Checkmate

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“Who are you?” I hiss over the instrumental music.  “Really?  Don’t give me some bullshit about being an innocent bystander, I’ll slit your throat now and be done with it.”

Aaron throws his head back in a throaty laugh, the hearty guffaw causing the closest couples to stare with nosey curiosity.  My anxiety grows at the interested eyes turning to me in my magnificent flame-licked dress. 

“I will slit your throat,” I threaten quietly, my voice not venturing above a deathly quiet whisper.  Aaron's chuckle cuts off short.  He watches me through his mask, the eyes beneath the feathery shield the same minty color as the plumage ringing the sockets. 

The mournful wails of pathetic instruments meld in with the low drumbeats like rolls of mighty thunder.  The flamboyantly dressed lords and dukes around us have no trouble accustoming to the slow beat of the song, swirling their chosen partners around, their hands accidentally touching areas that are meant to be private. 

Unlucky clumps of rejected women hang awkwardly around the edges, faces crumpled with a lack of self-esteem.  The carousing strobe lights had given up their erratic patterns at the beginning of the romantic melody, instead undulating over the ballroom floor in graceful designs to set the mood.  Every so often, one of them will illuminate me in its strong glare.  Blinded momentarily, I end up stepping rather strongly on Aaron’s toes, which he may or may not deserve. 

Behind me, Nathiel the Prince’s gaze bores holes into my back.  He’s watching my every move since the moment I left his side, assuring I don’t become too intimate with the lord. 

“I have no doubt that you’ll slit my throat if I mess up,” Aaron hums with deadly certainty, swirling me around.  His fingers wrangle with mine as he twirls me.  Almost uncomfortably, he smashes me back against his body.  I growl defensively under my breath.  Murmuring an apology for the clumsy mistake, Aaron continues.  “But I wouldn’t do that.  I’m the people’s best chance for some democracy around here.”

I focus all my attention on him, a strange desire to savagely rip off his mask filling my chest.  My eyes narrow, studying the eyes beneath the mask.  It guards most of his face.  The inability to see his expression irritates me, bugging every survival tactic I’ve picked up on throughout all these years. 

I glance about nervously to where Nathiel stands.  If he’d noticed the whole tattoo gimmick and asks Aaron about it later, then we’re both dead meat.  “What are you doing?” I spit angrily, digging my nails roughly into his shoulder.  “Are you not the real Aaron or something?  Because if not, I’m going to scream.”

He twirls me around once more.  My dress fans out like a blossom of the very flames that'd inspired it.  The world spins, and not only because I’m spinning.  My head feels light as a feather once I realize just how deep my hole may be.  When we crash back together, Aaron whispers, “It’s really me.  Aaron Winchester, son of Gabriel Winchester.  I’m just not a total twit like the rest of them.”

“Is that so?” I growl impatiently, stamping purposefully on one of his feet with my tattered sneaker.  He curses colorfully and recoils, glaring at me reproachfully.  “Prove it, pretty boy.”

Aaron’s smile is brutally amused, like a wolf rather than a lion studying me.  “Did the tattoo not do that?  Am I genuinely being forced to spill my life story?”

“Yes.”  I glare at him, praying for the unbearable song to last just a few minutes longer.  “Make it snappy.”

“Well.”  Aaron lets out a long breath of air.  “For starters, I was completely oblivious as the rest of the pompous royals until my father took me to the slums of this very city, arranging the steam engine itself to chug us down here.  I was just eight then; still young, unable to process the horrible sights I’d witnessed.  My father was old, and each image stuck with him.  He was a remarkable man, my father.  Older and wiser than many of his fellows, he remembered the bitter apocalypse, and the society we had before it.  The poverty and suffering horrified him like nothing else.  And so he sought out to be rid of it, infiltrating the royalty when I was just a mere child.  He used my friendship with Nathiel as a link to the Emperor’s right hand.  For a time, I was upset by that, but I see now the practicality in his strategy.  No one suspects a little pudgy boy.  As I matured, I slowly joined his cause more and more.  I saw the world through his eyes, envisioning how he had once seen the towering cities now reduced to rubble.  I saw how he dreamed to rebuild them once again, with this Resistance.  And so I joined it.”