"I like him," Jae says, as if Ben weren't glaring daggers into his back. "He's your type."
Rey lifts her skirts in one hand and clasps Jae's in the other as they join the other couples. From up close, she sees that the dance floor has been engineered to look like a frozen lake. Beneath it, the rivers of light glow softly.
"My type?" She asks nodding to a Lord who goes out of his way to bow to her.
"You know. Tall. Dark. Quiet in a murderous kind of way. With a different mask, he could be another Kylo."
Rey laughs, hoping Jae doesn't see the emotion hidden beneath it. They take their places among the other dancers. Rey curtsies with the women, the ballroom fanning with pools of silk and lace.
"There will never be another Lord Ren. I know that as well as anyone, Jae."
"Of course." Jae bows with the rest of the men. "At least, not if we have any say in it."
He gives her that smile again, the one that's boyish and manly at once. Rey can feel Ben's eyes boring into them from the bar. It takes some restraint not to turn around and mouth to him, 'Stop it' .
The orchestra begins. Rey recognizes the introductory notes and sends a silent thanks to Virya for drilling them on the classics. The ancient piece, Un Capitano Moro, tells the tragedy of a husband and wife, at first hopelessly in love, who are subsumed by suspicion and jealousy. Rey knows the piece by heart. It starts out whimsical and soft, then creeps into sultry and ominous by the second movement. By third, the music turns dark and dramatic, signifying the husband's descent into violent madness. The choreography demands a series of dips for the woman, meant to illustrate the wife's increasing vulnerability and despair. The deepest and most technical is at the end, when the husband gives in to madness and murders the woman he loves.
Jae places a polite touch on her waist. Rey thinks again that she is grateful to be sharing this first dance with him and not with the Lannlas brute who had first approached. She'd barely been comfortable practicing this waltz on base ship with her friends.
As it turns out, Jae's dancing is as impeccable as his manners. Rey had expected to feel awkward in the arms of a complete stranger, but something about his decorous demeanor puts her at ease. He leads her gracefully between the other couples. As the tempo picks up, her body moves naturally after his, as if she'd already danced with Jae Tannias a hundred times. He watches her movements with intelligent golden eyes.
"You seem… different tonight." He lowers her into the first shallow dip.
Rey's gut lurches. "Different? How?"
"Somehow," Jae says. "I'm not sure."
He swings her. Rey lets her head fall back, in part because the dance demands it. But also to hide her face. When Jae pulls her back up, she comes in closer than necessary. A cello creeps into the low notes of the song, trapping the dancers in a momentary embrace. Rey takes the opportunity to compose her expression.
"Well," she says softly, " it has been a rather long few months."
The cello fades to the higher strings. They resume waltzing. Jae's expression softens everywhere except for the eyes, a darker gold than the rivers flowing beneath their feet.
"Of course," he says apologetically, leading her seamlessly into a spin. His footwork is flawless and easy to match. But Rey wonders if he can detect the differences between her dancing and the real Virya.
"How is Lady Taeya?" she asks, turning the conversation to him. Based on Virya's notebook, Jae's grandmother would be the closest topic to his heart and something only Virya would know the details of. By now, Rey has read the notebook so many times, she can actually see Virya's handwriting in her memory of the page:
Nearly everyone believes the Tannias family is led by it's golden son, Jae Tannias. But in reality, Jae is a mere, emotionally-battered puppet of his maternal grandmother, Lady Taeya.
Jae falters a moment before answering. "My grandmother is… much the same. Unchanged since the last time we spoke."
Last year, Taeya had a stroke that changed her from a cunning and careful woman to an erratic, paranoid, and violent mistress. Jae remains bound by his grandmother's emotional abuse and could go as far as committing these brash murders if she demanded it of him.
"Still demanding?" Rey asks, low enough for only Jae to hear beneath the music.
"As ever," Jae breathes. "But what are we if not servants to the demands of our progenitors? Our very existence is a debt to them, after all."
There's a bit of something in Jae's smile that seems forced. A weariness beneath the surface. It reminds Rey of the bitterness the real Virya often hid beneath hers. She thinks of her own grandparent and what demands he'd had for her. She thinks of Ben, fracturing under the weight of the Skywalker legacy. A legacy which he would never escape now, so long as he stayed by her side.
Jae lowers Rey into a dip. The music descends with her into minor scales. For a frozen moment, Rey's neck lays open and vulnerable. Then Jae pulls her up again.
"Be that as it may," she squeezes his shoulder lightly. "We are all entitled to some portion of our own life. You know I've always thought Lady Taeya was lucky to have you as a grandson. Luckier than she realizes."
Jae's expression hardens, as if his face were the frozen dance floor, icing over the hidden currents below. He leads her into the third movement without further conversation, all silent and reserved. Rey's heart thuds, hoping she hasn't overstepped. Or worse, given herself away.
Jae dips her, the lowest she's gone so far, and this time it is he who pulls her close into the recovering embrace. "Thank you," he whispers, as if it costs him something to say it.
Rey blinks at the emotion. Before she can respond, the dance spins her out, arms extended. When she comes back to him, Jae's face is clear and pleasant again. "She was asking after you, you know. Grandmother."
"You mentioned," Rey says. "She thought I wouldn't be here."
"More than that." Jae twirls her. The Seamster's creation spreads like a galaxy around Rey's waist. "She thought you shouldn't. And she told me that if you did, we ought not to invite you to the meeting tonight. But I disagreed. I still do. You deserve to be there. You're Vorian after all."
Rey nearly breaks choreography to jerk around and look at Jae. She remembers herself but just barely, keeping to the steps of the dance, which is nearing it's end. She twirls rapidly away from Jae, the wife's desperate attempt to flee her husband.
His fingers tighten on hers, a cue to spin back, into his chest and then into his arms, entrusting him with her full weight. She falls and Jae catches her, leaning her back until the blonde wig brushes the floor.
Jae breaks form then, bending down low to whisper into her ear, enveloping her in the scent of orange blossoms. "The families are meeting in the tower at midnight. Come alone, without your fiance. There are some who don't even want to accept you there, let alone a masked stranger."
And, along with Jae's whisper, the music dies.
#
Jae escorts Rey back to the edge of the dance floor. "I'd ask for another. But I think your betrothed is inventing new ways to murder me as we speak."
Rey glances up the steps. Ben stands rigidly at the top like impending doom incarnated.
"I'd tell you to never mind him," Rey says, slipping her arm free. "But I don't think those poor girls could take the heartbreak."
Rey nods at a flock of gorgeous women, all glaring daggers at Jae and Virya but none having the nerve to step up and give voice to the outrage in their eyes. Jae sighs. "Alas," he lifts Rey's knuckles to his lips. "I'll see you later? The time and place we discussed?" He shoots her a meaningful look. She can see why he has so many admirers.
Rey squeezes his hand lightly, playing along with the suggestion of trust between them. "Count on it."
And then with a golden smile, Jae Tannias kisses her hand and is gone.
Ben waits for her like a pillar of shadow at the tops of the steps. If someone struck a match against him, she'd half expect it to burst into flame.
"Enjoying yourself?" He asks as she reaches him.
"Playing my part," Rey accepts a drink from a passing waiter, not champagne but something to do with her hands. "More than I can say for you. It was productive, in case you care."
"I do," he says tightly. "From up here, it looked a little too productive."
Rey shoots a dry look at him over the rim of her glass before taking a gulp. Fire shoots her throat. Acrid fumes fill her lungs. Her tongue stings like it's been subject to a chemical burn. Rey slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from hacking, her eyes watering nonetheless.
Ben snatches the glass from her and drops it unfinished on another passing tray.
"What in the Force…" Rey wheezes, stepping close to hide her definitively inelegant reaction in his broad chest. "Did I just drink paint thinner?"
"Whisky."
"It tastes like poison."
"You get used to it."
Not if she could help it.
She is about to say so when a set of dark, feminine hands patched with white wrap around Ben's rib cage from behind. Rey blinks for an uncomprehending moment as the fingers, ringed with black and white diamonds, rake lightly into Ben's frame.
"Oh, Virya," a voice purrs. "He's beautiful."
Rey jerks back to see a woman standing behind Ben, her cheek pressed appreciatively into his bicep. Her fingers dig into the ridges of his armor. She has one dark eye and one bright. Her skin is a patchwork of the ebony and cream. Her striking features are at once unnerving and beautiful.
"I can feel it. He is."
An identical face appears to Ben's left, disorienting Rey further.
Then the faces step around to reveal separate bodies, two identical girls taking either of Ben's arms. Ben goes perfectly still beneath their touch, as if any sudden movement might cause them to bite.
"Shy though," one of the girls tsks, tracking a fingertip up his chest. "That's a shame."
"What did you expect from a man in a mask?" The other girl traces the jawline of Ben's mask. Ben tilts his head away and out of her reach.
"We could fix that shyness for you, Virya. If you lent him to us for a bit. A few hours would do, don't you think, Evain?"
"Oh at least, Ewyan. Maybe a whole night would show better results."
Rey smiles even though what she wants to do is shove both girls roughly to the ground.
"Oh, is that jealousy, Virya? How rare for you."
"There's no need for that, darling. You know you can always join. Yours is an open invitation."
Rey's smile curls feral at the edges. "I might consider it. If I thought for a moment you could afford even half the rate."
The girls drop their marbled hands from Ben like hot stones. He steps over to Rey's side, so they stand face to face with the sisters. Rey resists the urge to wrap her arm around him and pull him fully out of their reach. But she knows Virya would never let them get under her skin.
The twins however, wrap their own lean arms around each other, smiling with false warmth.
"Did you hear that, Evain? Virya would charge us. And here I thought we were her friends."
"She's a Vorian, Ewyan. They have no friends but their money, and think they can take it with them to the grave."
The word grave in Evain's full mouth more like a promise than a turn of phrase. Rey wonders briefly if these girls aren't behind the murders. They certainly seem depraved enough to relish in it.
"Well I heard a little rumor," Ewain says conversationally, "That our pretty little Virya is in over her head. And she may not even realize it yet. Poor thing."
Evain smiles cruelly.
Standing there, within striking distance, the sisters remind Rey of identical desert vipers, curling lazy serpentines around their cornered prey. Rey can't keep her eyes on both of them at once, so she doesn't try. She keeps her head held high, doing her best to seem unaffected by their sinister beauty. Still, she can't quiet fight the numbness crawling up her limbs. It is as if their mismatched gazes were turning her to stone.
"She'll find out by tonight though, one way or the other."
"Now, that will be fun."
"Care to clarify?" Ben interrupts, his tone the pinnacle of cold disinterest. "Or is it entertaining for you to make indirect threats at my fiance?"
"Oh," Ewyan tips her head. "He speaks."
"Are they threats, lover boy?" Evain purrs. "Or are they warnings? Who are you to decide?"
"Who is a man in a mask to criticize to us for being indirect? We leave everything out in the open," Ewyan purrs suggestively.
From the orchestra pit, the band cues for a new song. Rey vaguely recognizes the notes and, in the same moment, Ben's arm wraps around her waist.
"If you're done," he says, "my fiance owes me a dance."
Then Ben tows Rey to the dance floor.