ChapterOne
The mask in my hands was not made by human craft. I trailed a finger over the unusual texture, the unnaturally smooth, almost slippery material. My belly twisted as I looked at the disembodied contours of the magic-born face.
The image captured there appeared so real, I itched to touch the girl and rouse her from dark dreams. She was perfectly formed and perfectly lifeless. Gruesome in the way that deep suffering was—vaguely repulsive and yet impossible to look away from. And the worst part?
This was a death mask, and the face suspended in eternal slumber was mine.
Looking at the features of the mask in my hands was like looking into my own grave. I marveled at the fine impressions of my lashes, feathery and light against my cheeks. My eyebrows, thick and dark, arched over expressionless closed eyes. The nose, identical to my father’s and expertly shaped, had nostrils which slightly flared. As if the craftsman had captured the very moment I released my final breath.
But the airholes through which I might have breathed my last were perfectly sealed over. There was no way the girl who had endured the creation of this mask could still be alive. The time it would have taken for the compound to be applied and then to cure… Breathing air through the material would simply not have been possible. This mask should have been irrefutable proof that I had died.
And yet I stood in my quarters in my father’s manor, sliding my fingertip through a slice that cut clean through the forehead of the mask. This had been the most convincing fraud my savings could purchase. Useless in its state of ruin, it was now an expensive trinket that would accomplish nothing. Except, perhaps, to prove that I’d been a fool to dabble in forbidden things.
Now my future was sealed like the eyelids of my mask. Closed forever.
Purchasing this mask had taken a month of planning. I’d ridden in the back of a cart on a surreptitious journey to the far side of Omrora led by an enormous guide: a man terrifyingly quiet but direct when he did speak.
“Do not ask questions.”His whisper was refined but held a hint of cruelty.
Pitch-black and sheer, a hood covered his head and completely obscured his features and hair, yet allowed him, I assumed, to see through it. A plain cloak covered dark leather armor I could plainly hear in his heavy footfalls and stiff movements. Simple black gloves encased his hands so even the smallest details, like the tidiness of his nails, were hidden from my view.
“Get in. Do not attempt to leave until I come for you.”His touch at the small of my back was light as he helped me step into the cart.
The transport he provided was nothing more than a wagon. A crude wheeled thing attached to two horses. One was dark and glossy as a midnight rain; the other was a satiny-smooth blood bay. The horses were flawless, lacking any distinguishing blemishes. Even if I saw them together, tied to the same cart, their reins in the gloved hands of the very same guide, I doubted I would be able to identify them—or my guide—by daylight in the square.
I was certain that was exactly my guide’s intention. Yes, I’d paid an exorbitant cost for the item that would be crafted that night. But I only had access to this cart, this guide, and the dark place he intended to take me because I knew people who believed I would take this secret to my grave. Betraying those I trusted and those who’d trusted me carried a price far too steep to pay.
Iron torches mounted on the cart kept the night-hunting vengersax, the winged daggers of the air, from pecking out our eyes and tongues for food. My guide had packed water and a small bit of bread and offered it as we departed the agreed-upon meeting place. He urged me to eat to ensure that the bumpy ride over uncleared terrain didn’t upset my stomach. How he’d guessed I’d been unable to eat dinner—too nervous, too excited for the midnight journey ahead—I did not know. I assumed this was a trip he’d taken before. Perhaps with another woman just like me.
The icy night air raised the tiny hairs on my arms as I wrapped myself in a tight hug. I swallowed the water and bread, only momentarily wondering if the food was drugged or poisoned. Since the guide was to be paid his portion of the fee, separate from the amount that had already been paid to the craftsmen, upon delivery of the completed mask, I assumed he didn’t plan to kill the woman who owed him a debt. So I trusted his counsel and ate and drank what he offered. Though my hands were so unsteady, so nervous with anticipation, I nearly spilled the water all over my lap.
“Keep your eyes closed,” the man whispered, once I assured him I was ready to depart. “Wear this, and do not remove it.”
Before I’d met the guide, I’d been told not to look at anything or anyone once we departed Omrora. I could not have done so even if I’d had the nerve. The layers of fabric that he handed me to wear, both head wrap and mask in one, obscured my sight so completely, he might have driven into the depths of the sea, and I’d have been none the wiser.
With my head covered and my heart feeling fully exposed, we left the safe shire where I’d been born and raised for… I knew not where. After a ride that lasted forever, and yet also ended too quickly, my guide drew the cart to a stop. I heard the rustling of his armor and cloak as he came around to help me. Even though we’d stopped, I left the covering in place over my face.
“Wait for my lead, miss,” he demanded, taking my hand.
My feet never touched the ground. I stood in the cart, nervously gripping his gloved hand, as he lifted me into his arms. In just a few smooth movements, he swept me from the cart and carried me like a bride being delivered over the threshold of my new home.
I nearly laughed at the irony. Becoming a bride was exactly what I sought to avoid. Was exactly what had driven me to fake my own death in the first place.
“No matter what you hear,” he insisted, a tortured-sounding rasp in his voice, “you mustnotreact to the voices.”
The voices…
I’d been so concerned about escaping home to make this journey, I’d spent little time worrying about the risks there might be once we reached our destination. But I needn’t have been concerned. My guide was firm of hand and confident in his steps, carrying me, a full-grown woman of twenty-three, down a flight of steps without so much as a groan of complaint.
I did not fully trust him and certainly did not feel safe in his arms as we descended into the depths of place I’d never been before and couldn’t have identified if my life depended on it. In a way, my lifediddepend on me keeping this secret. Truly, I had no guess where we were. We might have traveled in circles and ended up in my father’s backyard for all I knew… But somehow, I suspected we were nowhere near the Lombard estate.
If the smells of moss and soil were to be trusted, we’d traveled deep into the earth. And yet, I was not afraid. The promise of the freedom that awaited me was worth every bit of risk I’d taken to get there. I was ready, more than ready, for the rest of my life to begin.
Once the mask was complete, I planned to take a journey, fabricate a catastrophe, and purchase a small grave. I would hire a messenger to send the mask back to Omrora in my place and deliver the false news of my demise to my parents. The mask would have been accepted by any and all as irrefutable proof that I had passed. No cause for the shire-reeve to investigate, no need for even my parents to question whether I might be saved. By the time my parents visited the place they believed housed my remains, assuming they ever did, I would be far, far away.
Unfindable.
Safe.