Though her heart still hurt, Alethea would not have missed Tristan’s party for the world. For one thing, it was his birthday, and the birthday of a friend was always something to celebrate. For another thing, it was his coming-of-age party, and the little lady felt it was her duty to remind him that she, too, was of age, and that few of the girls in the castle could look as pretty as she did in a gown.
Felt, but did not know or think.
And so, she regarded the intrusion of the younger girl – the usurpation of her rightful place as the first female to dance with Tristan on the night that he became a man – with mingled shock and bafflement. From her place in the crowd, where the other guests gave her a wide berth to allow their eyes better purchase over her body, her own eyes were wide and tethered to the pair advancing down the dais to the floor, laughing and smiling and blushing. Blushing! Now, why on earth would that be so upsetting? Hadn’t she just remarked to Leto only days ago that Megan was rather nice? Her brow knit, the play of emotions beneath them so jumbled they were incomprehensible, and she reached for a passing champagne flute on a tray. Forgetting even to thank the waiter, she swallowed the glittering contents in one gulp.
Megan.
“Easy, now,” a teenaged boy remarked, teasingly, and Alethea shot him an uncomprehending look, replacing the empty glass smoothly and taking up a second. She smiled a little stiffly, but not for the reason he might have assumed, and moved along the edge of the dance floor, away from the twirling couple. Her heels clicked rhythmically beneath her.
Before her, crowds parted.
The gown she had chosen was champagne and pearl, laced tightly around her waist and cut straight across her neckline, exposing neck and collarbone and shoulder but little else, in its long sweep to the floor. A design had been picked out in blue along the hems of sleeve and skirt, and the fabric gleamed beautifully in the candlelit hall. Her honey-colored hair hung loose, falling only to her chin, adorned by a net of tiny golden pearls and thread. Between the weight she had lost in her depression, and the change in her hair, and the sudden divergence from her uniform of black, she looked like some spirit of youth and grief and innocence, or else a nymph of the air, or (some remarked) an angel. The flush in her skin made her even more beautiful than usual.
But Alethea did not feel pretty, and she found that she did not feel like dancing, either. She could not hear the young men who asked her to dance, and though she tried very hard not to watch the prince dancing with Megan, she found herself quite unable to tear her eyes away. That is, until the other girl threw her head back in joyous laughter, flinging blonde curls. Alethea gasped, clutched her stomach with one hand and turned to stare instead at the King’s table, where only Mordred sat. She stared at him desperately, reeling. The half-finished glass in her hand slipped through her fingers.
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