Chapter Text
The flickering glow of mage-light casts long shadows across the marbled floor, tinting the room in golden hues that do little to conceal how late the hour has grown. The air is thick with the scent of perfume, wine, and a fatigue Xaden can no longer suppress. His limbs feel weighted, his thoughts sluggish—his only true desire is to be anywhere but here, preferably curled beneath warm covers, far from the clamour of strings and silks.
A yawn claws its way up from his throat, and he barely manages to stifle it behind the heavily embroidered cuff of his formal coat. The gesture is half-hearted at best, a perfunctory attempt at decorum that fools no one, least of all the woman standing beside him.
She’s cloaked in elegance, her face concealed behind an ornate mask that mimics the striking brilliance of a swan’s plumage—white, dazzling, and ostentatious in a way that draws every eye. Every eye but his. He offers her a weary, apologetic smile, one that barely reaches the corners of his mouth. It’s a reflex more than anything sincere, an unspoken plea for mercy or understanding.
She grants him neither.
Instead, her gaze slices through him—sharp, appraising, unimpressed. With a soft scoff, she turns without a word, the delicate train of her gown sweeping dramatically as she vanishes into the shifting crowd. Xaden doesn’t move to follow her. He doesn’t even try. In fact, he feels a quiet, private satisfaction bloom in his chest as she retreats without looking back. No final glance, no scathing comment. Just distance.
Good. One less interaction to endure.
Among the swirling dancers and murmured laughter, surrounded by silken masks and painted smiles, he clings to the one mercy this evening has offered him—the anonymity. Here, in this sea of illusion and artifice, no one knows who he is. No one asks. No one cares. And that, at least, is something worth savouring.
The mask he wears is a masterpiece of craftsmanship—black as night and encrusted with thousands of minuscule, gleaming stones that catch the dim light and scatter it like shattered stars. It conceals the upper half of his face entirely, casting shadows over his features and lending him an unfamiliar air of mystery. The edges of the mask curve outward in sharp, angular flares, subtly evoking the scales of a dragon. Paired with his hair pulled back into a high tail—so unlike his usual low braid—he’s nearly unrecognizable. That, at least, is a small mercy.
For once, he blends in.
He is no longer the subject of second glances or whispered greetings. No murmured titles or formal bows. Just another anonymous figure adrift in a sea of extravagance.
Around him, the ballroom pulses with sound and motion. Nobles swirl past in clusters, adorned in elaborate costumes that mimic the creatures of myth and the mundane alike. He passes a woman dressed as a phoenix, her feathers dyed in unnatural shades of violet flame, and a man whose antlered mask towers so high it nearly grazes the chandeliers. There’s even someone slinking by with a long-striped tail, purring like a housecat. No theme is too ridiculous, no expense spared. They are foxes and wolves, peacocks and sphinxes, leviathans and lynxes. The absurdity of it all would almost be amusing—if it weren’t so exhausting.
Tonight is one of the rare nights in Tyrrendor, when names are forgotten and lineage discarded. For these select few hours, masks level the field, and secrets are currency. Strangers press close, whispering provocations behind bejewelled disguises, and laughter echoes from shadowed alcoves where flirtations bloom in the dark. It’s chaos, and yet it’s carefully choreographed—ritual masquerading as freedom.
Xaden stands still in the midst of it all, a solitary presence among the revelry. No one stops to speak to him. No one even pauses. They drift past without notice, and he finds, unexpectedly, that he prefers it that way. It’s a peculiar kind of peace, being invisible in plain sight.
He brings a glass to his lips, tasting the bitter, cloudy wine within—cheap, probably, or at least inferior to what he’s accustomed to. Still, it gives his hands something to do while he watches the masquerade swirl around him like a dream he’s only half-awake for.
A thought lingers, dry and ironic, at the back of his mind: 'How many of these masked fools would be brushing past him so indifferently if they realised who he was? ' If they knew that the man sipping quietly at his wine, deliberately tucked into a corner of the ballroom, was not just another noble in borrowed feathers—but by all technicalities, the sole heir and Crown Prince of Tyrrendor himself?
He doubts any of them would believe it. And that, too, pleases him.
All around him, conversation ebbs and flows like the tide—rising in waves of raucous laughter and receding into the low hum of hushed, intimate exchanges. The volume of each group seems directly proportional to how many glasses they’ve drained, and how many inhibitions they’ve cast aside along with their titles. Voices slur. Words overlap. Somewhere nearby, someone lets out a sharp burst of laughter that turns into a hiccup, followed by muffled giggles and the distinct clink of spilled wine hitting marble.
Xaden moves slowly through the press of bodies, sipping his own drink with deliberate caution. The wine is mediocre, sour with an aftertaste he can't quite place, but it gives him an excuse to keep his mouth occupied and his gaze unfocused—an easy way to look disinterested without seeming rude. He navigates the crowd like a shadow drifting through fog, unnoticed and content to remain so.
He pauses, almost involuntarily, and lifts his gaze toward the elevated dais at the far end of the room. There, draped in light and attention, sits his father—Duke of Aretia, King of Tyrrendor. Dressed in brilliant gold robes and a resplendent mask fashioned to resemble the blazing sun itself, he looks every inch the symbol he’s supposed to be. Regal. Luminous. Singular. The only guest at the masquerade not cloaked in fur, feather, scale, or fang.
The King is leaned comfortably to one side, murmuring something to the man beside him. His smile is broad and easy, his posture relaxed in a way that only those born to power can master. The man at his side, however, couldn’t be more different.
Felix, the ever-watchful royal advisor, sits stiff and silent, dressed in his customary austere black. No mask, no costume. Just stark simplicity, as if even this evening of pretence and celebration couldn’t pry him from his severe routine. He responds to the King's jovial commentary with his usual unyielding seriousness, a dry contrast to the revelry that surrounds them. It’s a familiar dynamic, one Xaden has observed countless times: the radiant sun of the kingdom orbiting beside its silent, shadowed moon.
Xaden doesn’t linger in his observation. He returns his gaze to the crowd and turns his steps purposefully toward the edge of the ballroom. The walls are his destination—his sanctuary. He’s learned the quiet art of surviving these nights by remaining unobtrusive, staying just enough in motion to appear engaged, but never so much as to draw attention.
All he wants is to make it through the evening without incident. No impromptu arguments, no backhanded political games disguised as drunken flirtation, no court gossip that begins and ends with his name. Just a quiet, uneventful passage through the gaudy chaos, and then, finally, sleep.
These masquerades are good for court morale, or so he’s been told—brief interludes of escapism that dull the edge of internal tensions and smooth over the stress that accumulates like limescale throughout the long months of rule. The nobility needs their distractions. Their spectacle. Their fantasy.
But Xaden?
Xaden would rather be exerting himself on the training field or tucked away in the estate's library, lost in the final chapters of the book he’s been reading over the last week, its worn spine more familiar to him than most of the people in this room.
Unfortunately, balls in this estate are notorious for dragging on until the first pale streaks of dawn bleed into the sky, and tonight promises to be no different. Hours more of forced smiles and meaningless chatter. Hours more of pretending he belongs in this glittering cage.
He sighs quietly into his glass. Time slips through his fingers like sand these days, and the older he grows, the more he feels the weight of every grain lost.
And yet here he is, masked and nameless among a crowd of masked and nameless strangers, watching the hours vanish in a room full of laughter that isn’t his.