The Cursed Kingdom

TWENTY-SIX

~ A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR ~

The instructor grunted in annoyance as my heel crunched down onto his toes that were barely protected by the thin layer of his leather shoes for the twelfth time that evening.

As if my hands were made out of living flames, he dropped his hold on me so fast that they were mere blurs of ivory in the air until they came to rest on his face, where they rubbed his forehead with stiff fingertips as if trying to erase its prominent lines.

"Sorry!" I exclaimed in horror, shooting my head downward as if expecting blood to be where I'd misstepped. But no. All I saw were his shiny shoes and my toes sticking out beneath my dress's skirt, which were a bright, painful red from my blood flowing directly towards them because of the nude heels I was wearing that I was going to wear with my wedding dress.

They were the tallest pair of heels I'd ever seen, my feet practically vertical when in them, and Callie, who'd been there with me when the royal shoemaker visited the palace, let it slip that this was intentionally done to make up for Henrik's and I's height difference. She made me walk in them for hours until I stopped tripping over myself and by the end of it, I needed bandages for both of my blistered heels.

"Stop!" the instructor practically screamed, his voice echoing off the walls in the empty room, and the classical music that had been playing came to a sudden halt. His name was Jon, short for something I didn't care to remember, and he was perhaps the loudest person I'd ever met. Even his mouth was wide, nearly taking up most of his face, as if it'd been forged for the sole purpose to execute loud noises. But his hair was probably his most bothersome feature, so full of gel it glistened in the harsh lighting of the room that it nearly blinded me. I didn't dare go near it, already unnerved by his exceptionally dry and flaky hands, but I knew if I had, it would've been as stiff as a rock. "Tell me, Raena," he began, slightly rolling the 'r' in my name. By his accent, I could tell he was from Eastern Cursed Kingdom, where Furkan was from. "Do you know your left from your right?"

The guilt I'd felt before vanished and suddenly I found myself imagining me stomping his foot over and over again until blood was actually produced.

"Yes," I said through gritted teeth.

Jon was also one of the rudest people I'd ever met, his nose so high in the air I could've counted each hair in his nostrils if I wanted to. I was fine with a person having confidence, always wishing I possessed more of it myself, but only if they did it with a humble approach. He, however, acted cocky and obnoxious to everyone around him, as if he always knew something that they didn't when I was sure it was the opposite way around.

"Then why—Mother of Gods, tell me—do you step with the wrong foot every single time?" he barked, throwing his hands up in exasperation and then placed them on his hips when he was done, drawing my eyes to his oversized tuxedo that made him look as if he was a little kid trying on his father's clothing.

Glowering at the man, I wanted to mimic his actions myself and scream at the top of my lungs that I gave up—that Callie should run and tell Henrik the wedding was off and that I would be buried in the dirt where I was sure Jon believed me to belong if they needed me again. It wasn't necessarily the dance instructor himself that was causing me to feel this way. He wasn't worth it, really. He just happened to be the tip of the very large iceberg that had been growing for weeks, threatening to wreck me and the small amount of happiness I'd built from scraps. I was so sick of dealing with the stress without any respite, people in my face twenty-four-seven telling me what I was doing wrong or what I needed to do right. The blood that'd been rushing to my toes suddenly was in my head, the pressure giving me such an awful ache I was ready to pull out my hair or punch Jon in his horse-like teeth just to relieve some of it.