Chapter 81: Unexpectedly Airam Dances Better
The grand coming-of-age gala for the Royal Princess of Skargardia was no longer a distant date on the calendar; it was a looming event barely a week away.
Airam, Hermione, and Esther did not need a single verbal reminder of how little time remained. The very atmosphere within the Rubenhart estate had turned tense.
Previously, the girls’ daily curriculum had been evenly divided among their four tutors. But as the royal event drew close, Ulrich had reorganized their schedule. The history and geography courses were shelved, and Brian’s practical magic lessons were halted entirely. In their place, Elana’s dance and etiquette sessions, paired with Linnea’s poetry and elocution drills, completely dominated the sisters’ waking hours.
Ulrich’s reasoning was pragmatic. There would be no need to display magic within that royal hall. In the ballroom of high nobility, a clumsy curtsy or a poorly chosen word was a far more fatal mistake than a miscast spell. Magic was just a weapon, whereas grace and literacy were the true blades of the aristocratic world.
Because of this, Ulrich became an ever-present phantom in their study room. He had never bothered to attend Brian’s magic lessons, but now, he sat in on nearly every etiquette and dance drill, dedicating his meticulous attention to the progress of each sister.
Over the past month, the gravity of what was expected of them had slowly crushed the girls’ usual rebellious streaks. They had never set foot in a royal court, but watching their experienced tutors, Elana and Linnea, work themselves into a state of nervous exhaustion conveyed the stakes perfectly. That overwhelming need for perfection bled into the three witches. The complaining ceased. The idle chatter almost vanished. They followed every instruction with focused attention.
Perhaps each sister harbored her own private reason for throwing herself so strongly into the preparations. One might have been driven by a need to prove her worth, another by stubborn pride, and the last by the simple instinct to survive. But despite their differing motivations, all three shared one singular, unified goal: to go through the royal gala with perfection and avoid getting into trouble.
It certainly did not help that Ulrich himself was the main source of pressure.
He rarely spoke a single word of reprimand, which somehow made the pressure much worse. A screaming instructor could be tuned out or rebelled against, but Ulrich simply sat in his high-backed chair by the window, watching. Every misplaced step in a waltz, every slight stutter over a poetic verse, and every improper angle of a teacup was instantly met with a freezing, crimson stare.
He did not need to shout. His silent, deadpan stare carved into them, delivering a merciless warning that echoed louder than any threat: "Do not embarrass the Rubenhart name."
Today was no exception; Ulrich occupied his usual high-backed armchair by the windows.
The three sisters moved through their repetitions, every step thought carefully. The courtly dances of Skargardia’s nobility required far more than simple rhythm. Every movement had to be perfectly coordinated yet executed with a fragile, porcelain delicacy that made the exertion look easy. To simply call the physical strain ’dancing’ felt like an understatement of the complex work required to survive a royal ballroom.
"Excellent," Elana said, gently clapping her hands together to cut through the silence. "Your posture has improved immensely since the last weeks. Now, we will practice once again in pairs to test your framing. I will partner with Airam. Hermione, you will take the lead with Esther."
At her instruction, the girls immediately split apart.
On the far side of the parlor, Hermione stepped into the gentleman’s position with a sudden, mischievous smirk spreading across her lips. She threw her arm across her chest and offered a sweeping, exaggerated bow toward her younger sister.
"Would you do me the honor of a dance, my lady?" Hermione asked, pitching her voice into a pompous drawl that perfectly mimicked the arrogant young lords they had been warned about. "Though I advise you to guard your toes, for I make no promises of mercy."
Esther immediately broke character, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle a sudden, delighted giggle. Her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter as she offered a delicate curtsy, gratefully accepting her sister’s outstretched hand. "I shall brave the danger gladly, kind sir," she whispered back, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement.
Beside them, the atmosphere was far more serious. Elana stepped into the lead position, her posture straight as she formally presented her palm to Airam.
Airam offered a small, breathless "Yes." She reached out, her pale fingers resting lightly atop Elana’s hand, her other hand coming to rest precisely upon Elana’s shoulder.
As the hired string musicians in the corner struck up a lilting Skargardian waltz, both duos began to sweep across the grand parlor. From his shadowed corner, Ulrich observed them with unblinking, crimson eyes. He watched their movements, the rise and fall of their heels, the rigid carriage of their spines, and the way they maintained the delicate space between partners. He was forced to silently acknowledge the tremendous progress they had forged since they began learning dance, not even a month ago. They no longer moved as pampered girls dragged from the woods; they moved like highborn daughters.
He had to admit, the three sisters had progressed at a frightening rate over the last weeks, so much so that it was actually shocking.
However, as the music swelled into a more complex tempo, the difference in their skills became impossible to ignore.
Hermione and Esther started strong, counting the beats under their breath. But soon, Hermione’s leading foot stepped a fraction too wide, catching the hem of Esther’s skirt. Esther stumbled slightly, stifling a sharp hiss.
"You lead like a drunken ox, big sister," Esther muttered under her breath, giggling softly.
"Hush, I am trying to remember the pivot," Hermione whispered back, her brows furrowed in concentration. But as she tried to correct their frame, her steps drifted to a complete halt. Both girls stood frozen in the center of the room, their squabble dying on their lips as they became captivated by the other pair.
Airam and Elana were moving in a state of perfect symbiosis. The waltz required a sweeping, circular motion, a step forward, a glide to the side, and a perfect closing of the feet, but Airam made the complexity of the dance look like water flowing over porcelain stones. Elana guided her with invisible pressure, and Airam responded with fluidity, transferring her weight so softly she appeared weightless. Every pivot was magnificent, sending her dark skirts flaring out like a beautifully rung bell, perfectly timed to the rise and fall of the cellos.
"Relax your shoulders a fraction more, Airam. Yes, just like that," Elana muttered, her voice carrying over the music as she spun Airam through a complex, reverse turn. "Let the melody carry your weight. Your transitions are flawless."
"It feels different today," Airam replied, thoughtfully.
"That is because you have finally stopped fighting the tempo and started listening to it," Elana praised openly, a genuine smile curling her strict features. "You are dancing amazingly well. Your footwork is impeccable."
Inwardly, Elana was even more astonished. Of the three sisters, Airam was the quietest, the most reserved, and the least involved. Yet, unexpectedly, she danced better.
She possessed an innate, unique grace that eclipsed her siblings. While Hermione relied on her memorization, and Esther on her radiant energy, Airam simply relied on instinct. She had mastered the aristocratic waltz not just with technical perfection, but with emotional elegance that even seasoned noblewomen rarely achieved.
Thinking of that, Elana found herself smiling. She glanced briefly over her shoulder toward the corner of the room, catching Ulrich’s gaze fixed upon them.
Even now, two years of instruction in this grand estate, she still could not entirely understand why the infamous Count Rubenhart had chosen to legally adopt three orphaned witches. The nobility whispered that it was a sick political stunt or a fleeting madman’s whim. But watching them now, Elana strongly doubted it was a random selection. The three sisters were untamed geniuses in their own unique ways. They possessed an inherent, priceless spark, something unique that Elana could not fully understand, but could plainly see burning beneath their skin.
Across the floorboards, Hermione and Esther, stung by the bite of sisterly competitiveness, finally stopped taking it lightly. They straightened their spines, adjusted their grip, and threw themselves back into the waltz with newfound concentration, trying to match Airam’s fluid elegance.
Ulrich continued to observe them from his chair. But as the rhythmic, sweeping melody of the cellos filled the grand room, his crimson gaze slowly began to glaze over.
The rustle of skirts and the sharp tapping of heels began to fade, replaced by the hollow, echoing silence of a different time. His mind, usually calm and collected, drifted away, pulled backward by a memory he thought he had forgotten.
Before his eyes, the grand room slowly dissolved. The four women on the floor vanished like smoke. In their place, a different pair materialized, sweeping across the floorboards of a dimly lit room from a world that no longer existed.
It was a dark-haired man and a much shorter, blonde-haired woman. They were dancing intimately, their bodies pressed close enough to erase any doubt that they were mere acquaintances.
Ulrich’s gaze locked onto the woman. She was staring up at the dark-haired man, his past self, Silas, with an expression that broke his icy composure instantly, his lips parting slightly. It was a gaze he would remember until the end of time; it was the way Faith had always looked at him.
It was never just simple affection. Faith’s eyes always held a stormy, complex mixture of devotion, bottomless love, and deep care that had made her unique in Silas’s bleak world. The memory was so vivid, so real, that despite the cold armor of Ulrich Van Rubenhart, the heart beating in his chest skipped several beats. A sudden wave of grief tightened around his throat just by seeing her face again.
"Um... Lord Ulrich?"
The voice echoed, sounding faint and muffled, as if it were calling to him from the bottom of a deep well.
Ulrich blinked twice. In a fraction of a second, the modern living room, the music, and Faith’s face instantly vanished, snapping him back to reality.
He was back in the wide room arranged for the dance lessons. Standing just a few inches away from his armchair was Esther, her head tilted slightly, staring down at him with a look of concern.
"My Lord?" She asked, raising a brow. She had noticed his complete dissociation and had stepped away from the dance floor to check on him.
Ulrich did not answer. The ghost of the memory was still burning too behind his eyes to risk speaking.
Understanding that it was just a memory, he suddenly felt an uncomfortable emotion overwhelm him.
That feeling of being completely under Faith’s spell...
It was both addictive and frightening at the same time.
Without uttering a single word, he stood up, brushed past Esther, and walked out of the room.
