Masks and Monsters
397 Words
The King’s throne room was colder than Kael remembered.
Everything about it its gold, its silence, its perfect symmetry reeked of control. And control, Kael had learned, was his father’s favorite weapon.
He stood in the center now, bandaged and stiff, but unbroken.
“You’ve cost this crown more than your weight in blood,” the King said from the dais, his voice calm. Too calm.
Kael said nothing.
“You disobeyed a royal betrothal. You defied my council. You ran for her.”
Kael’s jaw tightened.
“And still,” the King continued, “I offer you mercy.”
That caught him off guard.
“You will marry Elenya at dawn. You will renounce all claim to the throne beyond her. And you will never speak of the girl again.”
Kael’s heart slammed against his chest.
“And if I refuse?”
The King leaned forward, eyes like frost. “Then you’ll watch her die.”
Outside the palace walls, Liora walked back into her death draped in a borrowed cloak, hood drawn low, steps deliberate.
The capital had changed.
Her name had been whispered through taverns, branded traitor and witch. Bounties were posted. Guards stood at every gate. She didn’t flinch.
She was no longer the girl who had run.
She was the woman coming back to burn the house down.
With Mareth’s map folded into her glove, she made her way through the lower city, staying in the shadows, watching the palace towers pierce the sky like blades.
She had a new name now,Cerys.
And under it, she moved freely among the rebel networks that still simmered beneath the surface of the King’s perfect court.
At night, she met with spies. During the day, she trained.
She learned how to lie like a noble, fight like a soldier, and vanish like smoke.
Her face was sharper now. Her heart, colder.
“You were born to run,” Elenya had said.
But Liora was never running again.
On the night before the royal wedding, a fire broke out near the edge of the palace wall.
While guards scrambled to control it, a cloaked figure slipped through the servant’s gate dagger tucked beneath her sleeve, locket heavy against her heart.
She paused only once, outside Kael’s shuttered chamber window.
Then she whispered;
“I told you I’d come back.”
And disappeared into the dark.
- Writer
