Page 68 of Rhapsody of Ruin
Chapter 31
Rhydor
The strategy solar smelled of wax and smoke. Candles guttered in their holders, shadows bending against the tall shelves where scrolls and codices lined the walls in neat rows. The table at the center stretched long, its surface scarred by years of blades, maps, and spilled wine. Charts of the borderlands lay spread across it now, but the weight of what we faced was not drawn in ink.
The weight pressed heavier than any campaign.
Torian stood at the head of the table, hands braced on either side of a law tablet etched in silver script. His dark eyes flicked up as I entered, the candlelight glinting across the edge of his jaw. He had not slept. None of us had, not since the whispers had twisted into accusations and Maelith’s petition had landed on Vaeloria’s desk.
“Maelith moved swiftly,” Torian said without preamble. “The petition cites precedent under Shroud Law, unfaithfulness to consort oaths, concealment of bloodline heirs, and dereliction of royal duty.” His tone was clipped, precise. “If they press it to vote, the Masks will demand her public Masking.”
The word curdled in my gut. Masking, no simple censure, but a ritual of humiliation, branding, punishment. It was the very threat I had leveled at her last night in fury, and yet hearing it spoken by another now turned my stomach to stone.
I drew closer, scanning the script carved into the law tablet. The silver letters shimmered faintly under torchlight, alive with the Fae’s binding magic. My eyes caught on the phraseveil-breach,their word for betrayal. They would twist her absence, her secrecy, into grounds for annihilation.
Torian’s voice cut through my thoughts. “If you confirm the rumors, they will devour her. If you deny them, they will still demand blood.” He looked up, his gaze sharp. “What will you do?”
I turned away, pacing the length of the solar. My boots struck the stone, echoing off the shelves.
My veterans waited at the door, Brenn restless as a hound, Tharos leaning silent with his iron hand flexing, Korrath tapping his cane in patient rhythm. Draven lounged against the wall, his talisman glinting at his throat, but his eyes were sharper than his smirk. All of them watched me, waiting for command, their loyalty steady as the mountains we had once defended together.
“They mean to mask her in truth,” I said. “Not for law, but for spectacle. For power.”
“Spectacle rules here,” Korrath muttered, his voice gravel. “They’ll make an example. Show you cannot shield her.”
My jaw clenched. I had faced armies, necromancer’s beasts, the Hollowing itself, and yet here, in these silver-walled chambers, the battle was fought with parchment and performance, and the blades cut deeper for their subtlety.
Torian tapped the tablet with two fingers. “There are angles, brother. Thin ones. You could pivot, deny wrongdoing outright, accuse Maelith of sedition, shift focus to trade crises. But it will not hold forever. It will only buy time.”
Time. The one thing I never seemed to have enough of.
I braced my palms against the table, staring down at the silver script. My reflection wavered faintly in it, distorted, as though the law itself mocked me.
“What of security?” I asked without looking up.
Brenn straightened. “Crowds will pack the arcades for spectacle. We’ll set watchers along the walls, blades hidden. If the Masks move toward her, we cut them off.”
Korrath nodded once. “We’ll need layers. Inner ring to shield her body, outer to clear retreat paths. No one touches her without our steel.”
My throat tightened. The image rose unbidden, Elowyn dragged before the Masks, stripped of her mask, her twilight burned from her veins while courtiers jeered. I ground my teeth until my jaw ached.
“Do it,” I said. “Positions at every entry, staggered. If they so much as reach for her, you draw.”
The veterans bowed their heads. Even here, even in this pit of illusions and law, they would fight for me. For her.
Torian studied me, his silence heavier than words. Finally he asked, “What will you say?”
I lifted my head, meeting his gaze.
“I will deny everything,” I said. My voice was iron. “I will call the rumors lies. I will pivot to trade, to famine, to the needs of both kingdoms. I will remind them that while they toy with whispers, my people starve.”
“Will they believe you?” Torian pressed.
“They don’t need to.” I straightened, every muscle tight. “They only need to hesitate. To falter. To doubt long enough that the Masking cannot be carried out without fracture.”
Torian’s lips curved into something like a grim smile. “A dragon’s denial. Blunt enough to burn, broad enough to blind.”
I exhaled slowly, tension pressing against my ribs. “Prepare it. Write it clean, no falter in script. When I speak, it must sound like stone cracking open, not pleading.”
