Another servant approaches Arion, carrying the collar on a velvet pillow the color of wet moss.
The king, with a great flourish of his tall body, retrieves his bow. He knocks an arrow, and the smile plastered on my face falters.
What is he doing?
Do not let him see you break, comes the reminder from Cursed One.
He pulls back the arrow, aiming it directly at my throat.
My breath quickens, and I try not to move.
He wouldn’t do everything just to kill me here, right?
Gods, he seems composed but I think he’s mad.
Then, with one swift movement, he lets the arrow fly free past me, out the window.
I let out a shaky breath, still smiling as the adrenaline pumps through my veins.
The crowd, once again delighted, politely applauds the absolutely ridiculous display of pageantry. Emboldened, Arion picks up the collar.
Emeralds alternate with peridot around the delicate velvet, but now I see its inner edge is lined with something glowing. The crowd practically leans, not with pity, but with a hunger for more theatrics.
At the foot of the dais, I kneel because I have practiced kneeling until the word does not make my body flinch.
Arion takes up the collar with both hands. He holds it at arm’s length so the stones can drink lampfire and give it back. “Forged for unity,” he says to them.
He lowers the circle toward my throat.
For a beat longer than a breath, he holds it just above my skin. I can feel the heat of his hands. He lowers it the last inch. It kisses the base of my neck, and I resist gagging.
The clasp clicks shut. The sound is small, but I fear I will never forget it.
Heat travels along the inner edge of it and into my collarbones as if it has decided to live there.
“Look at the crowd,” Arion says only to me, with the softness of a tutor who loves being obeyed. He tips my chin up with two fingers. “Let them see what is mine.”
As much as I hate it, I do as he says because I have learned the difference between obedience and surrender.
I stand and face the scene. All throughout the room, the elves begin to clap. A few even cheer. The sound is jarring next to the obvious frowns of others.
Music returns to enliven the gathering on cue. I hear the harp and flute, and the precise talk of a drum. A ring of dancers slides from the crowd like fish from a net—they are dressed as wolves in gray velvet with silver teeth, stags whose antlers hold bells threaded on silk, and doves whose wings are made of gauze.
“Let the hunt—” Arion cries, delighted, “begin!”
His subjects waste no time in starting their revels, but I remain glued in place. The same fake smile pasted over my lips.
Arion extends his gloved hand. “Dance with me.”
I hesitate. I have practiced the steps with the attendants many times. But everything is different now.
I give him my fingers. They are steady where I am not, but I follow along anyway, just as I did the first night I met him. It was my duty to please him then, while the lives of many hung in the balance. Now is no different.
We turn, cross, turn again. He displays me the way men display hunting trophies. His palm rests on my lower waist. His grip tightens when we pass the balcony where his subjects watch, and it loosens when we pass the window where there are few eyes to see. He is very good at performance.
The dancers circle, predators and prey folding into each other likeribbon on a spool. A wolf’s snout brushes a swan’s throat and withdraws in polite flirtation. A hare runs two steps and stops because the choreography says it must. A stag kneels at the edge of the dais, and a woman in a crown of white flowers steps onto his back with a laugh that does not notice the first bloom crushed under her heel.
“Lovely,” Arion murmurs for the room. For me, he says, “I very much enjoyed the sight of you kneeling before me. I will enjoy it again tonight.”