Radiance

Chapter Seventeen

“Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill

Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow;

Far what care I who calls me well or ill,

So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?

You are my all the world, and I must strive

To know my shames and praises from your tongue;

None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That me steel’d sense or changes right or wrong.

In so profound abysm I throw all care

Of others’ voices that my adder’s sense

To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

You are so strongly in my purpose bred

That all the world besides methinks are dead.                                                                                 

                            Sonnet CXII - Shakespeare

As she ascended the now familiar stairs Tamar could hear the music thrumming through the wood as it played loud above her. The melodies grew in clarity as she climbed higher, the beautiful tunes drifting down to meet her expectant ears. Queasy but determined she reached the door. Her body shook a little as she steadied her breathing.

“What am I doing?” she whispered incoherently. Why was she still even here? Her brothers were free and her friends were safe, they could escape unharmed if they left now. Every danger they faced were intoxicating themselves with laughter and dancing on the other side of this door, so why was she still standing there? She knew exactly why. Elior. The guy hated her and she still couldn’t let it go. He didn’t understand what had happened and she just couldn’t let her mess prevent him from seeing the truth of where he belonged.  She felt a responsibility for him now. And, dare she think it, she loved him. At the very least, she assumed this was what love felt like for she’d never known this kind. For a very brief second she saw herself in her mind’s eye with Elior in a normal time, her world, and wondered if she’d feel the same without the extremities that faced her now. But this wasn’t the time. A scuffle came from the other side of the door and then it was yanked open by a scruffy ogre of a creature who had his arm slung around a dishevelled woman with glistening pink skin. The female hardly suppressed a wicked grin while the ogre chuckled, “O’, ‘scuse us love! Enjoy y’self!” and shoved passed her to rumble down the stairs. Tamar had to compose herself before stepping into the smoky dome room. The unexpected panic from a moment ago ebbed only minimally after the entire company didn’t move upon her as one to hold and sacrifice there and then. Instead they barely seemed to notice her entrance. A few males who danced eyed her from the toes up but scarcely bothered with her face. She dipped her head and slid around as close to the sides as possible. Finding herself as alone as she would manage in the crowded space Tamar risked raising her head to search the room. She was suddenly taken aback by its abnormality. Not only were these beings out of her world as she knew it, tonight they were phenomenal. They reverberated the theme of the beautiful and the grotesque as she looked from one to the other. The Masquerade was true to its name. Gold and silver reflected the light as extravagant swirls spiralled out and around the wearers head. Gems and stones were stuck fast to form almost tribal mosaics around the eyes, down the cheek and onto the neck. Feathers were weaved with tiny bird bones to stretch up and ascend above the forehead. Laces of every colour were sewn with flowers and delicately held up to the eyes to tease out the hidden beauty or beast. Each personality distorted further as alter-egos emerged from behind their disguise.  Every dress or costume mimicked the theme of the creatures mask and the room pulsed in colour and splendour.