Chapter 1 Amarissa #2
The moment it touched my skin, I disappeared. My throat tightened. Each time I wore it, it took longer to remember who Amarissa was.
I worried I’d one day take the mask off and find nothing beneath.
As I crossed the foyer, my plain sandals swishing on the ornate marble floor, guards swept open the intricately carved, wide wooden entrance doors.
I stepped out of the castle to instruments wailing and the low murmur of conversation in the distance.
People would be gathering in the village center, coming to bear witness to this Day of Mercy that was anything but merciful to those who’d shown even a touch of magic.
Father emerged in matching ceremonial robes, his gold circlet catching the sunlight.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear. His gaze lingered on my face, and the flicker of old pain there told me he was remembering our mother.
I nodded, and we descended through the castle gardens toward the gate far ahead, the scent of blossoms clogging my nose. It was all I could do not to rip off the mask and let my face breathe.
The enormous steel gates yawned open as we approached, flanked by life-sized stone dragon sentinels, their wings unfurled, their necks stretched out to shoot flames at the sky. Sadly, my court hadn’t stocked a dragon aerie for many generations.
As tradition dictated, I remained a pace behind my father. I walked alone in silence, wondering if my mother would recognize the woman her daughter had become.
The ceremonial mask itched as it shifted on my cheekbones, the morning breeze doing nothing to cool my inner fire. Three years ago, when I’d fallen ill the night before the Day of Mercy, Father had broken tradition, performing the ritual alone rather than forcing me from my sickbed.
“The Lady of Mercy deserves mercy too,” he’d said, sitting beside me later, holding my hand.
“He canceled two council meetings when you fell ill, Isi,” Addie had whispered later, her voice full of admiration. She never called me Amarissa, just Isi. “He’s never even postponed one for me.”
Below us, the village waited like a woven tapestry, full of terraced gardens, markets closed for the day, and metal rooftops reflecting sunlight. Star-thorns and ghostbells tangled over trellises along the road, releasing a heavy perfume that clung to the back of my throat.
A path of scattered white petals marked the way ahead, traditionally strewn by the youngest royal daughter. With Addie gone, the task had fallen to the villagers instead. They lined the winding road, bowing low.
A small girl darted close, a bloodstem flower clutched in her hand.
“For you, Lady of Mercy,” she said, holding it out.
I knelt and took it, its stem warm from her touch. Even kneeling, I towered over the child. My height had always made me feel awkward. But the little girl didn’t seem intimidated by my tall frame or the mask that hid my face.
“Thank you, sweet one,” I said.
She beamed, clutching her hands to her chest and swaying her long skirt across the tops of her polished shoes.
I straightened and caught up to walk behind my father.
The village square came into view as we descended the last hill.
Elders waited in the center, wearing the traditional sky-gray robes of judgment, their faces hidden behind golden visors.
Thirty villagers stood in the center of the elders, adult men and women of all ages.
Only they wore white, and a mix of grief and defiance filled their faces.
Soon, they’d drink the ashwine.
The Circle of Passing had been erected on the outer edge of the village center and my father and I entered through it, our footsteps silent on the cobblestones. The gathered crowd, hundreds strong, stood quietly as we passed.
The haunting call of the bells echoed around us, their crystal tones vibrating at a frequency that made the vereth beads at my throat hum in response.
Before we could reach the elders, a man stepped from the gathered villagers and bowed.
“My brother stands among them,” he told my father in an almost joyous voice. “We thank you, King, for your mercy.”
My belly twisted, threatening to throw up the few bites I’d made myself eat.
Father nodded. His voice carried across the large open area. “May his spirit rise brighter in the next life.”
And that was the crux of it. They were all convinced we’d soon be sending their friends and family to something better. I wasn’t sure such a place existed.
As the man melted back into the crowd, others murmured blessings. They believed we would soon grant their loved ones the peace of knowing they wouldn’t go stark raving mad.
Oddly enough, the madness had yet to come for me.
“It troubles you still,” my father said softly as we continued forward.
“Remember what I’ve taught you, Amarissa.
There’s kindness in protection. The greatest mercy is preventing further suffering.
” The familiar words had soothed me when I was ten, and I wanted to believe them now.
Yet Mae’s grief over Leo flickered in my mind, a light refusing to be snuffed out.
The stain from the bloodstem blossom spread across my hand like the blood it had been named from.
With my face dutifully lowered, I walked toward the ceremonial platform behind my father.
A low murmur rippled through the crowd before a pall-like hush descended.
A child cried out but was quickly silenced.
I was about to start up the steps of the platform when my attention was caught by him.
A man at least a head taller than me stood along the edge of the crowd, a short distance away.
Shadows hid his face, but I could still make out the sharp line of his jaw and his black hair, thick and swept back from his brow.
His tunic was too simple for a courtier, yet too fine for a tradesman, made up of dark fabric with storm-gray threading and silver clasps, tailored to fit his broad shoulders and muscular frame.
His presence hit like a warning before a lightning strike, and I couldn’t look away.
Catching my eye, he inclined his head. He took a step closer. From the way his gaze swept down my body, I’d think he saw through my robes to the woman quivering beneath.
My pulse thundered. Wrenching my gaze away, I turned toward the stairs and made myself start climbing to the top.
The man caught the hem of my sleeve, bringing me to a halt before I could reach the platform. Heat surged up my arm from the contact. I hated that I didn’t pull back right away.
Glancing down, my gaze locked on the man’s golden eyes rimmed with gray, a color I’d never seen before, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
Despite the sardonic twist of his mouth, his face burned with fury.
Not mindless rage, but something controlled, directed, and frighteningly intelligent.
A flutter of wings echoed overhead and a shadow swept above the crowd. The cinderhawk landed on the man’s shoulder, its talons curling into the fabric, its soot-colored wings ruffling before settling across its spine.
The man leaned in close, smelling of cedar, spice, and rain-soaked earth. The warmth of his breath sent a shiver across my skin that had nothing to do with fear.
“How does it feel to wear the executioner’s colors, Princess?” His voice came low, rich with an accent I couldn’t place.
The word executioner hit like a blade to the heart. He didn’t know how right he was. No matter how many I helped, my hands would never be clean.
My knees almost gave way. I wanted to shout that I never chose this, that I hated every death this mask demanded, that when I was in control, I’d find another way. But the words died in my throat.
This man had stripped away all the ceremony, all the justifications, and named what I truly was.
After years of calling myself the Lady of Mercy, hearing someone name me for what I actually did and what I participated in cracked the part of me I’d spent years carefully maintaining.
His stance reminded me of Commander Thorne’s fighting forms, balanced, centered, and ready to move in any direction without warning.
Not the rigid posture of our court’s soldiers, but something more fluid, more dangerous.
My own body shifted in response, adopting the first position Thorne had taught me, the place where stillness masked readiness.
“You know nothing of mercy,” I whispered back, but the words tasted like bile on my tongue. Like lies.
His lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, his golden eyes burning with an intensity that seemed to see through all my carefully constructed layers.
“And you know nothing of justice.” His fingers brushed against mine, a deliberate touch that sent a jolt through me. “Perhaps one day, you will.”
No one had ever spoken to me this way, as if I wasn’t a princess or the Lady of Mercy, but simply a woman capable of more than blind obedience.
I could hear Addie’s voice in my head, her parting words at the castle gates a month ago as she prepared to leave for her arranged marriage. “I’d do it all again. Defy him. Make my thoughts plain. At least one of us should speak the truth, Isi, even if it costs us everything.”
I’d assumed this was her usual dramatics, the sharp tongue that had finally provoked Father into sending her to a court many weeks’ journey away.
Now I wondered if there had been more wisdom in my sister’s rebellious nature than in my careful compliance. If this stranger with storm-gold eyes could see the truth of what I was, how much longer could I pretend not to see it myself?
The man stepped back, his gaze never leaving mine. With a curl of his mouth, he gave me a courtly bow that managed to be both perfect in form and utterly mocking in execution. As if he challenged me to decide. Executioner or savior? Prisoner or liberator?
He reached up to stroke the cinderhawk’s sleek feathers. It preened before he raised his gloved hand and flicked one finger. The bird took flight again, spinning to soar above the village, past the crowd, disappearing into the smoke-hazed sky.
As it vanished, he turned back to me. “Beware. The time is coming, Princess.”
A promise. Or a warning.
Either way, I knew with unsettling certainty that I would never be the same.
“Amarissa,” my father said, his tone carrying the chiding note he’d used since I was a child of ten who’d stood beside him, wearing her hastily stitched-together Lady of Mercy costume crafted from her newly deceased mother’s own robes.
I hurried up the stairs to join him.
“What are you doing?” His voice was kind enough but impatience edged in. A warning.
My skin quivering, I dipped my head forward and pressed for a smile, though he wouldn’t be able to see it behind the mask. “I’m sorry. I’m just overwhelmed by the heat.”
“Very well. Straighten your spine. Be the Lady of Mercy.”
As he directed his attention back to the elders swaying their incense pots on gilded chains, I studied the crowd.
The man was gone, but the impression of his golden eyes and the phantom sensation of his touch remained.
A whisper in my mind kept insisting he was right about mercy.
About justice.
About everything I’d been raised to believe.