Chapter 6 The Mask and the Blade

"A mask hides your face. A blade hides your truth."

ELIRA

The Hollow Gala was a tradition meant to distract.

Every year, nobles from every corner of the Five Kingdoms flocked to the capital-draped in feathers, jewels, and secrets.

Everyone wore masks.

Everyone lied.

But this year, the lies would bleed.

Elira stood before the mirror in her Tower cell, watching Grita pin her hair in a way only royal spies would recognize: twisted back and looped once behind the ear.

A silent mark: I am armed.

Her gown was ash-grey silk, blending into the night. Her mask was carved moonstone-cool, sharp, emotionless. Her father's dagger was hidden in the folds of her skirt.

She didn't look like a princess.

She looked like retribution.

KAEL

He stood at the edge of the Gala's courtyard, wearing the mask of a forgotten prince.

Black, sharp, fractured down the middle. The mercenaries called him "The Ghost" now. Even they didn't know his real name.

He watched nobles toast their sins in crystal goblets.

He watched Lady Vasha slip poison into a rival's cup without blinking.

He watched the Queen dance with a boy half her age and three times more terrified.

And then-he saw her.

Ash-grey. Moonstone mask. Moving like she was born of smoke.

Elira.

It took everything not to run to her.

Instead, he slid through the crowd, quiet as dusk.

THE MOMENT

They met beneath the weeping chandelier in the Hall of Saints.

He didn't speak.

Neither did she.

She just offered her hand.

He took it.

And they danced.

One song. Two.

Spinning through royalty and ruin like nothing else existed.

When their hands met, a paper slipped into his palm-silent, practiced.

He waited until they twirled behind a column to read it.

Midnight. The Queen's private corridor. You'll find the vault door. The map is hidden inside the armory wall. Once I give the signal... we vanish. Together.

Don't be late.

He looked up.

She was gone.

THE SIGNAL

Midnight neared.

The Queen raised her goblet at the center of the marble staircase. "To alliances!" she cried. "And the glorious future we hold!"

But Elira was already moving.

She stepped onto the stage. Uninvited. Unannounced.

Gasps echoed through the hall.

No one recognized her at first.

Until she removed her mask.

The Queen's smile curdled.

Elira's voice rang out, calm, clear, deadly:

"You told the people they were free.

But your vaults are filled with stolen grain, stolen gold, stolen names.

Tonight, I give them back."

She threw a dagger.

It didn't hit anyone.

But it shattered the royal crest hanging above the throne.

And all hell broke loose.

KAEL

He was already moving.

Through smoke and chaos.

Down the Queen's corridor, past guards distracted by noise, into the private vault chamber where the map of the kingdom's secret tunnels-used for war, for escape, for power-was hidden.

He cracked the wall panel.

There it was. Rolled tight in waxed vellum. Labeled only with the sigil of the first king.

Footsteps behind him.

He spun, blade out.

It was her.

Not Elira.

Lady Vasha.

"You shouldn't have come back, peasant," she whispered.

"And you shouldn't have threatened her," he snarled.

Then they fought.

Quick. Vicious. Beautiful in the way fire is beautiful.

Kael won-but not without bleeding.

He left her unconscious and vanished into the shadows with the map tucked against his ribs.

ELIRA

She ran through the palace, cloak fluttering like wings. Fire had broken out in the gallery. Someone screamed. A noble wept into a goblet of wine as guards shouted orders.

Then Kael appeared.

Blood on his sleeve. Map in hand. Breathing like he'd outrun death.

They didn't speak.

They didn't need to.

They just ran-through the servant's hall, into the underground tunnels Elira's father once used to escape an assassination.

By the time the Queen realized what had happened, they were already gone.

In the forest beyond the border, Kael collapsed by the fire, head against Elira's shoulder.

"We have the map," she whispered.

"And an army waiting in the west," he said.

She kissed him.

It wasn't soft.

It was war.

But in the palace...

The Queen held a single page left behind in the vault.

A message carved into the map's case:

The girl you locked away now holds your crown in her teeth.

And she is hungry.