Chapter Fifteen: Gala

“Come on, don’t bail out on me now!”  Daria said, nudging me forward.

I took a deep breath in and twisted the chain of my necklace in my sweating fingers.  With some reluctance, I walked through the open doors and into the vast ballroom.  The air inside was cool and fresh, and music echoed against the towering pillars.  Daria’s heels clicked against the marble floor, and she barely restrained a squeal of joy as she stepped next to me.

“Watcher on high!  This is incredible!”  she whispered, bouncing on her heels.

I smiled a little.  It was incredible, like stepping into a fairy tale.  A small quartet played classical music in the corner.  The smell of fresh sweets drifted in the air.  Elegantly dressed people danced in the center of the ballroom floor while others dined at round tables covered in lace.

But all I could think was that I was supposed to be here with Reece. 

“Look, there's Lief!”  Daria grabbed me by the elbow and led me across the ballroom.

Her tall, dark handsome oak greeted her with a gentle peck on the cheek.  She wound her arm through his and snuggled into his side.  I crossed my arms and stared down at the floor.

“I want to dance before we see the things up for auction!”  Daria gushed.  She glanced back at me, biting her lip.  “Unless... Sophia wants to sit and eat first?”

I shook my head.  “That's alright.  You two go on ahead.”

I gave her a smile.  Daria was so aglow with joy it was difficult not to. 

She pursued her lips together.  “Are you sure?  We don't mind waiting...”

I made a shooing motion with my hands, and Lief pulled her out onto the ballroom floor.  She glanced back at me a few times, but eventually settled into Lief's embrace with a contented smile on her face.

I paced down the length of the buffet tables, but could only muster up an appetite when I found the chocolate fountain.  After a few tastes, I was beginning to think I might be able to enjoy this evening after all.  The violin started a bouncing, joyous tune and I tapped my foot to the beat.

“You look ravishing this evening.” a low voice said behind me.

I gagged on the chocolate and clamped my hand over my mouth.   Swallowing the sudden sour taste in my throat, I turned to face him.

Thane looked all the more handsome in his clean, pressed suit, though the narrow-eyed scowl he wore on his face almost ruined the effect.  I laid the chocolate stick down on the buffet table.

“As do you, Mr. Stenberg. If you will excuse me…”  I whispered, turning to walk away.

He caught me by the hand with an iron grip and pulled me back towards him.  “You’re not running away from me again.  Dance with me.”

I tried to plant my feet, but I felt as though my flats were only sliding further along the glossy floor after him.  “Mr. Stenberg, I must decline!”

He turned back to me, and the corners of his lips turned up.  His eyes narrowed.  “I insist.”

His hand pressed into the small of my back and his fingers wound around mine.  I gulped and stared over his shoulder, avoiding his eyes.

“I was rather put out when you fled the night of the bonfire.” he said, stepping in time to the music.

The hand I held on his shoulder curled into a fist.  I felt my face flush.  “I apologize for my behavior.  I did not… I did not feel well that evening.”

“And I must assume your busy schedule is the reason you never called to explain this?”  Thane tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows.

I thought of the crumpled phone number I had immediately tossed in the wastebasket and bit my lip to avoid smirking at him.  

“Yes.”  I lied.  “So... how did your business trip go?”

Thane was silent for a moment, his scowl relaxing.   He sighed, and stared out at the quartet as they finished the song.  “About as well as it could have, given the circumstances.”

Thane's steps slowed as the song came to a close, but he did not let go. 

“Oh... I am sorry.”  I whispered.

The musicians began again, a much slower piece that I did not like in the slightest.

Thane started leading the dance again as though the music had never stopped.  “Tell me, how did you come to Dragon Valley?”

My heartbeat quickened, and my mind scrambled for a believable answer.  I thought of my visit alibi, the one that Daria had thought up for me.  “Oh… I am an exchange student.  From London.”

Thane let out a low chuckle, and shook his head.  He pulled me closer to him and whispered in my ear.  “I have difficulty believing that.”

The cool air of the ballroom suddenly felt hot and stiffing. “And why is that, Mr. Stenberg?”

“Because an old classmate of yours, told me something rather… intriguing.”  Thane hissed in my ear, making me flinch.

Jaye’s face flashed in my mind, looking grumpy and vengeful in the firelight all those months ago.  I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

His grip on my hand tightened and he pulled me close to him.  His breath felt hot against the skin of my neck.  My throat went dry and I felt sweat forming around the fingers he clasped at my back.

“So tell me… Miss Carol,"  Thane whispered in my ear.  Hearing him say my name, my true name, made me feel as though a storm of fire and ice shuddered in the center of my chest.  "...who are you really?”

I wrenched my hand from his grasp and backed away.  A couple dancing nearby gave us a quizzical look.  Thane curled his now-empty fingers into a fist.

Sweat trickled down my brow and I was breathless.  “Why are you interested?”

Thane crossed his arms over his chest, his mouth twisting into a frown.  “Why are you evading my question?”

I swallowed.  I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my throat.  With shaking fingers, I brushed a stray lock of hair back behind my ear and turned away.

“I… I feel poorly.”  I whispered, hoarse.

“Sophia…”  Thane’s voiced darkened in warning.

I clasped the skirt of my dress and practically sprinted from the ballroom floor.   Bystanders threw concerned glances in my direction.  I paused by the refreshment tables, pressing a hand to the center of my chest and panting.  I searched the faces of the guests for Daria, or Lief, or anyone I knew, but they were all unfamiliar.

I glanced back at the dance floor out of the corner of my eye.  Thane strode in my direction with a tight-lipped frown.  I rushed around the refreshment table and stepped over the velvet ropes that separated the ballroom from the hallway.  Turning the next corner, I came to a pair of large, ornate double-doors.

I could just feel the heat of his body pressing against my back, but when I turned around there was no one there.  I gripped the handle of the door and pulled it open, making as little noise as possible, and ducked inside.

Grand bookcases lined the walls, filled to the brim with gold-embossed leather spines.  I was in a small library. My heart would have ached with wonder, had it not been beating so fast.  I pressed my ear to the door and waited.

Footsteps thudded in the outside hallway.  I whirled around, clasping the handles of the door behind my back.  

My eyes darted around the room, and settled on an oak wardrobe.  A wardrobe.  

It seemed almost ludicrous that anyone would keep a wardrobe in a library but its lavish wine-red wood blended in so well with the room’s other finery that it appeared right at home.  I could only assume the owner of this venue was either mad or as bookish as Mr. Peters.   

I heard a thump behind the door, and I launched across the room.  There was a moment, when I pulled open the door to the wardrobe and stared at the empty space within, that I felt almost foolish.  I was playing hide and seek, like a child.

The door handles rattled, and my heart leapt into my throat.  I could almost smell the smoke that thickened the air around last winter’s bonfire.  Within the fire, my memories flickered.

The stench of burning flesh.  Scales reflecting the inferno.  My mother’s blackened body in my quaking arms.

I scrambled into the wardrobe and pulled the door all but a finger’s width shut.  I crouched down and backed against the wall.  A single band of golden light shined across my face.

For a moment, all was silent.  The images flashing in my mind slowed to a crawl, and then quieted completely.  I let out a quivering breath.

Staring through the crack between the wardrobe doors, I had a thought that if Mr. Peter’s could see me now, he might say, "...she remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never, never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.”

A smile cracked at the corners of my lips.  I almost giggled.

Then the door to the library swung straight open and banged into the wall.  I stopped breathing.

Thane strode into the room.  He looked up and down the bookshelves, his jaw clenched and his hands balled into tight fists at his sides.  I pressed my body up against the smooth, glazed back of the wardrobe.

His eyes passed over the wardrobe.  My heartbeat thundered in my ears. 

He turned in full circle and his shoulders slumped.  He ran a hair through his copper hair and turned back towards the door.

“Hello, Thane.”  a smooth, seductive female voice spoke from the doorway.

Thane’s body tensed.  His eyes widened.  He took a step back, bowing his head.

“Gaia.”  he said in a shaking whisper.

I bit my lip, and crept back up, pressing my eye to the crack between the wardrobe doors.

A woman stood draped against the doorframe, and my breath froze in my throat at the sight of her.  She possessed a ferocious sort of beauty, like that of a feral cat.  She wore a form-fitting black gown lined with crimson satin.  Her hair draped about her shoulders in lush scarlet waves.  The most striking thing about her though, was her eyes.  They were a pure, polished jade that shined so bright I could see them even across the distance that separated us.

“It’s good to see you well.”  she said.  Her tone was snide, almost mocking.  She turned around and pulled the doors shut behind her.  They closed with a resounding thud.  “How many of these charity-events have you attended this year?  Five?  Ten?  Do you tire of them?”

“What are you doing here, Gaia?”  Thane snapped.

Gaia whirled back around, her vibrant hair swirling about her shoulders.  She strode closer, her lips curling into a smile.  “You know.” 

“The answer is no.”  Thane replied, his voice darkening.

Gaia let out a soft, contemptuous laugh and rolled her eyes.  “It usually is.”

My mind was racing as I watched them.  I scarcely dared to breathe.  Who was this woman?  An old lover of his?  She seemed to carry herself with an air of sensuality.

“You can tell your two-faced bastard husband that I’m done with him.  He’ll get no more help from me.”  Thane straightened up to glare down at her.

Husband.  Help.  Was she a business associate of his?  If so, why the secrecy?  Why catch him alone at a public event?

Gaia smirked.  “But you’ve never even given him the help he really asked for-!”

“Are you armed?”  Thane cut her off.

For the second time, I stopped breathing.  Armed?!?  Thane suspected this woman had brought weapons to a peaceful gathering?

Gaia’s eyes widened and she feigned a look of hurt.  “Thane.  Dearest, how long have we known each other?”

Thane reached out and patted down the folds of her dress.  Gaia’s face hardened into a cold sneer.  Thane drew an object out of the fabric and raised it to eye-level with his lips pressed into a thin line.

I squinted.  Thane held the object higher.  My blood ran cold.

It was a shining crystal wand.  As Thane held it in his hand, it hissed with a faint hum of power and thin lines of vapor drifted up from it.

“Far longer than I care to remember.”  Thane said.

Gaia raised her hand and curled her fingers around his.  “I don’t want you dead, Thane.”

Thane let out a long, low laugh and shook his head.  He let go of the wand and Gaia cradled it close to her chest.

“No.  You don’t.  Your husband wants me to live.  Live and do what he wants.”  Thane’s arms tensed.  I could see the veins pulsating in his temple, his jaw clenched tight.

Gaia lowered her wand back to her side.  “You owe him.  He saved your life.”

           

“He destroyed my life!”  Thane shouted, his voice booming against the walls of the library, so loud and sudden that I flinched.  “He ripped all of my power and glory away and left me to rot.”

“You would have been dead if it had not been for him, and you know it!”  Gaia snapped back, standing up taller to match his simmering gaze.

My mind was reeling, my stomach twisting into knots.  I heard everything they said, and yet none of it made sense.  Power.  Glory.  Debt.  The words echoed in ears.

“I would have reigned if it had not been for him.”  Thane’s eyes narrowed as he glared down at Gaia.  His voice dropped into a low snarl.  “There was finally nothing in my way.”

Gaia stared back up at him, her jaw set.   She sighed, her eyes dropping down to the floor.  Her head gently shook from side to side.

“It seems the two of you remember history differently.” she whispered.

Thane’s fists uncurled at his sides.  His voice lowered.  “Yes.  It seems we do.”

The two of them were silent for a moment.  I let one shaky breath out and squeezed my hands together in my lap.  If I turned my head just a tad, I could see the back doors to the library, but there was no way I would be able to sneak out of the wardrobe and get to them.

“If I told you…” Gaia said, her eyes closing as she breathed out. “…how close we are…”

“The answer is no.”  Thane said before she finished, brushing past her.

She caught him by the arm and pulled him back towards her.  “You could have all that power and glory again…”

           

“Not by taking a deal with you.” he snapped.  “I know what you want from me.  You want me to spend a century as… as…”

Gaia pressed a finger to Thane’s lips.  She spoke in a low, seductive voice, caressing his shoulders as she walked around to stand at his other side.

“And what is a century when you have all of eternity?” she whispered close to his ear.    “Come now, Thane.  You could align with us.  You could have everything that you lost, and more.” 

Century.  Eternity.  I felt as though the walls of the wardrobe were bearing down on me.  I wanted to back away, but I sat with my eye fixed against the crack between the doors.

I had to get out of here.

Gaia stepped back, narrowing her eyes.  “Or… you could spend the next millennium of your life as what you are now.  Dragon Valley’s prized bachelor, visiting charity galas for Slainte Chugat Harmony Hospital.”  A wicked smile curled on her face.   “Rich, charismatic, and weak.”

Thane jerked his shoulder from her grasp and turned towards the door.  Gaia wound her arms against her waist.  “Think about it.”

Thane paused at the door for a single moment, his head still tilted in her direction. 

“We have time.” she said.

There was silence.  Thane was still, his hand lingering in the air.  Then, he slammed his fist against the door and it flew open.  He stormed out, leaving the door to bang closed in his wake, its hinges rattling.

Gaia stood in the center of the room for a moment, a wry smile on her face. Before I had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, she whirled around and wrenched the door of the wardrobe open, clasping her thin, wiry fingers around my neck and throwing me against the wall.  I only had time to choke out a gasp, and then all the breath was knocked out of me again.

Gaia’s unworldly eyes narrowed at me, simmering with rage.  I felt the sharp point of her wand press into my abdomen.

"What’s this?” she seethed. "A fly on the wall?”