And She Danced
A Queen's Thief series fanfic

The boy crouched behind the storeroom shelves, listening anxiously to the approaching footsteps. His grandfather had warned him about the festivities taking place in the megaron that night, but he had been sure the hallways behind the kitchen would be nearly empty. And they had been ... nearly. He was too young to be a spy, but he was Eddisian, and the Attolian king would not take kindly to his presence.

There was very little space to stand behind the shelf, and he was rapidly losing the feeling in his ankles. Desperately he cast his gaze about, straining his eyes in the dark. 'A successful thief has in mind an exit before he enters, 'his grandfather always said, but in his panic he had forgotten. The door was the only way - except for a small window, looking out on the kitchen gardens.

He did not waste a second. In a moment he was at the window, in the next he was quietly opening it, wincing at its squeak. Like a mouse through a mouse hole he slipped through the opening. The ground was hard, but he did not move after he landed. He waited, heart pounding, for the sounds of pursuit. He heard the storeroom door open, followed by faint footsteps. Just when he was certain the servant had noticed the open window, the storeroom door squealed as it closed.

The boy sagged in relief. After a minute, he would scale the garden wall and head straight to the town. Hopefully he would not be interrogated too closely by his grandfather; old man though he was, he could lecture until the day turned into night.

He heard another creak, which made him jump - but it did not come from the storeroom. The gate from the flower garden was opening. 'Who can that be? 'a voice in his head demanded, but the rest of his brain was too busy to answer. Around him were dozens of orange trees; the closest had several low branches. Better still, it had several sturdy ones higher up. It only took a fraction of a second to decide, and he was safely out of sight behind the greenery as the mysterious Attolian approached.

He had had no idea of what to expect, but even so, the girl took him by surprise. From his perch off the ground he could see her clearly. Only a few years older than his cousin Helen, she was not out yet of the awkward growing stage, but she looked as if she could be a beauty in a few years. Her dark hair was braided, with bright blossoms woven in between the strands and tucked behind her ears. Her eyes flicked from one side of the garden to the other - was she afraid someone was in here, or was she searching for something?

Her dress was too elegant to belong to a servant; he could tell that straight away. Something in his memory clicked. It must be the Princess Irene - his cousin Helen had met her once. She had described the Attolian princess as quiet, and not very friendly. He wondered what she would do if she found him hiding in her garden, and shuddered.

The princess walked between the rows of cabbage plants and entered the grove. He felt panic rising inside him again, and he tried to make himself smaller on the branch, but she never looked up. She slowed as she neared his tree, then stopped. She inclined her head, as if listening to something. The boy strained his ears, wondering what she heard. Doubtless inside the palace, especially in the feast rooms, there would be enough noise and music to drown out thought; but out here, not a sound could be heard through the thick stone walls. Then, the princess closed her eyes, stretched out her arms, and began to dance.

It was a simple dance, not much different from those he had seen danced in Eddis. She circled round the grove, passing under his tree as she did so. Her feet seemed to glide over the grass, her outstretched hands never brushing a leaf or trunk of a tree. Again and again she circled. She never broke from the pattern, following the beat only she could hear.

He watched her, captivated. For a moment, he wondered why, on tonight of all nights, the princess came outside to dance. The garden walls kept out the wind, but the air was cold. Inside the palace there was music and dancing; yet she came outside, and he wondered only for a moment.

He remembered the past winter in Eddis, when for the first time his parents had allowed him to stay up late for his cousin's party. He had watched his sisters and cousins dance - hands clasped together in a circle, laughing, tugging on each other, his sister Agatha sneaking hairpins out of his cousin Agape's hair. Even the girls too little to dance twirled around together, giggling until they hiccuped.

During a party that filled the palace with guests, music and laughter, on a night supposed to be as warm and joyful as that night in Eddis, the princess of Attolia went outside to dance. There was no music, no laughing cousins, no torches casting dancing shadows on the walls, no older relatives to applaud. No friends reached out to grasp her hands and dance with her, no anxious parent called her to come inside where it was warm, no one stood nearby to watch her. Her hands were held out to friends who existed only in her imagination. She danced alone, because she had no one to dance with her.

He found himself swallowing hard on a tight throat. He looked at the princess again, but this time he wasn't frightened of her. What would happen if she saw him seemed unimportant. Tonight she was the loneliest girl in Attolia, yet she held out her hands and she danced. And above her in the trees, a boy watched, suddenly wishing he could come down and dance with her.