My footsteps echoed along the marble steps of the painting gallery. The curtains swam across the walls, the paintings a blur as they danced past. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the muffled sounds of a struggle, the cold neck of a whiskey bottle between my fingers.
My feet took me exactly where I knew I was going, glassy eyes taking in Dorian Fletcher pinning Adelaide Winters to the wall. This was the part where I shouted, but my voice wasn't working. I tried again, my throat closed as Adelaide struggled. The air was as thick as if I was underwater, Adelaide's blonde face crumpling with sobs as Dorian vanished, the colour from the paintings leaking out from the walls into the air, swirling around us.
"Don't leave," Adelaide sobbed, standing before me now, in that dress so dark a grey it was almost black, the one she'd worn to Andrew and Libby's engagement ball. The colours swirled around us as I took a step towards her, only for the cold winter air to bite at my skin, the paintings fading into the darkness of the ballroom terrace.
"You can't really be leaving," Adelaide repeated, her face just as crumpled and tear-stained as it had been that night in the gallery.
"I don't have a choice."
The words left my mouth like a slap, Adelaide's perfect eyebrows creasing as she blinked her teary blue eyes up at me.
I knew what came next and I wished it wouldn't.
Her lips on mine were as cold as the stone of the terrace around us. I should have stopped her before she got that close, but I hadn't, my reflexes slowed from the alcohol I'd been guzzling all night to fight the numbness creeping over me.
Or at least that's what I'd told myself.
"You don't want this," I said finally, pushing her away more cruelly than necessary, "You wanted a crown. You lost. I'm no one's consolation prize."
The words had their desired effect. Adelaide's eyes filled with hate before she turned away from me, rubbing her arms against the cold.
"You once wanted me,"she said to the dark gardens beyond the railing.
"That was before you threw yourself at my brother for his throne," I fired back.
"You never wanted me again after the gallery," she countered, her voice threatening tears again. Crocodile tears, because she and I both knew that I'd made no secret about wanting her, even after the gallery.
But after the opera outing, watching her lace her fingers with my brother's and whisper sweet nothings in his ear...
"You never wanted me to begin with," I snapped, once again wishing I could bite back the words. But it was already too late. What she said next was still coming, no matter how many times the scene replayed itself in my head.
"I didn't love you to begin with!" she protested, rounding on me.
Right there. That was the feeling I wanted to obliterate, to claw out from my mind and rip free from my memories.
The hope in my chest, the wish that maybe, just maybe, the girl I'd idolized since I was old enough to realize she was a girl actually felt the same way about me.
"You don't know the meaning of the word, Adelaide."
"Promise me you'll come back for me," she said, her fingers dainty little icicles as she knit them with mine.
"You know I-"
"I know that you're clever and that you love me. You will find a way," she said.
I wondered if she knew how profound an effect those words had on me.
She likely did, given that even in my dreams, I couldn't keep the words from tumbling out of my mouth.
"I'll come back. I promise..."
I lurched awake, my nightshirt slick with sweat as I caught my breath. A dream, it had been a dream. I scrubbed my face with my hands, catching my breath.
Only it hadn't been just a dream.
It was a nightmare spun of memories that were all very, very true.
I'd told her I would come back to her, despite my head screaming at my heart to stand down. I'd promised her I'd return and, try as I might to come up with some alternate explanation, I couldn't help but face the despicable truth.
She still had her claws in me, the power-hungry snake.
True, I'd once loved her. I'd loved her with all my heart, but she'd given up on me for Dorian, then for Andrew. As much as I'd wanted to believe her that night, I knew what she was underneath all that grooming and grace.
She didn't love me. She likely never had. That dark grey dress at the engagement ball had been her version of a mourning gown, grieving the throne she'd lost. But she was such an ambitious social climber that she wasn't above throwing herself at me one last time, using the one power she knew she still held over me...
My heart. Her one last attempt at winning a Pretanian crown.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, relishing the feel of the cool marble on my toes. The gauzy curtains hung limply in the open windows, no hint of a breeze to lift them. The room was stifling, the air almost soupy with humidity. I tugged off the sweat-soaked shirt I'd slept in, chucking it away and digging through my trunk for another.
I pulled it on as I crossed the suite, exiting to the darkened, spiralling staircase. With each step I took down towards the gardens, the air grew cooler, my heart beat slowing in my chest.
A dream. Nothing but a dream.
I stopped on the second floor, leaning against the stone archway that led out to the elevated pathway running atop one of the many colonnades. This one ended on the upper storey of the entrance hall, a refreshing cross-breeze from the gardens carrying the sweet scents of night-blooming lilies with it. I closed my eyes at the feel of the air against my sweat-slicked face, catching my breath.
When I had finally regained some semblance of composure, the pain of the nightmare banished to the back of my mind, I looked up at the stars, seeking the ones I was used to and finding strange ones in their places. The stars I'd charted were still there, of course, only farther north in the sky now that I was in Ardalone.
The garden was peaceful at night, bathed in silvery moonlight with the breeze sighing between the leaves below.
Peaceful and silent, until a pair of voices approached from the entrance hall.
I flattened myself against the archway, straining my ears for whoever else would be up and about, conversing, at this time of night.
"...won't do it. I cannot bear the thought of it!"
The first voice I recognized, though now Dulciana had clearly sobered up since dinner, where Ana-Cristina had been the one to keep her from stumbling when we all exited the dining room.
The second voice was all too easy to guess, given the way his eyes had followed the drunken princess throughout dinner.
"You must only be strong for a little longer," Armando said, as Dulciana stormed away from him into the garden. She was still dressed in her dinner attire, fine dress and all, while Armando stalked out to follow her in his dark royal guard's uniform.
"I have been strong my whole life. I will not force that upon someone else," she fired back at him, but didn't pull away when he rested his hands on her shoulders.
"I know, mi amor, but is it really too steep a price to pay for what you are doing? Your heart is still too gentle," Armando said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the back of her neck. Dulciana arched back into him, her eyes turning to the sky, and I ducked away from the edge of the walkway, so engrossed in my eavesdropping that she'd almost noticed me.
Across the garden, movement caught my eye as a shadow dropped from one of the towers to the other walkway. The hooded figure crouched down beside the balustrade, melting silently into the darkness, much like I had.
It seemed I was not the only one interested in the drunken princess and her companion.
"Selling Ana-Cristina like chattel is too much," Dulciana continued, breaking from from Armando. "If I do this, I'm no better than father and his bargain with Delmar."
"If you don't do this, what's stopping him from doing the same with Inés? With Brigida? And Sofia? He's already made it clear how little he values you, so what's preventing him from shipping your sisters off to foreign countries as bartering coins for alliances?"
Dulciana remained silent as Armando approached her once more.
"You came back to me, Dulce. Right when we thought any hope was dashed, you came back to me. Surely that happened for a reason, a reason you must now capitalize on."
"I know what it feels like to be treated as an object," Dulciana said. "I cannot do it to my own sister."
"Then perhaps the time has come for you to tell Ana about our plan. Once she learns the lengths you are willing to go to for her, for Inés, for the infantas...you might be surprised by the lengths to which she'd be willing to go for you," Armando said.
I swore in my head. The guard was a damned good manipulator.
Dulciana had turned back to him, enfolding herself in his arms, her words too quiet now as he held her. I inched forward, straining my ears, only for a loose piece of stone to skitter across the walkway, crackling like thunder in the nocturnal silence. I ducked instinctively as two pairs of eyes turned up towards me. Dulciana and Armando's voices had sunk to whispers, the pair of them fleeing the quiet confines of the garden. By the time I judged it safe to risk another look, they'd disappeared.
The shadow on the other walkway, however, remained. Still immobile but now upright, the cloaked figure peered my way. My skin crawled as I returned its stare, gooseflesh rising on my arms as the breeze lifted once again. A cloud passed over the moon, dimming the garden below, but when the white stone of the palace shone in the moonlight again, the shadow was gone.
**A/N: It definitely was not easy to follow the last chapter, what with all the family infighting, but I figured this one was juicy enough to keep you all captivated!
What do you think Dulciana is planning? I know a lot of you guessed at her relationship with Armando, but have you figured out who he is yet? (More on that later, don't worry!) And what's up with that shadowy figure?
More importantly...what about that dream sequence?! *wiggles eyebrows*
If you enjoyed the chapter, please take a moment to vote and comment!! :) **