Page 67 of Play of Shadows
Theoohsandaahsat the sight of Shariza in her costume quickly faded from my hearing, for it wasn’t the duke’s enigmatic agent I saw now but Ajelaine herself: indomitable, audacious, despairing Ajelaine. She wore her hair loose. She’d once draped those long, sun-kissed chestnut tresses over Corbier’s eyes, laughing as she swore the dreaded Red-Eyed Raven’s irises had turned gold at her touch. Those delicate fingers, callused at the tips from endless hours plucking the strings of her lute, had once spent many hours entwined with Corbier’s. And thoselips. . .
Corbier had risked his life so that he might taste those lips one last time, no matter the price.
She’s so real, I thought, mesmerised by the sight of her– andthe scene dissolved again, fading into the mist that was drifting in through the window, and my own world was lost to me again. All I could see was the past, and in Ajelaine’s gaze, a desire as powerful as my own.
‘Are you real?’ I asked– and realised that somewhere in the mundane world of the Operato Belleza, Lady Shariza was having to contend with my idiotic utterances.
Bad enough she had to learn an entire script in the first place; now she’ll have to improvise a whole play with me.
‘I am a ghost,’ Ajelaine replied, rising from the bed, the gossamer-thin silk nightgown clinging to the curves of her body. She spread her arms. ‘All the petty prettiness of this chamber is naught but a coffin for my bones, this castle a graveyard that houses the dreams you and I have lost.’
Deep inside me, a furious passion stirred: not merely lust, nor even pure love, but a reckless fire demanding to burn bright against all the darkness that had taken hold of our lives.
‘You have but to take my hand, beloved ghost,’ I said, ‘and find that two wasted souls brought together are more than enough kindling to bring back the spark of life to both.’
Shariza rose and offered her hand. I bent down to kiss it, to greet her in the traditional way, but Corbier refused to wait and suddenly I was standing tall, pulling her to me, my hands going to her waist, my mouth meeting hers.
No!I howled to the spirit inside me.Shariza is not yours to play with, not some prop to bring back the memories of lost love– you will do nothing without her consent!
Corbier’s spirit, so much brighter than my own, threatened to consume both of us, but I held firm against his will and a moment later felt a gentle brush against my right cheek.
I noted subtle differences between Lady Ajelaine’s fingers and Shariza’s, even as the slight upturn of their smiles overlapped, weaving them together. ‘Then prove with your lips what yourwords promise, my Raven,’ they said as one.
She kissed me then, and through the mist I heard the audience gasp. In none of the historias did Ajelaine willingly join with Corbier. The Raven was always the leering villain come to ravish the passive victim while she cried out for her true prince to save her. Instead, here was Ajelaine–Shariza– drawing me to her with such ardour, the like of which I had never known before.
My fingers slid through hair that was one moment straight and fine as silk, the next thickly curled. I revelled in both.
A voice like my own, but deeper, more confident and utterly suffused with grief, pleaded with me,Let me have this moment, I pray you.
I allowed the kiss to continue a few seconds more before I forced it to end.
‘My love?’ Ajelaine asked, peering into my eyes so intently I felt like an intruder on another’s most private moment.
What happened next?I asked Corbier.Why did you risk coming to Pierzi’s home?
As if in answer, words came effortlessly to my lips. ‘I came to take you from this place,’ I told Ajelaine. ‘Flee this prison with me while we still can.’
‘I cannot,’ Ajelaine cried, ‘for I will never abandon my two sons. Pierzi loves them only as mirrors of himself, as remembrances of his own past and the future he sees for his bloodline. They are sweet boys, and gentle, and I will not leave them to wither and die from such paltry love as my husband has to offer them.’
Shariza had no way of knowing what Ajelaine had said, which meant I would have to feed her the lines– but at least I knew where to start. Without relinquishing her hands, I dropped to my knees and declared, ‘I know you must fear for your two sons, so young and so gentle.’
Without missing a beat, Shariza followed the cue brilliantly. ‘What love the prince holds for our children is only those fewpitiful drops he has not already drunk for himself.’
Angry mutters pierced the mist surrounding us. No surprise to find some in the audience were not happy with those words.
What did you do?I demanded of Corbier.You had to have known she wouldn’t abandon her children. What was your plan, damn you?
Corbier answered through my lips. ‘I would never see you separated from your children, Lady, nor would I love them an ounce less for all that they are his. I came with a treaty– a gift. I will offer Pierzi everything he desires: my titles, my lands, even my claim to the ducal throne – mine, and my heirs. I will bend my knee to him and he will finally have the right to call himself prince, the title he so arrogantly took for himself. He can marry someone else, have a thousand children by a thousand concubines if he so pleases. I will give him everything–almosteverything– he has ever wanted.’ Corbier held her hand to my cheek. ‘And in exchange, I ask only one thing– that for which I yearn every minute of every day.’
Ajelaine bade Corbier to rise, and Shariza, almost as if she too could see the past, pulled me upright.
‘Then you understand your enemy no better than he understands me,’ the two interposed women declared, ‘for Pierzi, to havealmosteverything is no different to having nothing at all.’
Shariza’s line was so close to Ajelaine’s that my breath caught in my throat.
A cold, cruel smile came to Corbier’s face in the past, and to mine now. I patted the hilt of my rapier. ‘Thennothingis what Pierzi will have.’
Ajelaine shook her head sadly and Shariza must have caught the sudden turn in my expression, for she did likewise. ‘There is no future for us, my Raven.’ Ajelaine’s hand reached out to clasp the back of my neck and pull me closer. ‘Only this last hourtogether.’
