Page 91 of Moonmarked

Ortriedto.

Every drop of blood in my veins turned to stone when I realized that no voice was coming out of me. I was trying to sayyes,moving my lips, pushing my vocal cords, and yet I couldn’t make a single sound.

Meanwhile, Lyall was smiling as he came closer to my ear again. “Speaking out loud isn’t allowed in the Whispering Ball.”

Well, fuck.

My mouth opened again to tell him how absolutely absurd that was, but I caught myself before I tried, relieved that it wasn’tme.Relieved that it was this place that had apparently taken my voice away, not somethingIdid.

The prince pulled me toward what he called the Chamber of Dreams, and I forgot all about the fact that I couldn’t speak out loud when I saw the inside better.

It was a circular room with a domed ceiling and mirrored walls that reflected colors only, not shapes. The people walked around, some dancing, some whispering, some standing with drinks in hands, and the mirrors only picked up the colors on them, their masks and their dressesand their drinks, and reflected it back. It was…overwhelming to see bursts of colors moving about with no shapes.

Fuck, that room looked so wrong,but I couldn’t even tell you why. I stopped in my tracks right by the threshold, couldn’t make myself go in at all. Whatever it was about these mirrors, I was wrong—Ididn’twant to see it. Not from closer up, at least.

So, I pulled back, and when Lyall looked at me, I only shook my head. There was no way I was going inside that room right now.

Thankfully, he didn’t question it. With a nod, he stepped back, too, and we continued to walk around the ballroom again, away from the Chamber of Dreams.

As we went, people stopped and whispered in Lyall’s ear, and I continued to search for Rune. I couldn’t find him, and part of me was sure that he’d already left. This wasnothis scene at all. He didn’t even like dressing up in velvet like the rest of the fae. He probably left before they even closed the doors.

And that made any bit of good mood I’d had left for this night vanish into thin air. After days of being all by myself, of wishing for some company with other people, I wanted nothing more than to leave this ball behind.

“The Room of Whispers,” Lyall whispered in my ear before I realized we’d arrived at the second set of doors that had simplyappearedin the walls of the ballroom.

This one had no mirrors in it. It wasn’t half as overwhelming as the Chamber of Dreams. Two tall velvet curtains pulled apart to reveal a softly lit atrium filled with hanging silks that swayed to the sides gently despite there being zero wind. The air was thicker once we stepped inside, though, and it tasted like perfume—like flowersand old parchment combined. The silk draped from the ceiling to the floor in layered curtains shimmered faintly with glyphs, like they had been stitched from sound rather than thread. I couldn’t even begin to understand what any of it meant, though.

The light, too, was different. Dim but soft, casting no shadows. It was scary, but not as scary as mirrors reflecting colors without shapes.

The sound of whispers curled around me, like a touch from a ghost or something, and I couldn’t understand a single word as Lyall led me between those silk curtains together with the crowd. The deeper we went, the more I was sure that the sound wasn’t coming from the people, but from the silk itself. I passed one that I could have sworn echoed withlaughter,and another that moaned softly as someone did when they were in pain. Another whispered what could have been a poem in that language I was sure was original Veren.

People came toward us from the other side of the room, probably to go back out into the ballroom. We pushed the silks back to leave way for them, and I could have sworn that they were trying to talk to me, these fabrics.

And the people, too.

A man, as he went past, touched a hand to my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “The queen’s reign might be coming to an end, they say. Spread the word.”

And he disappeared behind me so quickly I couldn’t even see what his mask looked like.

Heart in my throat, I kept moving forward, hoping to get rid of the crowd already, but more and more people seemed to be coming from the other end, and they whispered in each other’s ears, and the silk whispered, too—or maybe I’d finally lost my fucking mind forreal.

I shouldn’t be here.

This whole place was strange as hell and I didn’t want to spend another second surrounded by these silks and these whispers and these fucking masked fae, either.

A cold hand over my forearms, right where Maera had scratched me.

My entire body froze. I couldn’t move away if I tried as I watched the woman who’d appeared out of nowhere lean into my ear and whisper, “The last woman who wore that face died screaming.”

The words echoed in my mind.

The woman wearing a green dress and a mask made of emeralds had her golden blonde hair in waves over her shoulders, and she didn’t stop to even look at me after she whispered those words in my ear. She just turned and continued to walk ahead, and then pulled aside the silk curtain on her right and disappeared behind it.

Every instinct in my body came alive at the same time. I didn’t look, didn’t try to find Lyall or even remember that he’d been there with me. I went after the woman, my ears burning, my hands shaking, my legs barely holding my weight.

But I had to find her. I had to get to her and demand she repeat herself because there was no way she said what I thought she said. First of all, shecouldn’t even see my freaking face!

So, I pushed the piece of silk to the side just like she had done, and I slipped into the next row of curtains, eyes wide, heart pounding—but the woman wasn’t there. I moved back and forth, searching the people coming and going in both directions, then moved farther down another row of curtains, and another—but the woman had disappeared.

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