Overture
Dangrus, capital of the Szpratzian Empire
When she was nine years old, Drakne Zolkedna traded a princess’s soul for dancing shoes.
Fydir, her eldest brother, had been generously endowed with a city townhome. Its pink-painted brick and brass-lattice window tops convinced Drakne they’d moved into an enormous cake. Lacy curtains and paintings of dancing bears framed her bedroom walls, a bedroom she didn’t have to share with anyone. Maids polished the wooden floors until she could slide whole hallways in her stockinged feet. After years on the streets and in crowded apartments, her new house felt as grand as a royal palace.
Best of all, Fydir hosted traditional Kolznechian balls all winter long. Aristocrats in top hats and gowns danced in circles around potted pines with branches draped in ribbons and lit with blazing electric bulbs. Footmen with crystal trays served finger cakes, chocolates, and flutes of sparkling wine. Gifts wrapped in crinkling paper were passed from hand to hand. Music and meter rose from the orchestra through the floorboards, curling around Drakne’s toes and ankles. Sparking something deep inside her.
Her nursemaid always put her to bed early on those evenings. So when the old woman retired to the kitchen, Drakne slipped down the hall, to the room everyone assumed was an unused closet. If she stood on a stool, she could, through a slit in the wall, peer down in secret at the glittering assembly. Could imagine she herself danced ballet to the sweeping sound of violins.
One evening, as she swirled her nightgown to the notes of a minuet, a man stepped into the little room.
He was small and shrunken beneath his tuxedo jacket, and he bobbed as he moved, like a pigeon. Archduke Marinus. The richest man in the Szpratzian Empire, who had made Fydir his spymaster. Who had paid for their house and its secrets.
“Hello, Your Grace,” Drakne said. “How might I help you?”
He smiled, sweet enough to rot teeth. “Miss Zolkedna. Always a pleasure to meet a girl with such a unique gift.”
Drakne’s heart sped. “Beg pardon?” Mama Minka’s dying warning echoed in her ears. Protect your magic, Little Goose. Hide it from those who might devour you. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t be afraid. Your brother told me all about it. Kolznechian magic is a special interest of mine.”
Fydir would never! But the truth wedged between her ribs like ice. Fydir would not refuse his patron. Every day, he left their lovely house to do the archduke’s bidding. Every night, he came home sharper and colder. I do it to feed and shelter you, he always said. I do it to keep you safe.
But Drakne didn’t feel safe. She felt betrayed.
“Would you like to help your family?” the archduke asked. “Will you do me a favor?”
Even at nine years old, she’d known it was a command. She nodded. He pointed through the screen at a young woman, her hair stacked in thick ringlets beneath a gold tiara. Hunger filled his eyes as she laughed at another guest’s joke.
Marinus told her what he wanted. Drakne slipped into the ballroom and took the woman’s hand as music swelled.
Princess Sofiya had a soft spot for children. When Drakne begged her for a dance, Sofiya tucked a sprig of holly into Drakne’s dark hair and pulled her into a waltz. As though by magic, Sofiya’s friends and attendants fell into step as music wove about them. Drakne, spinning in the warm arms of a princess, could almost believe herself at the center of a fairy tale.
But the gaze of the archduke, who was watching hidden from above, prickled on her skin. If this was a fairy tale, it had no happy ending, and she was the evil fairy who beguiled maidens into the monster’s den.
The next morning, a courier delivered a pair of dancing shoes. Rose pink with diamonds pinning ribbons to the toes, crafted for small feet. No note came with the package, but when Fydir quietly asked if Drakne understood the archduke’s message, she nodded. She’d done well. She was to do it again. And she had to keep it a secret.
Through the long, dark winters, their iced-cake house hosted one shining soiree after the next. Guests came to take in the siblings’ authentic Kolznechian culture and seek favors from the archduke and Princess Sofiya. By the end of the first year, tired of watching in secret, Archduke Marinus joined the melee of skirts and suit coats, circling Sofiya like a bald-pated hawk. By the end of the second, he would not dance a measure without Sofiya in his arms.
From age nine to eleven, Drakne grew like a yearling colt, knees and ankles knobby, shoulders awkwardly wide. Diamond shoe after diamond shoe arrived, as she outgrew them almost as fast as she wore down the soles. Tutors were sent to refine Drakne’s footwork, but her magic, she clumsily taught herself. Only she could see the bronze threads that flowed from her toe shoes like notes on a score sheet, weaving a spell that bound Princess Sofiya in the archduke’s arms until the last bell of the evening.
For each prancing step Drakne took could force others to dance as she bade them.
Wizardry, whispered gossips. A beguiling glamour. Some suspected the Zolkedan siblings. All Kolznechians dabble in dark magic. They’ve let that fiend they call the Rat King rule their country for two hundred years. But Sofiya earned the worst barbs. Marinus is the richest man in the Empire and she’s unmarried at thirty. She must have bargained with the snowfae to tease him into her hands. Shame and suspicion biting at her heels, Sofiya stopped sleeping, stopped smiling—until she returned to hug Drakne to her cheek. Sofiya’s affection ate through Drakne’s stomach like the coals that saints fed sinners in hell, and for days after the balls, Drakne couldn’t eat without tasting bile and brimstone.
“This needs to stop,” Nabik said one morn after the guests had departed. The middle Zolkedan sibling, only eighteen months her senior, had discovered the eggs and porridge a nauseated Drakne had scraped out her window. “The princess hates the archduke. Whenever they dance, she wishes she was dead. I can feel it.”
Drakne bit her lip. Nabik had the power of true northern wizardry. He could sense the wishes of others, make them tangible by summoning mended bootlaces or jars of candy from nothing. But fairy tales made no mention of young wizards weeping over wishes that shouldn’t come true. “I have to. We’re nothing without him.”
“It’s making you sick, too. Haven’t you noticed?”
She hesitated. It sounded like such a funny thing. For guilt and shame to make you sick, like fetid water.
“Tell Fydir how bad it’s gotten. Please. He’ll put a stop to it.”
“What if he’s angry?” Her voice sounded quite timid. “What if he stops loving me?”
Nabik wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight, warm hug. “No matter what he does, I’ll always love you. I promise.”
That afternoon, Drakne slipped through the heavy cedar door of Fydir’s study. Orchestral music spilled from the phonograph in the corner, warming her heart. Coming around his desk, she stared at the carpet and stammered about Sofiya’s plight and her own. Fydir set down his spy reports, tapped his cigar on the ashtray, and gave Drakne an encouraging smile.
Fydir was a man everyone noticed, with his strong, broad shoulders, gold-bearded chin, and red velvet dress uniform. Far too conspicuous to gather information himself, he’d assembled a vast network of informants who, supposedly, slipped in and out of the house to pass whispers behind his closed study door. Drakne had made a game of trying to pick out the spies amid their guests, but had yet to catch one.
“Marinus is an odious man,” Fydir said. “He’ll be most surprised the day he bows at my feet. Would you like that? To be a princess like Sofiya?”
Drakne didn’t dream of being a princess. She wanted to dance, see the circus, and always eat cupcakes. She wanted Fydir not to yell so much at Nabik, and for Mama Zolka to come home. But she nodded. She knew Fydir wanted her to say yes. “What should I do?”
“Keep at it.” Fydir patted her cheek. “For now, we need to do as he asks. And don’t feel guilty. Sofiya could resist your little trick if she wanted to. It’s only dancing magic.”
Fydir made it sound so small. Made her feel so small. “That’s not how it works.” Drakne hummed along to the phonograph music, lifting her arms into fourth position. Fydir’s hands flew up to mirror hers. His cigar fell to the rug. She took three prancing steps backward. He stepped back as well, his long shadow pulling away from her. The rug began to smolder.
“Drakne!”
She jumped. The spell broke. Fydir leapt on the cigar, crushing it beneath his heel into an ash-gray smear.
“Out,” he growled. “I have work to do. Out!”
* * *
The next ball was a grand occasion, held to mark Yuleheigh itself: the winter solstice, when the day was darkest and the goddess Winter bid her people to hold one another close. Drakne watched guests arrive through her bedroom window as she braided rosy ribbons in her long, dark hair and bit her lip. Soft, fresh snow tumbled down to the street. The wind blew, and a shape manifested in the flakes: a white winter owl, its chest full of flurries, its wings outlined in starlight. Drakne pressed her nose to the pane. Another gust of wind carried the owl away.
Harsh light shone through the glass as the soul-engine autocars of Sofiya’s motorcade pulled onto their street. Drakne winced and rubbed her eyes. Turning from the window, she shook out her ruffled white skirt and ducked into the hallway. “Nabik! Where are you?”
“Here,” he said, and Drakne jumped. Was he right behind her? She turned around and glimpsed his pale face peering out of her wardrobe. “I was … hiding.”
“From Fydir?” she asked. Fydir liked to yell that Nabik wasn’t a real man, that he cried too easily, that he smiled too much, and the older Nabik grew, the more Fydir shouted. Their fights often ended with Nabik curled up in bed, praying into his pillow. Saint Kema, make me a warrior. Saint Avazane, make me a loyal brother. “I’ll hide with you.”
But as she reached the wardrobe, Nabik jumped out and shut it behind him. His brow was furrowed and his fists were clenched. “No. I’m being silly.” Violins warbled downstairs. He pushed her dancing shoes into her hands. “We’ll both be wanted in the ballroom. Get ready.”
Something’s wrong. She knew it. “Wait!” But he’d already run away. Worries spiraled through her head as she laced up her slippers and went downstairs.
As she stepped into the ballroom, Princess Sofiya glided over and kissed her forehead. “Drakne! Happy Yuleheigh!”
“Happy Yuleheigh,” Drakne mumbled.
“What a dear girl.” Powder had painted Sofiya’s cheeks a jolly red but couldn’t conceal the hollowness of her eyes. “Dance with me, else—” Her eyes shot toward the archduke, who watched intently from beneath the mistletoe. “Else he will.”
“I’ll dance with you,” Drakne promised. “I won’t—”
The opening chords of Zdaski’s “Melody for a Snowfae Maiden” stirred on the strings of a cello. Violins joined, and the melody filled the gilded ballroom. Heavy skirts in bright jewel tones rustled as guests took their places for the dance. Drakne’s toes prickled. Excited shivers ran through every inch of her. She never felt more powerful than when she danced.
Archduke Marinus raised his voice. “Miss Drakne Zolkedna. Open the dancing with a ballet solo.”
No. He was going to separate her from the princess at the very start. Drakne looked about for aid, but Fydir only smiled at her, his expression as sculpted as a bronze bust, and Nabik flinched from her gaze. Drakne crossed to the center of the floor. Her heart pressed against the top of her throat as she lifted into an arabesque.
Then she spied it: the great roaring hearth, framed in marble and topped with pine garlands, the leaping flames hot and merry. Drakne grinned. It was the perfect dancing partner for the archduke.
She swept her leg around, down, into a demi-plié. Her arms lifted into third position. Magic arced, a faint flicker of sparks leaping from the balls of her feet to the tips of her fingers. Dancers stirred. Stepped to their positions. Princess Sofiya’s hands landed atop Marinus’s narrow, sloping shoulders. She shot Drakne a desperate look—but then Drakne twirled a pirouette, and the music carried them both away.
Horns and violins played the legend of snowfae girls charming beauty into snowflakes and rainbows. Drakne spun the tale in steps and gestures. Rond de jambe. Passé. Glissade. Guests whirled and laughed, caught up in the music. Drakne focused her magic on the princess and the archduke. With each tap of her toes, she tugged at the bronze strings that bound them like a puppeteer, guiding them through the press of bodies. Past stacks of wrapped packages and presents, past pine trees draped in ribbons and shimmering foil. Closer and closer to the fireplace.
This is my power, not yours. The thought burned through her. I want it back. Some part of her remembered that terrible things happened to Kolznechians accused of using magic. But surely Fydir would protect her. However angry he might get, they were still family.
A spasm rolled through her feet. A blister burst where her toe shoe pinched tight. Crimson bloomed on the pink satin.
Drakne wobbled. Sofiya pulled back against the archduke’s grip.
“Keep dancing,” Marinus hissed, tightening his grasp. Drakne braced herself. I’ll dance till you burn. She couldn’t even blink away her tears. It took all her concentration to spin the spell. Dance. Fight. Everywhere the fabric of her shoes rubbed burned like fire. She tried shifting her weight. A toenail cracked in a starburst of pain. Not just for yourself. For Sofiya. For Nabik, who feels all our wishes—
Nabik. Who had run away from her. Who dared not meet her eyes. Who had thrust her shoes into her hands.
Who had deliberately given her an older, too-small pair.
As she pushed up en pointe, Drakne slipped in her own blood and crashed down on the polished floor. The bronze threads snapped like the strings of a violin’s bow. The dancers froze, staring at the stains on her shoes. The music died, and shocked whispers took its place.
Princess Sofiya slapped the archduke and screamed.
“You little fool,” Fydir hissed, seizing Drakne’s wrist. She yelped, trying to pull free, and he shook her arm so hard she felt her bones twist. Tears poured down her cheeks.
“Fix this, Zolkedan!” the archduke shouted. Behind him, Sofiya gasped and sobbed. He lowered his voice. “Make her dance.”
Fydir gestured at Drakne’s bloody feet. “She can’t, sir. I’m sorry. I’ll see her punished.”
By morning, three doctors had declared Sofiya hysterical and ordered her confined to a rest cure in the distant mountains. When Drakne woke, with her head aching, her feet bandaged, and the outline of Fydir’s fingers on her arm, she was on a train racing across the countryside toward the boarding school that would be her home for the next seven years. The buildings there were cold gray brick, with bars on the windows and leaks in the roof. They assigned her a cramped dormitory room to share with four other girls, where her thin cot came with only a single threadbare sheet. She had never felt more alone.
But a letter waited on her pillow, the envelope sealed with the stamp of a crowned rat.
Copyright © 2024 by Zabé Ellor
