AN: This was originally written for a "magic" challenge on another site—it's not been beta-ed and is just for fun—I hope you enjoy it!
-Melanie
The Waltz of Dark and Light
Jane and Mr. Bingley's dance at the Assembly had resulted, predictably, in the white plumes of intertwined smoke that indicated a magical union. It was predictable because Elizabeth had seen it in a dream months before Mr. Bingley set foot in Hertfordshire. She had not told anyone then and did not claim prescience now. There had been no need to send Mama into a frenzy when there was no telling when the man might arrive, and no need to claim credit once he had.
Not that Elizabeth had been any less than delighted when she was proven correct, of course. It had been an honor to be present when Jane met her match, for most people lived their entire lives without being witness to a magical coupling.
Mr. Bingley himself had been surprised, unaware that what he had considered a rather negligible level of magical talent was enough to earn him a place in the most august of company. His sisters had been aghast, for neither of them could follow him there. They would remain a part of their human society, forever below his station, entirely unable to profit by it.
Elizabeth was elated that her Jane, of all of them, had achieved this most precious of elevations. Jane's magic was untainted. It was compassionate. It was selfless. She deserved to be rewarded with her true pairing.
Couples joined by The Great Bewitchment—a magical, soul-pairing dance—were truly blessed. They came from all levels of human society, and yet, when they met the complement to their magic—for magic had to be partnered to be complete—they became a part of the Realm of Mages and took their place in those most elite of ranks.
There was never any telling which dance it would be nor where the dance would originate. Mr. Bingley and Jane had been dancing a simple quadrille. The current King and the Queen of the Realm of Mages hailed from a place called Sierra Leone. Their dance had not been anything like the country dances of England, yet nobody could deny that the fog which enveloped them had been intricately woven and the deep gold that signified the crowning of royalty.
Some among the peers grumbled about French influence and class stability, but most saw that for what it was—envy. Those who did not possess fine houses and guaranteed incomes were pleased by the assistance mages offered and many dreamed of being elevated themselves.
Fortunately for the Bingleys, a local clergyman had been attending the Assembly and made quick work of the formalities—magical pairings were considered soul pairings and negated the requirement of calling the banns. Elizabeth had begun the evening with her best friend and closest sister, she had even stood up with Jane during the ceremony—but would return home without her. There had been a benefit to the hastiness of the marriage, of course—Mama had not been able to screech and crow over her neighbors. Still, the sudden loss was jarring. Jane belonged to the Bennets one moment, and the next—before the second set had even been called—she and Mr. Bingley belonged to one another.
They were surrounded by their friends and family while congratulations filled the air. Sir William's "Capital! Capital!" broke through the chaos and made everyone smile. There was a flicker of something, then, that Elizabeth could not quite make out, but it made her cold, and she tugged a shawl around her shoulders. She had never been able to really understand Sir William, but perhaps she did not understand men. Mr. Darcy, who had stood up with Mr. Bingley, stared darkly at her.
In the carriage ride home, the quiet being broken only by her mother's effusions and speculations, Elizabeth had finally indulged in a thought for herself. Great Enchantments were rare, and she did not understand her magic in the way Jane did her own. It was powerful, she knew, and growing stronger as she approached her majority. But she wasn't entirely sure what she was meant to do with it.
She could build walls that protected those she loved. She could also tear them down. Her dreams told her when things—good or ill—were bound to happen. But she was the first to admit that she often erred. She could not always tell the difference between true light and the appearance of it, between the darkness of someone's magic and the darkness of their emotions. She did not have enough experience, and as a single woman of small means she was unlikely ever to have it. Not on her own.
Would there ever be a magical pairing for her?
For reasons she could not fathom, her thoughts moved to Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth had heard Miss Bingley try to draw the man into her condemnations of everything around her, particularly Jane Bennet and her family who had, Miss Bingley complained, convinced her obviously gullible brother to marry her. Perhaps it was a curse. No one else in the Bingley family had magic. It was a distasteful practice concocted by those who had no other kind of standing in English society. A dangerous precedent, Miss Bingley cried as she wound herself up into a frenzy, to allow those with magic to climb above those who did not. Her sister Mrs. Hurst had tried to quell the outburst, but Miss Bingley would not be hushed.
Mr. Darcy's expression as Miss Bingley spewed her poison was nothing less than incredulous, and Elizabeth admitted this must be in his favor. In the one evening he had been known to her, she had judged him as a man who was very careful, very controlled. It was rather wonderful to see that he could be discomposed. The contradiction intrigued her.
As the weeks dragged on, she saw him everywhere—at dinners, in the village, at Longbourn and Lucas Lodge and Netherfield. She would like to know more of him, if only he would stop staring at her without engaging her in conversation! She wondered whether he truly was like Caroline Bingley—was he resentful now that his friend, whose fortune had been made in trade, surpassed him in rank? She toyed with the idea that Mr. Darcy did not quite approve the marriage of the Bingleys because he did not quite approve of her—or perhaps the other way around?
In the end, she had to reject the notion. If it were so, why would he remain at Netherfield? And why did he keep asking her to dance? Even Sir William had tried to force her to pair with the man and she was running out of reasons to refuse. There was something that drew her to him, and yet something that told her to hold back. Some kind of darkness. Some kind of pain. She could not read it, and she did not wish to make a mistake.
She had not dreamed of Mr. Darcy before he entered her life, but she did dream of him now. Not in any romantic way, of course—she was not the kind of mage that appeared in storybooks for children. But he haunted her in her sleep. And when she woke. And when she walked. And when she practiced throwing her spells. And when she read through the books Papa kept in the bookcase in his study, the one that only appeared if you said the right words in the right kind of way.
Now she was at Netherfield, attending the wedding ball for her sister and Mr. Bingley. In their modesty, they had not been certain they should hold a ball at all, not wishing to bother the other mages—but they had at last agreed that they must, or the others might feel slighted. It became the most sought-after invitation in both Hertfordshire and London—anywhere the news had spread, in fact—for it was the first such coupling in this corner of the world in nearly twenty years.
"Miss Bennet," said a low voice that felt like fire.
She glanced up. It was him. Of course. It was always him.
"Yes, Mr. Darcy?" she asked, gazing directly into his eyes. They were so dark they were nearly black.
"Would you do me the honor of dancing the next with me?"
"It is the supper dance next, Mr. Darcy," she warned, in case he had forgotten. She would not wish to have him embarrassed when he realized he would be expected to sit with her through the meal.
"Yes." His breath seemed to be coming a bit too quickly, and she found herself accepting without meaning to do so. He had a way of making her forget herself.
He smiled in a strange, enigmatic way, and she took his arm. A sharp spark flared when they first touched, and she glanced at him curiously as he led her out to the floor. They stood facing one another when the music began, but although there was an orchestra, the tune was played by a single violin, soon joined by a pianoforte.
Elizabeth blinked. Where had the pianoforte come from? She was sure there had not been not such an instrument in the room a few moments before. A woman's voice, sweet and mournful, began to sing. Somehow, Elizabeth knew it was not a voice that everyone could hear. Mr. Darcy's forehead was creased; she traced the furrows with her eyes and then met his gaze. He was hearing it, too.
He reached out, placing the palms of his hands on her upper back. Her eyes widened. It was an entirely improper position. He was touching her! As she opened her mouth to protest, her arms lifted of their own accord and her hands somehow positioned themselves atop Mr. Darcy's shoulders. He was so tall—this would not be comfortable—but she could not remove them.
"What are you doing to me, Mr. Darcy?" she whispered, and he shook his head.
"It is not me, Miss Bennet," he replied, his voice both anxious and eager, "I give you my word."
From far away, Elizabeth heard her mother crying out that she was ruining Jane's ball. Then all she heard was Mr. Darcy's heart beating and the tempo of his breathing. It filled her ears until her respirations matched his and she could no longer sense anyone else in the room. There was nothing else but the music, the slow intimacy of the dance, and the very real, very intense presence of Mr. Darcy. She tentatively reached out to his mind.
Elizabeth, he said fervently, as her magic touched his own. I had hoped you would . . . He shuddered. Can you not feel it?
I do not understand, she replied, beginning to panic and withdraw. I feel something, but I cannot say what it is.
He caught her as though by her hand, gently denying her wish to break their connection. It is our dance, he replied. When I first saw you, I thought . . . but then Bingley and your sister were matched, and it is nearly unheard of for families to have more than one pairing. Elizabeth felt lighter, suddenly, and he must have sensed it, for he smiled. It is a waltz.
"I do not know how to dance the waltz," she told him aloud, attempting to hide that she was trembling. "Is it new?"
He threw his head back and laughed. The sound was rich and deep. Alluring. "We are dancing it now." They turned in another slow circle. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment—sometimes she could see better that way. She felt the cadence of the music, the rhythm of their bodies as they began to wheel about a little faster, then a little faster still.
Poetry, she whispered to him. In her mind's eye, he was shaking his head in tiny, measured movements.
Destiny, he replied.
Then they were floating and spinning and dipping and whirling. Elizabeth was only vaguely aware of the plumes, but as their speed increased, the clouds spiraled about them. Unlike the pure white smoke of her sister's uniting, these plumes were black as a starless night.
They curled around her feet first, then moved upward. Mr. Darcy's eyes widened.
Why are you afraid? she asked, but he was focused on something else. She examined the magic and saw there was a pattern to it.
Her concentration was broken when the word no escaped him in a hiss. She saw him trying to reach out to her, to snatch her away—but he could not. Nor would she have wished it, for as the plumes reached her face and entered her mouth, her nose, her ears, even her eyes, she began to understand him.
Betrayal was at the root of everything: his reserve, his control, his love.
A childhood friend who accused him of stealing magic, a capital offense. His sister, accosted while he was engaged in his defense, not yet recovered. Elizabeth saw paraded before her eyes a line of friends and relations, face after face, each turning away. Money. Alliance. Power. Then she saw those he had lost to death itself and her heart broke in half.
None of his family was imbued with the kind of magic he himself felt obligated to hide as the treacheries grew. His world turned dark first, and then his magic. Not evil, but . . . rancid from distrust and lack of use.
His family's status in the human world was significant—they did not wish to be outranked. No. There was one. Brother, the magic said, and revealed to her a man in a red coat. Still, they were surrounded by the images of many who wished him ill. To show himself without the power of complementary magic might place him in grave danger.
And now, she too was at risk. His magic, curdled at the edges, coiled up inside her chest like a snake and struck. She felt the knowledge of ambition and avarice and envy increase until she could not breathe. It was an agony. Her back arched. Her head was thrust back, the pins dropping from her hair and raining upon the ground, each striking like a note in a symphony as her dark curls, unbound, fell about her shoulders. The impropriety barely registered. Her arms left his shoulders and moved upward in prayer, in supplication. It was a pain so terrible she knew not how she would survive it.
At the very moment the sensation peaked, she understood it at last, could see the subtle shifts between damaged good and thorough evil, between the appearance of good and the possession of it. It was suddenly as clear to her as a cloudless summer sky.
As her understanding grew, a kind of misty charm flew from her heart. His bitterness, his darkness had struck at her even as he sought to prevent it. But it had not overcome her color, her light. Now that she understood, she could release her magic in all its burgeoning power with gladness. To him. Only to him.
"Elizabeth," she heard him say with a sigh as her magic enveloped him. "You are beautiful."
Jane's magic was the soft white of snow. It was nurturing but fragile, like the shell of an egg. Elizabeth's magic was ice, clear and sharp. It was textured, complex, shimmering, almost transparent, a rainbow of pale refracted colors with white filigree shot throughout. It formed around Mr. Darcy, his eyes fixed on her in relief and love.
Love. She understood it now.
She was weak and tired, but she watched with fascination as his dark and her light merged. The colors deepened and changed.
As she floated gently to the ground his soul sang to hers and hers replied.
The exquisite relief bestowed by the absence of pain left her limp and unable to act when that beautiful glistening magic formed itself into an icicle and plunged itself into Mr. Darcy's chest.
The world exploded in color. She was blinded by it, but she could still hear Mr. Darcy give one great cry of anguish and then fall silent.
His motionless body floated to the floor beside her. With the last of her strength she groped about with one hand until she found him. She placed one hand over his heart and let her head rest beside him.
The explosion had transformed into a storm of dark and light and color that still howled around them, the wind tearing at their clothing while shards of magic remaining from the icicle formed around them to create a sort of shelter. Elizabeth's vigor returned, bolstered by the unfettered freedom of their combined magic, both a tremendous power and the ability to control it. To understand it.
When Mr. Darcy began to stir at last, she felt joy.
He sat up as he came back to himself and shook away the haze. His head moved slowly one way and then the other before his eyes found her. His smile was wide and white and entirely for her.
I see it now, he said. So much color. So much light. He touched her forehead. I see that you understand.
She blinked. His clothes and hair were wreathed in silver even as his black coat had ripened to a deep plum. She touched the diadem that encircled his head, silver, but soft to the touch. She reached to her own head to find that she, too, was wearing one.
I do understand, she said with a laugh, and even that was different—like wind chimes, silver against silver. Mr. Darcy's hand was cupping her cheek.
I see you, he said, full of wonder. Your magic is glorious. I see the light, I see the colors, Elizabeth. I had wondered . . . despaired . . . His other hand reached down to pluck at her skirt, which had brightened to a vibrant rose.
We are whole, now, she assured him. We both see what we did not before.
There was silence for a moment as he kissed her—and then a hundred voices burst into sound at once.
"Silver," she heard whispered between the exclamations of fear and surprise. "Silver mages, protectors of the royal court." Sir William clapped. "Capital!" he cried. "Capital!" Again, her mother's voice cut through the sounds of the crowd. She was sure there must be a mistake. Jane was the silver mage, certainly. Elizabeth, if anything, was white.
Elizabeth felt Mr. Darcy's indignation on her behalf, and she laughed. It is nothing, she told him. Nothing at all.
As Elizabeth gazed about the room, she saw enthusiasm and envy, gratitude and greed, love and lust. Aimed at her and Mr. Darcy and at each other. She could do more than see it now. In every face she could read the feelings, sometimes simple, often complex. Decent people, on the whole, with emotions they struggled to direct. True evil existed, but it was rare, and they were powerful enough together to find it. To vanquish it. Her magic was strong and clear, and so was her heart. She laughed in delight and heard the chimes.
Elizabeth gathered these thoughts to herself and shared them with Mr. Darcy.
Fitzwilliam, his heart said to her. William.
Do you see it, William? she asked without words.
"I do," he said aloud. She was jarred by the change, but he helped her to her feet and motioned with his head to where a crowd of mages were parting. Were kneeling.
And then the King and Queen of Mages were before them, imposing in their regalia, crowns shining gold upon their brows. They were accompanied by the royal court—eight silver and twenty copper mages.
Elizabeth sank to one knee and bowed her head, William beside her, taking her hand.
"Even among the silver mages, this was unique," the King announced, his voice booming to the far corners of the ballroom. "I cannot recall such a stormy coupling as yours."
The Queen laughed merrily. "Except for our own, I would say." She gazed approvingly down at William and Elizabeth. "It rained for a week," she confided. "The rivers nearly flooded. This," she waved at the room, "was a spring shower in comparison."
There was a chorus of gentle laughter from the royal court that sounded like music. The King waved Mr. Bingley and Jane over to join them.
"We wondered when Elizabeth would finally agree to dance with you," the King said with a laugh of his own. "She led you on a merry chase."
Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest she had simply not understood him but closed it again. One did not argue with a king. Her heart flickered. There was something . . .
"I caught her at last, your Majesty," William replied, and Elizabeth scolded him silently. "We caught one another," he said, quickly amending his statement. Elizabeth accepted his quiet apology.
"Powerful and wise," the Queen said, a sparkle in her eye. "You will do well."
She felt the flutter again. It was unpleasant. Do you feel it? Elizabeth asked. William's magic wrapped itself around hers and they began to search.
There was a bustling among the crowd. Elizabeth saw her cousin Mr. Collins pushing people to get past. He was speaking excitedly of holding the ceremony, but he was a fool and she would not be married by him. William agreed.
She snapped her fingers and Collins transformed into a magpie. She created a majestic birdcage around him as he continued his raspy chatter.
There was a collective gasp and her sister Lydia burst out into loud, snorting laughter.
"Only until we are wed," she mumbled, and motioned to Mr. Taylor, who nodded at her. He was the pastor who had christened her, and she would be pleased to have him perform her marriage as well.
"Indeed," said the King, spreading his arms out wide. "There is no true harm in him. Rise and complete our court."
They were wed, Mr. Collins was restored, though indignant, and the crowd pressed in with their congratulations. Elizabeth saw different colors in them all until she felt a chill. William?
His reply was immediate. Where?
Sir William approached with a smile, and Elizabeth expected him to pause and offer his felicitations. But he did not stop. He continued to approach the King, though His Majesty was turned away.
She saw it, then. Not only saw it but understood it. His magic was powerful, spoiled like William's had been, but darker, more malicious. He was loyal to the king who had elevated him—the human king, and he alone.
Sir William held his hand out and a bejeweled knife appeared as he stepped closer to the king. Traitor, she called as she thrust out her hands in his direction. He was thrown off his path but recovered until Elizabeth felt her husband's magic twining around hers and offering her the power she needed.
Their magic was bright, and hot, and clean. It formed into a barrier between Sir William and the king as everyone shouted and ran to hide.
First, they concentrated on the knife, wrenching it away from Sir William's hand and sending it skittering across the dance floor, where it vanished in a puff of black smoke.
Sir William did not falter. He sent a ball of fire towards the king and queen. It was not a very large one, and they batted it away easily.
He is searching for the knife, William told her.
Box him in, she responded. William's magic joined with hers in a surge of power and she leaned in, focusing all of her energy on constructing a box so tight he could never escape. Sir William Lucas was not like Mr. Collins. His darkness was complete. She and William wove the bars together, tighter, tighter—the heat of the magic began to burn just a bit—and then it was done.
The metal box had only a small barred window at the top. William waved two fingers and another lock slid through the bolt and clicked shut.
Elizabeth was only a little surprised that the glow of their magic had been so bright that everyone had looked away, even the King and Queen. She glanced at William's hand and noticed it was blistered, like her own. But the skin was already healing. She sought out Jane and Mr. Bingley among the mages and smiled her thanks for their spells.
"He hid in plain view," William announced. "I have been here weeks and not noticed him."
Elizabeth shook her head. "He was very deceptive. I have known him all my life."
The other silver mages nodded, smiled, and were silent. They would have helped had it been required, Elizabeth knew, but she suspected they had wished to see the extent of the magic that the new mages possessed. Truly, Elizabeth was pleased to know it herself.
"There was always something dark about him," Elizabeth admitted. "But I could not understand it." She took William's hand. "With you, I can."
His lips tugged upward. Capital, capital.
She frowned at him and imagined him in a kennel. Behave, or you will be sleeping outside with the dogs.
He gave her a sorrowful glance and a glorious library appeared.
She gasped a little. How dare he try to bribe her! But . . . it was a lovely library.
He nodded in agreement.
"Hmm," she said, and conjured an image of a bedroom. Forgiven.
She had only meant that he could now sleep indoors, but when his eyes widened and then he winked at her, her cheeks warmed. In all the excitement, she had forgotten that tonight would be her wedding night. That is not what I meant.
He smiled at her. Of course, dearest.
The King and Queen took hands then and said a few words before the prisoner disappeared, a few of the silver mages with him.
"This man's family," the King announced, "has done nothing wrong and we will not countenance any reprisals against them."
Elizabeth sighed, relieved. Charlotte was an excellent friend. She would not wish to see her in trouble.
William touched her mind. I love you, Elizabeth.
And I you, she replied.
The Queen smiled. "There is no doubt that you will always storm," she said, assessing them. "But I think," she added, "that you shall get along charmingly, now you are begun."
And they did.