"I'm not angry."
"You're always a little angry." She steps back, surveying me with satisfaction. "But tonight, you're also available. And handsome. Try to remember that."
I grunt, taking another sip of the wine to avoid responding. The heat spreads further, loosening the tight coil of tension in my shoulders. Not enough to make me reckless, but enough that the noise and chaos feel slightly less grating.
The music shifts, a slower melody replacing the upbeat tempo, and couples drift toward the center of the square to dance. Lora watches them with a wistful expression, and I know she's thinking of Varos. He should be here with her, not me.
Thankfully, she sees a woman that immediately waves her forward. A friend, I'd guess from the way that Lora's face lights up.
"Go dance," I tell her. "I'll be fine."
She hesitates, glancing between me and the dancers. "You won't just disappear the second I turn my back?"
"I'll stay for at least an hour." It's the best I can offer, and she knows it.
She squeezes my arm, rising onto her toes to press a kiss to my cheek. "Thank you. For coming. I know you hate this."
"I don't hate it." The lie tastes bitter, but her smile makes it worth it. "I'm just… skeptical."
"Skeptical I can work with." She presses her glass into my hand and releases me, already turning toward the crowd. "Drink your wine. Enjoy the night. Who knows? Maybe the Nashai are right."
I watch her disappear into the sea of masked faces and flowing gowns, her wings catching the lantern light as she moves. Then I'm alone, standing at the edge of the square with a glass of spelled wine in one hand and a deep, bone-deep certainty that nothing is going to come of this night.
I'm ready to get it over with. One hour. Then I can go home, return to my work, and forget this entire ridiculous festival ever happened.
2
SENNA
The city glows like something stolen from the stars.
I stand at the edge of the festival, fingers curled tight around the threadbare shawl draped over my shoulders—Mira insisted I bring it, said the nights turn cold in New Solas even in spring. The dress beneath feels foreign against my skin. Silver-blue silk that catches the light with every breath, the bodice fitted enough to make me conscious of my ribs, my waist, the way the skirt flows around my legs like water. Mira stuffed into my bag this morning, ignoring my protests that I had nothing worth celebrating, no reason to wear something so beautiful.
"You have every reason," she'd said, her honey-brown eyes fierce as she adjusted the neckline. "One night, Senna. That's all I'm asking. One night where you get to be someone else. Someone you deserve to be."
She'd known how bad I wanted to go into the city, and it was so rare that I wasn't watched, that Darian left our tiny village. I had the opportunity on the best night of the year.
Because there's a festival tonight.
The mask sits light on my face, silver petals layered over each other in delicate spirals that cover everything from my browsto my cheekbones. It makes me feel hidden. Protected. Like I can step into this glittering chaos and no one will know the girl underneath—the one with bruises she hides beneath long sleeves, the one who flinches at raised voices and keeps her eyes down when her husband enters a room.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I'm just another masked face in the crowd.
The square stretches before me, transformed into something out of the stories my mother used to tell before she died. Red lanterns hang from every surface, their glow warm and pulsing like heartbeats. Silk drapes billow in the breeze, deep crimson and gold that shifts with the movement of bodies beneath. The scent hits me all at once—incense thick and sweet, roasted meat, pastries glazed with sugar, wine that smells like summer fruit left too long in the sun.
Magic hums in the air. I can feel it prickling against my skin, raising the fine hairs on my arms. It's nothing like the faint traces back home, the occasional charm-worker selling luck tokens at the village market. This is different. Deliberate. Woven into every breath, every flicker of lantern light.
The Nashai move through the crowd in their white robes, trailing censers that release more of that perfumed smoke. Their faces are serene, almost otherworldly, and I wonder if they can sense the magic they've cast or if it's simply second nature to them now.
I take a step forward, then another. My heart pounds against my ribs, a wild thing trying to escape. What am I doing here? A human. Alone. In a city that tolerates my kind but doesn't exactly welcome us with open arms. The xaphan are beautiful and powerful and everything I'm not, and I'm about to walk into their festival wearing borrowed finery and hoping no one notices how out of place I am.
But I couldn't stay away.
Not after Mira told me about the Moon Masquerade, her eyes sparkling as we stood alone in the stable where her zarryn is kept. She described the lanterns, the music, the way the entire city transforms for one night into something magical and free. And I'd listened, imagining what it would feel like to be part of something like that. To exist somewhere other than the small, suffocating world Darian has built around me.
He left yesterday morning. A rare trip west to pick up materials for the shop—leather, I think, or maybe metal fittings. I don't care. All that matters is he won't be back until tomorrow afternoon, and for the first time in months, I can breathe without waiting for his hand to strike.
