Page 26 of The Jester

The audience gasps as he performs a series of breathtaking aerial manoeuvres, his body spinning and flipping in ways that seem to defy the very laws of gravity. He wraps himself in the rope, using it as an extension of his own body, dancing through the air as if he is flying.

Except, his wings are small – painfully small, like Briony’s – and he is not using them.

“He is Shadowkind, like you?” I ask her.

She nods solemnly. “We all are. All the servants.”

The jester’s aerial display lasts for several more impressive minutes, then he descends back to the ground. Breathing heavily, he splays his fingers and pushes out his chest.

He drops the rope and stands completely still, watching the crowd.

A drumbeat sounds from somewhere at the back of the room and the jester paces out of the spotlight. In time with the beat, he walks slowly around the inner circle of his audience like a tiger prowling in a cage.

A belt of silver chains encircles his waist and he wears leather pants but nothing on his torso. As he paces, I slip forward in the crowd. My breath swells, straining against my ribs; he is captivating. I cannot look away.

As I stare at him, the air around him darkens but, amongst this ocean of power, his lack of magic shines like a beacon.

Somehow, he feels pure. Different from anyone I’ve ever encountered before and, yet, familiar at the same time.

I watch him meet the eyes of every man and woman in the audience, not speaking, just staring into their souls. When he reaches me, my hand involuntarily goes to my stomach and my entire body fizzes with heat.

He lingers longer on me than any of the others. His eyes find mine and hold my gaze steady as waves of warmth drip down my spine.

I know those eyes.

Staring at me, he does not blink or move, just holds me there. Captured by the secret that swells between us. He inclines his head the smallest fraction. A movement so slight no one else would ever notice it.

I do the same.

Because I know exactly how I know him and where I last saw those eyes; I saw them looking down at me while he held me close and the falls thundered around us.

I know him because he fucked me, and because – for the first time in one hundred years – he reminded me what it was like to be wanted.

I want to drop my guard and feel him. I want to pull off my gloves and slam my hand against his skin and absorb every bit of him because he is so completely different to anyone I have felt before. I felt it then, and I feel it now – amplified by the strength of the Sunborne and by our surroundings.

The sensation is sudden and overwhelming, and I am almost certain I’m blushing.

But then he turns, and his wings appear. Paper thin and almost completely devoid of colour, there are places where the light shines right through them as if they are not even there, and the fibres that strengthen them are almost completely invisible.

They are more like the memory of a pair of wings. A whisper. An illusion.

When he turns and I see the piercings that puncture their delicate ridges, the heat in my belly turns to ice. I have never seen so many but I know what those piercings mean, and I know now why he kept his wings hidden from me in the forest.

Because if I’d seen them, I’d have known he was Shadowkind and I’d have asked him to explain why he was there. In our forest. At our festival.

He moves, and the piercings at the tops of his wings catch the light. I have read about them; there is one for every generation of his family that has been in servitude to the Luminael. And there are almost too many to count.

The ones at the very top chime gently as he returns to the spotlight, catching the eye of a woman with bright blue wings and silvery hair.

With deliberate grace, he beckons her forward. She grins and turns to her friends, who are nodding and smiling with approval. The jester – Finn, his name is Finn – holds out his hand and she accepts, a smirk playing on her lips.

Jealousy constricts in my throat.

He positions her in the centre of the light, then runs his hands down her arms and turns her palms up towards the ceiling. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a piece of thick, black rope. He presses it into her hands, then whispers something into her ear that causes her eyes to widen.

“What’s happening?” I turn, looking for Briony, but she has disappeared amongst the swathe of unfamiliar faces.

The drums beat faster, and the jester begins to dance. He contorts his body to the beat, telling a story I can’t interpret. Then – when the drums reach their crescendo – he stops, splays out his arms, and looks down at his feet. There is a moment of complete silence, and then he turns to face the woman and kneel at her feet.

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