Chapter Text
The carriage sat low and damp as it pulled through the cold cobbles streets of Fhirdiad, the wheels moaning loudly at the icy dips between every stone. Annette tried not to cling too tightly to the straw-doll seated in her lap, its loose little legs already gone to pieces under her nervous fidgeting at old thread. She couldn’t help but to be slightly nervous, staring out at the chilly, earth-bare landscape from her tiny window. Low flames flickered in their lanterns, and it vaguely reminded Annette of a ghost story Mercedes had told her once. It was about a little girl and a monster that chased her for miles and miles through the snow, until they both perished together, flesh and claw interlocked…
Annette frowned. Oh, how she missed Mercedes. Mercie, her best friend, her very best friend who was safe and warm and so very far away from her now. She wanted to write a thousand letters at once, to tell Mercedes how scared she was to leave, to vent about how uncomfortable the journey had been: bandits and paperwork and the endless curtseys.
But Annette couldn’t bemoan for long. She wouldn’t allow herself. Besides, how pointless it felt to tell Mercie that she regretted being so afraid to disappoint her father. This strange cold man whom she truly did not know. Ser Gilbert had abandoned Annette and her mother years ago; why did he so suddenly seek his daughter now? Annette was due to leave the Royal School, sure, but she did not expect her lord father to appear in a show of smoke and mirrors, beaming at the opportunity to take his only heir to the Kingdom’s Capital for some type of military honor from King Lambert himself.
A guest of honor, Annette told herself, and I am sitting here hugging my old doll.
She was a grown woman now, marrying age her father reminded her dutifully, and a recent graduate from the Royal School of Sorcery, earning high accolades and marks for every exam.
Annette did not say this aloud to her lord father, but she did not wish to ever leave the school to travel with him.
She didn’t wish to see him again in her entire life if she could help it.
Annette continued to stare out the window, a letter already penning inside of her mind that said:
Mercie, I don’t know why I am here or what my father wants, but I am hopeful I can at least meet the Prince, and I will let you know exactly the shade his eyes are, if they are as blue as a river or lighter, like the Garland Moon sky. Just keep an eye out for my letter! I’ll be there soon.
Annette had forgotten how easily she could slip back into a feeling of unimportance.
At the Royal School, she had been rather praised. Her professors adored her, she had a group of equally powerful young women that supported her. Often, during magic tournaments, Annie felt like she was a very powerful ace in a pack of cards. She knew it was not entirely proper for a woman to enjoy fighting as much as she did—fighting, of course, in friendly competition and fun—but Annette always prided herself in going above and beyond. She had memorized it all: warlock techniques required the breath and the fingers to produce the hottest possible flame; white magic was far harder—she was nowhere near as skilled as Mercie’s ability to heal—but she had picked it up rather quickly.
How little her achievements, nor being powerful, nor being related to Ser Gilbert Dominic seemed to matter now.
Ser Gilbert did all of the talking, his dreary drawl somehow already too familiar and painful to Annette’s ears. She had almost forgotten what her father’s voice had sounded like. Almost.
A high lord dressed in black was studying her from the side of his eye, even while he talked to her father. His mouth was rather pointed and his teeth reminded Annette of a carnivorous animal, maybe a wolf or a bear. He smiled at her, his eyes tight, and then...he laughed.
“Forgive me, my sweet girl, but there is no need to look so nervous in my home.” The lord said at once, their eyes meeting ever so briefly, before Annette rudely looked away.
“This is Lord Rodrigue, Annette,” Her father added sternly. “I am certain you recall him during your childhood? You and his youngest son, Felix, are close in age.”
Annette did not recall this man nor his son.
The high lord looked as if he could sense her every thought.
“Annette!” Lord Rodrigue boomed at her. His piercing eyes held no light but his laugh felt comfortable enough. “I feel so poorly that you look at me with the eyes of a stranger; Gilbert has told me so much about you over the years that I feel I know you as I do my own son! Come, come.”
His long arms collected Annette into a hug, warm and welcoming, and Annette, setting aside her dislike of everything, manage to hug him back. “...Thank you, my Lord.”
“Rodrigue, please, child,” he smiled again at her, his teeth strange and sharp. Annette looked away from his mouth but his eyes felt no better to stare into. She could not look towards the floor, either, so she remained trapped between the two dark, unknowable places along his face. “I will make sure your stay is as comfortable as possible. I have even assigned a handmaiden to assist you in your bathing and dressing, as you will of course need proper time to become as lovely as possible for His Grace’s ball in a day’s time.”
Rodrigue’s light eyes turned back to her father. “Your journey, I trust, was a hard one? I have heard nothing but the rumor of bandits for days and days, yet I have no scoundrels to hang.”
Annette tried to keep her expression fixed. How easily these two old men talked of hanging and death, and then shared a dry joke or two mid-sentence. It truly felt beyond her.
Annette felt her stomach churn. She missed Mercedes so painfully she felt she could cry. She did not want something as ostentatious as a handmaiden to tend her hand and foot; she wanted to go home. She wanted her mother. She wanted her father to tell her why he had set about for this whole affair of his old friends when she felt so entirely out of place.
Annette waited for what felt like hours to be dismissed by her father. She found herself staring blankly into his face as he minded her, and she awkwardly jerked back when he lifted a hand to pat her— pat her —on the head.
“Be a good girl, Rosie,” he said, his sullen voice low and quiet. “I know you will.”
Annette stepped from his beneath outstretched hand. Her face burned to see the look of surprise over Rodrigue’s dark features. “...Annette, father. I am no longer a little girl.”
Gilbert blinked at her with his watery blue eyes. “Yes. I apologize. You most certainly are not.” Still, his hand picked up a long braid of her red hair and smoothed it to its end. “You have grown so beautiful, as beautiful as your mother.”
Annette felt her blush shift from the pink of her resentment towards a dark red, bright with embarrassment. “...May I retire to my chambers now?”
“Of course,” Rodrigue cut in. His smile was so large and pointed upon his face. It overwhelmed her.
Annette felt that she might hate him for being so friendly towards her and pretend to know so much. Then, the guilt of that thought rushed over her.
She dropped her eyes to the floor. She was so disappointed in herself.
She knew she could be better than this.
“I will send Alexandrea to your room in an hour,” Rodrigue told her. “But please, make yourself at home! You feel like family to me, Annette, and I hope you will soon feel the same. It has been lonely here in the manor since…” His smile faltered. A sadness swam to the surface of his grey, storm-front eyes. “Well, that isn’t a topic for a proper welcome, now is it?”
Annette’s chest tightened in shame at herself. She was cursing this poor man’s name and he had so recently lost a child of his own. Her father had informed her as such but, as much as Annette tried, she could not recall the man’s name. He was the eldest heir to House Fraldarius, that much Annette knew, and that the collective military houses had come, large in their families and forces, to both sing their praises for their growing victories in lieu of the domineering war with the Empire and mourn their losses.
And, of course, to honor her father, so exhaustively praised, all the way up the lips of the King Lambert.
“I’m sure I will, Rodrigue,” Annette lied. She gave her final courtesy, a rather subtle and heartfelt performance that she pretended to feel, before she turned away.
Mercie, she told herself that night, I cannot tell if I am a bad person, or if I am just a stupid one.
Alexandrea was a girl of fourteen that looked at Annette like she was an object of fascination.
She took to Annette at once, an arm linked between her own, more friend than servant, and she toured Annette happily through the keep. Annette kept her own answers short, nervous, uncertain of how to act in the grace of Alexandrea’s complete lack of fictitiousness—but, in all honesty, Annette was grateful for it. She had known etiquette and manners and social nuances her entire life.The break was entirely welcomed between them.
How refreshing it was to not pretend she wanted to be here. Alexandrea, her morose, bored expression upon the usual conversations of ladyship, only perked up at the insight of gossip.
And gossip, there was:
Before there were names, there were questions for Annette, like notes to be traded in secret passing: what was attending a sorcery school like, had Annette ever touched a horse’s mane before, how did she feel about the death of young Glenn Fraldarius, had she heard the rumors of his younger brother, ruinous and angry?
Annette found she rather like Alexandrea for her curiosity and her complete disregard for regalia. However, Annette mainly liked Alexandrea’s inability to hold her tongue.
At the mention of Rodrigue’s surviving child, Annette interrupted a ramble from Alexandrea, who had been buffing, none too softly, over the cuticles of Annette’s fingernails. “You know what they say, my lady,” her grey eyes lifted to Annette’s face, then away again, unable to look at her. “They call him the ‘the shadow of the prince’, in jest.”
Annette felt her blood run very cold. Rodrigue, for all of his flashiness, felt so warm and open. And, even as much as Annette struggled to understand her father, she knew herself too well to disregard her own mannerisms like they did not parallel his own. How could the son of Rodrigue, by name alone, feel so entirely different from the high lord, whose laugh and smile warmed the keep? Annette tried to reason why. A ‘shadow’? A piece of darkness? She imagined Felix’s hair to be as dark as his fathers, his eyes just as piercing and grey, like a storm before dawn. Was that was she meant?
“A shadow?” She giggled lightly to hide her intention. “For his looks?”
“For his heart, my lady.” The handmaiden replied. “They say he was born without one. A mad dog for the young prince to spar with.”
Annette’s confusion overtook Alexandrea. “I’m...sorry?”
Alexandrea now worked her other hand. “Oh, forgive me, my lady, it is just the gossip of bored chambermaids. I doubt no one really says that about him in earnest.”
Annette allowed her hand to go limp as Alexandrea scrubbed. She could not fathom the idea of meeting such a strange man with such a strange, foreboding title. It frightened her, just a bit.
“Have you spoken with the Prince at all, Alexandrea?”
“Oh,” Aleandrea brightened, her grey eyes twinkling. “Got your eye on him, have you? I imagine tomorrow you may find a chance to dance with him.”
“What? No, I’d—” Annette amended at once, her nerves getting the better of her.
She had never considered herself some prize to be won, given the fall of her family and her own serious lack of grandeur. And while she hoped to for the opportunity to see Prince Dimitri, let alone speak to him, she rather lacked the intentions that went with her status.
Certainly she was a young noblewoman of good health and the chaise honors of her knight father. But Annette wished to return back to the Royal School of Magic, and perhaps seek tenure there as a Professor herself one day. She had no mind for ruling and economics and court-yard politics. Besides, too many people in a room frightened her, made her lose her voice, often at the worst time, when her mother might ask her to sing at the piano for entertainment.
Alexandrea gave a small laugh. “Only teasing you, my lady. And, besides, one could be a Queen, that is for certain, but oh, when there is Lord Gautier’s son? I cannot remember his name I’m afraid, but now he is a right match, my lady.”
Annette flipped through the long list of names within her mind, notes from her father’s ramblings, struggling to link two and two together. House Fraldarius lead by Rodrigue was the strongest of the Holy Kingdom’s military power, the shield for the Royal seat of King Lambert Blaiddyd to wield as he saw fit, so House Gautier was close by, perhaps another military alliance from the coast? Annette frowned at her inability to remember a thing.
Alexandrea had turned away to collect a petticoat and a pair of shiny new heels. She was light and carefree and reminded her of Mercedes with her long, ribboning hair.
Mercedes, what would you do in my place? Annette found herself writing along her desk that evening, late, late into the night, when the stars looked small and far out of reach. I imagine you would find a way to make friends with everyone. Perhaps, I can try to do the same.
The day of the military ball came far too soon, a whirlwind of faces and names and titles that Annette utterly failed to remember.
She sat high in a perch upon the nobleman’s platform to watch the opening ceremonies for the ball. The sun sat high in the morning’s pale sky and long shadows dripped from the benches like the sweat from the people below her. So many people. Too many, Annette felt, but she was lucky to be noble-borne, and so she sat only a few levels below that of the military house’s lord, Rodrigue in his cups, her father’s shadow, and, of course, the most elusive King Lambert.
Annette had only ever heard his name but she imagined he was handsome, much like a king ought to be...and, of course, that his son, Prince Dimitri, was unbelievably handsome to match him. They were powerful men with blond hair and light eyes, and Annette knew she would find a moment, somehow, stolen away, to tell Mercie exactly what color they were.
It had been a long running joke between Annie and Mercie. A joke that said, in all of swooning over the King’s son, every maiden was too busy looking at his body than to honestly know the color of his eyes.
Still, Annette found herself quite lonely, misplaced, sweating through the gossamer gown Alexandrea had all but sewed her into, and she waited dutifully for the trumpets to sound and the military house’s to reign out their colors, their flags, their merriment.
Rather mischievously, Annette had grown curious to see if she could spy the elusive son of Rodrigue’s, the gossip of the keep, who apparently swung a sword so continuously, it was said he was more blade than arm, more weapon than soldier, and he always, always drew blood.
Annette felt herself swallow at the idea. She tried not to become too carried away herself during battle but it was undeniable. Annette knew that feeling of victory, while young and small, was inches away from her fingertips, and it was all the proof that she needed to crush a naysayer into the ground.
Without much wait, Annette recognized the beat of anticipation hush over the crowd. Young crowds of maidens clasped her hands together while rowdy young lords screamed and tossed their full wine glasses down below.
From the south-gate, Annette’s eyes fell over Prince Dimitri.
She felt her breathing stop. It was true: she could not possibly see his eyes given the distance, but he was quite imposing. His shoulders, straight and square, as he moved, a blue-coat along his back, with a long, sharp spear within his grasp. He turned to the crowd and bowed low and gracefully to welcome them, welcoming him, and again, Annette felt her face smile. He was truly just as they said he was. And, a little smugly, she was proud to know how closely set her familiar relationship was to the King’s Court. It would be no real trouble at all to introduce herself to him, all in due time.
From the north gate, another man entered.
To anyone with fair working eyes, this young man could only be related to Lord Rodrigue. Tall, lean, the hard muscles of his arms tight and unyielding, Felix had his long fingers locked tightly over the pommel of a thin silver sword. He had dark hair akin to his father’s, tied up and away from his face, and he kept his gaze straight out into the field, only wishing to find Prince Dimitri’s own.
He made no show to the crowd. He did not even once look in the direction of the cheers. Annette had imagined that this man would be the opposite of the gossip; over exaggeration and excitement blurring Felix’s name into a farce— but Annette found the smile had fallen from her face.
The sun, from its position in the sky, dragged the men's shadows away and into the dirt, and, true to the title, it did seem as if the prince’s shadow had pooled over Felix, the way his dark form moved, cat-like, quieted to take his starting position just across the Dimitri. The Prince, too, turned back to face him. The blue of his coat lifted briefly from the dry ground as he bowed down smoothly to Felix.
Felix returned a stiff bow in response, but he kept his head lifted to stare back into the Prince’s eyes, fixated to begin.
Annette swallowed thinly. This friendly competition somehow felt very, very unfriendly.
The trumpets had ended and in the silence that followed, Annette wondered if all breathing had stopped.
Dimitri lifted his spear back. His shoulder rolled slowly, and he took his stance to defend, already making it apparent that he would not be moved. Felix would have to come to him, a human shield of blue and with the pointed edge of the long spear, grinning golden in the sun.
Annette had turned to take in Felix’s reaction but he was gone.
The loud clash of two heavy weapons locked, once, twice, Felix moved so impossibly fast, Annette struggled to see where one of his attacks ended and another began. The silver of the sword’s edge raked along the spear’s head, edge on edge the way Annette had watched her father spark flint for a fire. She had feared the Prince would bend under the assault, but he matched Felix’s furious blows with a steady, shielded rhythm—protecting his neck, arm, leg—back again, as Felix attempted to pierce his blade through the Prince’s guard.
There was such a brutal, personal intimacy in fighting headlong with weapons. Annette was rather proud of her own magical dueling but she never imagined feeling something so powerfully for her opponent that a duel might be won with sheer hatred instead of skill.
“You look awfully uncomfortable,” a warm voice said to Annette. At once another man sat down, rather close to her, but his warm brown eyes felt like such a welcomed sight compared to watching Felix, again and again, edge the bite of his blade inches from the Prince’s nose. “You worried he’ll actually hit him?”
Annette turned to smile politely back at the man. “Won’t he? Felix seems…” she picked the word carefully. “Relentless.”
The man laughed quite loudly. The way his smiling face eased into a comfortable glow made Annette feel a shade warmer for him to be sitting quite so close to her in public. He seemed inclined to laugh, and laugh often.
“Felix is relentless. That’s a great word for it.” The man nodded happily at Annette. He turned his head to view the spectacle before them.
The Prince was being forced back. Felix’s sword-arm cut thin and sharp, edging into the armor and bouncing the strength of his back-blow to inch Dimitri’s footing back through the dirt. She could not see either Dimitri’s face nor Felix’s, but she had to imagine what they might have looked like: two unbending warriors that would not stop until their weapons disintegrated from their hands.
Annette flinched at the sound of blade on blade; Dimitri’s spear had swung, heavy and pointed, to twist the arching tip of Felix’s sword against the direction it had swung. The reverb of sound lingered, inhuman and pain-filled, and Felix’s assault was turned back against him, pushed back through the dirt by his own strength.
Dimitri appeared to have gained a foot-hold of defiance. His thick blond hair spilled across his face, dimming a look of blood-lust over his removed features. He swung again, the strength of his shoulder balanced perfectly with the length of the spear, and, as if fated, the tip of the weapon connected with the front of Felix’s right shoulder.
Annette felt her heart drop. She stood up, fists crushed to her chest, and cried out in shock.
The man stood with her. She felt his hand, warm and large, touch her shoulder. “Wait for it.”
Felix was pinned, his own footing sliding through the dirt, and Annette watched as Dimitri continued his assault. The spear dug deeper into Felix’s shoulder—she could see the blood start to seethe out from Felix’s leather armor—and Dimitri closed in for dominance, the final twist. Then, in a blink, Annette watched as Felix brought the hilt of his sword down over Dimitri’s head. The sound of flesh against the pommel seemed to echo through the court-yard, a ripple of energy and metal and pain, and she watched the Prince sink to his knees with the spear cut-short from his hands. The battle was clearly over with Lord Fraldarius son earning the upper-hand.
“Oh no,” Annette breathed out. She had closed her eyes in fear. She didn’t understand. She didn’t think it was within the spirit of competition to so ferociously hurt the other party. It couldn’t be right. “What’s happened? Is he hurt?”
“Which one?” The man asked her. He sounded amused. Annette opened her eyes to glare at him.
“I don’t know what you think is so funny; I mean the Prince! Is he hurt?”
Again, the man threw back his head to laugh. His red hair glinted hazy and scarlet in the sun behind them. He was very handsome, especially when he laughed. But Annette was still mad. Mad at being laughed at for doing something as simple as caring!
“Oh, Dimitri knows how to take a hit. His skull is too thick to crack. Anyways, he wants Felix to try and hit him. That’s just the way they are.”
Annette felt her chest tighten. “That can’t be in the rules! He can’t be allowed to hurt Prince Dimitri like that!”
The man’s handsome face looked uneasy. His smile dimmed. “Yeah, I mean, you aren’t wrong? There really are rules against it but, uh, Felix doesn’t listen to rules, so.” He gave a small shrug with just one of his shoulders like he really couldn’t care. “Look, Felix is hurt, too, so, doesn’t that make it feel even?”
Annette shook her head. “I…I don’t…I don’t know.”
“You don’t watch a lot of fighting, huh? It’s why I came over to you. You looked upset.”
“Um.” Annette looked away from his pretty face. She felt embarrassed to say that she had hardly been allowed much of anywhere. “Yes…I don’t really like fighting in...this way...”
“This way?”
Annette flushed in the sun. She felt far too hot between watching the fight and with the way this man seemed to enjoy talking to her. “I duel in magic. It’s just a lot more removed than this.”
“Oh, magic, huh?” He squinted at her but his lips had moved like he had been impressed. “I favour a bit of magic myself. Not too shabby with a polearm or sword but I like the distance magic provides between myself and people that want to kill me, you know?”
Annette nodded nervously. “Exactly.”
The man gave a long sigh through his nose. “Yeah, well. You’ll get used to it fast here. That’s kind of how Dimitri and Felix communicate. If there isn’t blood, then the conversation isn’t finished.”
Annette blinked back at him. “I have a best friend, too, and we don’t fight like this.”
The man thought for a moment. “It’s, um, a special relationship that they have.” He smiled again, open and kind, but his words felt cold. “Felix has this mean nickname for Dimitri. He calls him ‘the boar prince’, but if that’s the case, then Felix is an animal too.” He laughed but it sounded so removed from the rest of his expression. “A mad dog, I guess. Just chasing after him for all time. Two beasts that can’t wait to kill each other.”
Annette blinked. A mad dog. Hadn’t she heard that before? “Then, what animal are you? You don’t fight with them?”
The man was all easy smiles again. “Who, me? Oh, absolutely not, no, not if I can help it.” His smile turned lopsided and a little smug over his charming face. “I’m more’a lover, not a fighter, you know? I’d be…ah…what kind of animal mates for life, do you know?”
Annette honestly just blushed at him. “Um.”
“I’m Sylvain Gautier.” The man told her. “Sorry for not introducing myself earlier.”
It was like the pieces in Annette’s head clicked together all at once. His pretty smile, his wild red hair, his deadly ability to swoon her. The Rose Lord’s son. She had been speaking with The Rose Lord’s heir.
Annette felt her face flush in a vibrant pink. “I’m—I’m Annette Dominic. Ser Gilbert’s daughter.”
He took her hand, brought it to his lips, and then away again.
“Gotcha. I thought something about your beautiful red hair looked familiar.” Sylvain’s voice continued smoothly. “Although, I’m surprised. Gilbert is so somber. You’re definitely more exciting than him. You take after your mother, I bet?” He gave her a wink. Annette felt her heart skip. She didn’t know if she had enough blood in her body to possibly blush any redder. “Us red-heads gotta stick together, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” Annette croaked thinly. She looked away from him, a gloriously obvious attempt to hide her face. She found herself staring back over the gathered crowd, how a healer was now shuffling out to attend to the pair. She watched as Dimitri was helped to his feet and walked back through the iron gates. She glanced over at Felix’s form, now retreating backwards, away from the gates, away from Dimitri and the healers, away from the cheering of the gathering patrons.
“Where is he going?”
Sylvain glanced at where Annette was staring. “Ah. That’s just Felix for you. He’s probably more mad about Dimitri getting a good hit on him than he is happy to have won. But it honestly works out in his favour; Lord Rodrigue is going to be ecstatic for the ceremony tonight.”
Annette nodded at Sylvain’s explanation. But she couldn’t pull her eyes away from Felix just…walking away, a hand pressed to his still bleeding shoulder. “Why won’t he go to a healer?”
Again, Sylvain shrugged. “He’ll be fine.”
Annette felt her stomach sink. She’d never met a person that would choose blood. “Okay. Sure.”
“Say, you wanna come meet Ingrid?”
“Ingrid?”
“Yeah.” Sylvain grinned back at her. “She’s the best, we’ve known each other since we were kids. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna marry her one day; she just, ah, doesn’t know that yet.” He winked again and, again, Annette blushed. She was blushing now because she had honestly thought he had come all this way over to talk to her, and now he was talking about another girl, who was probably beautiful and strong and nothing like Annette.
Goddess, she was stupid sometimes.
“Of course. I’d love too.” Annette replied.
Still, Sylvain Gautier offered his hand to guide her down the stands and away from the too many bodies, and, well, she couldn’t help herself but hold it back just a little too tightly.
Ingrid was just as delightful as Sylvain had made her to be. She was blonde, green-eyed, and very witty. Annette wondered in awe at the charming way Ingrid never allowed Sylvain to slip too far away into the obscene or into flirtation. They honestly matched one another very well. Strange how childhood seemed to slowly, gently, correct two souls into future lovers. They couldn’t have been born to not be a perfect match.
Annette pushed away the loneliness that had slipped across her shoulders. She never had close knit friends or a childhood of interconnected nobility. The Royal School of Magic had only offered her the dream of friendships like Mercedes, and she resisted the nip of envy to see Ingrid and Sylvain so fated to be a couple.
Ingrid gave a cute pause to shove Sylvain’s arm from sneaking around her neck. She met Annette’s eyes with a friendly evaluation. “So, are you excited for the ball tonight? I can’t say I’m much of a dancer, but Sylvain here? He promises that no girl will go un-danced with.”
Sylvain grinned, starry-eyed. “I’m the best dancer here. Hands down. Make sure you wear some better shoes than whatever Rodrigue sends you. He’s too traditional for stuff like celebrating; honestly, I’m surprised he is even hosting the affair here, um, all things considered.”
Ingrid’s warmth faded from her face. “Yes. I was thinking that same thing.”
Annette felt the uncomfortable fingers of being a complete stranger overtake her as she watched grief lock over the conversation, awkwardness and sympathy tight over Annette’s words. “I am so sorry about Glenn. I, clearly, am very removed from the situation, but I imagine he was a very beloved man.”
Sylvain looked down. “Yeah. He really was. He was gonna be married soon, too.” Sylvain’s dark eyes moved to Ingrid’s, locked, and turned away. Annette resisted asking what she had missed. It looked like a sad, delicate secret. “So, I’m gonna go grab Dimitri. He’s probably already hiding somewhere, pretending to be completely fine, while Dedue mother-hens him to death.”
“Dimitri would wish for death compared to attending a ball,” Ingrid ribbed mildly.
“Yeah, the one thing him and Felix would agree over, Goddess willing.” Sylvain returned, his friendly face less dismayed.
“Dedue?” Annette asked. That was such an exotic name compared to those her father had listed.
“Yes,” Ingrid’s smile hardened but her eyes stayed light. “He is Dimitri’s personal guard, more or less. He doesn’t go anywhere without shadowing behind. But he’s...a good person...I suppose.” Ingrid lingered off unkindly. “I’m afraid I don’t speak with him much.”
Annette eased off the topic, uncomfortable. “And, um, Felix, right? I haven’t met him yet. Could you tell me anything about him? His father and mine are close and I feel...really terrible...honestly, that I don’t know anything about him.”
Ingrid’s green eyes looked darker somehow, like Annette had asked an impossible question of her.
“Ah. Yes. Felix is...not the easiest to talk to.” She licked her lips as she thought. “I’ve known him my entire life, and I'll tell you: no one fights harder, or has more skill with a sword than Felix. But that’s all he really does.” It was Ingrid’s turn to look uncomfortable. “I can’t say that Glenn’s death has changed much about him, but he’s just…” She cleared her throat. “If you speak with him, and he comes off as like, just a complete idiot, don’t take it personally.” Her green eyes lightened earnestly. “You seem like such a sweet person. I’d just, you know, take it slow with him.”
Take it slow with him? Annette picked at the phrase. Why did it feel like Sylvain and Ingrid knew something very important that she didn’t? Would Annette be expected to talk to Felix, beyond just normal pleasantries?
She held back a sigh. Great. She’d traveled all this way and would be expected to be some unwanted, unliked companion to a man people didn’t like, didn’t know, and seemed to enjoy being seen as some improbable shadow.
Annette did not need to hear the rest. “I see.”
Ingrid collected Annette’s hands inside of her own. They felt warm and reminded Annette instantly of Mercedes. She welcomed the touch.
“You might hear rumors that Felix is a bad person, that he’s mean or careless, but he isn’t, please know that. He’s just different. And I don’t want you to hold that against him. Okay?”
Annette squeezed back nervously. “Okay.”
She really wasn’t sure what she was promising, why it felt so serious to stare back into Ingrid’s eyes, but there she went, promising herself to some unspoken question.
Something like sadness cooled through her voice. Annette truly was a stranger to these people.
“Thanks for talking with me, Ingrid.”
“Of course.” Her face brightened again. “I hope we can be friends.”
Friends? Annette wondered. She wouldn’t be here long. There wouldn’t be time to that, would there?
“Friends,” Annette grinned back at her. She pushed the fear, then her impatience, down. There was just a ball to get through, another sleepless night, and then she would be back to everything she knew and loved. “I’d like that, too.”
Alexandrea fixed Annette into her gown—a red silken dress with a thick-cut ribbon that wrapped entirely around her waist—and made it quite hard to breathe, Annette noted—before she kicked away Rodrigue’s uncomfortable gift, far too high of heels, beneath the guest bed, stepped out of her own worn flats, and offered them to Annette.
“Not much to look at, I know, but your feet won’t bleed by the night’s end, and believe me, I’ve helped Lady Ingrid deal with wounds like that—they aren’t fun, or pretty—and you’ll still be expected to tour the grounds in the morning, hurting or not. Your dress should cover this little secret of ours.”
“Thank you,” Annette replied simply to Alexandrea's very sensible and kind gesture.
A strange unspeakable fear was bubbling inside of her stomach. She used to love the parties thrown at her school or her mother’s keep. Why did it feel so gloomy to walk down the stairs and into the keep’s hall? Why did she so badly wish to run, run straight out of those grand-doors and keep going, her dress torn and dragging behind her, running away from something as beautiful as tonight?
She just felt tired. All the time, the pressure of it all. She hated the smiling and the charming little songs her father had asked her to sing, like some small caged bird, just so those crowds of people could stare. After, she would be forced to meet their eyes and bow, perfectly, be perfect, and she just wanted to scream...to run...
She pulled off and away from entering the grand hall, lingering at the stair’s edge. She could not see a single face she knew in the large murmuring of the crowds. People came and went in lovely dresses and tall hats and flowers—the overpowering scent of flowers—that invaded every tightly packed corner.
Annette stepped back and away. She would wait. She would wait until she saw her father or Lord Rodrigue or, perhaps, Goddess willing, the Prince or Ingrid, anyone else to not walk into a waterfall of faceless strangers all by herself.
She padded back down the hall, her anxiety easing off to hear the voices fading away behind the thick stone walls. It was getting late into the evening now. The sun just looming off behind the dry hills at the keep’s windows. Annette found herself walking without purpose, just curiously exploring the long halls of the keep at her own pace.
A door at the dead end of a hall caught her eye. An orange flickering light had pooled through its crack, warm and inviting. She paused at the door to listen, to see if anyone was inside, but she heard nothing. The room was very, very quiet.
Perhaps there wouldn't be anyone there, Annette wondered to herself, and she pushed open the door with a careful hand, palm over the warm wood. She found herself in a small study—only one reading chair at its center, plush and adorned with depicted kitted stages of leaves losing their color, and books—wow, she found herself lighting up— books, she had never once seen so many books outside of her schooling—did Rodrigue keep an entire library to himself?
Perhaps she did have more to say to him than she originally thought.
She moved through the bright light of the fire in its hearth, thankful for its warmth, to touch at a tome that had been left open, curious to where the passage had ended, before she realized she had pressed against someone’s arm, half-hanging out and away from the chair.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Annette cried at once. She stepped back several paces. A hand was at her chest in a foolish attempt to put her heart back inside of her rib cage.
She was staring straight into a pair of dark eyes that had jumped, cat-like, at her scream.
Felix. It was Felix seated before her. Rodrigue’s son, real and in the flesh, and she had rudely bumped into his arm.
She hadn’t seen him sitting there at all, slumped back in that large reading chair, between his black hair and eyes. He had changed, clearly, from the tournament this morning, into the dark layers of a suit, blues and golds, he just disappeared into the dim flickering shadows of the study. He really was like a shadow.
He’d scared the life out of Annette.
“That’s fine,” Felix edged out breathlessly. Clearly, Annette had frightened him, too. A hand had crept to his face, as if he had jumped from where he sat and accidentally batted himself in the eye. “You don’t have to yell.”
“What are you doing in here?”
Felix’s dark eyes found hers. Annette felt her heart skip again, its beat rearing up, like she was…afraid. It was stupid. She’d never even spoken to this man before. Why did she feel like she’d make a mistake to come into the room? She had every right. She didn’t know he was in here napping.
“I was hoping to escape all of those people.” Felix replied curtly. “I was hoping to go unnoticed the entire night.”
Annette furrowed her brows, a little wrinkle of red in the firelight. “For the entire night?”
Annette tried not to sound too shocked at the bad etiquette of simply disappearing from something as lavish as the King’s ball. There would definitely be consequences, social or no, and her thoughts turned to Lord Rodrigue’s sharp teeth, how they might look frowning in vainly withheld disappointment.
“What about later?” Annette suggested nervously, her own weak attempt to be smooth and to help ease Felix out of punishment. “You don’t want to play cards with my father? Or, um, Sylvain?”
“Heh, no.” Felix honestly scoffed. “Sylvain’s a cheat. Besides, I’m already tired. I don’t want to sit there and pretend to enjoy myself.”
Annette felt frozen where she stood for a moment. Yes. that was very much the same thought she had as well. How funny to hear it from Lord Fraldarius’s son.
An awkward pause unfurled between them. Annette resisted walking out of the room. She knew when she was unwanted. She knew it as naturally as breathing. But still, she stood there, pondering for a topic, and, with Ingrid’s kind words in her mind, she felt she had one.
“I saw your fight with the Prince this morning. It was…” Annette paused. Then, she decided to be honest. “Frightening. But the way you fight is incredible; You’re very talented.”
Annette found herself a little giddy to relive it again from the safety of hindsight, where no one had actually died, to appreciate the raw talent of two powerful fighters cross their swords in passionate combat. It was…thrilling, too. Felix was talented, a seriously gifted swordsman just as she had been told time and time again, and she wondered if she could get to know him, even if just for some small talk, to tell him how sincerely impressive he was.
“I honestly started to believe you might be trying to hurt him.” Annette added playfully.
“I was trying to hurt him.” Felix said bluntly.
His dark eyes rolled over Annette. They did not look away.
Annette blinked softly at him. His eyes really were as intense as his father’s, however, Felix's eyes were a far, far darker color, a deep brown compared to grey. Further more, Felix's eyes weren't like Sylvain or Ingrid. There wasn’t any light inside of them. It was like the few thin sparks from the fireplace’s flames had merely been absorbed back into the brown depths of Felix’s steady gaze.
Annette wasn’t sure what to say back to that. He had sounded so…angry.
Her smile dropped.
“You’re new here, right? Do yourself a favour: don’t hang around Dimitri. He isn’t what he seems.” Felix then rolled his face away from her to rest along the chair. “…You don’t have to look sad about it. I wasn’t going to kill him.”
Annette felt awkward just standing there. Clearly they had entered into a real conversation, but she wasn’t sure how to react. She glanced around for another chair but didn’t see one. So, with a little gracelessness, she lowered herself over the rug. It was comfortable enough, plus, she was right next to the fireplace, and it felt so good.
She peered back temptingly at Felix. She had never dreamed she would get so close so soon to him. And, she imagined, he was enjoying the warmth of the fire as well. The air in the kingdom felt so unnaturally cold at night, like it was deliberately trying to chill its residents to the bone. Annette truly did not like it at all. Perhaps, like her, Felix would rather be in a small room than in a large crowd, close to a fire, content in the peacefulness of the dark.
He kept his face away from her while she sat down. Annette used the moment to trace the side of his face with her eyes, how tight his jaw looked to find her drawing closer, obviously annoyed, perhaps at her invading his personal space, She studied the slow way he blinked as he stared into the fire. He did look rather exhausted, she noted, and she believed him in not wanting to move or give any performance for the party. He had already played out his part today. His tireless, fiery take-down of Dimitri had been worth twenty dances, at least, given his fury and spent energy.
“Were you just resting in here?”
His mouth tightened. It like the question had irked him. “Um. Trying to sleep is...boring, so, no. I was going to read but then I, um, fell asleep.”
“Oh!” She lit up. Any new topic was a better one than talking about the death of the Prince. “Do you like to read?”
“No.” Felix said at once. The look over Annette’s face must have spurned him to speak again. There was a forced note of patience in his voice as he explained: “I’m not against books. But the words…they seem to move around or flip around and…uh. I’ve never been patient enough to get through it.”
“Oh.” Annette repeated.
“Do...you read?” Felix returned. He sounded uncomfortable. His voice had taken on a strange growl to force the exchange between them.
“Yes. I love reading. It’s basically what I do when I’m not studying, or practicing my magic.”
“Magic.” Felix repeated back. He sounded incredulous. “You’re a sorceress?”
“Is that so unlikely?” Annette returned. She knew condescension when she heard it.
“Uh,” Felix articulated flatly. His face continued to stare pointedly at the hearth. “I just don’t know anything about you, only of your lord father, and he doesn’t talk much.”
Yes. Her father. The entire miserable reason she had even come here, to force her stupid presence onto people that did not want her. “To be honest with you, Felix, I don’t really know my father.”
This seemed to earn Felix’s full attention.
His dark eyes turned to take in Annette’s face and she felt her mouth run dry to be held in place by the weight of his gaze. His mouth moved faintly, the tension that kept him scowling turning upwards at the edges of his mouth, like she had said a very funny joke. “...I don't know mine, either.”
Annette blinked. She...certainly didn’t expect that.
She felt her fingers nervously ball together in her lap. Now the conversation felt...easier.
“Lord Rodrigue was very kind to me when I arrived.” She glanced nervously to Felix’s face, the curved way the shadows played across his pale skin, akin to figures dancing between the flames. She dropped her eyes back down. “I suppose that doesn’t mean it is true.”
A low sigh answered her. “My father’s words are empty, just like his head. He loves promises and politics and wooing anyone in his way. But he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t mean anything.” He moved a hand towards the door. “I don’t want to go out there and...smile...and...lie.”
Felix gave a small shake of his head. His dark hair looked shiny in the firelight, softer than she had thought it to be. His dark eyes returned to Annette’s face, hard and taut, before he leaned back into the chair. He brought up a hand to rub tiredly at his eyes.
“He wants me to be Glenn.” Felix said between the spaces of his fingers. “How disappointing it must be for him to realize I am not.”
Annette’s heart squeezed in discomfort to hear someone so casually mention their dead loved one. Felix’s voice never once lifted into sadness as Sylvain had, or fondness, like Ingrid. He just sounded...tired.
Annette provided Felix’s some privacy by looking away. She studied the fire as he did, thinking, correcting her thoughts together, in some kind way to reassure him that she did not expect him to be anyone else, from a stranger to another, and if that would be seen as somehow disingenuous, a fake answer to Felix’s refreshing straight-forward conversation.
“I, um, admire that you take a stance against the entirety of nobility and its pretense. I find it exhausting to pretend all the time. I honestly couldn’t care less about impressing someone when, um.” She struggled for the rest of what she meant, falling away from her head. “I don’t know. You could just be honest.”
Annette studied Felix’s face again and she held back a faint giggle to spy how wide his eyes had gotten, how he had looked so cool and disinterested at anything, but he now looked awkward, a sweet look across his face like her words had embarrassed him. “...If you say so.”
“I did not want to come here to this ball.” Annette continued openly. She wasn’t sure why she felt she could be so honest with Felix, but it felt so much better than returning to the party. She wanted the conversation to keep going. She wanted Felix to...understand her...even if she would be gone on the ‘morrow and perhaps they would never speak again. “I don’t know why I said yes to my father. I hate that I can’t say no.”
Felix’s head had dropped back against the chair. His eyes, however, remained closed. Annette relaxed at that. His dark eyes did something unnerving to her, and she wasn’t sure she could articulate herself as bravely as she was now if he kept staring at her.
“It’s easy.” Felix’s voice answered her at once. He had even lifted his hands to emphasize his next few words. “You just open your mouth and you say ‘no.’”
“Maybe that’s easy for someone like you,” Annette jested quietly. It was easy to offer a bit of her wit at him. He seemed...thoughtful. She liked that.
She watched Felix’s shadow along the wall. It had shifted like he had laughed so quietly she never would have heard it escape from him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I wish I was scary,” Annette explained, somehow at once honest and entirely joking, “like you.”
“Well,” Felix’s low voice stumbled for a moment, then he found the rest of his words. “Maybe, the next time someone is bothering you about something you don’t want to do, I’ll tell them no for you.”
Annette blushed. She felt her face racing between pink and pale. “Oh.” She wanted to curl into the carpet beneath her and perhaps disappear. “...Thank you.”
She peeked up at him. Felix’s eyes were open again. His face returned to that impassive glare. But it wasn’t at her. It just moved into the fire. His expression had gone from sharing with her to entirely unreadable.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have thanked him.
Annette settled back onto her knees. The room felt colder, somehow, despite the fire. But her heart continued to beat, harder, faster, in some schoolgirl nervousness she felt was long passed her. She picked at her clean nails, the hem of her dress, the heel of Alexandrea’s flats to pass the time.
Eventually, Annette drew a deep breath to speak again.
“If we go back out there, Felix.” Annette found herself wondering aloud. “Would you like to dance, with me, maybe?” Annette asked quietly. The pause had gone on for far, far too long, and if she knew conversation expectation at all, usually a grand request, like asking one to dance, made up for the travesty of failed small talk.
She waited. She had hoped this would maybe ease the tension between them, but Felix never responded. She looked up from her place upon the floor to study his reaction but Felix’s eyes had closed again.
“Felix?”
Again, he did not reply. Annette inched up onto her knees to see why.
He had fallen asleep. His breathing had become quiet and steady. His head had turned away from her, dozing against the chair as he sunk down into it, his entire body relaxed. His dark eyelashes were long, soft against his cheek, a touchable shadow against his pale skin.
She gave a small smile.
At first she could think nothing kind when she had seen his sharp teeth and dark joyless eyes, but he looked rather handsome in the dull fire’s light. Particularly when the tension had flew from his face, Felix looked rather gentle and peaceful, like sleep lessened his guard somehow. Annette couldn’t help but enjoy the sight of it, a feeling opening inside of her chest, like he was someone she had known most of all of her life, and had only just realized it now.
The fire was sinking lower, the wood peeling off in chalky layers. She wondered if it would soon burn out without fuel. And, well, now was certainly no time to fetch more. She stood up, restless and uncertain, to just leave him asleep in the growing cold of the study.
She turned to look around. A heavy looking blanket had been used to cover the formal writing desk towards the study’s corner, and, without much hesitation, Annette pulled its heavy weight into her arms and half-dragged in back towards Felix’s chair.
Carefully, she laid the blanket over him, nervous that he would awaken and chide her for moving his father’s decor as she pleased, but Felix didn’t even stir. She pushed the blanket around his waist, his legs, and smoothed it down, hoping it would stay put even if he moved in his sleep.
His arm hung loosely again, away from him and off of the chair’s arm, perhaps exactly as it had before when she had bumped into it the first time. Annette tried to remember which arm Dimitri had stabbed at the shoulder, but when she couldn’t truly recall she decided not risk moving it back into onto the chair, afraid she might hurt him.
She smoothed the blanket one more time, bending low to fix the blanket over him. When she turned, Annette realized she was so close to Felix's face she could feel the warmth from his slow breathing. Annette felt frozen. She peered at him for only a heartbeat more, her hands shaking, a strange feeling of wanting to push his dark hair away from his eyes.
She had never, not once, been so close to another man’s face before. She had never even kissed anyone before. She pulled back slowly, carefully, half-terrified that she was over-stepping a very real boundary, and she pulled back into herself.
Still, he didn’t awaken, and, better yet, she watched as he seemed to snuggle down into the blanket, a natural response to feeling a suddenly warm and secure weight tucked around him, and he smiled. A small one, loose over his face, hidden soon by the fall of his dark hair, but she had seen it.
She turned back to face the door, suddenly feeling a bit better about herself than she had in weeks. Maybe this ball wouldn’t be so terrible after all.
Annette considered herself a great dancer. Not the best, perhaps, but she loved to sing and perform, and in this, she kept her head above the water whilst she lingered in a sea of nobles. She had yet to spot her father, nor Rodrigue, or even Prince Dimitri, but she tried not to mind. She just dazzled herself with the glow of so many fantastic candles and the beautiful collection of musicians that swept music through the great-hall in a single continuous, flawless performance.
Once and while, Annette found herself not so alone. Sylvain and Ingrid, the complicated nuances of their dance, often made their way to her side, Ingrid to give Annette a little spin and Sylvain to cut in to dance between them, grasping both of the women’s hands at once to keep their bodies moving in no small feat to the music around them.
Finally, Annette pulled herself out of the flood of couples and their warm bodies. She felt dizzy and rather happy that she had at least made two new friends that never left her alone for long, particularly Sylvain, who had clearly drank enough wine for both Ingrid and Annette, and he lingered around her warmly, sincerely catering to her as if she was anyone special in a room that included King Lambert and his beautiful wife.
Sylvain’s hand tapped at her shoulder, perhaps in another attempt to get her to take a cup of wine, but Annette playfully brushed him aside, panting to just take a break from the dancing.
“Sylvain!” She laughed, “I’ve told you twice, I don’t dri—” She looked up into the pale eyes of a young man. The frank confusion over his fair features looked so genuine that she shrank away at once, suddenly racing to bow as deeply as she could.
“Your Highness,” Annette said at once. “I am sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“For someone to confuse me with Sylvain,” Prince Dimitri’s smile was so wonderful across his face. “Would you think poorly of me if I considered that a compliment?”
Annette turned pink. He was as charming as they had whispered. “Sylvain certainly knows how to have a good time.”
“Yes,” Dimitri agreed, his tone calm and gracious. He then averted his eyes to the crowd, alarmed to be pushed in so closely. “That I’m afraid I will never understand. Still, we push on, don’t we, Annette?”
Annette swallowed thickly. “You know my name, Your Highness?”
Here, Dimitri laughed. It was a polite, curt sound, and it did not sound natural, but Annette understood him at once. “You are undoubtedly Ser Gilbert’s daughter. I have heard about you for much of my life; you are very much as he says.” Dimitri gently picked up her hand, lifted it to his face, and kissed her ring finger, a wisp of a feeling. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you tonight.”
Oh Mercie, Annette found herself fighting back a peal of excitement, his eyes are as blue as a winter’s river, pale and lovely as crystalline snowflakes.
Annette noticed Dimitri wince into his next smile. The dark bloom of a bruise was spreading out from just above his right temple, perhaps from where exactly Felix had taken him down this morning. She frowned sadly at him. “Are you alright, Your Highness?”
“Ah,” Dimitri told her at once, his pale eyes turning quite serious. “No, to be honest, I have quite a headache, but alas.” His eyes glanced behind to wherever King Lambert was watching, his eyes a force that haunted Dimitri to the edges of his days, even into his sleep. “One cannot miss an affair as, uh, enchanting, as tonight.”
“I—” Annette began, but she was cut off.
“Your Highness,” a rough voice cut in, deep and remorseful. “You are requested back at your father’s table.”
Annette turned to meet the impossibly large person that had melted through the crowd to reach Dimitri’s side. He was tall, perhaps the tallest man Annette had ever seen in her entire life, with deep scars that cut up his face. The muscles of his arms doubled Dimitri’s, if not tripled.
“Dedue?” Annette tested, praying to be right.
“That is correct; A pleasure, my lady,” Dedue intoned politely. His eyes, however, stayed very, very distant.
Dimitri’s expression fell for only a moment. He looked at Annette in dismay. “I’m sorry, of course I must go as soon as we exchange five words. I hope we may speak again, Annette.”
She bowed again, flustered and delighted. This was perfect. She had made friends. She had spoken with the Prince. She danced and not made a fool of herself! This was—
Her wrist was suddenly jerked backwards. Annette stumbled, bumped into a couple, and she apologized profusely as she found herself dragged back back onto the dance floor.
She turned to look at who had so rudely taken her hand.
Dark eyes. Dark hair.
Annette felt her heart nearly stop inside of her chest. Felix. Felix was here, his hand wrapped around her wrist. Annette slid her hand away from his grip, nervous and surprised, to see him standing before her. Had he actually heard her request after all?
She blushed.
“Hi,” Annette told him nervously. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Have a nice nap?”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, however, he stopped at once. Annette blinked at him, a touch worried, but she hoped perhaps he was just as nervous as she felt.
“Do you wish to dance?” She asked him. Her voice was shaky and not so cute, but it was all she had.
Felix’s dark eyes settled over her face. He said nothing. However, his arms answered for him, long and reaching, as he picked up her arm to place it up and along the back of his neck, setting the leading pose for the dance, and she felt his other hand hold, none too gently, at her waist.
Annette bit back a sound of pain. His fingers were knuckled into her dress. She felt herself stiffen in his arms. With the startling strength of his hands against her, she felt like his fingers might honestly tear its seams. An anxious flood hit her, hard, her cheeks now burning with shock.
“Um, Felix?”
His lips opened into a smile. But it was not a smile. It was just an expression of teeth and muted breathing. He was staring through her. Going through the motions of holding her, a dull, half-hearted step that missed the beat of the song around them.
The hand at his neck boldly sought to smooth through his hair. She met his eyes, wide and concerned, but the tightness of his jaw locked away all attempts to understand what was wrong. “Are you alright?”
Again, Felix did not answer her. It was like he wasn’t even hearing her.
She had started to shake. Adrenaline rushed to her legs, her arms. He was gripping her so hard it was starting to physically hurt, and it was embarrassing, and her dress might just tear. What was happening? What was wrong with him?
“Felix, we don’t have to dance.” Annette told him at once, forcing her tone to not blister hotly, bitterly, angrily. “Just let go of me, then,”
He didn't. He wouldn't. He pulled her closer to him. His fingers felt ever tighter over her hip.
Her face felt hot. She tried not to stare out into the crowd, too scared to know if they were being stared at, watched, mocked. “You don’t have to dance with me.”
“You are talking too loud.” Felix murmured darkly. His teeth were grinding inside his jaw. Was it in pain? Resentment? Annette wasn’t sure. He was breathing heavily through his nose, the sound of hot, angry air between them, a new aggressive song for them to pull between.
“Let go of me, then,” Annette bit back. She was so close to stepping on his foot. Who did he think he was? “What is your problem?”
“I hate this,” Felix’s voice dropped, cold and empty. His dark eyes fed on her in contemplation, as if tearing her apart would end the dance any faster.
“That isn’t my problem,” Annette hissed, her voice in its own tight whisper.
He twisted his hands into her dress to press them closer together. Suddenly, Annette found her face pushed into his neck, his dark hair, smelling at the heat and sweat that had dripped across his skin. She wanted to kick him as hard as she possibly could, for the entire crowd to see. She wanted to bite the thin skin there, to offer him pain over how completely embarrassed and hurt she felt inside, like some plaything for a cat to use. How confusing it felt, for them to speak so earnestly, and for Felix to turn on her with such hate in his eyes.
Annette said nothing else. She just pressed her face into the darkness of his skin and waited, her small body following automatically through the steps that held them together. It was a sad, pitiful dance that felt more like the final moments of an exhaustive, unspoken battle between them, of strangers and twisted reality and secrets.
Annette felt crushed. She hated herself. She hated him. She hated this, this vile repulsive dance, this ball, how the comfort and softness from their time before felt a fluke. Perhaps that was all Felix was willing to give to her.
She lifted her head to look at him.
His face looked entirely in pain. He did not look back at her.
“I…” Annette felt tears fill her eyes. She refused to cry before him, as someone who clearly did not care to dance at all with her. Annette refused to cry, not here, not in front of her lord father, nor the King. “I’m sorry.”
The song, mercifully, was over. Felix dropped his arms from around her. He turned on his heel without a word, without a goodbye. The blackness inside of his eyes looked harrowed and endless.
Annette felt the blood drain from her face. This was a nightmare. She was so stupid. What did she do this to herself, again and again?
Felix didn’t know her, nor care about her, nor want to care.
That was fine. Annette stole back into the safety of the crowd, attempting to freeze her feelings like a spell of ice. That was fine. She had lost herself in fantasy and expectation and the idea that she could be wanted, too.
Why was she here? What did these people possibly want from her?
“You danced beautifully with Felix,” a warm voice complimented her. Annette turned. She found herself face to face with Lord Rodrigue, his piercing eyes and warm voice, mixed with the low talking of so many others.
“Thank you." Annette said closedly.
“I believe it is finally time to let you know, my dear girl, how happy I am you are here with us tonight.” He collected her hand within his own. Annette tried not to feel just how large his hand felt to hers, entirely engulfed, trapped, fragile inside of his grasp. “I have been waiting anxiously for tonight, to finally announce my fondest dream come true.”
Annette lifted her eyes. She felt nothing. “My lord?”
“Tonight is truly special, my dear Annette.” Lord Rodrigue’s voice dripped with honey and poison. “I have just finished the arrangements with your father and I am so overjoyed.” His head then bent low to take Annette’s hand upon his lips. “How truly honored I am,” Lord Fraldarius’s mouth traced her knuckles in modest affection. “…to have your hand so graciously offered to my son.”
It took everything inside of Annette, years and years of holding completely still upon a stage, for her hand to not tremble beneath his lips.
Her lord father was there now, too. Time had stopped and stalled with the horrible, tasteless music, and Gilbert was smiling at Lord Fraldarius. He was staring straight ahead. He was plotting and planning and already, a complete stranger to Annette, to have brought her to this place and lied entirely to her face.
“My lord?” Annette replied. She hoped her tone sounded excited instead of terrified.
Lord Fraldarius, with eyes as impenetrable as a rainstorm, looked over Annette’s face without a trace of empathy. It felt like a vision of her future: to stare into the dark face of a man that had no love within his heart. “Felix is so pleased. As am I, my dear, to have you join our family.”
“Family.” Annette repeated. She did not understand. She knew so little of the intimacy of family. Her father had been gone from her life for many years. Her mother was distant and rather unemotional. How could such a foreign word feel so unspeakably cruel?
Another kiss to her other hand. How cold those lips felt; how cold the words.
I hate this, Felix had told her, his voice unfeeling and firm. His hands had gripped at her so tightly, like she was something he had hoped he could break. He was so desperate to get away from her.
“I would be honored, my lord.” Annette said again.
Then, she did not speak.
She did not speak for the rest of the night.