Page 23 of A Promise of Peridot
“Have you given any more thought to my offer?”
On the ship, Mari had offered to research my true parentage. She figured now that my Fae history was no longer a secret, Dagan might help her hunt down some Fae texts.
If we ever made it back to Shadowhold to see him again.
“I don’t really know what the point would be,” I said, not sullenly.
I had made peace with never knowing my father years ago. I hoped I could do the same with my mother. Whoever they had been, clearly they hadn’t wanted me in the first place. Or, worse, had enough reason to give me up against their will. And now—
Well, it didn’t really matter now, did it?
“Speaking of Fae,” I remembered, “the prince knows about the Fae Realm. He knew what Kane was.”
“Interesting...” Mari’s eyes widened. “I wonder if the whole royal family does. They did agree to wed their daughter to Kane. Maybe it was a political move. Not just for power over Evendell but the Fae Realm as well.”
Given Queen Isolde’s ferocity, I didn’t put it past her. She likely valued her political dominance as much as her daughter’s pride.
“Maybe I’ll ask the prince myself,” I said, raising my chin.
“I think you should.” She grinned back at me.
For a moment we sipped our pilfered wine contentedly as we listened to the ambient sounds of the restaurant. The mild notes of a flute, the clinking of glasses, and the chatter of merry patrons. Just beyond the patio, Azurine citizens laughed and chatted as they strolled with no haste along the still-warm cobblestones, taking in the dappled cerulean light. And in the distance, those constant waves lapped softly against a restful shore.
“So, what now?” I asked, rubbing at my sated stomach. Thank the Stones for the light cotton dress that hung off me like a luxurious sheet. I would have burst through a corset.
“I suppose we have to go back and sleep. We did say only dinner...” Mari’s grin held only mischief.
I pressed my mouth to my glass to suppress my laugh. The wine was buzzing in my mind and legs, the city alive all around me. I wanted to drown in it. To be someone else, just for an evening. Mari had been right: getting out had helped, if only slightly. Like cheesecloth over a stab wound. “No, no. You’ve sold me. I’m in for the ride. Where to now?”
“Dancing! Dessert? Both!” She stood up and grabbed my hand,leaving a handful of coin on the table and pulling us out down a narrow street lined with potted lemon trees.
?The after-dinner crowd was even more lively. They popped in and dipped out of stores, cafés, and taverns, carrying small baskets stuffed with wine and candles and fruit.
We strolled alongside them into parlors flooded with sweets—I was too full to even look at the sugary morsels—and shops replete with leather goods that smelled like pine and citrus. Azurine was filled with more life, more sound, moreenergythan anywhere else I had ever been.
Turning down a white cobblestone road lit in watery shafts of mermagic streetlight, we heard the rhythmic beat of gentle drums and string instruments.
“This way.” Mari drew me through a tavern door, into heat and noise and joy—a jostling throng of revelers dancing and singing, as if they were one sweaty, euphoric mass—and plunged us into the depths before I could object.
Wafts of vanilla and lemon fought for dominance against a heavy fog of sweat and spilled liquor. But the beat took control of my hips and feet, swaying my body and clearing my mind. It was like running—the more I danced, the less I could think or worry. Only this time, the harmonious, rising music succeeded in drowning everything out.
The vibrations of the strings silenced my mind, the lyrics of the bard filled the chasm in my soul. Handsome men with glistening chests and hair glued to their foreheads with sweat twirled and dipped me, cheering and chanting for me to move more sensually, display my body, spin for them—and I did. I allowed myself to beswallowed up by their revelry for hours, until it was well past midnight. Until time slowed to a rolling yawn. Until my hair was a damp mess around my face, my dress had torn, and my feet screamed at me in agony—blisters already blossomed, popped, and peeled.
Still, I danced.
The pleasurable swell in my feet and legs welcome, I writhed and shined and shimmered under the torches that filled the room, singing to the folk songs I knew and the ballads I didn’t until my lungs burned. Roared at me. Begged for reprieve.
But I couldn’t stop. I moved to the pulsing sounds of the band, the rhythmic beat, the ocean I swore I could still feel lapping in the harbor outside, glittering and kissed by the moonlight. I wanted to be gobbled up by it all. I’d simply never leave.
“I can’t dance a minute longer!” Mari shouted over the drumbeat.
“No, let’s stay!”
“What?” she screamed, her face pink and shining with sweat.
“I don’t want to go back!” I yelled again.
“A snack?”
