Chapter 29: Defeat

Pyren.

The village hermit who taught me knife tricks and how to earn the trust of honest people.

Who taught me the art of lies and the value of secrets.

He had died. He was a dead man.

A dead man stood before me, delighting in the spectacle that my face was making.

"Don't stop dancing now," he said, his voice with the depth of icy caverns hidden below ground. I was led through steps my feet could make only grudgingly. I was collapsing in on myself. I struggled for every breath.

Again and again, I saw in my mind's eye a corpse lying by a small clear stream that made its way along the rocky land, curling round the foliage.

With the smell of ash from the burnt cottage stinging my nose, I turned it over.

I turned it over.

I turned it over.

He was barely recognisable, but it was him.

It was him.

He was dead, from that day, to all days.

"How does a dead man dance, you wonder?" He grinned, proud and wicked. "It defines explanation, as does what you saw the night I took your sister."

Was I meant to see it? To see the power he had over spectres. I saw him, and knew him, but back then I couldn't fathom it was the same man as the corpse by the stream. I couldn't make the connection.

In my mind, I turned the corpse over to see its face. To see that scar on his arm, and all the details I came to recognise about him. It was him.

"Your memory is sharp, Yael. Very sharp. I've made many like you, and many in my service. But you are my sharpest creation. My most successful one. Allow me to sharpen your memory further."

He lifted his mask, just a fraction, and I felt a strange sensation brush my mind.

Suddenly, the details of the corpse I found washed away in my memory. There I was, by the burnt down cottage, by the stream, with an evening breeze ruffling my hair and making me cough on the ash.

There was a grand, mossy tree-trunk by the stream, cut to the size of a man. I believed it was a man. Even though my hands touched the rough bark when I turned it over, I didn't register the feeling.

Until now.

"There is no limit to my power," he said.

"Who sent you?"

"Yael, you know of my power, which is why you will be quiet now, and listen. I have your sister—"

"I want to see her." I missed the steps of the dance, but he dragged me on, my feet sliding over the floor. I never physically touched Pyren until today, and I was now confronted with how strong he was. He held up my full weight as if it were nothing.

"You are not in a position to make demands."

"I don't believe you have her."

"Then you and she both die because you disbelieve." I couldn't tell if I was bringing about one of his dark moods. When Pyren was just the hermit of my village, his moods were as obvious as day and night. But this person was a wall. The threat was delivered with the same measured syllables as he used with everything he said before.

"But I will take you to see her," he added after a long pause. "To quiet your need for rebellion. I don't like to be wasteful of an asset I invested in. There are many spies like you, but you proved to be a special opportunity. Did you know, I personally took care of your Afali problem? It was two birds with one stone, you see? House Aspertin lost a strong ally when the evidence of the murder pointed to Lady Golia."

I was moved like a puppet through the dance, and couldn't help imagine that the same hands that now held me up were the ones that cut the helpless Afali from her ribs to below her navel.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you would appreciate what I've done for you, what I will continue to do for you, as long as you're useful. I am your master, and have always been your master."

That wasn't true. I had no master. I was myself my own maker.

Shana had been my mistress, my teacher, but she never mastered me. She led me where I wanted to go.

The Marney was at its last movement. Soon, the ball would be over. And after, I would be powerless again. I would go where others demanded of me to go. I would do what I was told. "Tomorrow," he said. "We will speak again. I will take you to see your sister, and brief you on what I need of you. But there is a task for you tonight. The task you were already deeply involved in. Tonight, you are to seduce the Eloroan heir like your life depends on it." His smile widened, wrinkling his cheeks. "Because now, indeed, it does."

The last notes of the Marney died away and a smothering silence replaced it. Pyren released me, and I would've stumbled to the floor if not for the grip he still had on my hand. He bowed over my palm.

"You weren't meant to disappear so thoroughly after I took your sister," Pyren said, with his head still down. Then he rose. "I searched for you everywhere, but you were as obscure as a black moon. I never expected to find you where you were, and with the effects of serum, and your new position, I would have never recognised you. Do you know what gave you away?"

I snatched my hand away. I would have loved to just turn on my heel and never hear the end to his story. But, I wanted to find out what was so important about my discovery for him to share it with me.

"It was the precious purple spinel you wore on your mask. The very same perfect stone I had given Guinevere Talmiir when I saved her life in Desmelas some years ago. I told her to return it to me when she could come up with a favour equal to the one I made for her. That was the day she would be free of me."

"Guinevere Talmiir?" She was one of the most renown mask-makers of our time. Her creations were exalted, works of pure genius. When I was a young child, I heard that she vanished mysteriously, and each time the tale of her disappearance was told, it became more outrageous.

"Oh yes, you know her by the name I gave her..."

I wanted to shut my ears. I didn't want to hear.

He smiled at what he saw on my face. "Shana."

"You're lying." My voice was barely audible.

He bowed at me, and turned, leaving me standing on the tiger striped dance floor alone.

***

I couldn't feel my legs, let alone move them, and my heart was pounding overwhelmingly fast. I gasped for breath, trying to stop the room from tipping. I hadn't eaten anything that night, and bile stung my throat as I bent down in half.

Shana... Shana was, all this time, she was...

She sold me to Pyren for her own freedom.

I didn't know the meaning of betrayal until that moment, until the second that someone dear, someone close, showed me their true skin.

And even then, I was at war inside myself. I couldn't believe—I refused to believe—that Shana would do this to me. There had to be something more, something Pyren wouldn't tell me.

"Dylana?"

Waryn's hands were on my shoulders, he was trying to keep me upright, but I was slipping, the sound of my own breaths ringing rapidly in my ears. "Yael? What's wrong?"

"Seduce the Eloroan heir like your life depends on it."

Why did he come to me? Didn't he know how dangerous I was? I tried to push him away, but my attempt resulted in feebly pressing my hand to his chest.

"Did you drink?" he asked.

He would know that I was careful. He would know that I only ever made a show of sipping wine, but would never be intoxicated. He watched me all the time.

Did he see me with Pyren? Panic, raw and sharp, rammed through my chest. No matter what, Waryn couldn't know that I had been contacted, that I was just made operational.

That my objective was him.

"Where were you, Waryn?" I managed to ask, my voice weak.

"I was called away. My father arrived in the Masca Delen."

Of course.

Pyren would never let Waryn know. He'd approach me only when no one could report back.

"But there is a task for you tonight, the task you were already deeply involved in."

Pyren expected me to keep Waryn occupied tonight. He expected me to do it because he had something planned for this night, something that required that Waryn be out of the way. Was Nava in danger? Or Leah?

Would tomorrow find them brutally murdered, like Afali?

And it would be my fault, again. So many deaths that happened because of me. My parents, Dylana, the servant Biluria, Lord Tuvia Ulumie, Afali...

How long will that list grow, until I saved Marin's life?

Pyren knew, he knew I'd value no life greater than hers, not even my own. But it wasn't only that. My parents were gone and now by showing me Shana's betrayal, he broke me, but won me. He showed me that he can uphold a bargain, even one made many years before, and that I would get Marin back...eventually. He had shaped me, after all, a clay figurine of a girl.

Even without seeing her and knowing she was well, he knew tonight I'd listen. I'd follow his plan, and he wouldn't have Waryn to be concerned about.

"Waryn," I said, weakly. "Help me. I'm not well..."

"Really? I could never have guessed." While his tone was jovial, his face looked grim.

"I didn't drink any wine." He would know that there was no wine on my breath. "I don't know what's wrong... Can you... Can help me to my room?"

He seemed torn about something. Whatever it was, could it be the reason Pyren set me on him? "I won't be able to stay long," he said, but not because he suspected something. He had to keep an eye on something, and Pyren wanted him blind.

I remember thinking I could play him, but when had it stopped being a game? When did I come to enjoy our moments together? I leaned into him as he escorted me from the hall. He smelled like grapes and with a slight musk that I couldn't name but I recognised clearly as his unique scent. I inhaled him with every breath.

Tonight, I was going to hurt him, and the knowledge was poison in my blood.

The dark Cervi house was sleeping, silent. He led me through my door and closed it behind us. He set me on the edge of the bed, and crouched in front of me to look into my face, digging his palm underneath my mask to touch my forehead, searching for a temperature. "I'll rouse the servants to help prepare you for sleep," he said. "Would you like me to call a sawbone?"

I could let him slip away, and claim that he had no desire to stay with me. I could see below the surface that there was a pressing matter that troubled him aside from me. Pyren would never be able to prove that it was my fault.

Unless, he was somehow watching me now.

Waryn began to rise, but I grabbed his arm.

And looked down at my toes. "Stay."

"Yael..."

"I don't need the servants, or a sawbone. I just..." I swallowed. I was afraid of being a tool, of what Pyren was going to make me do. I was alone in my fear, alone in my powerlessness. "I just need you, Waryn."

I met his gaze to find his eyes unbearably soft. "Just pretend..." I swallowed. "Pretend that you love me," I said. "That I'm precious to you."

"Yael, I'm not pret—"

"I know what you're doing. It would work on anyone, even on...even on me." Tears came to my eyes unbidden. There was so much to weep about, and unlike what everyone said, weeping made all the difference. For a spy, tears were a tool in her arsenal. "Can you make me believe that you love me, Waryn? Just for tonight."

He was silently considering my words before he slowly lowered himself to his knees before me. He sat back, on his heels watching me try to wipe away my tears. "What's going on Yael? What brought this about?"

For the first time, I thought I would truly fail, without purposefully trying to. He would be too inquisitive over my strange behaviour and leave. "Who knows?" I answered sharply. "Maybe I just need to hurt myself more. I just need to kill this feeling before it kills me."

"What feeling?"

"That I..." My own throat cut off my voice. I was ashamed to play with those unsaid words. I scrambled backwards, to the middle of the bed, hugging my arms around myself. "That I love you."

Was that a lie? Was it? Was it? I was frantic. I couldn't tell anymore.

He leapt onto the bed, and attacked me—with kisses. I was engulfed in his embrace, and his lips met every part of me he could find. "I don't know what to do..." he said breathlessly. "With you."

There were tears in his eyes. I wondered if men could fake tears. Or if he truly couldn't hide his heart, like my father had been.

If he was like my father, he was living in the wrong world.

He ran out of kisses, and just clung to me. I held him as if I would never let go. Like heating cold hands over a fire, I could've healed myself through his smell and the warmth of this long embrace—if only it wasn't tainted by the task Pyren had given me.

"When this will all be over," he said after several moments, moving back his head to look at me. "I'll prove to you that I don't know how to pretend to love someone."

I kissed his lips, and wished I could taste them without guilt. I wished I could be together with him, without the separation of lies.

I made do with getting rid of the separation of his coat and the silk blouse beneath. And of my own dress, which he helped me wrestle out of. Our white gold maiden masks, we discarded to the floor.

We tangled our naked bodies in the sheets and a long endless kiss, finally undisturbed.

Pyren's order was a blight on what should have been mine. Waryn could have fit inside a sacred chamber of my heart, but Pyren robbed me of that.

Love was a victory, yet I was defeated.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Let's say it together: AWWWWWW.

And I told a certain someone not too long ago that there wouldn't be any sex scenes in this book. Whoops. I was wrong.

Every writer has this moment when they get completely dazzled from something they've written, even if they weren't successful with projecting everything they felt and they just THINK they were.

So, I don't know if this worked on not but I LOVE this scene and loved writing it. I'm so happy with how tangled, sad and sweet their relationship is and I couldn't have planned such a thing, so glad the characters themselves guided me.

What are your thoughts? And some of you said you've got theories about what'll happen next--LET'S HEAR IT!

We are now at the fourth and final act of Masquerade. Look how excited I am:

♥️
Einaty