TO&FQ: Book 3: Chapter 21 (RAW)

Chapter 21 - The Dance of the Seven Veils

Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

- Charles Baudelaire.

Anaselena’s gift of foresight—troubling if Seraphina thought on them too long—were, at least, convenient for communication. If Seraphina wrote a letter to her mother at her desk, informing her that she meant to break her engagement to the Crown Prince Velens, Anaselena would sense it well before the post ever reached her. As the young girl remembered, her mother could not read the words themselves so much as perceive the letter’s intent and the emotions impressed upon it. It was a strange business, and the duchess had once tried to explain it: each Oracle’s sight manifested in its own way. The Duchess had told a much younger Seraphina as much one afternoon, when the girl had complained that her own gift had not yet awakened. Still, the whole thing was filled with a lot of mumbo-jumbo, mystical nonsense, she thought.

Seraphina sighed, and Eloise, small and as delicate as a porcelain doll, looked at her with very obvious sympathy. The morning sun slid past the room’s windows and made a soft halo of the girl’s tousled, just-out-of-bed hair.

“Lady Seraphina, are you quite sure about this decision—and is it truly yours to make?” Eloise asked, fingers fussing through her hair. “If it were my father, he would be most cross.”

“Dear Eloise, even if my father were to disown me for this, I would not sway from my course.” Seraphina kept her voice mild, though her jaw had set without her noticing. “Tell me—could you imagine living with someone who does not love you? Or, in my case, living a life of polite humiliations, a sham of a union with there being nothing beneath the surface?”

Eloise considered, eyes dropping to her hands. “Ladies of our station, and even those of the merchant classes, are not said to marry for love. It is the lucky ones who enjoy such a luxury. Those matches belong to a troubadour’s songbook.” She drew a small breath, gathering courage. “Still, I believe—no, I hope—that when I am wed, I may grow to love my lord husband in time, and that he in turn may grow to love me.”

Seraphina closed her eyes for a heartbeat. This world’s rules were not her own, and she would gain nothing by scolding the bars of the cage. When she looked again, her smile was gentler. “What is wrong, Eloise, with wishing for more? First we wish, then we ask, and then—if we have the spine for it—we demand. And, a demand is only as strong as the will behind it.”

Eloise’s brow pinched. “My parents would say that the heart must yield to prudence. That compromises are… practical.”

“Then seek balance,” Seraphina said, leaning in. “Redress. If they force you to compromise in matters of the heart, let us see what can be stolen back elsewhere—terms, timing, the man himself. I will help you, in whatever way I can, to carve out the space for choice—if not perfect freedom, then a portion of it. This is your life, Eloise.”

Eloise bit her lip. “Lady Seraphina, that is far too gracious, but to go against—”

“Again,” Seraphina said, quiet but immovable, “your life is your own to live. Your father will not be the one to bear the children who will continue the line. Your father will never know the pain of bringing life into this world. That labor is ours, and it is past time the privilege matched the burden.”

Eloise gasped, half-shocked, half-delighted, and clapped a hand to her mouth. “That is a scandalous line of thinking!”

“Scandalous?” Seraphina let out a soft laugh. The white serpent curled on her lap lifted its head, tasting the air with a flick of its tongue. “A workman is paid for his day’s labor. Why should we not demand a fair price for ours? We are born with inherent worth, are we not? Let us use it for ourselves as well as for our families.” Her eyes danced. “Tell me, Eloise, are you in love with Sir Gravens?”

A flush climbed Eloise’s neck. She glanced toward the window, then back. “I… must admit I have felt certain things for the good knight. But to say I am in love…”

“You need not hide from me,” Seraphina teased. “We are far too close for that.” She softened the jest with a kind look. “If you were in love, which you have just insisted you are not, I would not be against such a match. He is competent, if a touch rigid in his thinking. You would be happier with him than with some crusty old lord.” Seraphina tipped her head, mischief showing. “Or, I must add, a certain naughty crown prince.”

At that, they both laughed, warm and helpless, until Eloise pressed a knuckle to the corner of her eye to chase away the tears of mirth.

“But seriously,” Seraphina went on, letting the laughter ebb, “I think the Lady de Savant has designs for him. Dangerous designs she may lack the courage to see through. I cannot yet tell whether it is a passing fancy or something deeper. And as for Desdemona—hers is a particular family situation.” Her tone cooled. “That is all I can say on that. Though I daresay, she will be quite relieved to know that you no longer have any feelings for Sir Gravens.”

Eloise lifted her chin, a spark lighting in her dark eyes. “If Lady de Savant can set her eyes on Sir Gravens, then so can I.”

Internally, Seraphina allowed herself a small, private smile. Eloise wore Seraphina’s old face and some of her old softness. And much like the old her in a different world, the dark-haired girl could still be steered with a nudge and a kind word. De Sariens stroked her pet’s smooth back with a fingertip, feeling the creature’s slow, contented coil.

“I see what you are doing,” Eloise said suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath. “You wish me to be true to myself.”

“Yes,” Seraphina said simply. “To your wants, not merely your duties. Promise me this, at least: before you let anyone choose for you, you will name what you truly want—and you will say it aloud.”

Eloise swallowed, her long lashes fluttering. “Then… I want a husband who respects me. Who listens. Who will not use me. Who will love me, and me alone. I want—” She faltered, then smiled, small and fierce. “I want to like the man I wake beside.”

You would be lucky to share a room, the other girl thought cynically.

“Good,” Seraphina said, pleased. “Now you have a measure. Any suitor who cannot meet it is not worthy of you.”

Eloise reached across the narrow space between them and squeezed Seraphina’s hand. “You make terrible scandals sound like common sense. But what if such a man does not exist?”

“That is because they are common sense,” Seraphina said, and finally allowed herself to grin. “And because you deserve better than songs sung about other women’s happiness. And, for such a man existing, a man you desire is entirely decided by you. That is, whether you set your standards high or low.”

Again, the girls laughed together, another moment of shared joy. There were storm clouds on the horizon, but for now, they had each other’s company as a small shelter.

***

Like it does when there is much excitement in one’s life, the days passed quickly. Now, it was almost time for Seraphina’s turn to make good her promise to Rashana.

The great hall was filled to the rafters—not because the student body cared to hear yet another rendition of the famous playwright’s tale of lost young love by a class of second-year students, but for the spectacle promised after the curtain. The Harvest Festival was to be celebrated.

Rumours had sprouted wings across campus since the kingdom’s first newspaper, The Oracle, ran its piece on Seraphina de Sariens ending her engagement to the Crown Prince over his philandering. Yes, people agreed, they had seen the prince more than once with—of all people—the Church’s darling, the supposedly virginal Este Liza, unchaperoned. The whispers evolved: stolen kisses, other licentious behaviour; a scullery maid claiming she had crumbled under the prince’s advances. On and on the stories went, taking a life of their own. Even those who preferred a union of prince and saint were forced to admit the scandal. There is a saying in Aranthia: he who shouts first shouts loudest—and Seraphina had shouted first. The Oracle’s headline amplified it a thousandfold. Amplified it far and wide

Now, as the play wound down and the tragic lovers were parted by distance and duty, a hush fell. The hall held its breath, waiting for the finale.

Onstage, the painted backdrop showed a harbor at dawn: a wash of ink-blue sails, gulls cut with a student’s sure hand into the canvas. Two of Seraphina’s seniors had taken to the stage for this climactic scene. The boy in a crimson cloak of noble cut stood at stage left, a gloved hand on the hilt of a wooden saber; the girl at stage right wore a traveling veil in the old style, a ribboned letter crushed in her fist. Between them, a wash of lamplight made a narrow river neither dared to cross.

“We are the sum of vows we keep,” the boy said, voice low and steady. “Alas, Mathilde, my love, mine are counted elsewhere.”

“The heart keeps its own ledger,” the girl answered, the line simple and clean. She took one step forward, then another, coming close—but not crossing the barrier of light. “Duty may tally what it owes. I will only tally what I lose.”

From the musicians’ pit came the faintest breath of strings, a single thread of sound that trembled and held. The notes were so careful they felt like a sacrament.

“And where I wait,” she answered, “I will wait alone. For you go now across these wine-dark seas.” It was an old line in an old play, and still it found some newness in the telling.

It would have been a masterful performance on any other day but this one.

The strings fell silent. Somewhere at the back of the hall, there were some dry whispers of praise. Still, there was no rush to applaud. Palms hovered, then stilled. The curtain kissed the boards; the last chord hung like breath on a winter morning—and the hush deepened, a tautness like the drawn string of a bow.

Then, finally, almost forced, an ovation came. 

Yet to Seraphina’s ears, it sounded like nothing more than the call for her act.

The applause had barely fallen away when a hush rolled back over the hall like a tide. Zajasite lamps in cages of glass were lowered to a soft blue, the curtain rose, and a single figure stepped into the seam of light.

Seraphina wore the raiment of Al-Lazar: seven veils layered over a fitted, revealing dancer’s dress of pale silk with slippers with upturned toes. Each veil bore its own hue and hand-stitched sigil—a tiny palm, a wheeling swallow, a sprig of an Aeyory tree—old symbols that had traveled farther than the Dust caravans. 

At the edge of the stage, the Bard Haze Finleigh touched the strings of her Chordrelle and found a heartbeat: a low drone under a slow, bright arpeggio.

She began not with movement but with the breath of song. “I was a word before I was a name,” she sang, the note clean as a struck glass. The first veil, dawn-white, rose with her arms and drifted free. Birth. The cloth circled once around her shoulders and slid into her palm; she cast it into the waiting hands of the audience as a priest might pass a blessing. Her hips did not mimic the crude invitation of tavern floors; they traced a cradle’s sway, the cadence of the descent of angels. It was the celebration of the beginning.

A murmur passed through the gallery as the second veil, a child’s saffron, unfurled. Haze answered with a quickened pattern, and her fingers leapt across the strings. Seraphina’s feet pattered to match—heel, toe, heel—anklets whispering. “I learned the world by touch,” she sang, “stone and sun and the sting of the storm.” She spun once, twice, a laugh ghosting across her lips, and the saffron veil became a banner, a kite; then it, too, was gone. Lost to the crowd.

Indigo followed—learning. She drew it across her eyes and peered through the weave. Bowing low, she then arced her backwards, a curve only possible due to her practiced flexibility and raw Strength. She spun up, her steps turned angular, then precise. Haze plucked a new melody, nimble and bright, and she answered with counterpoint in her voice: “Numbers for the abundance of the harvest, letters for law, songs for what neither can hold.” The indigo veil slipped like a page turned carefully and floated toward waiting, eager hands.

The fourth veil was rose-hued, and the hall leaned forward. She did not undulate to court the gaze; she beckoned it to witness. The veil became another self in her hands—she led it, followed it, resisted it, laughed at it, forgave it. “I was two at once,” she sang cryptically, the note softening, “a hand and the hand that was held.” When she let the veil fall, there was no gasp, only a nervous exhale from a hundred throats that recognized themselves.

The fifth veil was ash-gray and sorrow. The Chordrelle’s melody deepened, struck to sorrow; Haze’s eyes were on her strings, jaw tight as she played the lament. Seraphina drew the ash across her chest like armour and moved with the contained fury of someone who has learned to weep without sound. One heel stamped, then stilled. Then once again she spun with the grace of a spring nymph; one arm cut downward and stopped a hair above the floor. “I traded a name for a rumor,” she sang, “a promise for a price.” Unlike the others, the ash veil did not drift; she folded it and placed it on the floor before her feet, square, as if making an altar from the stage itself.

Gold came next—power, or the wealth that comes from joy. Her body became geometry: circles within circles, a slow spiral that drew every eye and refused to spend itself in cheapness. The gold veil flashed in her turns and then hooded her like a diadem; with a flick of the wrist, she made it a river, with a breath she made it a crown, spinning it above her head. “I learned to count what I could keep,” she sang, smiling wide, “and to spend it on what could not be bought.” When she cast the gold aside, the light caught on her bracelets just so and sparkled like a thrown coin.

Only one veil remained, the seventh: night-black, hem stitched with stars. The hall had forgotten to breathe. Haze let her fingers find a new melody; the sound was full and fearless. Seraphina wound the black silk around her forearms and lifted them, crossing at the wrists, making of herself a sigil older than any court—life and its ending in one stroke. She moved slowly, then a hand unfurled as if to release a bird. “And when I am finished,” she sang, “let me be unafraid. Let me be the veil and the wind that bears it.” On the last vowel, she drew the black veil from her arms, threw it high, and opened her hands.

Black cloth sailed up, rose before it drifted down like night after twilight. Beneath it, she stood not uncovered so much as revealed—exactly as she had been a moment before, the exotic dress barely covering her nakedness, her skin luminous and shivering with the emotional effort of creating art. Seraphina’s emerald eyes were alight with the kind of victory that does not ask permission.

Something happened during the dance. A girl in the front row, cheeks flushed, pressed a hand to her throat and smiled without meaning to. Boys and masters and matrons alike leaned forward, gladly helpless to the gravity of her. Even those who had come hoping for scandal felt instead a pull that was not desire alone but kinship—the recognition of a life walked honestly in sight of the world.

You have gained 1 Charisma.

Her lips curled in a smile as the curtains dropped.

Prince Velens had not moved since the first veil. His jaw worked once; a muscle jumped by his ear. The set of his shoulders said composure, but his fingers had whitened with their grip. When the black veil lifted, the prince’s teeth met, slow and grinding, as the hall roared. Este Lize, standing near enough to feel the tremor of his breath, followed the direction of his gaze and found it fixed—hungry, unwilling—on Seraphina de Sariens. The saint’s hands tightened, too, tightened. Jealousy flared sharp and ugly.

Haze struck a final chord that rang. Seraphina bowed—not deeply, not obsequiously, but with the grace of one who knows the gift she has given and will not cheapen it by pleading for more. The hall erupted, applause breaking like surf against stone, calling and calling, not for scandal now but for the thing they had just been made to feel: that to live could be art, and to show it was a kind of courage.

The Crown Prince Velens looked on, standing ramrod straight as slow understanding crushed him as it filled him with regret. Este Lize did not look at him; she watched the beautiful, blonde girl. And, in that watching, the Living Saint and beloved of Avaria learned something she would not easily forget—what raw, unapologetic beauty could do when it refused to bow to anyone’s story but its own.