Blake
It’s not a small gathering of people like Maeve said it would be. I should have known that this party would be… a writhing mess of voices and lifted conversation bouncing from wall to wall in the formal ballroom, a space the size of a small city that puts the grand hall in the castle of Crescent Falls to shame.
It’s well past 8:00. I sip a second glass of scotch, lingering along the far wall. Maeve invited her parents and several friends from Veiled Valley. Patton has a large group of friends in Moonrise, which surprises me even though I can’t say I know the man very well at all yet. And, on top of a few high-ranking wolves and their partners, their mates, a large majority of the staff is here to celebrate one of their own–Jane–everyone dressed immaculately and enjoying the castle as guests instead of the people who keep it running like a well-oiled machine.
The most surprising guest is Uncle Ryan. I watch him move through the crowd toward my perch along the wall, nodding and flashing that charming smile at everyone who turns in his direction, but his eyes dart to mine, and he gives me a tight nod that silently commands me to stay where I am.
I bring my drink to my lips and sip when he reaches my side with a sigh. “So, how’d it go in Crescent Falls? I haven’t seen you since… you had your brain scrambled.”
I keep my eyes locked on the musicians playing mediocre string music on the platform at the opposite end of the ballroom. Marianna isn’t here. Not yet, at least. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Maeve what time she was supposed to show up, and I’m secretly hoping she doesn’t.
“It was fine, like usual.”
Ryan chuckles, “I know you’re a grown man now, Blake, but you need to remember who my twin brother is. You scared the hell out of your dad.”
“He’s also a grown man,” I reply, draining the rest of my drink. “I didn’t go there to be coddled. I was there against my will. A prisoner. Cosette even came out of retirement to sit at my bedside and fussed over me for two entire weeks.”
He smirks. “Gods, I love Cosette. How old is she now? Eighty?”
“Around there, I think.” I glance at him over the hum of conversation. “Why are you here?”
“Am I not allowed to come visit?”
I narrow my eyes, and he rolls his back to the crowd.
“I brought Nora here for the weekend. She likes the art district, didn’t stop talking about it all winter, and she’s going to Veiled Valley with your parents after this for a few weeks to paint with Ella.”
Another man edges through the crowd but doesn’t smile or converse with anyone. Soren’s expression is stern and slightly annoyed as he wades toward us, doing his best, I think, not to scowl when he tries to roll his shoulders in the fitted tux I’m sure Maeve forced him to wear tonight.
His expression lightens, however, when he sees Ryan but grows cold again when he sees me standing beside him.
Soren curses something under his breath. He comes to stand on my other side. Ryan gets called away by Evander, and I grab a third glass of scotch from a passing waiter. Soren takes one as well, and for a few minutes, we watch the crowd.
“Are you going to marry Maeve?”
“Are you always this blunt?” Soren asks with a rough laugh into his scotch. “I’ve asked a few times, but she keeps telling me no.”
“Really?”
He nods, but the corners of his mouth lift into what I think is a smile. I have no idea.
“She doesn’t think it’s all that important, and to be honest, I agree. We have everything else. I love her. She loves me, for some reason. She’s my mate, and we have a daughter. That’s enough.”
I shift my weight as the musicians silence their instruments, which were my only distraction from the noise of the partygoers. Now, their voices tangle with the voices constantly humming inside my head, showing me tethers to the tapestry of our world no one else can see.
“I think Kenna and Evander would prefer if you did marry.”
“I think both are somewhat afraid of their own daughter and won’t push the subject, even if I asked.” He lifts his drink to his lips but doesn’t sip. “And I have asked, just so you know. Evander gave me his blessing after a long conversation about whether this is actually what I want. Her–and her attitude.”
I catch the amusement in his voice as he tips his drink back.
A soft hum of excitement drifts through the room as side doors open just out of sight. Claps ring out, followed by hushed murmurs. Someone cuts through the crowd…
“Shit,” I hiss under my breath but not silent enough, apparently, because I feel Soren boring holes into the side of my face with his gaze. Marianna ascends onto the platform, gripping her violin.
Her shoulder length dark hair is pinned away from her face in a neat half up, half down style that shows off the curve of her glorious cheekbones and stunningly bright blue eyes. Her body is draped in a black gown that hugs curves I don’t remember. Her fullness is… I’d felt it in the pool, of course, four days ago. Held her for a single moment and felt her heat, her skin.
I drain my third drink, letting the buzz I’ve been nursing for over an hour take on new life.
“Marianna Abbot, the new first chair of the strings section at our beloved philharmonic, is blessing us with a solo performance tonight,” says the man who’s been playing the cello all evening. He smiles at her. She gives the crowd a tight, slightly nervous, smile, her cheeks going even rosier under her soft makeup.
The rest of his praise is drowned out by the voices in my head–voices reminding me of her shortened tether to this world, her eclipsed string in the tapestry.
But I can’t look away when she raises her violin and her bow, and the first notes ring out over the hushed crowd.
It’s a joyous song–something sharp and lifted that captures the attention of the audience immediately. The music vibrates through the ballroom. The song dips into a flowing, almost gentle, melody that wraps its talons around my skull and sinks deep, quieting the voices and images I’ve spent the majority of life trying to silence.
In a grand, dramatic finale, she pulls her bow across the strings and the crowd erupts in applause, but I’m… transfixed.
The first time I’d heard her play was nine years ago, I think. I’d been in Eastonia, in Veiled Valley, spending a long weekend with Brie and her family to celebrate Aris completing what Ryatt and his late father called the Summoning, an ancient Shadowsynger ritual. That night, I felt off. Maybe a little uneasy. Marianna kept popping into my mind and wouldn’t stop. Sure, I thought about her all the Goddess damned time back then. I had the biggest, most relentless crush on her that I didn’t know how to act on, but that feeling was… different. I felt it in my chest, my entire body screaming to get to her, like something was wrong.
So I did just that and jumped back to Crescent Falls, which at my age back then took a serious amount of power I didn’t necessarily have yet, and I found myself in front of a music store in the pouring rain.
She was in a practice room. I panicked, searching her shocked expression for any sign of harm, but she’d been fine.
She told me to sit down and played for me for the first time. I knew she liked music. I knew she could play the violin and had dreams of attending Wellington’s prestigious music program, but I didn’t really think about what her violin would sound like until I sat on that stool and… lost my mind.
And it felt amazing.
Another song starts while I wade out of my memories and back to the present.
“That’s her, then?” Soren asks.
I glance at him, but his eyes are on the performance. “Yeah.”
“What did you do, Blake?” he asks with a wry smile, his eyes meeting mine. “To fuck that up?”
I set my empty glass on a side table full of hot-house roses and leave the party, skirting around the back of the crowd gathered in the center of the ballroom to watch Marianna play. My heart pounds as the music fades, and the ballroom bleeds into a series of hallways, then the grand foyer, which is empty and so silent I can hear the blood rushing through my veins.
I sink onto the steps of the massive, branching staircase made of pure marble and hang my head, rubbing my temples.
I’m not sure how long I stay there in the quiet, but it’s long enough for the clicking of heels to move toward me.
I straighten as soft voices drift in my direction. The musicians move through the foyer toward the door, led by a couple of royal guards. Marianna walks in step with the cellist, her mouth pulled into a tight smile that fades when her eyes slide to the side, finding me sitting on the stairs alone, like an idiot.
She murmurs something to the musicians and walks in my direction. I straighten further, stretching out my legs to look a little more casual than I feel about her approaching me right now, but she seems to pick up on that, her brows pinching together as she balances her violin case against her hip.
She doesn’t say a word until the guards escort the other musicians outside, and the foyer descends into quiet again, the soft hum of music coming from the ballroom now more modern, recorded songs.
“Did you not like it?” she asks.
“What didn’t I like?”
“The music I played. Was there something wrong with the songs I chose?”
“They weren’t yours. You didn’t write them. Your own compositions are so much better.”
She frowns, swinging her case for a moment before sinking onto the step beside me. Beyond the crystalline windows stretching nearly seven stories to the domed ceiling, rain pelts Moonrise. I’m sure that outside of the thick, impenetrable walls, thunder is roaring through the valley.
“So this is where you live,” she says almost to herself, glancing around at the shadows, the golden walls and marble details.
“Part time.”
“What does that even mean, Blake? What are you doing here in Eastonia? You’re the Royal Prince of Crescent Falls–”
“I’m abdicating.”
Silence. The choking, heavy kind. It descends on us like a wet blanket.
“Why would you do that?”
I finally look at her–look down at her. She’s sitting two steps below me, her gown fanning around her legs and the strappy black heels that complete the look. “I didn’t feel like I belonged in Crescent Falls. I tried to, but my cousin convinced me otherwise, and now I serve in her court as her advisor.”
“What about the firm?”
I let out my breath in a whoosh. I relax into the conversation like we’re back on the couch again, in the shitty little basement apartment, and I hadn’t fucked everything up yet. “They have other architects. I do some work there still, depending on the project, mostly as a consultant, but for now, Maeve needs me.”
Another beat of sucking silence passes between us. I should… I don’t know, say something. Tell her how wonderfully she played, how beautiful she looks.
“Why didn’t you come to talk to me?” I ask without stopping myself. “After–after the lake–”
“Oh,” she breathes, looking down at her lap. She opens her mouth to reply, but voices drift toward us, and I rise, extending my hand.
“I have an office upstairs. Do you have anywhere to be?”
“Home,” she says with a light, unconvincing laugh. “Mom is with Skye. But, they’re fine. Blake, we don’t need to discuss this if it’s not something you want–”
“Why would you think–”
Laughter echoes down one of the hallways in a warning that we’re not alone anymore.