Page 62 of Tusk Love

Oskar turned to the group, giving their ringleader a cold stare. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you that it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

The elf’s powdered face turned pink. She dropped her gaze from his, and she and her friends shuffled away.

Lady Stannish patted Oskar’s elbow. “Good lad,” she said softly.

Oskar fidgeted, not knowing how to respond. But it turned out that he didn’t have to. The lilting strains of plucked strings cut through the low roar of a hundred different conversations, silencing them with a melody like gold and glass. The Opal of the Ocean had begun playing on her marble dais. She was a beautiful, ruby-skinned infernal, with small pearlescent horns and glossy black hair decorated with chains of the eponymous gemstones. Her slender fingers wove through an ivory harp, and soon her pure, crystal-clear voice soared up into therafters, singing a melancholy ballad. It wasn’t long before a rash of whispers broke out and people were tugging at one another’s sleeves. Heads swiveled in the direction of the staircase, and Oskar’s automatically swiveled right along with them.

Wensleydale was descending the wide marble steps, and on his arm…

On his arm was a goddess.

It was Guinevere as Oskar had never seen her before, a vision in yards and yards of embroidered silk. Her hair cascaded down to her waist in silver waves, and the shimmering lilac hues of her gown brought out the deep violet of her eyes. A small smile graced that amazing face; it was shy, but its sweetness shone through, as her sweetness always would. She was lovely and ethereal, and she belonged in this world of marble pillars and burning chandeliers so utterly, more than she had ever belonged to the wilderness and all its hardships.

More than she had ever belonged to Oskar.

He understood, at last, why he had attended this ball. It was so he could have one more glimpse of her. And now that he had, he also understood, overwhelmingly and irrevocably, that it was time for him to go.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Guinevere

As soon as Wensleydale and Guinevere reached the bottom of the stairs, they were swarmed by well-wishers.

Her betrothed reeled off the introductions with practiced ease. Practiced, too, was the way Guinevere kept her smile in place and her lashes lowered demurely, murmuring the appropriate responses. She lasted ten minutes, by her own count, before she started looking around for Oskar. He’d said he would be here.

Her gaze scoured the ballroom as Wensleydale led her through it. It wasn’t as though Oskar was possible to miss. He towered over most people. She knew that she had to believe what her eyes were telling her—that he wasn’t in this crowd—but her hope was a stubborn flame sputtering in the wind, rippling, shifting, refusing to be extinguished even as moment after moment passed with no sign of him.

A flute of champagne was deposited into her hand, her fingers automatically curling around its crystalline stem. Perhaps it was Wensleydale who’d given it to her, or perhaps it had been one of the otherlords. There was a sameness to all of them—and to the ladies, too. That sameness would come for her as well. Once her novelty had worn off, she’d be indistinguishable from the rest of them, with her impeccable manners and her gowns that were always the height of fashion. One of these days Wensleydale would return north, into the Empire, and he would take her with him, and she’d be on the Amber Road once more—but, if so, then in one carriage out of many, with packed lunches and servants to spread out the picnic blankets, with stopovers at luxury inns in the nice part of town.

Never again Labenda. Never again sitting around a fur trader’s campfire pelting someone with turnips. Never again Oskar, listening to her silly dreams of seeing Molaesmyr and summiting the Dunrock.

Guinevere took a sip of champagne. It had a pleasant, slightly tart flavor that vanished almost as soon as it hit her tongue. Someone asked her how she liked it.

“I prefer ale,” she absentmindedly remarked.

The people around her broke out into perfectly modulated laughter. Because she was joking, of course. Ladies did not drink ale, or at the very least they didn’t like it better than champagne. The future Lady Wensleydale had such asplendiferoussense of humor! She cast another glance around the ballroom, feeling lost and alone. Where was Oskar?

At some point the harp music stopped, and, as an orchestra took over, Guinevere was introduced to the Opal of the Ocean. The musician was the first person whom she’d regarded with genuine interest since setting foot in the ballroom. According to the gossip that morning’s callers had so eagerly shared, Mia Lavera had been born to a pair of dockside workers. A benevolent patron had nurtured her talents and gotten her to the point where she was in demand at upscale venues throughout the Coast.

Guinevere’s callers had so discreetly coughed behind their fluttering hand fans every time they mentioned the Opal’s patron. Which meant that, whether it was true or not, the consensus among Nicodranian society was that the Opal had sold her favors to the highest bidder. Guinevere suspected that attitudes here were similar to theDwendalian Empire in that most nobles considered it only right that the Opal be compensated for the privilege of her brilliant company, but there would always be those who tittered simply because she’d dared claw her way to the upper crust.

Guinevere searched the infernal’s face for a flicker of anything she could claim kinship to—Hello, my fellow upstart, shall we be friends, down in our muck?But there was only enigmatic sophistication in those starlit eyes, and Guinevere was hard-pressed to assign blame.

Everyone in this world was surviving the best way they knew how.

“Thank you for sharing the gift of your music with us, Miss Lavera,” said Guinevere.

The Opal curtsied. “The pleasure was entirely mine, Miss Guinevere. Although it will beLady Wensleydalesoon, yes? Heartiest felicitations.”

Guinevere murmured her thanks again before Wensleydale ushered her off to a cluster of his friends. She felt the Opal’s gaze linger on the back of her neck a beat too long, but it quickly slipped her mind, because there was another round of introductions to focus on.

Where was Oskar? Why hadn’t he come?

At some point, she bent down to help a certain Lady Machemont fix the hem of her gown, which had tangled with the heel of her shoe. When she straightened up, everyone in her immediate circle was staring at her, including Wensleydale. Had she committed an unforgivable social gaffe? With no small amount of apathy, she mentally rifled through all the discourses on etiquette that she’d memorized since she was a child. She didn’t think that there’d been anything about how it was anathema to help another ladynotfall flat on her face…

“Why, Miss Guinevere,” said Lord Reecca, “that is quite the intriguing necklace you are wearing!”

Her hand flew to her chest, where, yes, the silver-spangled skull of her totem had spilled out from the low-cut bodice. She didn’t look at it, but her fingers curved over feather and bone, tracing the thistle petals that a warden of the forest had brought forth.

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