I
stood at the entrance to the Towers ready for battle, watching the skyline of the Capital glow with the faint,
failing light of dusk. I told myself that I wasn’t nervous, even though I knew it was a lie.
I was alone, for now. Max had left me a Stratagram to get to the Towers but told me he had some errands to run and would meet me here later. Just as well. It was easier for me to get ready alone. Maybe he understood that, though I don’t think he knew exactly what I was planning.
I turned and swept my eyes over the Towers’ dazzling splendor. They were lit up so brightly that they cut into the sky like two infinite columns of light, glass glittering in sunset. Each tier was now decorated with clusters of overflowing flowers and spilling swaths of shimmering chiffon.
A little much, I thought. But still, it was amazing how much they had managed to do to decorate since just yesterday.
I heard a familiar voice call my name and turned to see Moth bounding towards me, Sammerin not far behind. Both were impeccably dressed — even Moth, to my surprise, who wore a double-breasted jacket rendered in a striking orange brocade, his blond curls tamed (however temporarily) into something that could possibly be
described as “neat.” As he approached, I could see that he had torn the edge of one sleeve. I’m sure it would be ruined by the end of the night.
“You look very nice, Moth.”
His eyes dropped. “Thanks. So do you.”
I looked to Sammerin, who was just catching up. He really did cut an impressive figure when he wanted to. He was always neatly put-together, yes. But tonight, in a close-fitting coat rendered in amber silk, a black velvet cloak falling over one shoulder, he was downright striking. I hoped I would get the opportunity to witness his famous flirtations. He was certainly dressed for it.
“And you, Sammerin.”
“Thank you.” He paused, regarded me. I wondered if I should be insulted by the faint surprise that flickered across his face. I decided I wouldn’t when he plainly stated, in that low, smooth tone, “You look beautiful.”
I looked down at myself — at the blood-red silk that hugged my body all the way to the ground, the skirt just light and billowing enough to float around my feet with my steps. Airy fabric slipped off my shoulders and fell into a low neckline of flowing crimson, all supported by a golden chain that clasped around my neck. The necklace Max had given me was nestled against my collarbone.
I gave Sammerin a little smile of thanks, and then I turned in a circle, slowly. When I reached them again, Moth and Sammerin’s faces were rendered in a shock that I found extremely satisfying.
That, after all, was exactly my goal.
My back was completely exposed, showcasing the full topography of scars over spotted skin. The fabric dropped so low that when a breeze blew, I got goosebumps at the dimples at the bottom of my spine — but I didn’t care about decency. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to show everyone who wouldn’t listen.
That was why I’d taken the simplest dress I could find and slowly carved away pieces of it until it showed every single one of injures: removed the bottom of the sleeves to expose the scars on my forearms, dropped the shoulders to highlight the nicks at the crook of my neck. I swept my hair up so it wouldn’t cover one inch of it.
They wanted to ignore me? Fine. I’d show them what they were ignoring. I’d show them what their complacency meant.
“What happened?” Moth asked, at last, in a small voice. “To your…. to your back?
“I was a slave before I came to Ara. Did you know that?” His eyes widened. “I— I didn’t.”
“And I got these scars when I tried to buy my freedom.”
His mouth closed, puckered slightly in something between thought and realization — as if he had never considered the possibility of such things existing in the world. I wondered what that was like. To live a life so untouched by such ugliness that the very concept of it was startling.
“I think you look nice anyway,” he said, quietly. “Thank you, Moth.”
Sammerin regarded me in silence. I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of satisfaction cross his face as he said, “I do too.” Then he lifted his chin, gesturing to the Towers. “Shall we?”
As we started towards those foreboding gold-and-silver doors, I adjusted the white lily that I had tucked into my hair. It was a last-minute addition that I stole from the garden as I left. I figured that Max wouldn’t mind, and besides, it all felt incomplete without it.
How poetic, after all: to wear Esmaris’s sigil as I exposed every terrible thing that he did to me. As if I were carrying him with me, hissing into his ear: Look. Look at everything you failed to destroy. Look at what your cruelty created.
 |
I COULD FEEL their stares on me. I could feel it as clearly as I could feel fingers brushing my skin, touching my face, running their hands over those ugly, ugly scars.
Good.
The lobby of the Towers had been completely transformed. Flowers and tapestries covered every surface, the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles dancing over them. Both sides of the lobby were combined into one giant room, the gold of the Tower of Daybreak on one side meeting the silver of the Tower of Midnight on the other. Music permeated the air, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, mingling with voices and slightly-drunken laughter. That mural of Rosira and Araich loomed over it all, their faces drawn to the ground as if casually observing the festivities.
There had to be several hundred people here. All were impeccably dressed — though most more modestly than I was. But that was for the better. With my Fragmented skin and my red dress and my scars, I stood out exactly as much as I wanted to.
Moth disappeared into the crowd almost immediately, wandering around to explore with wide-eyed fascination. Sammerin didn’t try to stop him.
“I know he’s going to get into trouble,” he said with a twitch of a shrug. “Why fight nature?”
I chuckled. Indeed.
“Is every member of the Orders here?” I asked.
“Far from it. There are plenty who chose not to come.
These things get a little tedious year after year.”
It was easy to forget, sometimes, exactly how many Wielders existed in the world.
When I looked back at Sammerin, his eyes were drawn off across the crowd. I followed his gaze to a woman
lingering near the wall, drink balanced in slender fingers, who sporadically peered back at him through chestnut waves.
I nudged his shoulder. “Go. I will be fine.” “Go where?”
I arched one eyebrow. “Go.”
He paused, holding back a little smile. “Order events are a special kind of dangerous.”
“So am I.” I grinned. “I’m not afraid.”
“You did come dressed to inflict some damage.” He stepped back into the crowd, then hesitated and turned back to me.
“Max will be here soon, I’m sure,” he added, raising his voice slightly over the crowd.
“Will he?” Max had said, somewhat begrudgingly, that he’d go to the event if I did. But now that I was here, I couldn’t even imagine him existing in this environment.
“Oh, he won’t miss it,” Sammerin replied, and I caught only a hint of that familiar unreadable glint in his eye as he melted into the party.
With Sammerin gone, my eyes scanned the room again. Now that I was looking, it was easy to spot Zeryth — the whole room seemed to bend around him, like he was the center of gravity around which this entire affair revolved. He stood near that enormous mural, making exuberant conversation. He had the light of someone who was utterly in their element — and dressed in an impeccably tailored jacket lined with white silk and silver thread that glimmered beneath the lights, he looked the part.
Nura, on the other hand, lingered against the wall alone, nursing a drink. Her dress was an almost comically faithful adaptation of the outfit she wore every day — white, high-necked, with long sleeves that hugged her slender arms and a skirt that reached the floor.
I stepped out into the crowd. Necks craned to follow me, stares immediately followed by horrified gasps at the sight
of my back. “Did you see that?” I heard one man whisper to his companion, and I held back a furious smirk of delight.
Look at me, I commanded, and they all obeyed. I felt every one of those eyes.
But I felt Zeryth’s most of all.
And when I turned around and looked over my shoulder, pretending to be surprised to find his gaze meeting mine, I gave him a dazzling, vicious smile.
“Zeryth,” I purred, by way of greeting. “Dance with me.”
A dusty, well-worn metronome started in my head. I hoped I remembered my dancing steps after all these months.
“I’d be delighted.” My arms were around Zeryth’s neck before the words fully left his lips. His hand rose to my waist. In one smooth movement, he swept me out onto the dance floor. It was amazing how quick, how fluid, the whole transaction was — like we were two stars colliding and flying away. And if people were staring at me before… well, now they were gawking. Perfect.
1, 2, 3…
Zeryth’s white hair was neatly tamed into a tail at the base of his neck, though a few strands escaped and danced around his face as we moved. He grinned at me.
“I always knew I’d see you at one of these things one day. And you’re just as stunning as I thought you’d be.”
4, 5, 6…
I returned his smile with my own — one I pulled back and dusted off for the first time in a long time. “I’m very happy I have made it here, too. It is an opportunity that most people like me never get to have.”
Zeryth’s face, ever the picture of pleasant charm, didn’t so much as flicker. But I felt his fingers tighten slightly at the base of my back, as if extra aware of my scars.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the answer you wanted yesterday. Your friend has my greatest sympathy.”
“That’s very kind of you. We should be grateful to have even the thoughts of the Arch Commandant.” 1, 2, 3. We spun around the room, moving so quickly at the crowd smeared behind Zeryth’s face. And my smile was so unwavering I thought it might crack. “What more could we ask for?”
A brief hesitation. “Well—” he started. “What more could I have asked for, Zeryth?”
My smile disappeared, though Zeryth’s only barely soured.
“I would have gotten you out if I could, Tisaanah,” he said.
“I do not think that’s true.” “I—”
But my words leapt up my throat like ropes of fire. “I think that you enjoyed the way I looked at you when I was fourteen and you were the only thing I knew of a world beyond Threll. I think it that felt good to you, and I think you liked me. But I do not think you wanted or cared to get me out.”
“It is a complicated situation.”
“That may be true. But nonetheless, my life was not worth your inconvenience. And that is what it is. But do not lie to me about it. I’m tired of lies and performances.”
Zeryth’s eyebrow twitched. With little warning, he launched me into a twirl. I managed to catch myself before I lost my balance, spun in a gliding swirl before he pulled me back against him. As I landed, he tilted his face toward my ear. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now? Performing?”
4, 5, 6.
“A performance shows people a pleasant lie,” I replied. “Tonight I show them an ugly reality.”
A cool breath of a chuckle caressed my cheek. “I see nothing ugly here.”
I returned his laugh with my own. “Then you are not really looking, Zeryth.”
“Aren’t I?” He pulled back just enough for his gaze to meet mine, one eyebrow quirked. “You and I aren’t so different. Lots of the people you see around you today were born with privilege, your instructor included. The world was theirs to lose. You and I, we had to claw for it. I look at you and I see a victor.” His next words came closer, reverberating against the skin of my ear. “And that is very, very beautiful, Tisaanah.”
For the first time, I allowed the sneer bubbling up within me to reach my face. “This is not a game, Zeryth,” I said. “I have twenty-seven scars on my back from the night I tried to buy my freedom and Esmaris rewarded me by trying to beat me to death. I was beaten, I was raped, I was almost killed. It is written into my body and soul, just as your guilt in it is written into yours, whether you want to see it or not. But you cannot ignore it. Neither can I. And neither can they, because I will not allow them to.”
I lifted a palm, waving to the crowd that had gathered around us.
Zeryth’s expression remained smooth, perpetually unrattled. But something — a certain spark of pleasure that I could not quite read or understand — leached into it as he said, “I have never ignored you.”
“No. You’d just rather see me on my knees.” “I had to test you. And you passed.”
Test me for what? I wanted to ask. What would possibly excuse that? But instead I only said, “I do not need you to apologize for the past. I have only one question for you. What will you do to help me keep others from meeting my fate?”
And there it was. A crack across his serene, smooth exterior — so delicately masked that I almost didn’t see it. “Tisaanah, I’m—”
But before he could finish, I brought my mouth to his ear. And in a breathy hiss that sizzled into the air, I whispered, “I don’t care if you’re sorry.”
4, 5, 6, and…
And I spun away from his hands, hurling myself back into the crowd. I didn’t look back — I didn’t need to know he was watching me go. The spectators parted as I slipped away from the dance floor. They were watching, too.
A little, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
And it was then that my eyes looked out across the room and immediately settled on a familiar figure. One that I recognized instantly, even through the throngs of people that separated us.
As if he felt my gaze, Max glanced up from a conversation that he looked like he would much rather avoid. And when he saw me, that expression of disgruntled weariness melted into a little, knowing smile that, I knew, was meant only for me.
And without thinking, I returned it.
