Winter's Ball by Giselle Ava (ebook e reader .TXT) 📗

Yorik leaned closer to her, his amber eye appearing to intensify under the overhead sun rays. The wrinkles in his skin became more pronounced, the white in his ginger hair clawing its way out. “You don’t owe these people anything, Sarina. You don’t owe them your heart, not a smile, not that you will wake up each morning and stand before them and tell them how much you’re going to do for them, how you’ll make this city as great as it was before that night. Sarina, you need not compare the girl you were before that night to the brilliant, intelligent young lady you are today. You simply need to do what you must, what you feel is right, and let things happen as they occur, without glancing down at that damned watch.”

She looked down to see it in her palm. She closed it with a gentle clap. For a brief moment, the metal shell reflected her tired, pale face, her pudgy cheeks, dirty hair, messy makeup...

Yorik put his hand over it, over hers. “Tonight, you owe them nothing.”

Thunder rumbled as Sarina walked through the regular commotion of the city streets, her red skirt billowing about, coat buttoned up to the collar, a scarf hugging her neck. A storm had blown through last night, covering the streets in a layer of crystalline, white frost. Sir Tam walked a few feet behind her, armor clanking, footfalls heavy.

Brick buildings rose crookedly from the frosted street, tin awnings laced with stalactites dripping water onto the residents underneath. Lanterns hung from upright street lamps, which were bent, swaying as sheets of wind leftover from the storm blasted through the cramped little roads. Sarina lifted her red hood over her head, and then, tightening her scarf around her neck, she quickened her pace to the castle grounds.

The clang of steel on armor rung out across the courtyard. Training dummies made of cotton were whipped and eviscerated to her right, on the pepper-coloured ground, and to her left a handful of men were hanging lanterns with colored glass from streamers. She glanced to the heights of Lavus City’s spiraling castle. Mist enshrouded it, moving like the caressing hands of a massive, tentacled monster.

It was a beautiful sight, a castle older than the Lavus name itself. As the morning sun crept over the horizon, it sent streams of sun rays down through the battlements and towers, and vaguely illuminated falling snowflakes, which twinkled like stars. They said that Lavus City was the greatest city in the world, and Castle Lavus was at the very heart of it. They called it one of the many wonders of Ivalon, and on most days Sarina was inclined to believe it. The castle had hurt her, but it had also loved her, and she was proud of it.

She was inside the fitting room wearing one of her mother’s old dresses from when she was a little bit younger, staring at herself in the full-length mirror. The tailors danced around her, measuring her forearms, her chest, her waist, her neck, her armpits, her spine. She turned each and every way, letting them climb over her with their measuring tapes.

She gasped as one of them clamped the dress tight across her back, causing it to grapple at her body like two giant hands. A needle went into her side and she flinched away from it. Her arm flew up and one of the women began tightening the material at her bicep.

She was turned around again, bare feet freezing, toes red.

“This is going to look lovely on you, dear,” one said.

“It does look quite pretty,” Sarina said, observing herself from another angle, briefly, before another woman yanked her back to the way she was standing before and pricked her elbow with a sewing needle. The dress had sequins on it, which sparkled under the chandelier light, bounced off the mirror and shone into her eyes. It was a deep shade of blue, but not depressing, and highlighted the red in her hair.

“Sarina,” one of the women said, a plump woman with bright red cheeks, “are you all right, dear? I’ve been growing worried for you. How pale you look...”

“I’m fine,” she replied bluntly.

“A few less of those cakes, maybe.” Another.

Sarina tilted her neck, letting her hair fall across her face and her shoulder, the auburn strands catching the light and becoming brighter. It contrasted neatly against her blue eyes. “But they taste so good,” was all she said, returning the woman a wry smile.

“I don’t like those pills you’ve been taking...”

Sarina dropped her arm and one of the women knelt down by her legs, testing the bloom and billow of the dress, kneading the layers of fabric with her hands.

“There are far better ways of dealing with stress,” the woman said.

Sarina was turned around, away from the mirror. She faced a wall with a crooked painting on it, of the beach with green fields and a blue ocean. There was also a table in the fitting room, with a clock on it—nine thirty in the morning—and a newspaper which was dated back about a week, some books on modern day fashion, and two naked mannequins.

She was spinning again as the women continued to bicker.

“You should get married. Your mother was married at your age.”

“I have a cold heart but I’m not mean,” Sarina said.

“Oh don’t be like that.” The woman with plump red cheeks grabbed Sarina’s forearm and raised it as high as it could go, as another one turned her ninety-degrees to the mirror. “You are a very pretty and intelligent young woman now. Any lord would be lucky to have you.”

“No, trust me, they wouldn’t want that.”

The women helped her out of the dress and she threw back on her warm stockings, red skirt and fluffy coat. She slid her hands into her pockets.

“Thanks,” she said.

“It will be ready for you tonight.”

She walked onto the second-floor landing of the empty