SNOWFALL
My face is a bloody mess and my nose is swollen, but I put my mask back on anyway and return to my hiding spot on the edge of the ballroom.
The chandelier above the dance floor is anchored to the ceiling with a series of cables bracketed to the wall on the second floor. Ordinarily, there are five cables holding up the chandelier. Tonight, there are six. The sixth isn’t to keep it up, but to support a small addition I made while decorating earlier this evening.
The band pauses in between songs. When they start up again, the melody is softer. Perfect for slow dancing.
Couples flock to the center of the room. Unbidden, my eyes find Kaidren in the crowd. He stands alone in a sea of pairs. He’s buttoned up his suit jacket. There’s a sliver of bare chest still visible, but he looks covered unless you’re looking intently—which I am. His head is twisting, craning, looking for—He stops as our eyes meet.
He was looking for me.
My heartbeat picks up as he stalks purposely across the dance floor in my direction.
I know the exact moment Sef cuts the cord.
It starts snowing, right here in the ballroom of Widow’sHall. Sheets of parchment, dyed pale blue and white to match the colored glass in the chandelier, drift through the air.
Dancing stops. Kaidren stops. His head tilts up as the parchment flutters down, down, down. The entire ballroom appears frozen, staring at the snowfall, transfixed.
As for me, I watch Kaidren. A sense of foreboding and possibly regret pools in my stomach.
As soon as the slowly sinking parchment is within arm’s reach, party attendees swoop, snatching them up.
Over the years, I’ve penned many columns for the Shadow Queen. This one was simple in nature. Scathing, biting, cruel—designed to wreck the reputation of its subject.
I watch as Kaidren plucks one from the air. Watch as his eyes scan the parchment.
His entire body tenses. It looks as though he stops breathing.
Almost as one, all eyes in the ballroom snap to Kaidren. They latch on to him, staring in a combination of confusion, doubt, and horror.
Kaidren ignores them. His head jerks up, and he stares directly at me. The shock of his expression is to be expected. Thehurtmarring his features . . . it affects me more than it should.
I agonized over writing this most recent column for so long, I don’t need to reach for a sheet of parchment to know what it says.
People of the glorious Republic of Virdei,
There’s a villain among you tonight. A silverwolf wearing the mask of a lamb. Someone who has spent years collecting trinkets in a vain attempt to force extraordinary magic into an ordinary man.
When that did not work, he made false claims of being an isha.
The thief in question is, of course, Bastard Kaidren Vale. Unfortunately, Bastard Vale is not merely a thief and a fraud. He is also a killer.
With no acclaim of his own, Bastard Vale stole that of his father’s—by murdering him.
He wanted magic, so he tried to force it.
He wanted power, so he killed to steal it.
Doubt me? Check his room in the Vale household. He is indeed so arrogant, he did not even bother to dispose of the very poison he slipped into his father’s final meal.
Fondly,
Shadow Queen
The silence in the ballroom is chilling. Everyone stares at Kaidren, who stares at me.
He could hurl accusations now. Announce to the world that I’m the Shadow Queen herself. But no one would believe him. I’ve just ensured that.
