The Sigh Of Things (40) …when asked what did you do say nothing. "Twenty." "An underestimation, surely." "I blame this on Stefan." "Such a surprise." Regret watched the women turn to examine the revolving dynamic in the room. The kin, having just accepted his toast, were now drifting from their places - yearning, no doubt, to share and compare their impressions of the evening as it stood. Stavros had broken the table himself, striding off for a word with poor Gregori and the more pitiful Lisette, whose delicate pallor was evincing an unsightly shade of green. Stefan, as well, had departed the scene to conference with the staff; a bondsman's imperative she imagined would harry him throughout this night. In the absence of the men the women were left to fend for themselves, and it was less than unexpected to find Helena moving in to assume the tactical lead. What was a shock was the manner in which Laura stepped forward to meet her - not as acolyte but fully-fledged partner in the practice of this intriguing. Treaties had been forged, she saw, and while she was certain these unwritten pacts were both nebulous and fleeting, there was no mistaking the substantive shift of alliance from the personal to a more familial mode. The revelation of Laura's Cassadine self, startling as it was, provided a wealth of explanation for the mystery of her allure. It also had the unfortunate effect of leaving Regret the odd woman out. "You will take the widow?" "And you will bring the little one up to speed." Helena ran a hard eye over Regret and Laura's came to join it. "A quisling, I think. Send her over the line." With this the Cassadine matriarch drew herself straight, caught her skirt up with a dignified grace and entered into the fray. Laura's gaze traveled back to the kin, now bunching into groups of three and four as they conferred over their perceptions. "She has sighted twenty who will stand with us, barring the sway of a persuasive argument. Needless to say, twenty is not enough. He claims he can accommodate thirty against. In Greece he fell at twenty-one. Do the math, Regret, and you'll see the size of what we're facing." Nineteen or more were left to dissuade, but how? "The number for the secondary game cannot be accurately determined." "And so we don't allow for it. Worst case scenario, Regret. Certainly you're familiar with those?" She ignored the jab and opened herself to instruction. "What would you have me do?" Laura tipped her head to a man across the room and offered him a brilliant smile. "You're out to convince them in any way you can, through compliment, cajolery or threat, to deliver their powders to Argos. If all else fails you will create a motive to draw the dose yourself. I'm not at all sure you can inspire that kind of animosity, Regret. Yet it would serve you to remember that every vote you drink is one less left to fall into his glass. Surely that must appeal to your empathetic nature?" The woman's gaze reached her on its natural circuit of the crowd, though the look she sent was anything but cordial. "I tried to save you." "Tried and failed," Laura retorted, her glance moving on. "Once you finish with Stefan you'll join Argos and his entourage. Helena's right. You've already made an impression. Use that." "Why?" The question just tumbled from her mouth, her curiosity too keen to deny it voice. "She's made her plans for you clear. You despise him. Why would you help them now?" Regret could see Laura's brow tighten in response to the question. "This is no longer about Stavros. It's about Nikolas and what he deserves. What he must have. What is his. My son is the Cassadine Prince. It's too late to change that now. Strip him of the title and I'm not convinced he'll ever find a way back to himself." Her eyes hardened with irritation, as if she realized she'd said too much. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" Regret inclined her head and sank to a slight curtsey, then moved off to take her place and wait. "Do you have it?" Louis' attempt to affect a sudden loss of hearing lasted as long as it took him to meet the man's eye. The glare was withering, its contemptuous chill brooking no dispute. He scowled and thrust his hand into his pocket, retrieving the useless box. He consoled himself with the fact that he gave over nothing of value. It was a dummy, a mock-up, the housing for a trigger that had taken up residence elsewhere. This was a foolish choice, this little piece of trash, but if it got the man off his back who was he to complain? He brought his hand before him and the Count clasped it in his own, as if in congratulation. When the grip released the box was gone. "And the code," said the man, as if this second disloyalty should somehow naturally follow the first. "That I could not get," he averred, moving to turn away. A vise of fingers encircled his arm and yanked him down, making it appear he'd stumbled. The Count pressed closer as if to assist him in regaining his balance. "Play a game with me and I'll send you to the floor on the premise of dissatisfactory service. You will be the one she hunts for explanations. And while you're at it, perhaps you'd like to advance your excuse for failing to tell your mistress that you'd known of her captive's cognizance all along." Louis seethed, his face darkening for a moment with rage. True or no, Madame would not take kindly to the possibility that her lover had kept such a substantial revelation to himself. The Spencer woman's deceit had infuriated her. Helena Cassadine would relish nothing more than the serendipitous emergence of a candidate upon whom she might levy her blame. His free hand fumbled beneath his jacket and found the folded paper. Stefan relieved him of the scrap the moment it hit the open air. "Bow to me now and retreat. But do not wander, Louis. Do not make me find you again." The minion bent at the waist and backed away, cursing sex, rocks and men who could exact their penalties on the odd convergence between the two. Sancia marked the moment the Prince rejoined his lady-wife and followed them at a discreet distance as they made their way from the dining hall, through the receiving chamber and into the enormous expanse of the great room. This consequential space had been converted during the course of dinner to accommodate his Deciding's dance - the chairs, settees and sideboards now skirting the perimeter, clearing the central marble floor for use. Just apart from the wall to the east they'd positioned an immense mahogany drum table atop which stood an ice sculpture of disproportionate size. The great girth of Bacchus himself towered over the cloth, his meaty arm hefted high above his head, his drink thrust into the air with a hedonistic abandon. This god of the vine was surrounded, appropriately enough, by a ring of large silver tubs filled with chipped ice and dotted with dozens of bottles of the wine they'd chosen to drink. On several supplemental, encircling tables lay an assortment of rich desserts - pastries, cakes, tarts and sugared fruit - alongside which rested a suitable service of plates, utensils and arching fans of elegantly-monogrammed napkins. There were no glasses in evidence, she noted dimly, as she turned from this decadent display to cast an eye to the western wall. Here, perched on a series of risers, sat a twenty-piece orchestra, its musicians at the ready - their backs straight, their breath held, their instruments poised for the first cue offered to begin the evening's program. Still as statues in a courtyard, they waited as the room began to fill. The royal pair separated to set their goblets down, each a good distance from the other. By the time they reunited at the head of the room the guests taking part in the opening dance had arranged in an oval around the floor. Sancia counted twelve couples, a third of those in attendance. The rest who'd rejected this honor would most certainly be spying the deserted drinks and judging the fortuity the moment offered. While she did not share the same intent, Sancia felt she owned a percentage of the apprehension that weighted the air. Their plan was far too filled with risk, the odds towering against them like mountains before a scattering of industrious black ants. Determination alone would not carry the play. This maneuver would require exceptional finesse, perfect timing, and a kind of subtle, surreptitious skill she couldn't be certain every one of them possessed. That she'd been relegated to the sidelines for this did not improve her mood. Passive observance was not her strong suit, the role of spectator one she would never willingly elect when action was at hand. The stress she sensed building inside her was both exasperating and unwelcome. She tried to recall a meditation for this as Louis took the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, his voice rising over the noise of the crowd, bringing them to silence. "Ladies and gentlemen," softer now yet strident enough to echo through the hall. "Your host, Stavros Cassadine, and his wife the Lady Laura invite you to join them in the traditional danse aux lumieres. Conductor, if you please. The Polonaise." This processional dance, once the prelude to the balls of the highest sphere of society, begins with the honored couple performing their Grand Promenade around the floor. Side-by-side they travel the room in the customary step at three-quarter time, saluting each participating couple in turn. Each couple, upon receipt of their salute, promptly falls into line behind them until all the pairs have joined. Upon the completion of the tour, the pairs then split into columns to perform their passages. Only after these are done does the true dancing commence. Stavros took a dramatic breath designed to amuse his guests and temper the bombastic tone of the moment, and in this he was successful. More than a few smiles broke free on the faces of those around them. He then drew straight, infused with an undeniably aristocratic aplomb, his noble bearing evident in the lifting of his hand to his lady-wife. She took that hand with a majesty that seemed effortless in its ease and, just as the first measure sounded, set her foot forward to begin her circuit of the room. The first pair to receive their salute were the Count and the Contessa - Stefan bowing deeply and Regret dipping low in response. Sancia watched the joining of their hands, seeking the secret he had hidden there. She could find no sign of it. Even the Contessa's face remained composed, her palm flat and firm to her Count's, betraying not the smallest anxiety over the treason now concealed between them. Their steps, engaging in perfect alignment, brought them smoothly into place behind the Prince. She lost sight of the second couple as the Princess Dowager glided forward, partnered not by the elderly Alberto (who had shrewdly dodged this duty's bullet on the pretext of advancing years), but attached to the arm of the challenger himself. Argos, his expression grave, his movements stiff with the must of decorum, held his scarlet scourge of an aunt as far from himself as custom would allow. Their backs vanished as a fourth and fifth and sixth pair converged, Stavros and Laura plucking them all like flowers from a country garden as they made their way around the floor. Upon completion of the Grande Promenade, the dancers broke apart to form two columns and the passages began. The Prince and his lady-wife took the lead, advancing through the pairs in the opposing line one by one, followed by their column's train to produce a serpentine effect. As the last of his couples came through, the filtered rank turned in upon itself, pair-by-pair twisting to follow the Prince in his course - weaving its own length until, once again, a single column emerged. On the moment the line became whole, the couples neatly disjoined into castings of four, creating three circles spinning into place around the ballroom floor. The Prince's circle, she saw, had come precisely right - including, as it had to, Stavros and Laura, Stefan and Regret, Helena and Argos, as well as an anonymous pair of Cassadines to round out the group. Sancia's eye narrowed to detect their every movement - knowing, as she did, that something more than a lively dance was about to be performed. Following the dance's custom, Stavros and Argos crossed through the center of their circle to exchange their partners. The moment they reached the opposing side their arms caught each feminine waist and all the circle's pairs were suddenly swept up into great waltzing turns. So graceful were these polished revolutions, every man's angle unbroken, every maid's skirt billowing out in corresponding response, that the audience fell to a smattering of gratuitous applause. And if the Prince held his mother a bit too tightly, one could see she didn't mind; her eyes sparked to brightly blazing by the thrill of this embrace. In fact, the closer he drew her the more exhilarated she seemed to become, her gratified smile enhanced by an unseemly degree of craving. Forlorn was she when the waltzing slowed and her son returned to the arms of his wife. Sancia worried he had failed in his aim. The pocket was small, the box even smaller. Knowing where it was at her waist would not have been enough. He would still have required the skill to use her distraction against her before lifting that treasure from its sleeve. There was no way to tell if this had been accomplished, his hand moving far too quickly into the clasp of Laura's to spy the passing of the trigger in between. And before one could blink, the partners had exchanged again - Stefan moving to dance with Laura, to take that weapon from her palm if it was there, and Stavros stepping up to Regret. She fixed her eye on the Contessa's face as the Prince swept her around the room, seeking a sign of furtiveness or the smallest measure of guile. If there were a fault in this chain it would center about Regret, who was certainly its weakest link. Yet Sancia detected no hesitancy in the woman's demeanor; no creasing brow, no stumbled step. In truth, the pair circled the floor as if they owned it. No, Sancia revised, retracting that opinion. They waltzed their round as if the floor were empty. As if no one danced the dance but themselves. She shifted her attention to the Prince's face and saw its alteration at once. His was not a stern expression, nor was it marked by his natural affinity for humor. Stavros was, in this one instant, nothing less than intent in his regard of his partner. So much so, in fact, that Sancia feared the passing of the substitute box was of secondary concern to them both. To her relief the music slowed and, yes, there it was. Regret's fingers slid from his palm, the tips curling to press the device neatly down his sleeve. The next round, danced for form, brought the Prince to the fourth woman in his circle; a heavy-set matron in her middle years who looked upon him with distinct disquiet. While he took her up courteously enough, there was no mistaking her unease as that arm wrapped around her waist and they started across the floor. To say the journey was lugubrious, her downcast eye settled in dread, her features stiff with mortification, was a generous assessment of this encounter - yet as it came to its close one could see her second thought; could see her judgment sway; could see her acknowledge it might not be so bad a thing after all to have another waltz at his hand. But she'd used her chance and lost the next as the couples came to change once more. The Prince's last partnership should have been with his lady-wife, yet by error or whimsical choice he ended with Helena - his selection forcing the couples to accommodate his lead. And again they launched across the floor, this Prince and his magnificent mother. Again she was too tightly held as he fiercely swept her around the room; her cheeks inflamed, the world and all its splendid light blurring before her gaze. If his step was too strong, too wide, too quick to meet the tempo, she took every labor required to conform to his need. The figure they cut was startlingly dramatic, strikingly bold and disturbingly romantic - this last impression upheld by the way he never once released her eye. By the time he brought her back to the start she was quite sincerely out of breath. Sancia watched the groupings break to finish with the ritual Grand Circle. As the Count and Contessa rounded its curve, Stefan nodded imperceptibly to assure her the deed was done. He had the trigger and Helena the mock her Louis had so reluctantly provided. Her life, this night at least, could not be lost to his mother's press of a button. There might have been relief in this moment, or at least a sense of victory for him, had he not looked down to the fingers she held pressed against her thigh. During the course of this elaborate dance, filled with salutation and subterfuge, the Prince's glass had come to receive its first three votes. The Sigh Of Things (41) …Now? - the question every man asks in the wake of God's resignation… "She doesn't look like a Contessa," scoffed the widow, her bag of old bones precariously perched on the feathered cushion of the antique chaise. The loose folds of her muslin dress betrayed her spindled frame; her body dissipated to such a degree it seemed to struggle to retain its balance. The wrinkled skin of her arthritic brown hand poked white where the knuckles flexed to grip the silver crow's head atop her walking cane. A convenience of genetics, thought Helena, to have grown tall enough that one's cripplestick could tower over this table, its metal beak at just the right height to dip to the lip of a glass. It was a trick too easy to detect. Who did she think would be fooled? "The title was obtained through marriage," Madame Cassadine announced as she arranged the drape of her scarlet skirt within the bounds of a neighboring chair. "She was nineteen, he a tubercular twenty. She buried him before the year was out." "A martyr!" cackled the elderly woman, her gaunt physique seizing with laughter. "Of course," Helena sniffed. "Who else would bother with the burden of Stefan?" Her remorseless eye turned to the dance floor and the bleeding heart in question. The lively pace of this cinq pas galliard had produced a pair of smiles on the faces of Regret and her partner as they strove to match their rhythms to its triple-timed beat. This "dance of uncontrollable zest" had quite caught them up; their enthusiastic dive into the Renaissance frolic drawing more attention than it might otherwise receive. Their witnesses grew as their petit saut fell in sync and he took his hop to advance into the bell step, daring her to follow. She mimicked the move perfectly and he, his challenge met, raised the stakes to the Italian knot, known as the grappo. Her ankles crossed to mirror his own and the man actually laughed, taking her up to travel the floor as they skipped from the prosaic five-stepped pattern into the much more formidable eleven. Had she held her wits amid the bounce and the bound and the bluster of this dance, the girl might have marked the spectacle she made and tamed her foolishly extravagant style. This was not, after all, an evening to parade one's beauty, one's talent, one's seductive skill. Even the nettlesome Laura Spencer had logged that lesson - knowing as she did that the secondary game fell squarely to the province of the Cassadine women. One eclipsed those witches at one's peril. Did she imagine a less accomplished lady, saddled with an extra pound or an extra year, would miss this flawless display? And while Helena came apathetic to the matter of Regret's continued existence, she found she would rather her captive's fate be dispensed at her own discretion than that of her spitefully contemptuous kin. This "consort" teetered on the very edge of inconvenience to her now. It was doubtful she'd made a difference in the voting, having succeeded only in amusing those men with her shallow repartee and artless attempts at flirtation. The lone advantage to be gained from Contessa Derniere's presence here tonight hinged upon the length of time she could keep the enemy dancing. Argos' engagement in this gusty galliard had left his glass abandoned. And if she were not mistaken, her second son's sleeve had just made its pass. "Do we have a consensus?" Helena inquired, lifting her goblet to partake of her wine. The Widow Greco scowled, her mouth turning down in a reproving moue. "Everyone was settled on Gregori's whore before your son pulled her out of the running. She vomited her grass and was taken by The Hand." A palsied finger lifted from the cane to point in the direction of the dance. "The martyr is a contender. Were the Prince to renounce his vigil of her drink the odds are good she would fall within the hour. Not dead, I think, but pleasantly unrevivable." Helena scanned the circumference of the room in search of her firstborn son. She found him leaning on the bend of the balustrade erected to enclose the orchestra; his sash mysteriously absent, his tie undone, his drink in his hand. She spied the cup the widow referred to on the railing at his side. Resisting the frown that came to betray her irritation, she marked the languid stance he chose and the fevered glare of an eye that would not be moved from the couple currently cavorting at the center of the ballroom floor. She knew that look. Trouble impended. "Perhaps I can clear the way," she offered, gathering herself to rise from the chair. "If you will excuse me?" The widow's head bent low in response and took such time in ascending that one might have suspected she'd fallen asleep. Helena had already departed when that venerable countenance rose once more, its lips mouthing a choice Sicilian curse in the wake of the dowager's retreating back.   While they conversed along the periphery of the great room's marble floor and made a clever show of mingling, few in this company of Cassadines missed the exhibition of Argos and Regret or the daggered devotion afforded it by their perversely petulant prince. Theories were advanced and pitched around the rim like rogue sparks on an ill-wind until the whole of the horde burned hot with curiosity and frenzied speculation. What drew the fury from that desecrated soul and launched it forth with such implacable fire? Did his pride take wound at the sight of such masterful dancing? Was it Argos himself who had inspired this rage? Or did his cunning choice of partner provoke the prerogative of possession? The Cassadine Empire, from wealth to land to goods and subjects, belonged part and parcel to its Prince. All were claimed as property. This was more than understood. And while a common man might rail over the poached prawn of a lover, a Prince's personal realm extended well beyond his bed. As consort of his brother, this woman fell full within the mete of Stavros Cassadine's holdings. Mine. It was his right; it was his due. It was the primacy his position accorded - a primacy no prince could permit to be transgressed. Had the challenger slipped a sly foot over the line with his galliard? Was Argos enjoying his partner with a passion that traipsed into violation? It certainly appeared that way. This act would have its consequence, they could smell it like a smoldering smoke wafting on the breeze. And as they awaited his response, a fair portion of perceptive minds did wonder at the lack of reaction from the Count. This mistress was his, was she not, and valued enough to be gifted that title of consort? By rights his mouth should be poised at the Prince's ear, his voice spilling its invective, urging a reprisal, demanding a revenge. But no, it was the mother who came at the last, to the astonishment of them all. "Stavros, you stand alone," remarked Helena, gliding into place directly before him. "This is not a position of strength." "Ah, but I'm not alone anymore," he contended restlessly. "Move aside, Mother. You're blocking my view." Her voice warmed, spiced with a subtle, conspiratorial flavor. "So he dances with the girl. Let him have her. The longer she amuses him the more will come to take their turns at his glass. You have cast your vote, haven't you my darling?" "Cast and cast-off," he retorted, his tone laced with agitation. "I've asked you to adjust your station, ma mere. I will not ask again." Helena attempted to sidle to the side of Regret's unattended wine only to find his hand at her elbow, ushering her the opposite way. "Now, now," he chided as he set her in her place. "You know how I feel about what you do behind my back." She'd drawn the breath to object, to confront this peckish pose of his and break it down to size, when she felt those fingers dig into her flesh, his grip seizing of a sudden as if he'd lost his balance. Her lips closed and she sent a concertedly ambivalent gaze ranging across the room. "How long?" she inquired softly. "Do I have or since this began?" he countered, his eye fixing once again upon the dance. "Who can judge? Fontraire's powder is a thief. She creeps." Clearer now, how Laura had been able to distract the padrino as easily as she did; luring him away as the godson departed to take his pleasure of Regret. Not so much the heedlessness of an addled brain or a resurgence of libido, after all. This was a measure of the confidence he had in the number of doses dropped to the drink of the competing Cassadine Prince. Alberto thought to have the matter in hand - which meant, of course, that Stavros had ingested a substantial amount of poison. What was the number? She needed the number. "Approximately twelve," announced Stefan in a whisper at her ear. "Twelve to his seven," he added. "Again, an approximation." "My brother the abacus," their prince grunted grimly. "Forever counting up my pennies, my poisons, my sins. A dark duty, that." "You might have avoided dessert, Stavros. The glass goes down…" "…and the odds go up. Yes I know, Stefan. I've done this before. Would someone please fetch me my wife?" Helena exchanged a quick glance with her similarly dubious second son, then shifted back to her first. "That would be unwise, I think." He smiled but would not look at her, refusing to break away from his ponderous pre-occupation with that pair. "First you berate me for standing alone and now you deny me the company I seek? You really must make up your mind." "It would be highly counterproductive to have all of us standing in the same spot, simply milling about. Surely you can see that." And finally he turned to catch her eye. "Then move off, Mother. I've given you a task. Perform it." Stefan watched their mother submit with an odd sense of satisfaction. It was rare to find this querulous queen compelled to do anything for anyone other than herself. If there were a list - and people made them, he knew - of those very few powers he might like to possess, the ability to elicit Helena Cassadine's compliance to every idle and indifferent whim would certainly be upon it. He couldn't imagine the luxury of watching her walk away without bracing for a swift retaliatory strike. He regarded his brother with envy and wondered if this would be the very last time that familiar feeling came knocking at his door. "What do you want with Laura?" he asked, joining Stavros at the rail. "More than you might expect. And less," he amended enigmatically. The orchestra struck its final chord and the galliard came to its finish, awarded by more than a smattering of enthusiastic applause. Argos spun his partner apart to take the praise at his side, the couple bowing in each direction to acknowledge this acclaim. Laura arrived just as the ovation softened into silence, halting a good distance further than the flounce of her skirt required. "Helena relayed your summons," she stated, the test of her temper evident in the bristled scold of her tone. "What is it? What do you want?" "Don't play the shrew with me," warned the Prince, meeting her harshness with his own. "That performance requires a response. You know the rules of this game. We will dance." "We will not," she disputed, forcing his fury with the contradiction. "I agreed to come to this Deciding witted, wedded and well-disposed. I've given you your presentation and your Polonaise. And yes, for Nikolas' sake, I will spend what's left of this unbearable evening chasing the poison from your glass. The rest is up to you." The Prince grew cold and still, his voice tendered to its lowest note. "You pick a curious time to register your restrictions. The boldness is becoming but, as a strategy, ill-advised." "This from the man who couldn't foresee my theft at the hand of his brother. As unaware as I was in that hospital bed, even I knew he would come. Don't bother to lecture me on strategy, Stavros. You've lost too many years." Two steps forward and his hand was at her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw. "We are invincible, you and I. This I've not forgotten. Dance with me and win the night or stay hostage to my mother and die." Her fingers curled around his wrist and drew his hand away. "Look up, Your Royal Highness. That sword you see is swinging over your head, not over mine. There's a good chance you'll be dead by morning. And this may come as a shock to you, Stavros, but I can live with that. I have. In fact, I'd go so far as to say a world without you in it is the one I prefer." A small blade with a sharp edge. He took the thrust and was about to parry when his vision clouded, his consciousness cracked and the room quite suddenly ripped apart… Seventeen, because they'd missed the five that came with the working of Nergal. Two hands together and not a glass between them. He'd had to set it down. He'd had to join those links unencumbered by the chalice and its splash of ceremonial wine. His father once termed this "the moment of iron to the soul." A mortal ordeal. The delivery of the powder in full knowledge that your glass would stand alone; that in the time it took to dispense the poison the kin were certain to see you'd take far more than you gave. Five this night. Five to add to the twelve Stefan had observed and wisely referenced an approximation. He felt his mind shift off-course to wonder if this meant he was approximately dead. Almost. Too close to call. Somewhere along the fringe of his awareness he could feel his brother tugging at his arm, could see his Laura struggle to pull her hand from his grip, could hear the word "release." He wanted to laugh but couldn't remember how to get that done. Release. It was what he longed for. Craved. Ached to do. Their encouragements rippled with redundancy. Didn't they realize every fiber of his being hungered to put this life to rest, called for its ending at the fetid crest of every contending breath? Just to land; to stop this ceaseless, deathless, unremitting fall through the atmosphere of his existence and land - even if it were to the white-hot coals blazing at the eye of the fiercest fire in Hell - just to land would be the answer to a prayer. She wouldn't dance. He was lost. She wouldn't dance. It was done. He was queued to the line of the dauntless dead waiting for the poison to take him ahead to his final, unresurrectable rest. And he thanked her for seeing this through. It was one of the many, many reasons he'd loved her, that she possessed the pluck to finish him off. She knew a purely defensive posture would provide her a corpse in the end. A Cassadine Deciding had never been won by adhering to the policy of preventative measure. It was not about diverting the hand that hovered over your drink, but diverting the mind from its desire to destroy you. One needed drama, theatrics, histrionics. One needed bravado, pride and contempt. One needed a performance powerful enough to sway men's souls. And it was then he heard the voice, the one voice, the only voice that had ever mattered calling clear through the chasm of his memory… "…that he be the strongest among them, the most brutal carnivore, the most vicious and ambitious predator to walk the face of this earth." Father, I am coming. Father, I am nearly there. But Mikkos would turn away, he knew. This ignoble death, unfit for a Cassadine, unacceptable for its Prince. Mikkos would not abide it. To have his heir pooled like a puddle of piss on the floor, poisoned - a woman's death. No grit. No grain. No grand guignol wrenchingly replete with tension, shock and horror. Just a spineless sink to a sorry slumber. He would find it unworthy. He would find it shameful. And much to the consternation of his viciously vainglorious son, he would find it distinctly disappointing. If it were, as it seemed, a choice between an eternity of falling and an eternity spent tied to the torment of his father's disillusion, he knew which one he'd choose. And so it was with a decisive greed that he scraped up the strength he had left in his bones, his blood, this flesh, to force it forward into being. The sluggish sewage of the toxin resisted him at every turn; his heart grinding treacherously, wheezing with the effort to beat; his brain dull and defiant of his rule. It was only through sheer resolve and relentless intractability that he managed to recover a cognizance of sorts. A single sense, feral and raw to reason, yet fixed to find the means to survive. This scowling scourge he'd trapped by the hand was useless to him now. Even driven to the dance floor and bruted into motion, she would come too stiffly to his arms; dour in her formality, severe in her restraint. The performance he'd planned demanded a spirit compelled not by duty but passion. Passion and the tracings of a vague yet wholly apprehensible fear. Too many here would fail him with a wide eye and a weak knee, timidly tripping over themselves as they sought to escape his embrace. A few would likely faint. But one, he knew, would serve him well; would face his fire without withdrawing in body or in soul. Odd, this reticence to use her, to find his mind still sifting through the ranks, still seeking someone, anyone else to bend to his will. Odd that he should want her spared when his life was on the line. He lifted his head to the rebellious regard of his recalcitrant lady-wife, then turned to the strangely plaintive gaze of his normally impassive brother. His questing glance dropped a degree and shifted to the right. There, just beyond the razor's edge of that sharp suit's shoulder, she stood - smiling, it seemed to him, softly, in the spell of someone's joke. They were funny then, these men; charming her, amusing her, imagining her in bed. His reticence diminished. Regret, he called from the center of his darkly-contesting soul. He had her eye at once.   The Sigh Of Things (42) Here the landscape will waver for your entertainment… It was a scene beheld through peripheral vision; their Prince gripping the hand of his indignant lady-wife, their Count carefully circling, inserting himself as arbiter. Hard to tell from the corner of an eye what the argument was all about, yet no one dared to scratch the itch of a prurient curiosity by turning to look the quarrel head-on. In such situations one cultivated a diligent disregard - unless, of course, one sought to have such ruthlessly punitive combatants finding their quarrel with you. The best that could be determined through the safety of this circuitous route was that His Highness had taken some form of rebuff; a refusal his bondsman, no doubt, was attempting to soften with the oil of his words. That this Prince would not be assuaged came as a surprise to no one and did, in fact, speak well of his resistive capabilities vis-à-vis his calculating coxcomb of a brother. Here, perhaps, was a will that could not be bent to the imposture of their modern-day Machiavelli. And yet, look at him - No, don't look! - and see how he seizes that titanic temper, infusing himself with fury like water to a sponge. It was the one fault to be found in an otherwise sound candidate for the rule of the Cassadine Empire; this renowned rabid rage of his that narrowed the eye to all but the retributive course. One had only to cite that bootless bound to retrieve his faithless wife oh-so-many years ago; the folly that had cost him something like a life and killed whatever hope the family harbored for profit at his reigning hand. A shame he'd never learned to control that wrath; to channel it; to make it work for the good of his kin and not simply to revenge the pricks and prods to his notoriously volatile vanity. The sin of self-absorption, in a den of voracious lions, could not fail to hobble the pride. A collective mental sigh extended as his hand released the Lady Laura and his gaze fell full upon Stefan. Here it comes, they assured themselves, readily recalling the tales they'd been told and those memories they'd buried as proof of the combustible nature of this contentious Cassadine prince. His fuse had been fired and was sizzling down its final length. All that remained to be seen was whether the Count could apply enough persuasive force to disarm this walking incendiary device before he lost his life. The more avaricious among them marked this an auspicious turn indeed. Were the Prince running true to form, both brothers could be dead in a single night. Nothing to cry about there. And as they watched him table that drink to shrug the jacket from his shoulders, his eye dudgeoned dark with menace and reckless of restraint, it was all they could do to resist the urge to rub their hands together in glee. A new day might be dawning; a new wealth awaiting them just beyond this brutally beneficial bend. One could almost hear those hopes come crashing to the floor as his arm drove Stefan to the side and his foot took its first stalking stride in the direction of the Contessa.   Once she took his eye there was no letting go. The crackling charge he fired down that sightline electrified her mind, stripping its wit of awareness with the sheer power of his need. She lost the voice of the man beside her; his face, his name, his reason for speech. She lost the lesser guests in the group, then those milling beyond them - his family, his kin, the musicians and servants - until every being with a breath to breathe had disintegrated into dust, pitching the whole of this enormous great room into a silence so profound it was as if, like a god, his interposing will had promptly killed them all. Yet she stood, alive she knew, because he'd claimed her with those eyes. He called to her, compelled her, constrained her focus and commanded that she heed. Her every sense opened at once, like a series of doors thrust wide in welcome and waiting on his words. No sound but the sound of soul in this place, no voice but the voice of feeling. Speak, Stavros. Speak to me now. Tell me what's gone wrong. And her heart froze on the message he sent, on the shock of the knowledge he imparted. Cold it was, that news, like ice so bitterly cold. A winter wind come hoarsely howling through the cavern of her courage, come to whisper with its withering chill, come like a frost to fall so lightly lethal to her ear. He is bleeding…bleeding, bleeding. I never stop. I never stop bleeding. He is falling…falling, falling. I never stop. I never stop falling. He is receding…perishing, denying. I never die. I never stop dying…the refrain repeating in echo for an instant before softly drawing still. The dire state of his deprivation threatened to unhinge her. What he wanted she couldn't tell, only that the need had proven powerful enough to drive him over the wall - past the prerequisite protocol of this ritualistic Deciding, past the formalities and social graces that so clearly defined their roles; hers as consort to a Count, and his as Prince-In-Challenge possessed of a formidable lady-wife. For some unknown reason this boon he sought could not be found on the ground where he stood, and so he hunted it here, in her - and would have it, whatever it was, whether she gave her consent or no. A sorrow crept through the body of the bond they balanced so carefully between them; a sadness sent from the ache of her ever-underreckoned heart. You should know, she chastened softly across that singular stretch of silence. You should know by now there is nothing, nothing you couldn't ask. And she knew by the way he wouldn't break her gaze as he set his glass to the table that he didn't quite believe her. She knew by the continuing fix of his eye, as the jacket shrugged off and was tossed aside, that he thought this a pledge made in ignorance of what was about to pass. She knew from the grudge of his steadfast stare that he imagined himself equipped with an unjust advantage, and could mark the bitterness he tasted on the tongue of that truth. Yet he came, the brace of an arm sweeping his brother to the side. He came, thundered like a curse down a path parted by fear. He came, blind to the bondage of every man's quest but his own. So when Argos moved to block the way and in the process severed the connection that fed his will to survive, it was no surprise to find this challenger suddenly sailing through the air; ejected almost in reflex, certainly by instinct, as this Prince bore down his course. Half a stride from his prize and those hands rose in unison - one to close over her shoulder, the other to strike a signal in the air above his head. The room plunged into darkness. The piano struck a wanton chord. And deep from the pocket of that pitch-black shade a shamelessly salacious violin began its immoral lament.   The lights fired haphazard from above, a scattered selection of beams directed in a seemingly random fashion toward different locations on the floor; a floor that had cleared rather quickly upon the dramatic descent of the dark. It was a filtered illumination, obscured even more by the tell-tale haze of the smoke expelled by the arbitrary Cuban a number of men had been unable to resist nursing throughout the evening. Even now, and especially now, a few of those cigars could be detected glowing in the shadows, flaring as their owners stoked their measure of the redolent Havanan leaf. It was a dim offering, this pale radiance, yet it drew his guests nonetheless. This sensuous gloom and the vibrant vulgarity of that disconsolate violin taunted them like a promise; luring them toward a front-row seat for their prince's primitive display. While some had traveled to Buenos Aires and sunk themselves into its more dissolute districts; haunting those iniquitous alleyways; sampling the fare of its bordellos, its bars, its brutally corruptive life - it was not necessary to have done so to recognize the strain of this sin. They knew what he was after, knew what this was about. He would have himself The Dance. The dance of the debauched - the harlot, the hedonist, the demimonde's libertine. His Grace, the heir, Prince Stavros Cassadine would have himself a tango. Just as the indecent whine of that violin wore itself into silence, stripping its song to the dissonant pluck of a solitary string, his flattened palm pushed her forward and thrust her onto the ballroom floor. It was a tempestuous beginning, this forceful demand of a dance, and could very well have sent a more timid soul scurrying in search of escape. Yet she held her own, this consort, catching her stumble in a few quick steps and defiantly turning back, presenting her partner an intriguingly insouciant grin. She knew this dance, it said with a confidence few in the room could miss - an impression enhanced by the saucy tilt of her head that invited him to test the claim and challenged him to follow. Refusing to wait on an answer and as if she didn't care, this vixen then spun blithely about and strolled with an audacious assurance to the center of the stage. Upon the introduction of his foot to the ring the piano sounded a second chord, just as immodest as the first, and tripped into a volley of lower octave notes that shaded his entrance with a palpably adversarial intent. He made no attempt to alter that effect and actually reinforced it by the way he chose to circle her, safely at a distance yet studying her - stalking this Contessa like quarry as he unfastened the cufflinks at his wrists, slipped them into his pocket and began to roll up his sleeves. At times he would turn to face her, at times turn apart to take a backward step, but forever keeping an eye on her movements as those fingers folded their cloth. Was she paramour, partner or prey? Did she know? It was thought perhaps yes, though the occupation she made with that dress, carelessly primping its net and pressing down its silk, made her seem all the more ignorant that these employments had their witness. Even as he closed his round, tightening the noose as the violin crept its way back into song, she appeared to remain oblivious of this steadily encroaching peril. Or so one thought. When at last he halted directly behind her, close enough now to know the scent of her skin, the music trembled, quivering, as it awaited her response. She drifted back to lean against his chest and ran her open hand along the line of his jaw. "I believe this is where we began." "A fitting place to finish then, yes?" He caught her by the wrist and spun her to face him, this action imbued with an astonishingly graceful violence. Regret took the hand still at liberty and pressed it flat to his chest. It was in this manner that the dance began as the rhythm hardened and he proceeded to drive her straight across the floor. One step, two, then three in a row - their eyes locked in…what was it? Attraction? Resentment? Despair? None could tell, only watch as they came to a halt and she ripped her wrist from his grasp, twisting to turn away, just to have him capture the opposite hand and revolve her into his embrace. His arm wound around her waist, its palm pulling her tight to join in the grind of his hip. "You enjoyed his galliard." "Would you have it seem a torture?" "Oh no, I can see you've saved that for me." She pushed him apart and performed the zarandeo, her upper body snapping to the right then whipping back in anger. He offered la Caza - a step and a stop, and she la Cunita, returning him to place. He submitted, beginning an embittered retreat and she followed in the circle of his arms. His feet fell stealthily behind him as they traveled the length of the floor once more; again one step, then a second, then three in succession, the violin urging them on. At the end of the melody's measure he stopped, as did the music for its pregnant pause, yet Regret did not. She departed the embrace with an insolent adieu and simply walked away, as if she'd lost all interest in the dance. His expression displayed an appropriate rage, the violin rising to meet it, and in two quick strides he had her by the waist, pulling in close behind her. He molded his body to her own as his hands swept beneath the net of her dress and ran themselves along the curve of her figure, bolding tracing the circumference of her breasts. She snaked an arm around his neck, her head falling back as a sly smile lifted to the crest of his ear. "I am frightened for you, Stavros." "Not of me, though. Never of me." "Ah, is this what you need?" His mouth descended to her shoulder, taking visible bites of the flesh at her throat, and her head angled to permit this. Yet even as his palm sculpted the line of the arm she'd twined about his neck, gliding over the sinew of its bicep, past the cusp of its elbow and down the path to her wrist, one could note a stiffening in her pose - as if some threat had passed between them and she, to this point at ease with this prince, had suddenly found her fear. Those sharper eyes peering through the darkness detected the alteration at once and wondered at its cause. What torment could he tender in so soft a wisp of words that held the power to inspire her distress? Who had he promised to kill, or worse, to punish with the turn of his attention? Perhaps it was an act he offered, a bestial amusement so sickening in nature, so thoroughly and unspeakably depraved, that it could not fail to deliver her dread. Any atrocity was possible with him, any despicably decadent deed the most degenerate of minds could dream up. This was what they knew of him, what they'd heard and the devil they deemed him to be. And still…and yet…as much as one might denounce such behaviors or rail to the heavens for his well-deserved death, one had to admit to a certain disgraceful fascination with what the man might venture next. This was a room full of Cassadines after all, and it looked, oh yes it looked, as if things were about to get interesting. Those who hadn't registered the shift in her demeanor did not idle in their ignorance for long. Her anxiety aroused, she attempted to whirl out of this trap but could only flee the distance of the length of her arm; that arm attached to the hand he churlishly refused to renounce. Face-to-face she tested his resolve, backing one step, then another as they rounded the boundary of the ballroom floor. And though they kept to the rhythm of the dance all could see her reassurance had fled, to be replaced by a mounting trepidation. He saw it too, one could tell by the way he'd jerk that hand and force her to twirl at his pleasure; a submissive spin beneath his arm before he gave her leave to continue her flight. Silly girl. She wasn't going anywhere and everyone knew it. Their Prince soon tired of this trick and drew her to him forcibly, clamping a hand to her waist. She tried to keep some distance between them with the calculation of a cadencia, her hips swiveling madly, her knees launched to the flurry of a dozen furiously stationary steps. He allowed it, mirrored it, produced his flourish, but it was clear his patience was wearing thin. She thought to play to his ego then, which was judged both clever and sad, for while they knew this prince did hunger his flatteries, they also understood that the great wide world and all the dances within it could not possibly produce enough ardent adulation for the man to know his fill. He was, in this respect, insatiable. And so it was with a bemused validation that they watched her apply those seductive skills - her hands running over his arms, her shoulders canting brazenly, the press of her breasts against his chest - just to have him step apart, lay his brutal grip to her shoulder and drive her down to the floor. He would master her now, they knew, and this was how it should be. Who was she in the end, after all, to be taunting a Cassadine prince? Their prince. It had a scoffing flavor to it, this did. An incontrovertible derision. As if, through the practice of relentless resistance, she sought to expose his pedigree unworthy of attachment to her own. A ridiculous assertion, and offensive to the pride of every guest in attendance. Loyalties, so recently divided and in doubt, were thus brought into line one-by-one. If only for the moment, if only on this point, if only to uphold their honor, the House of Cassadine came finally to unite behind its prince. And as he restrained her to the floor at his feet, the music of this tango began to build. A second violin was added to the first, a cello, a viola, a selection of strings. The piano, heretofore a complimenting voice, now resounded with strength and purpose. The swell of this song took on a tangible force that filled the room with fury. So propulsive was its might, so reckless its abandon, that the longer he kept her imprisoned on that floor and refused to exact her punishment, the more impatiently restless his audience became. As if to register complaint or as a means to release their escalating rage, they began to pound their shoes to the ground in concert with the tempo of the dance. The hall soon thundered with the drum of those shoes; stomping, thumping, tattooing their demand on the marble beneath their feet. The girl shuddered at the rhythmic beat, her head whipping round, her eyes casting wild through the darkness for the reason the room had gone mad. Their prince let her have her moment of terror - too brief for the kin, in truth - then took her chin in his hand and lifted her slowly from the floor. Boom. He had her by the throat, driving her into a better light. Boom. By the wrench of a shoulder, coercing her to turn. Boom. He slipped in behind her, his hands running down the length of her arms. Boom. Catching her wrists, he crossed them high over her head. Boom. A flex of fingers crept to the spill of the net at her breast. Boom. The cloud of metallic tulle was ripped from the column of the gown. Boom. He spun her to face him in that de-nuded copper silk. Boom. She was bent back over his thigh, her eyes wide with fear. Boom. His hand ran boldly down the center of that dress. Boom. His mouth came to cover hers, to thieve an illicit kiss. Boom. With the music rising to its final crescendo, he took a last devouring look at the body he'd claimed as his own and BOOM, in dark denouncement of all she presented to his eye, he thrust her off his leg and let her tumble to the floor. Turning from the woman he'd despoiled and thrown like refuse to the pile, his arm lifted to signal his finish and the lights went out. The applause was deafening. It was also, in many ways, significant; its strategic importance defined by the fact they'd had to free their hands to produce this response. No small thing on an evening spent defending one's glass from poison. And the longer this ovation went on, the more clamorous it became, the less assured any guest could be of the outcome of this event. The dice were still in the air, it seemed, and one had to believe there were many in the room fiercely re-assessing their bets. It was an important decision. If his dance had succeeded in nothing else, it had succeeded in reminding them of that. The moment the lights were raised again, all eyes sought out this prince. They found him standing at the dance floor's edge, accepting his praise from a crowd of men crowing on the pith of his performance. A second thought was given to the woman he'd deliberately ruined; the one left cowering center-stage, thrown atop the shreds of the metallic net that had failed to ensnare his Cassadine soul. But the nest of tulle was empty now, its falcon flown to test the measure of the man who thought to tame her. His ear caught the quality of quiet that suddenly enveloped the room, his eye the shift of attention to a sensation at his back. He turned instantly and instantly received the vicious slap of her hand to his cheek, a strike so potent with rage that he was certain it cost as much in pain to offer as it did to obtain. In the seconds it took to recover from the blow he noted the increasingly anticipatory weight of the silence that surrounded him and knew what this would mean. Too much was asked of him on these nights. Too much needed to be seen. "Ah, Contessa Derniere!" he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to fill the hall. "You are a woman after my heart." In a flash he had her by the nape of the neck, his hand in her hair, her head wrenched back. "Let's just see if you know what to do once you've got it." With this he drove her through the crowd in the direction of the salon. Stefan had had enough. His family was actually cheering - cheering! - as his brother propelled Regret across the hall. Stavros' intent was clear. And it didn't take a moment to determine there was no way he could live with himself if he permitted this to happen again. Yet just as he took his first full stride into the fringe of the fray, someone caught him hard by the arm and roughly hauled him back. "Your mother suggests you read this room," her minion exhorted in his ear. "Victory is at hand. Such a small price to pay in the end, she submits, to have Nikolas inherit the throne." He threw the lackey off and turned to continue the chase, only to find his brother had already reached his destination. The door crashed closed before his eyes, two of Helena's more muscular men stepping in to stand its guard. She was lost. Regret stumbled forward, her arms reaching toward the rosewood desk to catch herself as she fell. Her fingers grasped the polished edge of the smooth, antique table, clutching its trim as she struggled to regain her balance - her focus fixed on the cloisonné ring to remind her of the reason she was here. It was all about power now. Who would hold it and who would die beyond the boundary of its grant. She understood this. She understood him. What perplexed her in this moment was how little she understood herself. How had she come to this place? What was she doing? She turned to see if she might find the answer somewhere in his face, but renounced that quest immediately at the sight of him braced against the door - his vitality vanished, his shoulders broken, his breath coming in great sputtering gasps of air. His features, formerly sharp and infused with a sly, sardonic strength, were now collapsing from the weight of a cruelly crushing fatigue. His entire body quaked with the effort to sustain a vertical position and the sight of those magnificent eyes closed, that head lolling feverishly across and back, across and back, along the upper panel of that damnable door frightened her in a way she conceded she'd never been frightened before. "Stavros," she exclaimed, rushing to his side, thinking she might help him to a chair. Or water if there was water. A cloth to his brow, a shoulder for his head, anything, anything that might be found or was in her possession to give she would give just to have him right again. Whole again. Strong. The way it should be. The way it must be. The way it had to be. "Stavros, what should I do? What do you need me to do?" His eyes opened to slits, his breath catching at the sight of her so close to him now. He found his smile, lost it, then found it again. "Stavros! Please. Please. Tell me what to do." "Screaming would help," he murmured as his head fell back and his body dropped, slithering down the plane of wood to slump into a heap on the floor. As hard as this night had just become, the screaming…well, the screaming was easy.