Chapter 22
AMARIA
They'd transformed the cavern.
Someone had scattered dried herbs across the floor—crushed sage and wild jasmine— so every footstep released a bruise of scent into the air.
The long table had been shoved against the far wall and draped in fabric I'd never seen down here, deep indigo, probably stolen.
Lanterns hung from the ceiling on wire, wrapped in two layers of silk—black on the outside, silver within — and the light they threw was soft and strange.
Moon-bright. It turned the familiar rough walls into a fever dream.
Wine had already been opened. I could smell it cutting through the sage—spiced berry-dark, the one that always stained your teeth. Bodies packed the space shoulder to shoulder, radiating warmth that the cavern had never held on its own.
Kaelen raised one elegant hand, and the cavern hushed.
"Tonight, we celebrate a victory." His voice rang clear, controlled and booming with pride.
"In two days, Amaria has achieved ten full heartbeats of fusion—a feat we weren't sure was even possible.
She carries both keys. She is mastering a power no one has wielded before.
Because of her strength, the Codex is nearly within reach. "
A ripple of excitement whispered through the gathered rebels, eyes bright, bodies shifting in anticipation.
"To be fair, 'a power no one has wielded before' cuts both ways. She's also just the first person who could fail at this particular thing," Maxx said.
Serenya elbowed him. He didn't even budge.
"What? I'm saying it's not a high bar when you're the only one who can reach it."
"That's not the compliment you think it is," I muttered back.
"It's absolutely a compliment. You're historically adequate, Flameheart. Embrace it."
Kaelen continued as if he hadn't heard—or was choosing to ignore—the commentary from the back.
His tone shifted. "But tonight is more than celebration. Tonight we also face truth—not the King's hollow fictions."
Kaelen stepped forward. "Each of you will craft two-layered masks. On the outside, wear the ugliest lie the King has etched into your skin. Traitor. Monster. Worthless. Beneath it, ink the lie you tell yourself—your hidden shame."
Cups were already passing from hand to hand, laughter cutting through the tension. Someone near the back let out a whoop that cracked the solemnity wide open. Leave it to rebels to turn a prophecy into a drinking game. Kaelen's eyes gleamed dangerously.
"At midnight, we flip the masks, exposing our deepest truths to the fire. Those lies will either burn—or betray how tightly we still cling to them."
The first notes of music spilled into the charged silence.
"Tonight's Veil-Masque will be unmasked, because true freedom begins with facing what we fear most!" Kaelen finished.
"Beautiful. Terrifying. I'm in," Maxx called over the rising music.
The cavern erupted.
Cheers broke loose, bodies swayed toward the open floor, and the night rushed out—a wild, wanting thing.
I plucked one of the unadorned masks from the pile.
Papier-mache, rough-edged, lighter than it looked.
It smelled like paste and chalk. A dozen small pots of memory ink sat between us—vine-black, bone-white, a red so deep it looked like blood.
Brushes of varying thickness fanned out beside them, bristles stiff with old pigment.
Around me, the work had already started.
The scratch of brushes on dry paper filled the gaps between conversation.
Brannick sprawled beside me, wine-slick grin crooked, humming a distant tune as he scrawled runes down the jawline of his half-mask.
Serenya worked in silence, her strokes careful, symbols exact.
The ugliest lie the King has etched into your skin, Kaelen had declared. Ha. He had an impressive collection of them for me: Abomination. The Rupture. Anathema.
I dipped my brush into the vine-black ink.
The bristles were coarse and left thick, uneven lines — good.
I painted the words across the outer face in jagged strokes.
The paint dried fast, pulling against the paper surface, and the charcoal grit worked under my nails as I steadied the mask with my other hand.
The inside was harder.
The lie you tell yourself. Your hidden shame.
My brush hovered. The noise of the cavern—the laughter, the scrape of work, Brannick's humming—pressed in around me and then faded, like someone had cupped their hands over my ears.
I wrote it before I could stop myself. A confession no one else would read:
If I'm loved, I'll destroy them.
The same words I'd choked out in Dreadscale's training chamber. The lie that wasn't quite a lie—because I believed it down to my marrow. The paint was still wet when I pulled my hand back. It had gotten on the pad of my thumb, black as a bruise.
After writing my lies on both sides I painted the lines of my marks. First, the stark silver spiral of my Luminar mark, then the deeper ink-black curl of my Shadow sigil. My marks on display for the world like some beast paraded for pleasure in a traveling menagerie.
Next, I pricked my thumb with the tip of my dagger.
A bead of crimson bloomed against the black paint already staining my skin, and I mixed it with the red.
I drew a thin, perfect circle that bound the two warring halves together.
Circled it over the brow of my mask, sealing the light-sigil and the shadow-sigil in blood. A third ring. The forgotten ring.
“You know that’s going to stain permanently,” Brannick said, nodding at my hand. “Kind of poetic though.”
I didn’t look up. "So will the memory of you crying into your third cup last week, and yet here we are."
Brannick’s eyes widened in delight—like he’d been waiting weeks for me to swing back.
"Crying is a strong word. I was emotionally overwhelmed by the vintage." He lifted his cup in a mock toast. "There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
He leaned in closer. “Careful. You keep drawing those rings in blood, and some primordial power might mistake you for a priestess.”
“Gods help us,” I muttered. “Last thing this realm needs is me leading rites.”
“Oh I don’t know,” he said, tipping his head. “You’ve got the whole unhinged mystic thing down.”
I dipped my thumb back into the paint. “Unhinged mystic? That’s rich coming from a male who once declared war on a curtain.”
His head threw back in laughter. “I thought you missed that.” He narrowed his eyes, looked me up and down. “You pretended to miss that.” I smirked, keeping my eyes on my mask. I had indeed witnessed it in the training room. Fool got tangled up putting a sword away in the curtains.
“It attacked me, Amaria. Don’t twist the narrative.”
“Oh, did it flap in your general direction?”
He held a hand to his heart. “Aggressively. With intent.”
I shook my head, smirking despite myself. “You’re deranged.”
He winked. “And yet here you are—painting sigils in blood beside me. Which one of us should be worried?”
“Serenya,” I said, flat. “Forever letting us sit next to each other unsupervised.”
From a few seats down, her sigh was loud and immediate. “Saints spare me.”
We laughed. And for one suspended breath, it felt like freedom.
Maxx strolled in with his laughroot-spiked wine, ladle in hand. “Well, well,” he drawled, eyes flicking between me and Brannick. “Look who finally came out to play. All this time I thought you were just prophecy in a pretty snarl. Turns out you’ve got teeth and timing.”
Brannick raised his cup. “She’s sharpening them on my corpse.”
Serenya took the cup, met his eyes. “She’s always been like this. You’re just late to the revelation.”
I ducked my head, feigning focus on my brush, but the smile tugging at my mouth wouldn’t quit.
The comment reminded me of Dreadscale. I looked up, scanning the room.
There he was. Red wine in hand. He sniffed it…
and set it down. A small laugh burst from me and I shook my head. Unyielding stubborn ass.
Maxx turned to go, then paused, glancing at my blood-ringed mask. “Just don’t bleed too much fun into that thing, Amaria. You’ll summon something ancient and deeply inconveniencing.”
Then he was gone, vanishing into the sway of dancers, cloak flaring like a magician’s final bow.
In the far corner, two dancers circled slow and close, heads bowed, hands not quite touching.
Their feet never faltered. As if the song lived in their blood.
I watched Serenya meticulously writing out her lies and sighed.
No more procrastinating. I painted a rune for instant drying and finally lifted the mask to my face.
When I inhaled I felt my OWN lie, the one written on the inside of the mask pressed into my skin.
I glanced around—the dancers, the colors, the flickering lanternlight. I’d always dreamed of a masquerade. I’d just imagined different themes. The Court of Seven Stars. A Riot of Petals.
Not this. Not a night of bared souls and bleeding in time to the music.
Typical. I ask for a ball, and the gods give me a reckoning. While most girls ruminate over gowns and lip stain I have to wear my soul like a damn accessory.
Brannick hauled me to my feet before I'd finished tying my mask. Paint still tacky on my fingers, the ribbon loose—and he was already pulling me toward the open floor, fun apparently non-negotiable.
The crowd thickened as we pushed in. Elbows, shoulders, the press of unfamiliar bodies generating a heat that had nothing to do with the brazier.
Someone's drink sloshed against my arm—warm and sticky, wine-sweet.
The sage they'd scattered across the floor had been trampled to nothing, replaced by the smell of exertion and spilled alcohol and a static charge that lifted the hair on my arms.