His head threw back in laughter. “I thought you missed that.” He narrowed his eyes, looked me up and down. “You pretended to miss that.” I smirked, keeping my eyes on my mask. I had indeed witnessed it in the training room. Fool got tangled up putting a sword away in the curtains.
“Itattackedme, Amaria. Don’t twist the narrative.”
“Oh, did itflapin your general direction?”
He held a hand to his heart. “Aggressively. With intent.”
I shook my head, smirking despite myself. “You’re deranged.”
He winked. “And yet here you are—painting sigils in blood beside me. Which one of us should be worried?”
“Serenya,” I said, flat. “Forever letting us sit next to each other unsupervised.”
From a few seats down, her sigh was loud and immediate. “Saints spare me.”
We laughed. And for one suspended breath, it felt like freedom.
Maxx strolled in with his laughroot-spiked wine, ladle in hand. “Well, well,” he drawled, eyes flicking between me and Brannick.“Look who finally came out to play. All this time I thought you were just prophecy in a pretty snarl. Turns out you’ve got teeth and timing.”
Brannick raised his cup. “She’s sharpening them on my corpse.”
Serenya took the cup, met his eyes. “She’s always been like this. You’re just late to the revelation.”
I ducked my head, feigning focus on my brush, but the smile tugging at my mouth wouldn’t quit. The comment reminded me of Dreadscale. I looked up, scanning the room. There he was. Red wine in hand. He sniffed it… and set it down. A small laugh burst from me and I shook my head. Unyielding stubborn ass.
Maxx turned to go, then paused, glancing at my blood-ringed mask. “Just don’t bleed too much fun into that thing, Amaria. You’ll summon something ancient and deeply inconveniencing.”
Then he was gone, vanishing into the sway of dancers, cloak flaring like a magician’s final bow.
In the far corner, two dancers circled slow and close, heads bowed, hands not quite touching. Their feet never faltered. As if the song lived in their blood. I watched Serenya meticulously writing out her lies and sighed. No more procrastinating. I painted a rune for instant drying and finally lifted the mask to my face. When I inhaled I felt my OWN lie, the one written on the inside of the mask pressed into my skin.
I glanced around—the dancers, the colors, the flickering lanternlight. I’d always dreamed of a masquerade. I’d just imagined different themes. The Court of Seven Stars. A Riot of Petals.
Not this.Not a night of bared souls and bleeding in time to the music.
Typical. I ask for a ball, and the gods give me a reckoning. While most girls ruminate over gowns and lip stain I have to wear my soul like a damn accessory.
Brannick hauled me to my feet before I'd finished tying my mask. Paint still tacky on my fingers, the ribbon loose—and he was already pulling me toward the open floor, fun apparently non-negotiable.
The crowd thickened as we pushed in. Elbows, shoulders, the press of unfamiliar bodies generating a heat that had nothing to do with the brazier. Someone's drink sloshed against my arm—warm and sticky, wine-sweet. The sage they'd scattered across the floor had been trampled to nothing, replaced by the smell of exertion and spilled alcohol and a static charge that lifted the hair on my arms.
Brannick spun me and I let him. My body was still wrecked—every muscle filing complaints from Dreadscale's training—but the drums were doing something to the pain, burying it under rhythm. He danced the way he fought: big, graceless, completely committed. His laugh was loud enough to cut through the music every time I stepped on his feet, which was often.
Through the crush I caught Serenya swaying with Maxx, her usual restraint melted away, both of them grinning like idiots. Good. If anyone in this gods-forsaken rebellion deserved a night off from being terrified, it was her.
The brazier flames at the center of the main chamber burst higher, sending sparks spiraling up toward the ceiling. A collective cheer swelled—loose and free, the sound of people remembering they were allowed to want things. Brannick, his eyes gleaming with mischief, grabbed my hand, his grip firm and damp with sweat.
"Come on!" he boomed. "Time for Seer Lottery Roulette!"
He pulled me through the surging crowd, we jostled against other rebels, all drawn by the magnetic pull of the brazier. The air grew drier as we got closer, the heat cracked my lips and made my eyes water.
We approached the edge of the throng, and Brannick leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial murmur. "Alright, little flame, you just scrape off a bit of your inner mask—the essence of that lie you tell yourself. And toss it into the fire, and the Seers… well, they do their Seer thing." He gestured to the veiled figures circling the brazier, their bone bells clinking softly, an ominous counterpoint to the celebratory din.
"The magic," he continued, eyes bright and fixed on the flames, "will spit out one of the lies. Reading it like a confession. That person has to hear their confession out loud, for all the world to hear." He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "But the magic of facing it… it burns it. Burns it clean. And they're free." He clapped me on the back, a solid, reassuring thump. "It’s like a gift bag, Uncrowned style." The thought sent a jolt through me. A game of truth, played with fire and ancient magic. My pulse quickened, a frantic drumbeat against my ribs.
One by one, rebels stepped forward, a glint of fear and fierce resolve in their eyes, scraping a sliver from their inner mask—the secret shame—and tossing it into the hungry flames. Each tiny shard of papier-mâché disappeared with a faint hiss.
Then, the brazier belched.Instead ofthe clean, bright flame of burning wood, a thick, angry blood-red smoke coiled upward, staining the cavern walls in lurid crimson. It heaved like a malevolent heart. The drums faltered.
