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Overture (from French ouverture, lit. "opening") 1. an orchestral piece at the beginning of an opera, suite, play, oratorio, or other extended composition; 2. an introduction to something more substantial; 3. an approach or proposal made to someone with the aim of opening negotiations or establishing a relationship.
--
Begin with arms rounded in bras bas: breathe, tilt the head down and away. Follow the movement of the palm. One hand on the barre to create a point of stability, the other moving to second position—shoulder, elbow, wrist aloft, fingers held in a graceful curve.
The familiar rhythm never fails to soothe. Out of the corner of Caleb's eye, he can just see Yasha's white hair braided with tiny flowers and wound into a bun. He can’t tell at this distance if the shock of violet hair in front of her is Kingsley or Mollymauk. Either way, one of them is going to get into trouble for having messy hair where Master Yussa can see them. Notoriously belated risers, the pair of them, and forever running late to class.
Bend the supporting leg, stretch the other, accompanied by a pleasant burn in the calves. Muscles warm in the inner thighs and hamstrings. Pointed toes trace familiar, repetitive half moons on the hardwood.
Again. In reverse.
Breathe, bend forward. Fingers graze the hardwood, two, three, four. Breathe, bend back. Arm in fifth position, six, seven, eight. Fjord's arms are so long his fingers brush lightly against Caleb's shirt when he arches back.
Caleb tries not to blush. He rises on his toes, turns.
Now it's Jester in front of Caleb, the muscles in her bare shoulders rippling as she passes through an elegant port de bras. Extend the leg in développé: front, side, back. Hold the turnout, wing the foot.
Master Yussa holds a delicate finger under Caleb's ankle, lifting his leg higher in arabesque. He's fallen behind on strength training again. He knows. He's working on it.
End with the feet in fifth position, arms back in bras bas. Chin up, head tilted to the right.
“Good,” Master Yussa calls as the final notes of the piano accompaniment fade. “To the center now, if you please. Mollymauk, if you come to class with your hair looking like that one more time, I will have you thrown out of the studio.”
—
There is a technique for threading a needle quickly. Twist the end of the thread along itself so it forms a tiny loop. Thread the loop through the eye of the needle, et voilà.
“Hey,” Yasha says, dropping down next to Caleb on the floor, careful not to disturb the neat rows of sewing materials laid out on the ground in front of him. “You doing okay?”
“Ja. My ribbon came loose, that’s all.”
“Need a hand?”
“I'm good, thank you.”
To an outsider, it would seem like a bizarre offer for Yasha to make. A dancer's shoes are an extension of the body. No dancer in their right mind would entrust their pointe shoes to someone else, not even a fellow dancer. Not when a too-soft box or over-weakened arch could mean an injury that might spell the end of a promising career.
But Caleb knows Yasha doesn’t offer it lightly. She’s seen him at his worst, gasping for air at a morning rehearsal. All thanks to a sleepless night he'd spent smoking cigarette after cigarette in the dead silence of his apartment. Still dancing on shoes he should have replaced two days ago. When she checks in with him, nothing about her concern is condescending. He has the feeling Yasha gets it. She knows, because she's been here before.
Yasha takes a long drink from her water bottle. Caleb glances up—Jester’s rehearsing a pas de deux with Fjord which involves a series of lifts that Master Yussa has been patiently guiding them through for the past twenty-seven minutes.
In the opposite corner of the studio, Kingsley is lying on the floor with his legs propped up in a ninety-degree angle against the wall, tights rolled up past his ankles to give his feet a break. Mollymauk, whose unruly hair has finally been pulled back into a high ponytail after Master Yussa’s irritated remonstrances, is sprawled out next to Kingsley watching Jester and Fjord. Caleb has no doubt Mollymauk is busy making salacious remarks about Fjord’s ass to his twin brother.
“I told Jester she should come to the gym with me,” Yasha comments. “Think she needs to work on her glutes a little more.”
“Mm,” Caleb says, once more occupied with sewing his fraying ribbon back onto his shoe. “What’s she having a hard time with?”
“When she catches Fjord’s waist from the grand jeté, she tilts a little to one side.” Yasha tilts her head thoughtfully in sympathy with Jester’s lopsidedness. “I take it back. Make it glutes and thighs. She needs to stabilize her balance better.”
Caleb’s going to have to replace this ribbon tomorrow if he is to have any hope of surviving rehearsals with both ankles intact. But all the same, sewing leaves just enough space in his brain that he can contemplate Yasha's assessment with greater care. He imagines the way he holds himself upright with his arm against Yasha’s shoulders when she catches him from the leap. She braces herself against him in turn, one strong arm tight around his waist, her core and thigh tensing against his side to support his weight.
“Jester’s still lifting with just her arms?” he asks.
“Yeah. She takes it for granted, I think, that her upper body is so strong.”
“She’s going to throw out her back if she keeps doing that.”
“Exactly,” Yasha says, nodding. “She needs to use her legs more. Especially because Fjord’s not exactly light, you know?”
“You could get away with it,” Caleb says. It’s true. Yasha could fling him around with her thumb and forefinger if she wanted to. Fjord would only take a little more effort on her part.
Yasha grins, acknowledging the compliment. “I could, but if all the audience wanted was brute force, they wouldn’t be watching a ballet. But anyway, you should come with us tomorrow. Work out a bit.”
Caleb sighs. Subtlety has never been one of Yasha’s strengths, and he knows a hint when he hears one. “I know. I really should.”
She bumps her shoulder against his. “Hey, your extensions have already improved a lot since we started partnering. You've been doing more exercises with the resistance bands I lent you?”
“I have. A little.”
The rhythm of stitching helps him forget about how annoyed he is about it. If he didn't have such a shaky foundation, he'd be doing so much better by now, not working his ass off just to play catch-up with the rest of the soloists. If he hadn't gone to Soltryce—
Caleb stabs himself with the needle. He curses, setting his shoe down to examine the pad of his thumb.
Yasha’s head turns a fraction in his direction. “One of those days, huh?”
He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Guess so.”
Partnering requires synchronization. A willingness to support each other’s strengths and counterbalance each other’s weaknesses. It means Caleb must attune himself to Yasha just as she is attuned to him, countering push with pull to maintain equilibrium.
His internal metronome gives him painstaking accuracy when it comes to keeping time, but anything less than perfection frustrates him. Forces him to drag himself through punishing levels of rigor during rehearsals, until he’s well past the point of exhaustion.
Yasha’s good at pulling him out of his head at moments like that when they’re dancing together. Caleb still wonders how she does it. She knows how to let muscle memory take over, to simply allow her body to drive, and he cannot dance with Yasha without the two of them matching each other's pace. He has to trust himself not to falter, just as he must trust Yasha to catch him. It makes a quiet space inside his mind to let her lead when they are partnered together.
Caleb takes a swig from the water bottle she hands him before he takes up his needle once more. He's grateful Yasha knows him in all his moods by now. Dancing with Beau is fine, but she has a much shorter fuse than Yasha does—she and Caleb mostly end up snarling at each other by the time rehearsal ends. He sincerely hopes that her new partner from the Rosohna Ballet is someone who can get along with her.
He and Yasha sit together for a long moment listening to Master Yussa correcting Fjord’s turnout and the placement of Jester’s hands. Caleb's securing the end of the thread with a tight knot by the time Yasha speaks again.
“Listen. I don't know if this is a good time to ask, but Beau invited us to come watch her performance on opening night.”
Caleb winces. Opening night galas mean dressing up in clothes and jewelry much too rich for his blood and charming his way across the room and into the pockets of their moneyed patrons. Or it did, once upon a time. Caleb reaches for Frumpkin out of long habit before he remembers his therapy cat isn't allowed in the studio.
“Ah, Yasha. I don't know if that will be a good idea. For me. Or you.”
She nods. “Beau understands. But she says maybe we can watch just the one scene where she dies? It'll only be a few minutes at most.”
“Mm. The, ah.” Caleb thinks quickly and hums the first few bars of the opening sequence from memory.
Yasha’s eyes light up in recognition. “Yeah, that. Just that bit. Where she gets pulled into the feywild to dance to her death.”
“Are they doing the abbreviated scene?”
“No. The full version.”
As they should. Beauregard deserves nothing less.
Caleb considers the possibility. The entire scene will be two minutes and fifty-seven seconds at most, going by his previous performances in Soltryce. “We'd be a terrible waste of seats if we only stay that long, Yasha. And on opening night, too.”
“I'll sneak us in through the back. We'll watch from the wings or something.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste. “I don’t want to dress up for it anyway. Makes me feel all weird.”
“The company members will have our heads if we get caught,” he says with a groan.
“They can certainly try,” Yasha says, grinning. She already knows she’s won—for Beau’s sake, she would have gone with or without Caleb, he knows, but the relief on her face is obvious. “Anyway. Put your shoes back on. We should practice that fish dive before Yussa catches us slacking off.”
“Not before he scolds the twins first,” Caleb says under his breath, but he’s already tying his newly repaired ribbons around his ankle.
—
ADELINA, the gorgeous sign in front of the Rexxentrum National Theater says, with smaller letters beneath spelling out the words Rosohna Ballet Company below in both Common and Elvish. The stairs are covered with red carpet to mark the occasion—the first ever performance staged by the famed Rosohna Ballet outside of Xhorhas. In a show of goodwill, the Rosohna Ballet had asked for one soloist as a guest performer; in return, one of their own soloists would perform with the Rexxentrum Ballet for a show later in the year.
Caleb barely gets a look at the grandeur of it all before Yasha’s herding him into the sketchy alley behind the theater, where performers sneak out for smoke breaks during intermission and between scenes. Just the sight of it makes his fingers itch for a cigarette.
“Come on,” she whispers, prodding him forward. “Act Two’s already started.”
“Ja, alright,” Caleb sighs. Stay on task, he tells himself. This is important. Beauregard’s big break as a soloist. To have been invited as a guest dancer for one of the most prestigious ballet companies in Wildemount? Caleb doesn’t want to admit it even to himself, but he’s more than a little jealous.
All the same, he’s happy for her. Gods know she’s done her damn hardest to get to where she is. She’s his best friend. He would never begrudge her this. And if it means having to endure a few minutes of discomfort to support her, he’ll gladly take it. He’ll be counting the seconds the entire time, but the point still stands.
The real problem arises when he and Yasha actually make it to the back entrance, only to find it crowded with dancers from the Dynasty in elaborate costume, full stage makeup and all. Sweatshirts and leg warmers conceal the tights and leotards they’re wearing beneath.
“We only need a few minutes,” Yasha says, pleading with the dancer leaning right against the door. “Left something behind backstage during our last rehearsal, that’s all.”
“I see,” he says, lifting an eyebrow. Caleb wonders if he is as fearless as he seems, or just incredibly stupid. Yasha could knock him flat on his back if she wanted to.
“Listen, we’re from the Rexxentrum Ballet. We’re company dancers.”
The dancer’s eyes drop to the black tattoo running from Yasha’s mouth down to her chin. His upper lip curls just a little, but it’s enough to make Caleb’s temper ignite with an abrupt, incandescent fury.
“Tonight is our show, angel. Try again—”
“They are with me,” a voice interrupts firmly behind Caleb, and another man strides up to the dancer blocking the door. All Caleb can see of him is his white mane of braids tied back in a loose ponytail. A deep voice, fluent Common with a heavy accent. “You better let us in, Adeen, before we miss the rest of the second act.”
The dancer hisses in a language Caleb doesn’t know—Undercommon, maybe?—before he backs off reluctantly, but his eyes are still flicking suspiciously in Yasha’s direction.
“Come on,” the man says, flicking a careless gaze toward Yasha and Caleb before entering the theater. His eyes are mismatched, like Yasha’s. One is blood red, the other is so pale it’s nearly white.
Yasha glances at Caleb. He raises his eyebrows at her and follows the man inside.
“Thank you,” he says cautiously to their unexpected savior.
“Think nothing of it. I may as well make use of what advantage I have.”
Advantage? Caleb doesn’t quite know what to make of that, but clearly this man is a familiar face to the company dancers, so Caleb will take what he can get.
“You’re here to watch the show, then?” Yasha says from behind Caleb as they hurry along the corridors.
“Why else would I be here?” The man’s shoulder raises and drops in a half-shrug. “My dalni—ah, what is the word… brother, my brother is performing tonight, and I wished to see him.”
“Who is—”
Caleb’s words are cut off when another dancer catches at the arm of the man leading them through the bowels of the theater—he doesn’t linger more than a few moments, but Caleb distinctly hears the words box seats somewhere in that hurried exchange. Perhaps he is one of the Rosohna Ballet’s patrons from Rosohna? But the dancer outside had spoken to him with such derision.
Now Caleb is properly curious. “You are not from the Rosohna Ballet?”
“Well, I am,” he says, and glances over his shoulder to wink at Caleb. He’s really quite handsome despite the scar running down the side of his face, a thick raised line skewering through his left eyebrow. “Contemporary, though. Not classical.”
Ah. That explains a few things. Caleb gives him another once-over, more carefully this time. He is dressed quite casually for a night at the theater, loose trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, but all of it clearly tailored and made of expensive material. He’s built with more muscle than a classical dancer. And his hair: long, thin braids tied away from his face, rather than the single braid the company dancers wore in a high bun.
“What role is your brother performing? He’s not in the corps, is he?” Yasha asks.
He huffs out a laugh. “Do not let him hear you say that,” he says, and opens a door for them, motioning them through.
When Caleb steps through, the music swells to a nearly deafening volume from where they are standing next to the orchestra pit. They’re just in time, Caleb realizes, and the stage is right above them.
The ominous hum of violins begins, punctuated by cellos in staccato. Caleb’s stomach is already churning just hearing the familiar notes, his heartbeat picking up to match the pace of the music.
Beauregard runs onstage as the peasant boy Albren, dressed in knee-high boots and sleeves puffed at the shoulders, chased right out of the wings by a row of dancers costumed as winged fey beings. She tries to exit, stage left, only to be rebuffed by more of the fey. Again and again it happens, until she is well and truly caught in center stage, the only human among the corps of white-clad drow pointing at her in accusation.
Very bold of the Rosohna Ballet Company to choose a Zemnian ballet for their inaugural performance, Caleb thinks to himself, his mouth twisting. And to have selected a human from the Empire to play the scorned, jealous lover of the titular character, no less. Caleb had elected to keep his reservations about Beauregard being cast for the role to himself, but so far, it does not look promising.
Another dancer enters from stage right, flanked by handmaidens on either side. The Queen of the Evenstar, one of the most feared deities of the feywild, sentencing Albren to death for playing a hand in Adelina’s death.
Caleb blinks. The Queen is played by an exceptionally beautiful man. His sculptured features are only further drawn out by makeup and spotlight in equal share, violet eyes outlined sharply by kohl and shimmering silver paint. Unlike the other dancers with their tightly wound braids, his hair is shorn very short around the sides and back, coiffed on top and crowned with a wreath of lavender flowers.
Rosemary, for remembrance. And forgetfulness. Caleb does not know which one is worse.
He looks at Yasha, who squeezes his hand. I’m okay, she mouths at him over the music.
Out of the corner of Caleb’s eye, he sees the stranger who led them into the theater draw himself up straight, paying very close attention to the Queen.
Is this man his brother, then? Beauregard’s mysterious new partner? With the Queen in full costume, it's difficult to see the family resemblance.
Beauregard—Albren—kneels before the Queen. Gestures to the wings in an obvious appeal. Let me go.
The Queen gazes at her with a cold look on his face. Holds out a hand in clear refusal and turns away. His expression does not shift. Albren makes a break for it, but the fey dancers ensnare her in their midst. She isn’t imposing in height the way Yasha is, but she’s taller than most of the dancers from the Dynasty, making her all the more visible in the glare of the stage lights.
The fey beings spin her in vertiginous circles across the breadth of the stage and fling her back at the Queen’s feet.
Albren extends her hands, clasped together. Imploring in earnest now. Please.
The Queen only stares at her, unmoved. Rolls his hands over each other elegantly, raising his arms in an imperious gesture. Dance, Albren.
Caleb watches, deeply fascinated. Most performances would have the Queen hold both fists out in front, crossed at the wrists in the sign for death, but not here—this was clearly a conscious decision on the part of the company's choreographer. As if to signify a different fate: to dance for all eternity, with no end in sight. A fate even more terrible than death.
The Queen himself is much colder than usually depicted. He isn’t burning with wrath for what he has mistaken as Albren’s betrayal of Adelina. Instead, in this performance, the Queen is inscrutable. Every line of his body focused in cold, deadly fury. Single-minded in his aim to destroy Albren.
A chill runs up Caleb’s spine. Beauregard—no, Albren—tries to flee, but the fey dancers maneuver her into the center of an unbroken chain. They move in a dizzying, ethereal circle clockwise; she leaps counterclockwise, trying to break herself free. There is no escape. She is well and truly trapped.
The fey beings drag her back to center stage by the arms. Force her to match their inexorable pace as her head lolls back and forth in exhaustion.
There is no other word for it but incredible. Caleb can barely draw breath. The precision of the corps is stunning, moving as one to obey the word of their Queen, who gazes at Albren all the while as though contemplating a particularly unpleasant spider. Beauregard’s hair is coming undone from its usual neat top knot, locks of dark hair falling around her face, making her seem even more pitifully disheveled when she falls to the ground once more.
She clutches at her chest. Holds a frantic hand out to the Queen. Please. Spare me.
He only gazes at her, unyielding, unsparing. Twists his hands above his head again. Dance.
Albren is powerless to disobey. She staggers back to her feet with a herculean effort, doing her utmost to match the steps of the corps dancing behind her, but the fey have set a truly punishing pace. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and she’s no longer able to fully lift her arms.
Beside Caleb, Yasha has her hands pressed over her mouth. Caleb’s startled to realize that he, too, has his fingers clenched tightly over his heart. Beauregard’s agony burning in his own chest. No, Albren, he repeats to himself for the third time, even though it pains him. Albren had never meant to betray As—Adelina. Would she have died of a broken heart after all, if not for him? Had it really mattered in the end that Eadmund had been promised to another if it had been Adelina he had loved all along, either way?
Caleb doesn’t know. The one thing he’s certain of is that he never wants to watch this ballet in its entirety ever again. The less he’s reminded of his former master and his days in Soltryce, the better.
But enough of that.
Caleb has never seen Beauregard dance like this—total control and wild abandon, all at once. She appears drained to the point of collapse, but her jumps are powerful beyond belief. Caleb has no idea how she’s doing it. He presses his palm hard against the ache building in his chest when she tosses her head towards the heavens in desperate supplication, the crescendo of the music vibrating deep in his bones.
The crucial moment of her performance comes—she takes her place once more, center stage, flanked on all sides by the fey. Caleb counts her leaps: one, two, three, four… five cabrioles without stopping. He gasps aloud, and so does Yasha. The stranger beside them is nodding in approval.
Albren falls to the ground without preamble after the final jump. There is an audible thud when she drops, and even though Caleb knows that she has absolute discipline over every limb, he cannot help but shudder at the impact. She lies for a moment, unable to stand, prostrating herself before the Queen. Begging for her life. By the time she picks herself up off the floor, crossing the stage in two impressive grand jetés to kneel shakily at the Queen’s feet, she can barely move under her own power.
She holds her hands out one last time. Mercy, my Queen, I beg you.
The Queen lowers his eyes for a moment, as though considering.
And when he does so, his gaze sweeps across the orchestra pit. Catches Caleb’s gaze. The Queen, deigning to look upon an adoring worshiper. Caleb feels himself pinned in place by those violet eyes, hard and immovable as amethyst.
It lasts only a split second—the Queen’s expression does not change at all by the time he lifts his eyes from Caleb’s to transfer his disdainful attention back to Albren—but Caleb’s breath is caught in his chest, a thrill running through him. The haughty arrogance in that single glance had felt, for some reason, completely genuine. Caleb has to remind himself to pull air into his lungs.
The Queen holds his hands out as though to accept Albren’s plea for mercy. Caleb already knows what is about to happen, but all the same, it is a shock when he stops just short of reaching for her extended hands. Beckons instead for his fey dancers to take her. Her eyes widen as two fey beings seize her and drag her to the other side of the stage, only to cast her over what seems to be a steep cliff to her death and directly backstage. Albren, sent toppling to the depths below, all for the love of… of Astrid—no, Adelina, who had died of a broken heart because of him.
Behind Caleb, the audience is clapping so loud that even the orchestra is barely audible. Yasha nudges him with a huge grin on her face. Standing ovation, she mouths, triumphant. Caleb forces a smile through the emotional whiplash of the moment, lightheaded with the secondhand thrill of Beauregard’s success and the unpleasant cocktail of emotion roiling thick and hot in his gut.
And yet somehow, Caleb’s gaze is inexorably drawn to the soloist playing the Queen—he has not broken character once, not even when the applause first began. But for one single moment, his gaze sweeps the audience once more and finds Caleb in the orchestra pit, almost directly beneath him. Caleb stares back, riveted by this strange dancer made entirely of cold arrogance and disdain. What would it be like if Caleb danced with him, felt those slender arms around his shoulders, his own hands around the lithe waist in an overhead lift? The thought makes Caleb dizzy.
He feels something shoved into his hand—when he looks down, he finds that their mysterious new friend has given him a copy of the program.
Thank you, Caleb mouths, his voice lost to the thunderous applause for Beauregard’s performance. He grins and claps Caleb on the shoulder, just as Yasha waves and tugs Caleb back out through the door and outside the theater.
They make one last stop at the dive bar near Caleb's apartment for a quick drink. Yasha orders for them—a light beer and a glass of red wine. He smiles a little. Beauregard’s tastes are rubbing off on her.
“Beau was amazing,” she says fervently.
“She really was,” Caleb agrees. “Her cabrioles, did you notice? Five whole jumps. I’ve never seen anyone do that many before.”
“Me neither.” She thinks to herself for a moment and smiles. “Do you think it was just the Rosohna choreography?”
“Nein,” Caleb says, grinning back. “I’d bet good money she suggested it herself.”
They clink their glasses together and drink. For a few minutes, they sit quietly and enjoy the crooning of the musician playing onstage.
“I’m glad we went,” Yasha says softly. “I hope it wasn’t too difficult for you to watch.”
He shakes his head. “It helped that we did not stay long. That scene is less, ah, significant than others. And it was well worth it for Beauregard.”
Caleb unfurls the program between them, and it falls open to a page that’s been folded in half lengthwise, dividing it neatly into two.
One half is a studio shot of Beauregard, chin lifted, expression schooled into neutrality after the fashion of the Dynasty. Beauregard Lionett as Albren, the caption proclaims, guest soloist. The other is a portrait of a handsome man with striking cheekbones and a stern expression, posed in a manner mirroring Beauregard’s. Essek of den Thelyss as the Queen of the Evenstar, Rosohna Ballet first soloist. In this photo, the family resemblance between him and his brother is much more evident in the proud tilt of the chin, the chiseled facial structure.
The name Essek is encircled—Caleb and Yasha have to bend closer to read the messy scrawl beneath.
It is a phone number, of all things. Beneath it, a note: Tell Essek. I want him to know it was me. —V.
“Huh, would you look at that,” Yasha says slyly. “Isn’t Essek the guest soloist doing the Winter’s Crest show with us in a few months?”
“Ah, yes,” Caleb says, the heat rising to his face. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Auditions for the show are coming up in a few weeks.”
“Ja. I’ve seen the announcements.”
“He’s already been cast for one of the pas de deux, you know.”
“Oh? Which role?”
Shit, he asked that way too quickly. Now he's tipped his hand. Yasha is smiling to herself, not even doing Caleb the decency of pretending to be surprised.
“He's doing the Marquetian dance. You know the one.” She takes a studious sip of her wine and glances sidelong at Caleb. “He’s gonna need a partner.”
Caleb gives in and takes the bait. “I’m guessing this Essek isn’t going to be doing any lifting, is he?”
“Did you see him earlier? He’s even squisher than you, Caleb.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Besides, Beau would be a better fit for choreography where she can show off all her jumps and turns, so she probably won't be partnering with him for this one… maybe she and I could audition for something together this time,” Yasha says thoughtfully.
“You just don’t want me for a partner,” Caleb says, as plaintively as he can manage, but she just laughs at him.
“Don’t sulk at me. But I definitely wouldn’t say no to a pas de deux with Beau.”
He may as well concede his defeat now, because once Jester and Mollymauk find out about this, he’ll never hear the end of it. Yasha downs her glass of wine, a broad grin on her face. Yet again, she's won, and she knows it.
“Call time at the gym with me and Jester is seven o’clock sharp tomorrow, okay? Don’t be late, we’ve got a lot of weight training to do.”
Caleb sighs, exasperated but fond. “I am never late, Yasha, how dare you.”