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I didn’t think I’d be so reluctant to greet death as the man I watched die. From above, I was a mere spectator to his pleas for his children, his wife, and the job he wished to spend the rest of his years working for the one who stood to claim his life.
He didn’t know I was there.
Every time I watched a man on his knees, I couldn’t help my need to observe from the high rafters, wondering if I’d relate to his pleas if my own breaths were numbered. With my fragmented memories only spanning five years, I had little to attach my purpose to.
It was as if Hektor Goldfell heard no cries as he gave a nod to the brute of a man pinning the victim down with a single large hand on his shoulder. He wouldn’t spill blood—not in this room. He wouldn’t disturb the bustling nighttime entertainment in the main room of his establishment with this man’s death.
I pinched my lips at the sickening twist of his neck, fortunately not hearing the crack over the chatter and low music before his body slumped. It churned my stomach all the same.
As though he’d exerted himself, Hektor slumped into the nearest booth, flicking his chin so the few locks of red hair weren’t touching his eyes anymore. When two beautiful women slipped in either side of him, I averted my eyes, lying down on the wooden beam only a little wider than my spine. My glittering silver hair spilled over the sides, along with the sheer material of my skirt, which floated in the air. But I didn’t fear anyone finding me here. They never looked up.
My fingers brushed the ornate black hilt of my dagger idly. I wasn’t permitted to dance or entertain like the women below, but I still enjoyed the lightweight elegance of their movements.
Skillfully, I got back to my feet, perhaps childishly copying one of the ladies who was trying out the art of theft among the newest group of esteemed card players. Distraction came in her fluid movements. I crossed over the wooden rafters, light on my toes, twirling like she did, and studied her movements, pretending it was I who attracted the men’s lusty eyes, their gazes preoccupied enough to miss her hand purposely placed on one’s shoulder to divert his attention from her other hand dipping into his pocket.
I couldn’t see what she stole, but her blue irises gleamed triumph.
She twisted and perched on the edge of the table, arching her back as she lay so as not to disturb their game. I reclined backward until my hands felt the wood, legs rotating in the air, and my next blink canceled out the dizzy sweep as I straightened again. Then I leaned back against the vertical support with a sigh, casting my gaze away from the busy candlelit room to the gloom of my vantage point. Cloaked in shadow, I felt no more than an insect caught in a spider’s web. It was hard to believe we were in the same room.
Sometimes I wished the guests would see me just once, even if I disappeared in their next blink since I was a prize only to be known by one man.
My eyes found Hektor, who hadn’t moved at all, though the women were now spilling themselves over him. His deep green irises were the one set I’d never want to be found by up here.
Within these grand walls he kept me safe from the horrors outside. The vampires. Different species of them who consumed blood or souls and kept the humans afraid.
But they, like us, were under the control of the king.
The main room was bustling with talk of the Libertatem, a centennial trial hosted by the wicked ruler in the Central Kingdom of Vesitire. Five humans, the Selected, from the surrounding kingdoms would be sent off in the coming days to compete for one hundred years of safety from vampire attacks. When our world upended into chaos three hundred years ago, following the king’s conquest in the war he announced henceforth that the humans would fight for peace, and the vampires would be kept under control by his enforcement of the Libertatem trials. I suppose it gave the people something to look forward to. If their kingdom won, they’d have freedom to leave their homes without terror for themselves and their children for a generation. If they lost, at least it was a break of pageantry in their bleak lives.
I think everyone knew deep down but didn’t want to acknowledge that their beacon of hope was a lie of oppression. I couldn’t relate to the excitement that buzzed through people’s talk of it, but I understood.
Spirits were fragile. Hope kept them from breaking.
As I remained confined within these four elaborate walls with rarely any opportunity to venture beyond them, I didn’t know as much of the outside world as I yearned to. All I could do was pluck kernels of insight from my frequent eavesdropping during these envious nights of beauty, gambling, and seduction.
I spent hours here listening in to the discussions of guests more eagerly than usual but my interest rooted more personally.
Four more days until the Libertatem send-off.
A clock ticked each minute in my mind as if it was an opportunity slipping through my fingers like sand and a grip on my heart squeezed tight at the thought of my longest friend leaving as our Selected from the southernmost Kingdom of Alisus.
My memory went back far enough to remember Hektor’s hold on me, but not what had chased me into his comparatively safe arms. He’d brought me here and told everyone the story of how I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. Now, five years later, from what I’d been told, I was around the age of twenty-three, and I knew he’d never let me forget that debt.
My hand hovered over the two long scars that ran from under my jaw to the hollow of my neck. Though I couldn’t recall the face, nor the moment it had happened, phantom jolts of searing pain erupted whenever I thought of it. Like when I fixated too long on the raised skin in the mirror, trying to find the memory. Another mystery perhaps owed to what I’d fled from.
What remained a despair I could never voice was that I would never know who I was before Hektor.
“You’re safe now, Astraea,” he had said.
Those first words I would always remember. Hektor hadn’t just found me, but also my name, which once heard I knew was mine.
In that respect, he possessed both my lives.
I didn’t know why, of all the company surrounding him now, he took favor in me. I surely wasn’t the only one to bring comfort to his nights. I’d watched women of all beauty give him their convincing affection. Those from fair skin to dark skin, of natural hair color or hair enhanced with Starlight Matter—magick that spoke to their wealth. Right now, a woman with glowing brown skin slipped a hand over his chest, in under the material he always wore with the first few buttons undone. Her long, dark hair appeared dipped in fluorescent rose paint. Another with a porcelain complexion and catlike yellow eyes hooked a slender leg over his lap.
I looked away. No matter how often I watched his nightly affairs, it never erased the question: Why did I choose to stay?
The answer came easily: I had nowhere else to go. And while he indulged himself in others, he came to me with an affection I consumed greedily and craved deeply.
Love was a drug laced with its own cure.
A new figure entered the room, wavy dark blond hair falling loose from his half-tie to frame his face. While he ordered a drink and leaned casually at the bar, he cast his sight up by habit. I didn’t shrink away from being caught by Zathrian’s ocean-blue eyes. I thought I’d face punishment from Hektor the first time Zath noticed me up here so long ago, but he’d never spoken of my frequent eavesdropping.
I matched his subtle smirk as he lifted a glass to his lips. Hektor rarely trusted anyone, but Zath had quickly climbed the ranks to become one of his closest men over the past year. I’d watched many come and go, mostly leaving his service by death, and Zath was the only one to have ever paid me notice. I considered him a friend.
Zathrian’s head jerked, a subtle signal, as Hektor removed the woman’s leg and shuffled out of the booth. My breath hitched, and just as he was intercepted by some men in fine wears, I began to make my way back to my rooms in case they became his destination.
The manor boasted far more of them than necessary. Hektor’s establishment was a well-known venue for the elite. Men and women with enough coin to kill their problems rather than face them. He didn’t host just one thing; Hektor Goldfell directed the most discreet but deadly network of spies and assassins in all of Alisus. Some of them I envied more than the dancers. Seeing their leather wears and glinting weapons never failed to intrigue me.
The dagger I owned, another secret, Hektor would never suspect I knew how to wield to some life-saving capacity. If he were to find out who I met with when he was not in town, I knew the consequence would come in the form of an ornate iron key sealing me inside tighter walls until our trust could be mended again.
The rough cadence of his voice caused the hairs on my nape to rise as I glided through the main halls like a ghost. When did my room become so far away? These winding halls were mocking me.
Swiping up a sheer blue face covering, I tied it over my mouth and nose. The ladies wore them sometimes, a beautiful accessory to add mystery and intrigue to their performances. The masks didn’t conceal much, but it wasn’t for Hektor I added the extra measure; I did so for the small chance my stealth might falter and I’d run into any of the guests.
His voice kept advancing, and he would know me from any angle should he turn the next corner. My pulse raced with my steps. I wouldn’t make it to the end before then. I did something I’d never done before, but it would cause no harm.
The doors that lined each side of the halls were marked with a star. Purple for occupied, white for vacant. These rooms were for private entertainment, strictly for dancing, though for any further desires patrons could rent a different room to follow.
Spying the first white star, I had no other option. I slipped inside, swiftly closing the door and leaning my forehead against it. My chest rose and fell hard as I strained to listen for Hektor’s voice to pass, but everything beyond the door was canceled out and all that filled my hearing was gentle notes. A soft song in the large, low-lit room. But I couldn’t find the source when I turned.
My next breath caught, and I kept deathly still as though my presence could be denied.
I wasn’t alone.
Yet I’d been certain of the white star that couldn’t be mistaken while under enchantment.
I saw him then. Or at least part of him. A form near blended into the darkness he sat cloaked in. He didn’t look at me, and I could hardly see a face from the shadow casting over his eyes. His cup of wine bore all his attention, lazy fingers swirling around the rim as if he’d yet to notice my intrusion at all.
Or had been expecting it.
No—not me. But someone.
I took careful steps into the space, and with one deep inhale I headed over to the side of the room, mind racing with what to do. Though I dare not glance his way, my skin ignited with scattered pinpricks of attention that made me believe he’d finally sought me out.
He had to be watching me.
My pulse beat hard in my chest as I felt a featherlight caress across my shoulders that drew forth a gasp. When I looked, no one was there. The man remained exactly where he was, and I was wrong to have thought he cared about my being here.
In my irritation I picked up the decanter. The slosh of water filling my cup was all that disturbed the music. Still, I couldn’t find the players of the song that felt like an embrace, something about it familiar and soothing. Personal even.
I took a long drink, hoping the water would stay and not dry out my throat again as soon as I placed the cup back down.
Is he waiting for me to begin?
The steps I could take I played out subconsciously, tempting my body to enact them as I’d done to no audience but shadow. That was all this man was. I could pretend to be dancing along the precarious rafters as a silly imitation to those gifted in the skill. The worst to come of it would be no payment if I didn’t meet his expectation. I didn’t need that.
Nerves turned to thrill as a surge of electricity touched the tip of my spine when the song changed. As if it had been picked to ignite the pleasures of my body alone and guide a dance I would craft myself.
One night. How often had I dreamed of having one night to release that kind of expression?
I thought his eyes were upon me with the vibrating awareness. I wondered what color they were. It shouldn’t have mattered, but I skipped through green, blue, brown … None felt right for the shallow fire that rippled over me.
The song became elevated, an acoustic rhythm running straight through me. The pitch changed direction as if I were standing in the middle of an orchestra with instruments taking their turn around me. My feet glided toward the center of the room, only responding as the music coaxed.
I had nothing to lose and a moment of carefree performance to gain. Not only for him, but myself.
So I danced.
My movements pushed and pulled, with gravity flowing the light materials of my skirts and what was draped around my shoulders, attached to my wrists. The air cooled my skin, wrapping around the few inches of bare midriff that heated when I stepped light and twirled slow. I felt myself dancing through the darkness between stars. Each time they touched me I erupted with exhilaration, not ever wanting to stop.
I looked up and found the starry sky blinking back at me through the glass roof. Something about the night always awakened me more than the daytime.
When my gaze fell back down, I remembered the stars weren’t my only spectators.
His fingers stopped circling his wine, and though I still couldn’t see his face, the music gave me a surge of confidence to edge closer to him. Until I forgot his presence once more.
My leg eased up sideways, my body curved, and my hand curled around my ankle, testing my flexibility, as the song grew to a climax. Then the notes flared, coming down like a flurry, and I let go, my leg hooking to spin my body in time.
I felt alive. Free. This kind of exhilaration topped my untold proclivity for fighting, though both gave similar thrills.
I didn’t know when I’d come closer to the stranger, but in my high of adrenaline intrigue seized me, and before I knew it, I was right before him. But he didn’t look up.
My hand reached for his chin …
So fast I couldn’t make a sound, a grip lashed around my wrist, disorienting me for a second before I blinked back to clarity as I was spun around. The new impression against my back snapped my awareness to my newly compromised position.
His hold pinning my wrist to my shoulder loosened.
My heart thrummed wildly, unknowing of what to do. To my error I’d overstepped. I couldn’t call out like any of the other women in danger—if Hektor were to find me here …
“You are not what I expected.”
I took a moment to breathe against the silvery gravel of his voice. His fingers shot sparks across my skin as they trailed down the length of my arm, occasionally slowing as though he were taking in every one of my silver markings.
“Oh?” It was all I could muster as fear of an oddly spirited kind tightened my throat.
Copyright © 2023 by Chloe C. Peñaranda
