A Mask of Silver Fire by Evelyn Arden

Author:Evelyn Arden [Arden, Evelyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barton Springs Books, LLC
Published: 2024-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

Greeta had a merry blaze going in the bedroom fireplace. The heat felt warm and enclosing as Vala entered the room and slammed the door upon the watchful guards. She met her with a broad smile that faded.

“Are you alright?”

Vala was so distraught by the events of the evening and the compression of the dress which made it difficult for her to breathe, let alone think, that she barely remembered that Greeta could shape up to be her only friend in the palace. Besides, Greeta asking a question was progress.

“I am not doing well at this whole nobility act.” She waited as Greeta loosened the clasps on the dress, taking a grateful breath. “I wish the emperor had never brought me here. I don’t belong and I don’t want to belong.”

The woman assessed her with inscrutable eyes. “You wish to leave?”

Vala wondered if it was really that easy. “Yes.”

“Hmm. Many say that to feel less guilty for staying. In all the years I have worked here, they always come. But, no one ever leaves.”

Vala felt that she needed the answer even as she already guessed it.

Greeta handed her a dressing gown of thick velvet. “I like you. I hope you are different.”

“Wait,” she turned to her, “Why can’t people leave?”

The woman paused by the door. “They don’t want to. I see you like the velvet robe. Perhaps you are just like the rest after all.” With that, she slipped out the door and closed it.

She clenched her fists tight. If Greeta thought money could buy her loyalty, then she was wrong. But then, Luiximor had obviously thought so as did Helen, the drunken Thevian prince, and likely the Imperial Court as well. They were all wrong. She could enjoy feeling warm and with her belly full and yet still want to find her freedom, no matter the cost. She felt the gold and diamond pins in her hair. Part of her wanted to rip them out but she was exhausted. She would tug the pins from her hair later. Scrub off the makeup of the evening. Fall upon that bed with a tired sigh and hope that a few hours of rest as the four moons spun through the sky transformed her problems into opportunities in the morning light.

Heep, damn him, she thought, pouring a glass of wine from a decanter, the crimson liquid a loud splash in the dark stillness. She badly needed to drink after that awful dinner and their conversation. The sharp, painful edges of reality and a hangover were closing in around her and she hated the feeling. A solid gulp and she felt the fiery rush smack her stomach with delicious, steadying warmth. Imperial magic, indeed. She had felt magic when Luiximor, disguised as the Masked Man, had healed her from Titus’s attack. Nothing that she felt about Luiximor remotely hinted that he magically manipulated her now. He sought to persuade her to other means…namely, a marriage bed and the intent to keep her safely imprisoned in the palace, but those were obvious, non-magical machinations.

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