. “Till when?”

“The end of the King’s Week,” I say. “You do realize you have your own bed, right?”

“Yours is more comfortable.”

“They’re standard issue.”

My friend ignores me, examining one long dark braid of the dozens on her head with intense scrutiny. “What are you going to wear?”

I plop down next to her, my weight rocking the wooden frame slightly. “I have no idea.”

Unika props her head up on her elbow, a wicked grin on her face. For the last four years it has always been like this. Me at a loss, her with countless ideas. Me rushing headfirst at something, her making a strategy. Except when it comes to Malakai. Unika’s best idea there, is for me to confess whatever jumble of feelings decides to pop into my head when I see him. Ridiculous.

“My mother is a dressmaker,” she says.

I raise one eyebrow. “Yes, and?”

“She can make you a dress, idiot.”

“This close to King’s Week?” I sit up, crossing my legs underneath me. “Would she really?”

“We can go now.”

The note of excitement in her voice reminds me that Unika hasn’t seen her mother in weeks. “Let’s go.”

***

"I look like an idiot.” I mutter as Unika pulls my corset strings tight.

“You look gorgeous,” her mother says indignantly.

We’re in our quarters, two days later, with a dress made of more fabric than everything I own, getting ready for the Masquerade Ball. Unika’s deft hands have pulled all my dark hair on top of my head, leaving just a few pieces hanging out to curl and frame my face. She pins a white magnolia flower to my head, matching the white ones that her mother had sewn onto the bodice of my dress, from the chenille fabric that forms the one shouldered sleeve, down to my waist, trailing down onto the skirt, where the green and white embroidery spread out into vines down the light blue dress. Like a garden come to life. It was beautiful, but I looked so different in the mirror it made me nervous. I hated not recognizing myself.

“It’s perfect,” Unika agrees. “Malakai is going to-”

I stomp down on her foot with my white heels.

“Ow!”

A far off trumpet sounds, announcing the beginning of the ball. “Mask?” I hold out my hand and Unika plucks it up, still glaring.

My mask is the same white color as the flowers of my dress, the ribbons to tie it around my head the same green as the embroidered leaves and vines. Unika’s mother ties it around my face, settling it over my nose and eyes.

“You look nothing like yourself,” she clucks. “Like a princess.”

I head for the door, my throat dry. “Thank you.”

“Go find a prince!” Unika crows, tossing a slipper after me, and I duck out stifling my laugh.

The stairs to the ballroom, on the third floor of the palace, is lined with lamps flickering gold and people chatting quietly as they waited to be let inside. I pause at the foot of the staircase, staring up at the bustle of skirts and coats and shoes, and feel completely uncomfortable. I don’t belong here, in this dress, in these shoes, my sword too far away. I can’t even recognize myself. Will anyone else? Another trumpet sounds. The doors swing open and the people start hurrying inside, soft music floating out of the ballroom. A few people push me aside as they try to get up the stairs quickly, excited for the dance. I stay still, feet frozen. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m scared to see him. Scared he’ll recognize me. Scared he won’t.

“Are you planning on standing there all night, m’lady?” a smooth voice says next to me, and I practically jump out of my dress.

Of course he’d show up right as I’m thinking about him. The Prince is wearing a white suit, embroidered in navy thread and glittering under the candlelight as if someone had doused it in fairy dust. His hair falls over his mask, which matches the deep blue of the embroidery, and everything about him looks more casual. Less royal, more whimsical. But I’d recognize him anywhere.

“I was simply waiting for the perfect escort up,” I chirp, and the flirtatious words sound wrong coming out of my mouth. What if he recognizes me?

He extends his arm, and the action looks too casual, too familiar. “Well? Do I fit the task?”

I take it and laugh a little. “I don’t even know you.”

A lie. A test. Does he know who I am?

Malakai cocks his head, and the rest of the world falls silent as he speaks. “But wouldn’t it be fun to learn?”

He doesn’t. I feel my chest loosen a little. Malakai doesn’t recognize me. For some reason, that makes this feel easier, makes it feel less real. Tonight, I’m nothing but a pretty girl in a fancy dress holding the arm of a prince who thinks I don’t know who he is, or that I am completely, utterly, pathetically in love with him. But maybe he's right.

This could be fun.

***

Like most things the king did, the ball is beautiful and perfectly detailed. Gold vines of silk and satin hang from the roof, forming a canopy of shimmering fabric over the dance floor. An orchestra is dressed in shades of silver and bronze, and the food smells like heaven, so good it turns my attention from the perfect prince next to me. He catches me looking, and my expression must be wistful, even with a mask on, because he laughs and leads us in that direction.

“Where are you going?” I stammer, stopping.

“To eat? You look hungry,” he says.

I see a few people lifting their masks to eat, and panic. “No, no, I’m not.”’

My stomach growls, objecting, and Malakai cocks his head. “You’re not?”

“Nope, not at all.” I lift my skirts and start back towards the dancefloor. “Why don’t we dance?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s my job to ask you that.”

He comes up behind me, taking one hand in his gloved one and pulling my waist closer to him with the other as we step into the dancing fray. His eyes are warm through the mask, and there’s a smile I haven’t seen before on his face. Soft, maybe even a little hesitant. I swallow and look over his shoulder at the other dancers. They glide perfectly, and it isn’t long before we’ve joined them in the intricate steps. The music is soft, and we move sideways, backwards and forwards in a way that is so familiar it hurts.

“You dance well,” he murmurs, low enough that it’s private but I can still hear him over the music.

“Oh, thank you I-” I cut myself off. “I learned from my mother.”

That’s not exactly true. My mother doesn’t love to dance, but she and my father taught me to sword fight, and it’s almost like dancing. I learned to dance from him, maybe a few months ago. He found out I never learned, and decided he needed to fix that. We spent two days holed up in his room practicing steps and laughing as I stepped on his toes. It was one of my favorite memories, and it had been absolutely agonizing.

A lot like right now.

With his hand pressed against my back and his fingers holding mine in the air as we turn in time with the music, with his face half-covered and without my sword at my hip to remind me that I need to guard him, I can honestly pretend that we are nothing more than a girl and a boy. I can pretend that my falling in love with him would not be the worst thing he had ever heard. He twirls me a few feet away before drawing me back in, and the feeling of how we fit into each other knocks the wind from my lungs. I can’t do this. The music ends softly, and he lowers his head to speak to me again.

“Another?”

I can’t do this. But I also can’t bring myself to stop.