Chapter 23: First Lesson

Though both ended in a similar outcome, plotting murder and accidentally killing someone were two completely different things. I faced this fact in my room as the servants came to prepare me for the Initiation ball of the Masquerade.

I believed the words I said to Afali when I said them, but now I wasn't so sure.

The crime against Afali disgusted me. I could taste the burn of her rage on my tongue, almost as if it were my own.

Almost, but not enough to deliberately murder someone. I wouldn't sacrifice Marin's life for Afali's revenge.

At least, I bought myself more time.

If I didn't want to have to look over my shoulder every time Afali's shadow crossed mine, I would have to prove my loyalty to her eventually, with a deed and not just words.

But I couldn't murder someone who wasn't here.

In a matter of weeks, the elders of every leading nobility branch in the north would be here. The Pinnacle was the name of the ball that would be held in their honour, where they would officially present the eligible lords and ladies in their families. Lady Golia's brother and Lady Golia herself wouldn't dare miss this event.

I had six extravagant gowns for the six main balls of the Masquerade. The first one, the one I wore that evening, was a bright greyish lilac colour, overlain with swirling patterns of black velvet underneath pewter grey tulle. The bodice that hugged my waist rigidly was decorated with crystals meant to resemble amethysts to match the amethysts in my mask and the ones woven into my hair.

My breasts were pressed up over the stay that was pulled closed by a bright purple ribbon that matched the bright purple paint on my lips. I was a primed and ready for feasting. The silver slippers with the soft leather soles and heels that were like spikes pinched my feet as I stepped up to the vanity, placing the box that contained my mask on it.

There was a stone lodged in my throat. The servants had left me to my business, so if I cried now, there would be no one to fix the dark kohl around my eyes, or the gentle glue that held the glittering silver eyelashes that had been placed between my natural ones.

With a seizing heart, I removed the lid of the box, and moved back the crinkling wax paper.

I already looked at it before, but it was even more stupendous on second inspection.

Oh, Shana.

How did she make this in such a short time? It couldn't even be compared with the mask Lady Golia had broken. She had woven this hawk using filigree with a white gold alloy.

I took it out from among the cushions and brought it to my face, tying it in place. It was a perfect fit.

My dark hair, piled high, provided the perfect background to the bright hawk's face, angled to the side to bring prominence to the dangerous curve of its hooked bill, and the glare of an ever-scrutinising purple sapphire eye. Its wings fell on either side of the mask. Shana had created tiny feathers by stretching shimmering silk between frames of white gold. The feathers moved when I moved, and the silk flashed from violet to blue when it caught the light. For the area below the eyes, she had cut amethysts into flat diamond shapes and created, together with strings of white gold, a mosaic of tiny fluttering hawks.

The lower rim of the mask was a thicker band of white gold, gleaming against the darker shade of my skin and making my lips look like a jewel.

The centrepiece at the hawk's heart, right where my brows met beneath the mask, was a purple spinel. I would never know how Shana had gotten her hands on such a rare stone, one so perfect and brilliant. Even for the nobles it would've cost more than a dose of serum. I had a sinking feeling that this had something to do with the reason she had come to Thalmina in the first place.

The other nobles were likely to mistake it for an amethyst. Only a professional's eye through close scrutiny could detect the true value of the mask I now wore.

But no price could measure how precious this creation was to me.

I looked at myself in the mirror, at the glowing, glorious creature that I was. Walking artwork. Acquired beauty. Illusions one could feel, touch and taste.

This was what it meant to be on the top of the world. This was the face of a heart brimming with evil.

I smiled at my reflection.

"You are not happy. What is the purpose of your smile?" spoke a voice behind me that was at once both melodic, and toneless.

I whirled around to face the source of the voice, my gown rustling. For a moment, just a moment, I thought this was the assassin sent by Afali to silence me for my knowledge.

My heart wasn't put to ease when I saw who it was. If anything, I felt an exhilarating surge of excitement run through me.

"How... how did you find me? How did you get in? Did anyone see you?"

The turner inclined his head. He curved his mouth as if he were smiling. "Are you ready?" he asked me.

"You shouldn't be here," I whispered, taking several hurried steps towards him. "Someone could be listening."

"No one hears us," he said.

"How could you be so certain?"

He didn't reply. He stood before me, staring at me with eyes so dark and deep they would make the night look bright.

He waited.

I reached out and touched his shoulder, just to make sure he was real. As before, he was warm to the touch, radiating life and health. "I'm ready for the ball," I said.

"Are you ready to learn?"

"Now?"

"Yes. It won't take long."

My heart pounded in my ears. I pressed my fingers into his shoulder. I could feel the hardness of muscle.

He mirrored my gesture, and grabbed me by the shoulder, but tenderly, as if I were made of glass. "Just take off your mask."

"Emil..."

"Are you afraid?"

I paused before answering, "No."

He turned me around, so that I had my back to him. I could see our reflection in the mirror. Me, a creation of curves, colour and glitter, and him, wiry, tall, pale, dark and magnificent. He gently untied the hawk mask which I had just donned, taking it away. When he made to untie my inner silk mask, undressing my face like a hungry lover, I touched the back of his hand with my fingers, stopping him.

He understood and allowed me to do it myself.

I felt the air on my bare face, and he dared to touch the sensitive skin next to my eyes. He dared to trace his finger over where a mask should be.

I was drunk on the thrill, on the warmth of his touch.

"Let it come," he said into my ear. "Let it come until you feel it closing in. Then hide it, just like you did when you took the serum. Keep yourself just out of the maiden's reach."

The light in the room was already rippling. It had been more than a month since I took the serum—the effects were still powerful.

"If I can't hide?"

"You have your mask." He ran his fingers over the back of my neck in a gesture that seemed almost affectionate, before his hands settled on each of my shoulders. "But you will hide."

We waited for a moment in silence. I wished he'd answer my question, or at least convince me that he was loyal to me and not something else. I still couldn't understand why he had come, why he wished for me to learn.

But the power he offered me was tempting, too tempting to refuse. I stood on the brink of my own ruin, ready to embrace it.

She formed. First a haze, then a mist, and then finally the deepening white of the spectre maiden. I could feel her, drawn towards me. I could feel the thing about me that called her, pulling her in. It was inevitable. She had no will, no desire. She would devour me, not out of vengeance, not out of hunger—it was just meant to be.

She drew towards me, close enough to embrace. I saw her long fanning eyelashes, the flakes of frost that coated her lips and how her chest never rose and fell to breathe.

She stopped when I put the mask back to my face.

I tied it in place with trembling hands as she turned on the spot, directing her empty, shadowed stare elsewhere before fading away.

My legs could barely hold me. I leaned back into Emil's warmth.

"I couldn't do it," I said weakly.

"Yet," he said. "You couldn't do it yet."

"You'll come again?"

"Yes. I will visit you many times."

"What if I can't do it?"

He was silent, as if my question didn't deserve an answer.

"This is important to you," I said instead.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I told you. Because I want to. I would like to be human again, but I can't be human if there is nothing I desire. This is something I desire. Don't you understand what it means to live without wanting?"

"I probably don't." I wanted many things. Like saving my sister. I wanted to survive. I wanted to have Waryn in my bed, but also at my mercy. I even wanted Emil. I wanted to be smothered in the comfort of his arms. I wanted to close my eyes and be as tiny as a moment in his never-ending existence.

He wasn't trying to enslave me.

At least, not in a way that was apparent to me.

"Emil, wait for me when I return from the ball?" My voice was trembling. "Stay with me tonight?"

"I can't." He didn't offer any explanation beyond those two words. With him there either was, or there wasn't. Nothing fell to the murky middle.

"You don't want to?"

"I don't remember how to want a woman..."

"Yet you touch me like you do."

He pretended to sigh. I don't know how I knew he was pretending for me.

"I'm lonely, and frightened." I said, angling my head to look at his face, but it told me nothing. "I suppose... someone in your situation doesn't feel desire? Or loneliness?"

"I used to feel lonely, when I first became a turner." He helped me settle into the chair, and handed me my hawk mask. "I remember... I remember having eighteen winters when I lived longer with serum that I did without and it... it happened. They...the other orphans, they didn't survive. Not even Emil."

"Was he your friend?"

"She..." He smiled, a soft smile that belonged to a girl who had lived hundreds of years before. "She was my—"

He stopped speaking abruptly and jerked his head like a startled bird to look at the wall. The eyes of the third lion carving from the bed had changed from black to red.

Summons from Waryn.AUTHOR'S NOTE:

WHEEE! Emil's back. What do you think he's doing? And what IS he really after? Sucks for Yael to get rejected like that, but I don't know what she was expecting. Come on, Yael, let's save that for a vampire romance or something, yeah?

Keep the comments coming. I'm spoiled rotten with all this love but oh well!

doday imma Panda bea dad forgod my dongue oud

❤️
Einady