The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 63

Val

My mind is oddly silent tonight.

No Occisor. No Icylus. Just me, left alone with my thoughts.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

Are there no warnings to be given because everything is going to work out? Or because it's already too late?

I don't think I want to know the answer.

The ball has officially begun. The throne room, full of polished wood and stained glass and gold, like a honeycomb of dazzling light, is filled with guests—nobles and merchants and artisans and anyone of any kind of status—and more are still streaming in from the large, grand set of golden doors that are thrown open, like wings. Dozens of chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceiling, lighting the vast space with refracted candlelight so that everything is cast in a dim glow. Columns rise from the expertly tiled floor, extending up to the mezzanine above, giving it a solid foundation to rest upon. In the center of the throne-ballroom, raised on a glittering golden dais, a quartet of musicians plays a splendid piece that continually speeds up and slows down, transitioning from mournful to lively in a chorus of crescendos and decrescendos, allegros and morendos. The musicians' instruments vary, but they're all made from polished wood and golden wire, all so very beautiful.

I can't remember the last time I heard such music, the kind that makes you feel.

I'm standing near a window in the ballroom, leaning against one of the many opulent columns, away from the crowd of waltzing and/or conversing people. I hold a glass of some kind of red wine some servant handed me, but I'm not drinking it.

Maybe I would be if only it didn't look so much like blood.

I'm in a dress, and it's very strange. I haven't worn a dress in months; the last time I was wearing one was when I was escaping Nieves with Lake. Things feel so different now. I feel so different now.

I feel okay in the dress though. When I first put it on, I felt almost panicked because some of my scars were visible, on my arms and on my back. So I began to braid my hair as a distraction, but then Kye came in and took over. And suddenly it was difficult to remember anything troubling, anything about anything when his hands were in my hair and his lips were moving across my skin and he was telling me that I was beautiful and lovely and perfect.

But that's the thing. Everything seems too good to be true. Kye looks at me like I've put the stars in the sky, and I can't help but wonder how long it will last. He has seen me at my best and my worst, yet I still have doubts, because I don't know how to do whatever we're doing, whatever we are. I don't know how to be soft; I just am sometimes. I don't know how to love him like I love him, and I fear that my love is too dark and violent and merciless. I don't know how to control my feelings and I'm scared, so scared that he will eventually take it all back. Everything. I'm terrified. Terrified that he'll tell me that he doesn't love me, that he could never love someone like me, a monster. Terrified that one day I will have too much blood on my hands and not enough guilt in my heart and he will see it and know it and think me to be a vile, cruel creature. Terrified that I'll be touching him, touching him like I touched him last night, and he'll look at my dark hands and suddenly be horrified, horrified and repulsed. Terrified that it will be the other way around, that he'll be touching me, and suddenly be disgusted when I'm at my most vulnerable, look at my scars and be revolted, want to be sick, and think how could he ever want someone like me, someone who's been broken and stitched back together one too many times so that her body is an ugly map of pain and suffering.

I'm scared that I'm going to lose everything I've gained over these past few months and it's so much easier worrying about things that could happen without the help of external forces than worrying about said external forces, like the spies and the Dark King and the warning Icylus gave me days ago that tonight my worst nightmare will come true.