Pandora's Box

Chapter 4: Part I

The ballroom pulsed with the energy of the dancing court. The sprawling, circular chamber had been built ages ago, fashioned from marble the color of summer moonlight. Honey-pigmented veins crawled through the smooth walls, grasping for the chamber's vaulted crown. The perimeter of the grand space was a ring of archways whose draperies had been pinned open by velvet ropes the same color as the shimmering marble.

Shining brass candelabras mounted in accordance with tradition banished all shadow from the festivities. Burning incense carried hints of jasmine. Enchanted candlelight flickered in time with the orchestra's peaceful symphony. Dancers, old and young, moved with practiced grace in pirouetting steps to the swish of lavish gowns and clicking of heels.

Pandora hated all of it.

She worked through the dull steps, changing partners to her right every fourth step. She linked arms with a paunchy man in a noble's (but ill-fitting) doublet and powdered wig. He jerked her through the next sequence, punctuating it with a stunted bow.

"The princess dances wonderfully," the man said, as he wiped large beads of sweat from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. 

"Your mother must be proud."

Pandora only heard the compliment's tail end. She rubbed at a wrinkle in her violet dress. "Mother?" 

Spectres of the men whose blood had spilled as dust appeared behind the paunchy man. They clutched their throats, but an endless tide of gray silt slipped through their ghostly fingers and poured onto the ballroom floor. Pandora blinked, willing away the ghastly image. She finally responded with a polite smile.

"Mother... Oh yes. Thank you."

The paunchy man arched a furry eyebrow, bowed a second time and then re-joined the choreography. Pandora watched as he blended back into the twirling crowd of brightly colored plumes and doublets that sparkled in the candlelight.

A familiar voice came from Pandora's right. 

"What was that about?" Donovan asked.

Pandora regarded her friend. The truth scraped against the back of her teeth, but she had promised to keep the incident a secret. 

"Nothing. Just another uninvited, awkward dance."

The lie stung. Donovan was as close and loyal a companion as anyone could hope for. And besides, one look at the concern on his face proved he didn't quite believe her.

"It looked like you were somewhere else for a minute. Still thinking about that fall?" Donovan asked.

Pandora groaned internally. Accepting the king's cover story about having been tossed from her mount had been a tough pill for Pandora's pride to swallow. But it made for a believable alibi. It hurt not to confide what had actually happened, but it was more than necessary. If the rumor that the princess commanded the Blight's magic churned through the kingdom a panic would surely follow.

Pandora's thoughts suddenly shifted to the queen's first lesson on magic. Adella, a skilled sorceress herself, had explained the nature of the magical energies. From starlight the various veins of magic were derived: the four cardinal elemental magics, as well as the other disciplines that allowed one to see over great spans of time and space or to convene with nature. But above all, the queen had named the two siblings of higher magic. Sisters as Adella had regarded them.

The Breath and the Blight... One the life force entwining all living things. The other, the sentence of mortality that returned everything to ash and dust.

Time slowed as Pandora watched the minutiae of the ball. She reached out with her feelings, focusing as Adella had taught her. She felt the straining muscles of the dancers, the frazzled nerves of the cooking staff, the fluttering heart beats of couples dashing for shadowy corners. The ballroom teemed with the magic of the Breath. It was present in every note of the symphony and spirited step.

But she felt something else. Something insatiable and infinitely patient. Pandora felt bodies aging, hair graying. She felt the gnawing of disease on unsuspecting victims. The Blight had also been invited to the Summer Ball. Together the Breath and the Blight were a matching pair: two halves of a miraculous circle of life.

"Pandi?" Something gently pressed against Pandora's shoulder.

The dancing quickened to normal speed and Pandora regarded Donovan. She clasped the hand he had placed upon her shoulder.

"I'm fine. Truly. Just tired. And I hate admitting it, but yes I'm still a wreck over this morning."

The orchestra transitioned seamlessly into a slower number to give the assembly a breather. Pandora pushed the remnants of the Blight's whisper out of her mind. It was a party after all. And wasn't that one of the concerns she had been so concerned about? That there would be little left to enjoy once adulthood reared its ugly head? She tugged at Donovan's hand.

"Would you mind?"

Donovan's face shifted through a half dozen shades of green. "Me?" He looked over the crowd for any possible excuse or escape. 

"I don't know. Dancing isn't really a strong suit."

Pandora frowned, but it only veiled the smile beneath. "Shut up and dance with me."

The pair exchanged bows, then fell into the rhythm of the song. Donovan's strong arm wrapped around the princess, his hand nervously slid to the small of her back. She smirked at his uneasiness.

"Having fun, Novi?"

Donovan stumbled over an errant foot. His head snapped skeptically around. "I'd rather be carrying the timber."

Pandora pouted and puffed a twist of crimson hair out of her eye. "Is my company that horrible?"

"Of course not. I just..."

Pandora felt her cheeks warm. "Just what?"

"Lately I—" Donovan replied.

The familiar chill of Malachai's presence swept across Pandora's bare shoulders like a winter's breeze. She turned and found the junior officer squarely in the path of the dance. He was dressed in formal military garb, ceremonial saber resting easy from his baldric. A monument to jealousy.

"Lately what?" Malachai asked, hardly containing a sneer.

"Nothing," Donovan let Pandora slip from his grasp and assumed a slightly more readied stance. The princess noticed the not so subtle shift in her companion's posture. She restrained his forearm with a soft touch. "Donovan..."

"I'm not here for you, cadet. I've come as my father's, as House Killian's appointed representative." Malachai's smile bordered on sneer. He extended a hand toward the princess. "Shall we?"

Donovan's jaw clenched before taking a single step back. He disappeared into a worker's service passage a moment later.

A shrug worked free of Pandora's shoulders. As princess, it was in fact her duty to dance with each of the noble houses' dignitaries. It wasn't that she wished to avoid Malachai. Indeed his cunning features were well represented in the formal garb. She merely hated the formal traditions. She hated more that her closest friends were anything but to each other. But that was something they would have to work out on their own. She was no prize to be won.

May as well get it over with.