The Essence
Page 67

She’s nothing, Sabara claimed.
Niko didn’t lie the way Sabara did, but I felt his hand close around my elbow, and he pulled me away. I followed without question.
“She was reading you,” he said when we were alone at last.
“What does that mean, reading me?”
Niko sighed, as if only just remembering that I wasn’t her, that I didn’t know everything Sabara knew. A tender smile tugged his lips. “She can read your thoughts, but only if you let her in.”
“I didn’t. I-I don’t think I did, anyway,” I thought of the way I’d felt exposed and I shuddered.
“You didn’t. She didn’t have enough time.” His smile was meant to be reassuring.
Instead, it was alluring. At least to Sabara. I took an insignificant step closer.
But there was nothing insignificant about it.
Suddenly we were face to face, breath to breath. I wasn’t sure my heart was beating, but Sabara’s was.
“Dance?” I heard myself say to him, and I nearly gasped, realizing that it wasn’t me who’d spoken at all. That I was no longer the one in control. I felt my lips pull into a smile then, unable to make them stop.
Panic seized me, as Sabara’s words tried to comfort me. We had a bargain, Charlaina. This is what I want.
Niko grinned back, a wild, uncaged grin that matched my own.
He took my hand and led me to the center of the dance floor. Bodies parted out of our way like a tide, until it was only the two of us who existed out there, and a million eyes were on us, like stars, omniscient and watchful.
I placed my other hand on his shoulder and we stepped into the music, letting it envelop us, curl around us, pull us. It was like a force that manipulated and coaxed, controlled and cajoled.
In his arms, my body became supple and pliant, moving in ways I didn’t know it could. I followed steps I’d never seen before. I tasted notes and smelled laughter and heard colors all around me.
My world turned upside down, making me dizzy in the most delicious way.
All because of Niko.
All because I was in his arms at long, long last.
No! This isn’t right. This time it was me arguing with her.
I knew she was ignoring me, and I tried again. I tried harder. My skin tingled, but my head still spun, swirling and whirling, delighting in the sensation of being twirled and held and twirled some more.
Heat flashed through me as I willed Sabara to give my body back to me. To step aside.
I didn’t hear the gasps, or the cries. I didn’t hear the murmur that erupted around us, spreading like the fire that spread inside of me.
I only knew that when I finally stopped turning, when Niko’s hands fell away from me at last, I was no longer helpless and trapped.
I felt whole.
I was me again.
And I was blinding.
Bitch, I heard Sabara hiss, but she was quieter now. Distant. Less than a whisper.
“Your Majesty.” It was Zafir who tugged at my arm, leading me from the center of the dance floor, forcing my feet to move once more.
I looked up at his face, but there was something wrong with it, it was awash in too much light, emanating a glow that was almost impossible to look upon and I winced, lifting my arm to shield my eyes.
That was when I realized the truth.
It wasn’t Zafir who glowed, it was me.
The light beneath my skin shimmered in the way it had before, when Angelina had first brushed her fingertips over me in a last-ditch effort to stop Sabara from taking me over entirely. It was so bright my eyes ached.
I glanced around at the others now, the gathered crowd that had formed around me, queens and emissaries and counselors and ambassadors, along with servants and performers and musicians. The entire party had ground to a stop. The entire party was watching me.
I opened my mouth, wondering what I’d say, wondering how I’d explain my strange transformation. It was one thing to have an unusual pallor, to be so translucent I was luminous. It was another thing altogether to actually, truly, contain sparks beneath my skin.
I worried that I’d somehow revealed too much of myself.
It was Neva who reacted first, despite my best efforts to come up with something rational. Some logical explanation that didn’t betray my secrets.
“Bravo, Queen Charlaina! Bravo!” she exclaimed gleefully, clapping her hands together as she stepped forward, her gossamer gown matched exactly to the shade of her skin, making it seem invisible, as if she were wearing nothing at all. “You’ve outdone us all!” She clasped my hands in hers, lifting them to her bosom as she beamed down upon me. “You are the loveliest of us all.” This time her voice came out husky, and I wondered if I’d heard right, if there was an air of envy hidden there.
She whirled me around to face the rest of the onlookers, lifting my arm as if I’d somehow achieved a triumph and she were declaring me the victor. Doubt moved from face to face, but then I heard one uncertain round of applause, followed by another, and soon the entire room was cheering.
Cheering the fact that my skin was alight.
Cheering because Neva told them to do so.
I pulled my hand from hers as I smiled wanly. Then I fled the ballroom.
I was still shaking when Niko found me.
“Charlaina,” he said.
I shook my head. “Go away.” I meant it this time. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to hear his voice. I just wanted things to go back to the way they used to be, when I was me.
The old me.
I huddled as far as I could, trying to find darkness in which I could hide, but there was none. I’d made it all vanish.