ARWEN
I’D NEVER ATTENDED A BALL.
The closest I’d come was probably the banquet Kane had thrown
at Shadowhold for King Eryx and Princess Amelia. My memories of that night were dusty and drenched in birchwine, but some remained etched into my psyche nonetheless, impervious to time or drink or grief: Kane telling me I looked beautiful in my black silk dress; his body caged over mine as he protected me from a hail of wine barrels; the way, even then, he knew exactly how to distract me from my panic…At the memory of his words— death by bird—a laugh broke from me.
“Something funny?”
Maddox wore his usual silver armor, but the steel mask affixed to his face mimicked the bones of some sort of primordial predator and only served to amplify his brutality in the spare candlelight of my suite. He hummed a haunting, dismal tune that reminded me of a wheezing organ.
“What’s the purpose of the masks?” I asked instead of answering as a tired-looking handmaiden strung a loop of diamonds tightly across my neck.
Behind me, Wyn answered, “Legend requires we hide our faces from the Fae Gods so they do not grow envious of our plentiful harvest.”
I swore his words were laced with irony, and I peered down in an attempt to meet his eyes through the mirror. They gave nothing away,
hidden beneath a bronze mask with curved horns and slight ears like those of an antelope. I looked over the dimly lit suite behind him through the glass. A red glow from the candle’s reflection on the duvet, and the thick curtains and crimson settee…it was a room bathed in blood.
The handmaiden instructed me to purse my lips and finished applying rouge and charcoal to my face. The glossy vanity was cluttered with powders and creams, and the mirror before me ringed with a fuzzy white glow—powered by some kind of lighte that lit my face too brightly. The white marble was cold against my arms as I leaned forward for her. I wasn’t sure I’d seen a single beam or plank of wood in all of Solaris. The entire city was a reflection of Lazarus’s stony, unmoving heart.
I longed for the hundredth time for Kane’s warm, cozy bedroom in Shadowhold, and those clean, dark cotton sheets. The way they smelled of lilac soap and him. I missed all his unexpected clutter, and those fat history books, and even the scratches Acorn had left across the wooden floorboards.
“You almost done?” Maddox asked the woman from his post across the room. “If we’re late, it’ll be my head on a stake.”
“And wouldn’t that be a shame,” I muttered.
“Yes, sir,” the woman replied to Maddox, pinning up another strand of my curled hair with Wyn’s artful birthday gift. I’d asked her to include it and she’d been kind enough to comply, though I got the sense if I’d asked her to put a fork in my hair she would’ve. I’d never seen anyone so deeply unenthused.
I focused on the hairpin as the handmaiden worked my curls around it.
The daisies at its tip were the only things on me that felt like me.
I despised my gilded dress. It was bare of any straps or sleeves, and corseted into oblivion, flattening my chest and pinching my stomach and ribs. The liquid gold skirt offered even less flexibility. Both made my heart panicky, only calmed by the fact that I knew if I really wanted to, I could rip the damn thing clean off. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d stood naked before the Fae king.
The gown was completely sheer. In direct candlelight any lascivious eye could see the entire outline of my nipples, and the high slits on either side left nothing of my legs to the imagination. Another strategic maneuver aimed at my humiliation. A reminder of what I was inside these palace walls. What I’d become, so long as I remained in captivity.
“You, Arwen, are just a womb,” he’d said.
My skintight gloves crawled all the way up my arms, hiding the bruises clustered along my veins, and my shoes bound my feet and wound up my ankles with unbending cord. My hair had never been piled so high, nor my face been so caked, only to be covered by a mask anyway.
All of it to drive me further to the brink of discomfort.
Once the handmaiden pressed the gold-threaded mask flush against my face, I studied the two red droplets under the left eye—made to look as if I were crying tears of blood.
“Hurry up,” Maddox hissed. “Or I’ll drag her there by those damn curls.”
“Maddox,” Wyn cautioned behind me, and my brows rose against the fibers of my tragic mask. Wyn never spoke up against the higher-ranking guard.
My handmaiden hurried her work, securing the back of my corset and looping diamonds through my ears. I could feel her fingers trembling.
Behind us, Maddox pushed off the doors and prowled toward Wyn. “You’ve gotten a bit too bold since losing your limp. Might be a favor to crack you a new one.”
I watched through the mirror as Wyn didn’t cower, but didn’t argue with the taller, broader guard, either.
Maddox’s lips cut a harsh line. “Your service in the kingsguard is a disgrace. Everyone thinks it. You do know any of us could demolish you if we so desired, right?”
He said the words with such promise. Such intent. Wyn’s expression remained as rigid as a bowstring. My handmaiden didn’t breathe, and the room crackled with intensity.
I scrambled for the crystal perfume bottle and I pumped it once, primrose filling my nostrils, before I stood abruptly. “I’m ready.”
Like undertakers guiding me into the afterlife, Maddox and Wyn stalked alongside me through the winding, laborious hallways of the palace. At night, I found the red marble floors and glinting obsidian décor even more insidious. The stuffy, too-warm air for early winter was suffocating, and the pulsating, sickly sweet aroma of vanilla that scented it turned my stomach in on itself.
How had Kane grown up here? The palace didn’t suit him at all. Maybe the isolated, lofty ceilings and depthless black walls were new additions, after Kane’s rebellion. I couldn’t imagine his mother, such an elegant and thoughtful soul as Kane had described her, had lived somewhere so cold. Like dwelling in the heart of a primordial beast.
Raucous music and dissonant voices alerted me to the ball before we rounded the sharp-edged corner and found the grand staircase. Dozens of those silver soldiers lined the hallway on either side—a display of power, or a necessary protection, I wasn’t sure—and spare partygoers lingered in hallways, some trying to curb premature inebriation, others hunting for a hidden washroom, and others still exchanging secrets or affection in shadowed alcoves.
The celebratory, opulent veneer might have had the desired effect if it weren’t for all the masks.
Most were twice the size of mine, headpieces covering the entire face of the wearer—reaching high above their heads, or hanging low down to their necks as if their jowls were melting. Everyone appeared to be in on some unspoken competition: the larger the mask, the more affluent the wearer. Some were beautiful—a crescent moon beside a sun; dainty, silken butterfly wings spread wide; a weaving of bronze beads across an entire face—but most were not. Most were crafted to terrify: maws wrenched open, pearl teeth dripping carnelian blood; moonfaced owls with translucent white-blue eyeballs or dozens of heavy golden chains hanging from noses and sagging mouths and ears.
A black leather bird mask with an elongated, pointed beak swooped in too close and I flinched. The wearer ducked toward me again, cackling, and I recoiled from a whiff of something much more potent than wine or ale.
Righting myself, my heart immediately slammed into a stone wall at the sight a few feet down the hall.
Leaning casually against a black marble pillar was an impossibly tall, broad-shouldered man with a dark head of rugged hair. His hands were folded into his pockets with ease as he leaned close to a petite woman in a revealing magenta gown and a mask that glistened like the scales of a fish in sunlight.
It’s not him. It can’t be—
But my stupid, thumping, pulsating heart didn’t listen. Not for a second.
And I found all my breath was stored tightly inside my lungs as we passed the hulking man and he let out a loud, grating laugh.
The air fled from me in a rush, disappointment and sorrow flooding my now empty lungs.
Not Kane. Not his laugh—
Maddox tugged my arm back, halting my still-moving feet. We had reached the top of the bifurcated stairs, and my heart stopped cold once more against my immeasurably bound, gilded chest. The poor organ could not catch a break, and I blamed months of seeing so few people, so little life or movement…
And now—a gargantuan throne room sprawled before me lit only by red pillar candles and a ceiling rife with glittering faux stars. The walls were bedecked with intricate metal-hewn garlands and bouquets spare of any real flowers, and beneath them, a shiny black-and-white-checkered floor fit for dancing, packed with hundreds of revelers.
All of it, absurd excess with no soul. No spirit.
But the dark, joyless décor was not what stole the breath from my lungs. Nor the sheer number of people in Lazarus’s court, willing to dance the night away, ignoring the beast they served or the heinousness that spanned
outside Solaris’s walls.
Nor was it even the dais, and the banquet table that stretched across it, populated by rich nobles. Or Lazarus, dark and triumphant, seated at its center—his throne behind them covered in some swath of velvet as if he didn’t wish his court to see the thing if he was not sprawled across it.
No, what sent me lightheaded was the empty chair beside him. Waiting, impatiently, for me.
“I can’t,” I heard myself say. “You must,” Wyn replied.
“The queen is coming,” Maddox grunted, ushering us away from the staircase. “We’ll proceed after her entrance.”
My brows pulled together under my mask. “What queen?”
A herald wearing a red-and-black-checkered uniform cleared his throat twice, silencing the high-pitched chatter and low horns of the band. The expectant room’s attention landed squarely on him, and he announced at a blaring decibel, “Queen Amelia of Evendell, Ruler of the Peridot Provinces.”
Shock—utter shock—weakened my legs and forced me against the slick banister to remain upright. I’d thought it would be revulsion, or fear, or horror that brought me to my knees tonight. But this—
Queen Amelia. Welcome in Lazarus’s court as a guest.
Amelia was elegance incarnate as she made her way past us and down the broad, glittering stairs unattended. Legs as long as a heron’s, her ivory gown the same color as her braided hair. Like a second skin on her exquisite body, it rolled on and on behind her as she walked, a train others would have to be wary of all evening. A power play, as was everything Amelia did. No jewelry, save for the dozens of colorful gemstone rings on her long, lithe fingers.
But that mask.
A garden of vibrant, bejeweled flora and fauna that began at her high cheekbones and climbed to a corona of stems atop her head. The embroidered plants and creatures—wings and claws and petals and stems— formed more of a headdress than a mask, and though I could only imagine
the weight, Amelia held her chin high, accentuating her fine jawline and elegant neck.
What in the Stones could have compelled Eryx to abdicate his throne to his daughter? Nothing of this world. He was either coerced or dead. But Amelia, here as Lazarus’s ally…It must have been Kane’s doing. A plan of some kind.
Hope like I hadn’t allowed myself to experience in months fluttered aimlessly in my chest. I had to speak to her somehow.
But Amelia was already halfway down the steps, on her way to mingle among the crowd, and eventually take her seat at the elongated banquet table.
“I need to use the washroom.”
Wyn and Maddox both turned to me, an antelope and a beast. Prey and predator. “No,” the latter growled. “We’re already late.”
“But I think…” I gagged. “I’m going to be sick.” I heaved again and clutched my stomach.
“Oh, Gods,” Maddox cursed, scanning to see if anyone had noticed. “Fine, retch quickly. Wyn, take her.”
I heaved again and Wyn dragged me back down the hallway toward the ladies’ salon. “Do you need me to come in with you?”
I shook my head and dashed inside.
The ladies’ salon was unlike any washroom I’d ever entered. Conquered by women appraising themselves in those same glowing vanities I had in my suite, adjusting straps on shoes and fussing with belts and earrings. Gossiping and sipping fizzy wine. Two women were admiring each other’s masks before they traded, giddily evaluating their new looks side by side.
I sped over to them. “That’s just what I’ve been looking for!” I bubbled to the wider-hipped woman, her new mask rife with snakes in place of hair. I pointed to my own. “My husband loved this one, but it’s so boring.”
“No,” she cooed, drunk. “It’s lovely. Mine was hurting my”—a hiccup
—“cheekbones.” She nodded to her younger friend, who was struggling to hold the offending piece against her face.
“Here,” I offered the young partygoer, taking mine off. “Trade me?”
The other woman, too inebriated even to speak, gave me the hefty mask without argument and took mine in return.
Without as much as my thanks, I hurried deeper into the salon. I wasn’t sure how long Wyn or Maddox would believe I was sick, but I doubted I had more than a handful of minutes.
The new mask—two hands pressed across my eyes with fingers tipped in long black nails—wouldn’t be enough to slip out without alerting Wyn. My dress was too recognizable.
I scanned the washroom. Faint pink wallpaper. Porcelain and gold sinks and shelves replete with linen hand towels. No curtains I could steal…no throws or blankets—
An older woman with ringlets of white was nearly snoring in a blush settee in the corner, a chalice dangling from her fingers. Tossed to her side, a vivid, floral fur coat.
Hideous. And perfect.
I prowled over and gently pulled the thick, dyed hide from the couch, careful not to wake its sleeping owner. Her head drooped, and I held my breath—but only a slumbering grunt drifted out.
Thank the Stones.
Wrapping it around me, I moved for— “What are you doing?”
I whirled, heart in my throat, to find a woman in a badger mask. “That’s my mother’s coat.”
“Of course it is!” Well done, Arwen, that’s a response.
The badger appraised me, crossing her arms.
“And…” I continued, grasping at nothing. “And she was kind enough to offer it to me while she rested because I am freezing.” I mimed being very chilly. “Isn’t there something so special about women making friends in the ladies’ washroom?”
The badger’s frown cracked slightly. “She is generous. That’s what being a mother of six will do to you.”
I laughed too hard. “I told her to come find me whenever she needed it back. I’ll be sitting up on the dais with the king.”
“Oh my,” Badger Mask said, leaning in. “You will?”
“Mhm.” I nodded. The clock was ticking and I needed this badger out of my way.
“How did you land that seat?” “My sister. She’s a duchess.”
“A duchess! Of what territory?”
Bleeding Stones. The badger’s mother snorted in her sleep beside me and rolled to the side, pressing her face flat against the rosy fabric.
“Pirn?” I tried. I told myself that sounded like a real territory. Or maybe this would be the end of this half-baked, poorly planned—no, unplanned, ridiculously unplanned—
“I love Pirn,” the badger cooed. “Especially in the spring. So beautiful.” “Indeed.” I grinned, narrowing my eyes at her. She was bluffing as well.
I’d almost forgotten that Lazarus’s court was filled with self-serving, lying social climbers.
“Might you introduce me to your sist—”
Before she could utter another word I hurried out the door, directly past an unaware Wyn, arms folded patiently as he waited.
I wouldn’t have much time before he broke into the women’s washroom to look for me. I needed to find Amelia.
Nearly bashing into dapper, rich men and elegant women plied with too much wine, I hurtled down the staircase and into the madness.
Revelry reined. Blaring music, bodies sweating, laughter that sounded like weeping. Bumped by imposing Fae, toes trod on by dancers, I scuttled across the checkered floor like a beetle on a battlefield. It was too dark, and my vision was obscured under the hands of my mask. My corset too tight, the fur of this obscene coat itchy on my neck and chest.
When I finally saw that pristine ivory dress, I uttered my thanks to the Stones themselves. Amelia’s white silk train was unmarred by a single shoe print. If I were a beetle, the new queen of Peridot was a dove, high in the sky, untouched by the boisterous chaos.
“Queen Amelia,” I cut in, despite what seemed to be an engaging conversation with some mustached noble. “It’s been too long.”
She turned, the intricate ornaments of her mask whirring and tinkering with the movement like real creatures might. “Who is that? These masks are such a pain.”
“Mari.” Though I knew it was ridiculous, saying her name made my eyes burn. “Mari Branton.”
Amelia faltered only briefly before pulling me into a stunted embrace and hissing against my hair, “Arwen?”
I nodded until she released me, though she only stood there, gaping.
I turned to the mustached man across from us, whose expression said he knew his odds of bedding a queen tonight were rapidly deteriorating. “I haven’t seen my dear friend since her coronation. Would you mind terribly if I stole her away to catch up?”
“Of course not.” The man bowed.
“There’s…a courtyard this way,” Amelia whispered, finally finding her voice. “Follow me.”
“I don’t have much time.”
“You’ve a lot more than I thought.”
Amelia dragged me past the swarm of revelers, across that checkered floor, past the sixteen sweating musicians playing a frenzied piece, and through a wide set of doors.
My racing heart stilled with the fragrant breeze. I hadn’t been outside in months.
I inhaled fresh night air. Or whatever served as closest to it here in Solaris. Dry, slightly sweet, a little thick. But fresh air nonetheless.
Amelia yanked me past a few more relaxed soldiers—still on duty, but with the visibly less demanding domain of the courtyard—and toward a shallow, dark reflection pool, its still water topped by fat lily pads but bare of lilies and glinting in the light of nearby curved lamps.
“How are you alive?” Amelia’s words were hushed as she tipped the monstrosity from her face and across her head like a hat. I did the same. Not-quite-cool-enough air washed over my face.
“Lazarus healed me. It was all a ploy to get to Kane. He never wanted me to die.”
Her eyes were still wild with shock. Her breaths rushed as she said, “But the prophecy—”
“I know. He destroyed the blade. Now he can’t be killed.”
“And he kept you here because…?” The moon’s light was spoiled as it was every night by those immovable clouds of putrid gray, but some thin, determined silver glow still cast Amelia’s tan skin in delicate shadows.
I sighed and lowered my voice even more. “He wants me to bear him full-blooded Fae children.”
Amelia’s eyes widened even farther. “What?”
I resisted the urge to shake her and only said, as calmly as possible, “Amelia. You need to get word to Kane that I’m here. That I’m alive.”
“Arwen…” She was shaking her head as if trying to sort through the onslaught of new information.
“I think I can convince one of my guards to—”
“Arwen.” She sighed, eyes finding that rippleless reflection pool. “I can’t reach Kane.”
My stomach twisted. “Why not? Isn’t that why you’re here? Aren’t you two—”
“No—I…” When her sunflower eyes found mine again, they welled with regret. “I’m the one who gave you up.”
