Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George [50]
“Do they have to dance?” Galen said aloud without thinking. The white-faced woman standing near him narrowed her eyes and stared right at the spot where Galen stood. Holding his breath, he backed away.
Galen remembered how Pansy had burst into tears earlier when he had offered her a “ball.” He thought about Rose’s illness, and how it had continued for months while her slippers were worn out night after night. Surely she would not have come here to dance in the extremity of her illness unless she had no other choice. The one night they hadn’t danced, Rionin and his brethren had invaded the garden.
But why? Who was forcing them to come here?
An hour later, this question was answered. The music stopped, and the dancers all turned to look expectantly at a tall door at the far end of the room. The musicians played a long fanfare, and the door opened to reveal a tall man wearing a long black robe and a crown tarnished blue-black.
“All hail the King Under Stone,” one of the footmen shouted. He banged a silver staff on the floor three times. “All hail the king!”
“All hail the king!” the guests chanted in reply.
As the man stepped into the room, Galen swallowed thickly. If the smiles and eyes of the courtiers had made Galen nervous, the appearance of their king made him break out in a cold sweat.
Skin as white as paper, taller and thinner than anyone Galen had ever seen, the king of the underground palace surveyed his court with eyes like chips of obsidian. His thin lips peeled back from sharp white teeth in a hideous parody of a smile.
“So nice to see that my sons’ brides-to-be have at last recovered their strength,” the king said in a wintry voice. “It is always so refreshing to see our royal flowers in bloom.” His cold eyes rested on Rose. “Our dear Rose, especially.”
Without thinking, Galen’s hand went to his hip where once he had worn a pistol. He bit his tongue, though, and forced himself to relax so that he would not give away his presence.
The King Under Stone. Rose and her sisters were prisoners of the King Under Stone. Galen’s knees almost buckled. There wasn’t a mother in Ionia who hadn’t frightened her children into obedience by using that name, or who hadn’t prayed over the same child so they might never encounter that evil being.
He was the stuff of nightmares, the stuff of campfire tales. A magician so steeped in evil that he had ceased to be human, transforming himself and his most devout followers into something other: immortal and monstrous. According to legend, centuries ago every country on the continent of Ionia had risen up against him and cast him into an underground prison. He was too powerful to be destroyed completely, and trapping him in a sunless realm with only his followers to rule over had been the only solution. An army of white witches had been gathered to do the deed, and the effort had cost many of them their lives. It was a legend everyone knew.
And now it appeared that the legend was true.
The King Under Stone glided across the floor to the dais and sat on his tall throne. “Please, continue dancing. You know how much I enjoy the dancing.”
The court tittered at this, and the king clapped his long, thin hands. The musicians began a jig, and Under Stone sat, immobile, his long silver hair hanging down either side of his skeletal face, and watched the princesses.
Pansy’s partner had at last given in and allowed her to sit in a chair to one side of the room, asking one of the hard-faced court women to dance instead. Galen sidled across the room and sat in the empty chair beside the young princess.
“Paaaaansy,” he whispered in a hollow voice. “Don’t moooove. I am a goooood spirit!”
Pansy sat up straight and whimpered, her eyes flickering around