Masquerade.
Velvet masks and whispered lies. Silk gloves and poisoned smiles. It’s been years since I was that girl in a borrowed dress, taught how to curtsy before she was taught how to run. I haven’t walked among the gilded wolves since the night they put me in chains and called it a dowry.
I’m not sure I can do it again.
But I have to.
For the Rangers. For the ones still in collars. For the promise I made to myself the day I escaped.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, then spit it on the cobblestones.
It’s not fear. It’s fury. It’ll carry me through.
The inn’s hallway is quiet, save for the faint creak of boards under my boots. No shouting tonight. No clattering mugs or off-key singing from the tavern below. Just the hush before something breaks.
I open the door slowly.
The scent hits me first. Warm skin and cheap liquor. Soap and smoke. Him.
Kragna sits by the hearth, bare-chested, his shirt hanging open like an afterthought. His hair’s damp, curling at the nape of his neck. A bottle rests in one hand, his thumb hooked through the glass ring at its neck. His eyes are half-lidded, golden even in the firelight.
Not drunk.
Loose.
There’s a difference. I can feel it in the way he looks at me—not hazy or stumbling, but unguarded. That’s more dangerous.
“You’re back,” he says, his voice low and rough at the edges. Like it’s been worn down by too much silence.
I nod. “Cervantes sends his love.”
He huffs something like a laugh and takes another sip.
“He’d send more than that if he thought he could.”
I peel off my coat and hang it on the bedpost. “I told him I wasn’t interested.”
Kragna watches me, unmoving. “Good.”
That word hangs in the air between us like smoke, curling at the edges of something unsaid.
The fire burns low, casting a flickering copper glow across the ruined walls. My knees are drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped tight, and I stare into the embers like they’re supposed to hold the answers I can’t ask. The silence between us is heavy, but not empty. It feels alive—thick with all the things unsaid.
I don’t have to look to know he’s watching me. Kragna doesn’t fidget, doesn’t shift like a human man might. He simplyis—a massive shadow in the amber light, his presence a gravity I can’t ignore. My skin hums with it.
When he finally moves, it’s subtle. A shift of weight, the moss beneath us sighing. My throat goes dry.
“You keep looking at me,” I murmur, my voice rough around the edges, betraying more than I want it to.
His answer rumbles low, deep enough I feel it before I fully hear it. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”
I turn my head slowly, deliberately, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You mean a girl covered in bruises and dried blood, too stubborn to die?”
Those eyes lock onto mine, unwavering, dangerous in their honesty. “I mean a girl who still carries fire inside her when the world tried to drown her.”
The words hit too close. I flinch away, gaze dropping back to the fire, but the silence that stretches now isn’t the same. It thrums, tight as a bowstring drawn too long.
He stands.
