Chapter 43
The cold mask clung against her skin.
Ilys fastened the silk ties at the back of her head, adjusting the fit until it sat perfectly in place. It was a foolish thing, ornate, gilded, and shaped in the likeness of a bird. The beak curved downward, elegant but severe.
A ridiculous tradition.
On the Eve of the Bargain, the nobility masked themselves in reverence. The reasoning was simple, or so the priests had always said: on this night, when the King reaffirmed his covenant with the Veil, the dead could see the faces of the living more clearly. And the unnatural, those who had escaped fate’s grasp, could recognize those who had sent them to their deaths.
So, they masked themselves. They concealed their faces, dispelling recognition, believing that a simple covering could shield them from vengeance.
Superstition. Theater.
The dead did not linger here.
But Ilys still wore the mask. Not for tradition. Not for the sanctity of the celebration.
For anonymity.
The Eve of the Bargain was a spectacle, a night of reverence wrapped in indulgence. A night where the court bathed in wine and excess while pretending at holiness. She had never been invited before—Veilwalkers did not belong at the King’s joyous table—but she had always known the traditions. She had always known where the nobility would be.
And she had always known how to enter unseen.
The tunnels beneath the Sanctum were older than the castle itself. Dug long before stone was laid, before the first King had ever set foot in Annon. They ran deep, winding beneath the palace like veins, a hidden web of passages few still remembered.
Grim had taught her.
Ilys walked them now, her footsteps soundless against the drenched stone, the candle in her hand flickering against the low ceiling. At the tunnel’s end, a ladder led up to the undercroft of the castle, a forgotten corridor leading directly to the western wing, where the grand ballroom awaited.
She extinguished the candle. Climbing swiftly, she emerged into the dim corridor, the scent of incense and aged stone filling her lungs. The murmur of distant voices reached her ears in the form of laughter, conversation, the hum of revelry.
She slipped from the shadows, masked and unseen, following the sound.
The ballroom was a sea of gold and crimson, the flickering glow of candelabras casting long shadows across marble floors. The scent of spiced wine and burning myrrh curled through the air, mingling with the warmth of too many bodies pressed close in whispered conversation.
Every guest was masked. Plumes of peacock feathers, velvet and satin, and porcelain molded into delicate visages of saintsand spirits covered the crowd. Some faces were painted into sharp, inhuman grins, others blank and expressionless, eyes obscured behind dark lenses. The anonymity was suffocating and freeing all at once.
She passed through the throng, unseen and unnoticed.
Wine flowed into gilded goblets while laughter danced between the notes of a hidden string quartet. The whole room gleamed—luminous, shimmering with excess.
The King had not arrived yet.
He would come when the revelry had reached its peak, when the room was flushed with wine and indulgence, when the nobles were at their most pliant. He would stand before them, recite his hollow prayers, reaffirm his holy duty.
And they would cheer, would raise their cups, would bow their masked heads and thank him for his sacrifice.
Ilys’s hands curled into fists beneath the folds of her silk skirts.
She moved deeper into the ballroom, closer to the head of the hall.
A woman passed her, perfume clinging to the folds of her gown, her laughter muffled behind a silver fox mask. A man in deep navy silk bowed low to another, his mask adorned with golden filigree. Everywhere, faces blurred into a faceless sea, identities discarded for the sake of spectacle.
It was strange, to move so freely. To be here, unrecognized, unburdened by her title. She could be anyone.
A hand extended before her, a man’s gloved fingers hovering in invitation.
“May I have this dance?”
