I caught my breath.

Uncle Hassan was looking himself over in my mirror, admiring his work. As usual he looked like a masterpiece. He was in a perfectly tailored mulberry suit, hand-painted and inlaid with gold leaf, with a golden ear-cuff in the shape of a geometric sun around his left ear. For someone who abdicated so long ago, he wore purple better than me.

Jonah sat on the sofa, rolling his eyes at him. He was dressed more modestly, of course, with a silver-embroidered cobalt suit over a turtleneck. Uncle Hassan had always been the peacock of the family and tonight for the ball he threw for me, he did not disappoint.

I had a feeling come over me then; I wondered how long the gilded life would last.

I was an imposter wearing a lost royal family's tiara, pretending to be queen. Unmarried women weren't even supposed to wear tiaras... I didn't get it.

"This is good." I heard a voice say. Ilyaas was still changing behind a small divider, a whole team of stylists brought by my uncle also working on him. If he approved, that probably meant he was perfect. It was a shock how a man who grew in a palace and a boy who grew up in a patch of ruins in a desert could both end up with the same style, but it was a fact.

As of the moment, I was standing in front of a lit mirror as they applied powder to my eyelids. "Why do I need this, Uncle? I have the mask anyway." It was tradition, he said, the masquerade.

Honestly it was tacky, but I let him have his fun. I didn't know how much of my burden he carried. I knew he was shielding me from much of everything I needed to worry about. A few days ago, I might have reprimanded him for it, but today, I understood.

The crown rests on shoulders that rest on shoulders, that rest on shoulders.

"No one's gonna see my eyes." I whispered.

"Just because you're not seen doesn't mean you should be any less stunning." He replied, walking towards me, picking up the skin-tight mesh boots he intended for me to wear. They were hand-picked by him, saying that they were much more comfortable than all the thousand shoes delivered to my suite that night. They were not. "What matters is knowing you're beautiful, even when no one else knows."

I looked over myself. Everyone knows. That's what everyone always told me about myself. Before I could speak a word, I would get complimented by the generations of handpicked genes I inherited as if it was an achievement.

I knew I was beautiful, but I never saw value in it apart from its use in war: it's much easier to die for someone who looked like heaven. Hell is much more bearable that way.

"Ilyaas, are you done?"

"Hmmph" I heard him.

The blue and red dress was full in the back but hovered a foot and a half off the ground at the front so the boots could be seen. It was scandalous by royal standards since it showed my shoulders and wasn't purple, but I was the empress now and apparently everything goes if I say so... if my uncle says so.

It was one of a kind. I hadn't seen anything like it before. It felt like thick hanfu fabric with yue embroidery on it, but it was also... lighter and there were these tiny silicone circles sticking to my skin and connecting to the threads. When my uncle was asked about it, he just smiled. I didn't remember them being there the last time I did a fitting. They also replaced the sleek gold belt with a much more intricate one resembling the diamond-encrusted grain on the tiara.

I felt like a sparkling lamp. And I was distracting myself from the reality that starting past midnight, the shield they built around me would fall down and I would have to face the reality of being the empress.

"It looks good..." I heard Ilyaas say behind the closet door, probably looking at himself as well. "Thanks."

Instantly, my uncle clapped and ushered all the stylists out. "The work is done! I must greet the guests." I knew what he was doing. He knew I needed to marry for power, but he believed in marrying for love.

Off they all went.

I sighed. It was hard not to stare at myself now with everything attached to me. The crown was digging into my hair, and the dress didn't cover all my scars but some of my hair did at least. The mask at the table was also going to be stuck to my face tonight which was both a blessing and a curse.

I was very uncomfortable, but I looked like an empress.

Was this who I was supposed to be now?

I should have ran. I was at the edge of a cliff with every instinct and impulse to jump.

I should have ran.

I sighed again, feeling Ilyaas's arms wrap around me, pulling me back. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn't notice how he got there, his chest a solid wall behind my back. Slowly, he started swaying me left to right, letting my dress flow with his movements, tapping his fingers around my waist to a slow beat.

"Dance with me."

"Did I consent?" He was already dancing.

"Dance with me?" He mocked.

I nodded as he continued his timid swaying with me leaning back, admiring his amber eyes through the mirror, hooded by the black mask across his face. Closing my eyes in that good moment felt like a sin.

"Once we go out, thirty boys will go running after you." He whispered, his breath tickling my face.

"Maybe they won't recognize me... It's a masquerade." Such a horrid tradition.

Ly hummed a sorrowful lullaby as he rested his chin on my shoulder like he always did. "You're not that easy to ignore." He turned to me and kissed my cheek, inhaling the scent of my hair and letting out a sigh.

I pulled away a little, but he pulled me back.

"You're not playing fair." My voice was angry already even though I didn't want it to. He had no right.

"Lesya-"

That was when he turned my face to his, tipped my chin and pressed his lips against mine in a second that felt like a century.

It was an out-of-body experience. As if I saw myself from the eyes of a bystander; a girl in a pretty dress her head tilted to meet a boy dressed in black holding her like a glass figurine, afraid she'll break in between his fingers.

When he pulled away to stare at me, a sad smirk lit his face. "I told myself I had to do that." He took a deep breath. "Just once. It's enough."

But it wasn't... but he meant it. That would be the first and last and that was enough for him.

I pushed him away. "This is not fair." I tasted blood in my mouth where I bit by cheek. "You don't get to do that after Monaco-" Grabbing the thin golden mask on the table, I started walking away, my head swimming. "You don't get to pretend you love me when you don't. You don't get to make me happy when you have no intention of keeping me that way."

He reached out to my wrist, turning me towards him. "That was all we could have, Lesya."

"Lesya. Is that who I am again? Or am I Lizaveta?" I spat my own name out. I put the mask on, covering most of the expression on my face - I didn't want him to see me. For once I was glad for my uncle's art. "I guess it's fine then." I shrugged, running my hands exasperatedly through my hair. "Thanks for hurting me, Ilyaas Malak. I was almost happy right there that I barely recognized myself!"

He stood there for a second looking like a handsome phantom in his black southern tunic and gold embroidery, stoic and unable to move. Ilyaas looked like a prince. If only he was.

Ly strode to me to wrap me in his arms, deflating the rising anger in my chest, but not enough to make me soften. How many times must I let him hurt me until I stopped? Until I gave up on him?

"You're Lesya." He whispered; a silent apology hidden in a name. "I'm Ilyaas." Ly's arms tightened, reminding me he was with me, telling me it wasn't his intention to hurt me, showing me how that one kiss was truly all we could have - nothing more. I hated it. "And I love you."

Just not enough.

×+×

We already had the state lunch an hour after my enthronement, and so the guests Uncle Hassan deemed unworthy of his style were long gone. The music was muffled from the closed double doors behind which I stood at Ilyaas's arm.

Somewhere behind it, I heard the explosion of fireworks reaching the skies and the awed gasps of all the guests surely double in number to those who attended my coronation.

Anyone else who got the solid gold and velvet invitations were told to arrive at the Great Room, and so most of them thought the Great Room was just that - a great room. Little did they know that the room was at the highest floor of the House in level only with the stars. Little did they know that to see the fireworks, they'd have to look down instead of up.

They opened the doors and instantly the euphoria hit me like a typhoon.

The floor was made of a thick transparent material that showed the fireworks blazing under the guests' feet as they danced their inhibitions away, their masks keeping their mistaken sense of anonymity. Fountains of champagne littered the room serving every important stranger with the taste of stars.

A kaleidoscope of youth and excess and wealth, the guests twirled and laughed with a carelessness only being born into money and prestige could buy.

I already wanted to leave.

A team of gymnasts and acrobats were flying from the chandeliers. There was an actual pool at the center filled to the brim with liquor, dancers in metallic feathers on podiums engaging every eye, crystal chandeliers immersing the whole room in a spectral, and a stage on which some famous singer I cared not enough to know was belting her notes.

"ALL HAIL EMPRESS LIZAVETA!" She screamed as the whole room raised their glasses to me, confetti raining down into their drinks.

"I have to stay at this vantage point." Ilyaas said to me, his hands over the railing of the apex of the horseshoe staircase. "Enjoy." He laughed at my terrified face.

There they were... gambling, drinking, smoking something I'd rather not know. Businessmen and congresswomen, actors, directors, curators, beauty queens and actual queens, heirs to corporations and countries intermingling in a nauseating sea of color.

Trays of food and refreshments swam around keeping each glass full, and each mouth laughing.

Someone was already lying on the floor, being picked up by the staff of nurses on standby. Someone was dancing in the middle of a champagne fountain. Someone tried jumping for the chandeliers only to land on a cake.

I felt out of place in the world made for me.

I was always invited to these things, but my grandfather gladly declined all of them for me. He cited headaches, back aches, dysmenorrhea... But only thing bleeding was my back - from his whips, by Ilyaas's hands, punishing me for even making a friend.

I descended the stairs slowly, gripping the mahogany railing for dear life with one hand while the other was shoved inside my pocket for no one else to grab. That was when the suitors gathered, now made aware of my presence.

I started walking right back up, hoping they'd stay at the foot of the stairs, only to be disappointed by a man with coffee-colored skin and a jawline that could cut a finger, who dared to climb the stairs to me.

"Your imperial majesty, my name is Adee." A voice of soft caramel spoke.

"Adee?" I turned, as he took my hand and kissed the ring given to me at the temple. "As in-"

"Prince Yudaveer Amandeep Chamaraja Wadiyar." The boy who cancelled. "May I have this dance?"

"Why should you?" I asked, knowing full well why he cancelled.

He shrugged, with a grace only a prince could pull off. "If I leave you, the piranhas will come. I was hoping you'd be much more comfortable with someone who wants nothing from you but a dance."

Convinced, I let him lead the way.

On to the dancefloor, as the music slowed a tad, he put one of my hands on his shoulder and raised the other to the side. Remembering all those grueling days of dance lessons as a child, I recognized his tempo and matched it. The heels were surprisingly okay despite the occasional stabbing pain.

I could feel about twenty pairs of eyes strain to see us, waiting for the right moment to dance with me next. I only hoped Adee had enough endurance to dance with me for the rest of the night, or at least before I found Tino in the crowd.

"Well, let's not waste it in silence." He said, a smile appearing in his godlike features. He wasn't breathtaking like Ilyaas or carefree like Tino. It was more like he was sculpted out of dalbergia with painstaking skill.

People always judged me for thinking faces were beautiful, but in them I saw a thousand generations coming down to single points: the arch of the nose, the curve of the eye, the curl of the lashes... And I saw history in him.

"What do you want to know?" I asked, lost in his eyes.

"Well, how are you enjoying yourself?"

"I feel like a prized cow."

He chuckled. "Something we find in common then." I heard he was already being promised to Andrea Khrisna Ambani, a pretty girl from his home worth about a trillion denari in the ancient book business. Only about. No one was allowed to keep their money once it crossed the trillion threshold, every denari they earned was given back to the people who gave it to them.

As we turned, I saw her looking over, her eyes unreadable under her mask. Pity Adee could not choose for himself. Pity she couldn't either.

"How is New India?"

He tilted his head in thought. "We're fine. Thriving to be honest. There are some concerns about the Islander expansions, but they won't dare touch Eurasia."

The Islanders were expanding down to Australia already, according to the reports. But as per suggestion of both the council and parliament, Eurasia was meant to stay neutral. They haven't touched us yet.

"They won't dare." I said with a smile.

"I have something else we have in common. I also went to the Ateneo." He said, twirling me in the direction of the school I once went to, its blue flag waving in the darkness far down in the direction of the moon.

"I think all of us did." I said as I heard the gasps of a hundred guests.

Adee pulled me back after the loop, regaining our previous positions. "Your dress is turning purple." He whispered.

I looked down... And it was.

Somehow, the dress used my energy to reweave itself. The royal blue and magenta slowly intermingled into a deep tyrian purple, starting from the center and down to the edges, slowly engulfing me in the color of my family, the color moving like an ember ever spreading around the seams. Just like the drops of paint on my floor the day I became empress.

"And yes, all of us did. I was there with Kazimir." The dress was forgotten that instant.

I caught my breath, hiding the shock. "You're... a classmate?"

"Yes." He smiled. "I think he awoke me to be honest." Adee chuckled.

"Were you close?"

"It's hard to know with Kaz." He remarked. He was right. It was hard to tell with my brother except when it came to me. "I only spoke to him a handful of times, but he always knew what to say and do... as if he read my mind." He sighed. "No offense, I have high hopes for your reign but it's impossible not to miss a prince like Kazimir."

"I fully agree."

"I see him in you." He said, twirling me again, garnering the gasps of those around me as gold appeared in the embroidery, yet to be fully purple still.

"Yes, people say we looked identical." I said, remembering they were wrong since Kaz had lighter eyes like crushed berries in milk while mine looked like rubies.

"No, it's different." Adee replied, his terracotta suit catching the lights. "Your quietness... it's not silence. Everyone knows if you open your pretty mouth, you'll say something remarkable... and yet you keep us all in anticipation."

I laughed at his honesty. Another thing people mistake about me was just that - when I zoned out, they thought I was thinking of something profound. I rarely was. Most of the time, the things occupying my mind were corned beef and the latest gum commercial.

I panicked quietly as the song started to wind down.

"I don't understand why people think of me like that. Honestly, I'm just a girl." Honestly, I just wanted to be like other girls. Maybe I was in some ways, but the crown made it difficult.

"No, your imperial majesty." Adee said as the song ended, bowing down to me to kiss the ring once again. "You're the empress."

Before Adee let go of my hand another hand came to touch the small of my back, and it was all I could do not to tackle the person who did it. It wasn't a good idea to startle me if you didn't smell like Ilyaas. "Semper Invicta." Tino whispered, calming my instincts.

I let out a relieved exhale. "You want a dance too?" My arms were already outstretched, hoping for another dance partner I wasn't afraid to talk to.

"No." He smiled at me through his silver and aquamarine mask, covering his face on the right side, similar to that of the Phantom, but much more embellished. "You look beautiful."

"You're beautiful." I whispered back. I wasn't lying. He had a perfectly cut eggshell three-piece suit with an aqua tie and pants. Running my hands above his lapel, I felt embossed swirls. I was all for art, not much of fashion though, but I could appreciate perfection. "But if you don't want to dance, then what are we doing?"

"Love, I saw you tire of two-inch heels and walk a museum barefoot mere minutes after standing. We need to sit down." He led me to one of the bars, mindful of the dancers and the acrobats hanging from the ceiling.

I followed him even though I felt fine. As long as I had someone, the rest wouldn't attack.

"This party is incredible." He said above the pounding music, as eyes trailed towards us. I could hear the whispers of the other tributes and their teams of stylists, noting their main competition.

As much as I found it annoying, I couldn't blame them. I was sure most of them didn't even truly want to be here.

Once I sat on the stool he asked for a whiskey and the bartender gave me the same thing.

Looking at Tino now, I felt guilty. I kissed him once and left to be with another person the day later. How come he still wanted to talk to me? Had I not done enough to relieve him of his crush?

It might take more to get rid of him, especially when I was still on the fence about it, myself. If I was meant to find the right husband, it would take some trial and error. I just wished he would find what was best for him without getting hurt.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" I asked, putting the crystal to my lips and sipping. Tea. All the mixologists were briefed to only give me either water when I asked for a clear drink, and tea when I asked for a russet one. It was always an asset to have a clear mind, but tonight I wished I told them different. "Are you happy?"

"A bit yes." He said, tapping the mahogany bar, raising his glass to a friend who just called him. "A little more now." Tino smiled at me.

I blinked. He felt more at home at a party celebrated for me, than me.

"That's good." I didn't know what else to say. So many things happened after I last saw him. He was still the same person, but I felt like I wasn't.

"How was your vacation?" He said, a tinge of suspicion in his voice. His glass touched the mirror coaster as he adjusted his stance to see me more clearly in the dimmed bar.

I found myself closing my shoulders away from him, slowly turning to my right. My eyes trailed the lit drinks as I replied. "You saw the photos."

He shrugged. "Should I be worried?"

I looked over him once and decided to just stare at the drinks on the shelves. It was a rainbow of prisms and crystal and liquids I had no name for. And then there was a stranger... White from head to hip, a bird's feather in his wiry hair, his face's reflection marred by a bottle of...Grey Goose. What the heck was a grey goose?

"Liz-"

My eyes looked forward still. "I hope you understand that I haven't met most of you or had the chance to choose yet. I have a year." My voice was sterner than I thought it would be. I regretted it the moment I let it out of my lips.

"I understand." Tino sighed grudgingly, his hand slowly swirling his drink. "But he's not even in the running-"

I snapped at him. "I determine that." I said as I felt something drop into my pocket.

Looking to the space the white stranger was, I was met with an empty barstool.

"I'm sorry." He said, his jaw slightly clenched. Didn't he know Ilyaas actually liked him? "I'm just getting mixed signals, that's all."

Me too. I rolled my eyes at myself, but Tino didn't take that well.

He was upset. He stood up and trailed into the dancefloor, disappearing with his drink in hand. I knew I should have gone after him, if not to apologize then to at least have someone I was mildly comfortable with rather than have all the other tributes corral me. But I needed to apologize.

I was just hoping to get back to working after these festivities. I needed to think of something else other than love and marriage like maybe some agrarian reform, budgets, patent laws, conscription schedules... There were so many other important things to do. I had no time for this mess.

But I needed an heir.

I stood off the stool and felt something move in my dress. At that, my hand crept into my pocket, wondering if I'd imagined the weight there. My fingers closed around a cool clean something... Pulling it out, I saw a vial of clear liquid with a small piece of paper wrapped around it. A gift?

At first, I thought it was some type of party drug someone decided to give me, but I saw the inscription on the cap: HNO3.

Nitric acid. My blood went cold. Nobody else knew I needed it except Natasha. And unless Nat was now a man with curly black hair...

Immediately I unfurled the paper. Inside, I hoped it was just some random note or a "Happy Coronation" from Nat, but of course it wasn't.

Silver doesn't suit you. Meet me where you went, Diwata.

-Z

 "Diwata."