The sky was folding into twilight, its bruised lavender hue streaked with dying gold. Lanterns flickered one by one along the long corridors of the estate, but the warmth they gave off did little to chase away the cold silence settling in.
Elias moved fast, his footsteps echoing through marble halls that had moments ago thrummed with music. His eyes, sharp and searching, flicked over every passing face, every masked figure, and yet—nothing. No sign of August. No glimpse of that white silhouette that always stood out like a ghost among peacocks.
"August!" he called again, breath catching. "August, answer me!"
The wind carried his voice into nothingness.
Everin, pale and flushed, caught up to him, his mask hanging askew in one hand. "He was with me," he said between ragged breaths. "He was—he was right there. And then gone."
Elias didn't stop moving. His heart was pounding in his ears, his fists clenched with helpless fury. "Someone must've taken him. Someone knew exactly when to move. No signs of a struggle, no trail..."
"Too clean," Everin muttered, biting the inside of his cheek. "Much too clean."
They burst into the garden courtyard, where roses lay open like spilled secrets and crushed petals painted the stone red. The masquerade had moved indoors, the revelers none the wiser, dancing and laughing while the one they hunted was likely far beyond reach.
"Nothing here," Elias whispered, scanning the empty benches and the dark hedges. His voice dropped lower. "Nothing but ghosts."
"We'll split up," Everin said tightly, his jaw rigid. "I'll check the stables, the forest road. You search the south gate and cellar tunnels."
Elias didn't respond right away. His breath fogged the cool air. Then, a sharp nod.
"If he's been taken…" Elias's eyes narrowed, "…then I'll tear this whole damned kingdom apart until I find him."
They parted in opposite directions, shadows swallowing them both.
The velvet hush of the masquerade had long since frayed into scattered murmurs and confused glances. The music had faded. The guests danced, but unease threaded between their steps like an unseen draft. Elias no longer saw them—only shadows. Only doors.
"Where is he?" he snapped, slamming his fist against the marbled pillar as yet another noble passed him with a look of oblivious charm.
Everin returned, breathless, soaked in mist and sweat from running every path and alley that curled around the citadel. "Nothing," he said. "No carriage at the gates. No scent. No sound. Elias, it's as if—"
"He vanished," Elias said grimly. "No. He was taken."
He turned sharply, scanning the hall. "Someone here knows. Someone orchestrated this place—they brought us here. They let this happen."
"Then what do we do?" Everin asked, quiet now, but tense as a drawn bowstring.
Elias's eyes burned with green fire. "We ask the host."
---
They marched past startled guards in silver half-masks. Past golden thresholds and towering halls lined with paintings of cities that no longer existed. The deeper they went, the less the guests followed. This was no longer part of the masquerade.
At the highest arch, where stained glass cast fractured dawn-light across the hall—even in darkness—Elias halted before a grand obsidian door veined with blue like lightning sealed in stone.
Two masked sentinels blocked his path.
"I want to see the master of Khyronia," Elias said, his voice cold as iron.
"No one sees the master uninvited," one replied.
"I'm not asking."
With a swift movement, Elias drew the dagger from his belt—just enough to let the moonlight shimmer down its edge.
The guards tensed. But a new voice cut through the tension. Deep. Smooth. Unhurried.
"Let them pass."
The doors opened on their own—like the building itself obeyed.
Beyond them: an opulent, dimly lit chamber blooming with shadows and candlelight. Drapes of indigo silk hung from the ceiling like falling stars. Books lined the curved walls, and in the center stood a figure in black and silver, his face veiled in a mask of old bone and polished gold.
The master of Khyronia.
"You lost something, boy?" he asked, with the calm of a man who already knew the answer.
Elias didn't bow. Didn't blink. "Where is he?"
"I assume," said the masked figure, turning to pour himself a glass of wine, "you're speaking of August Everheart."
Everin tensed beside Elias.
The master's tone was smooth—too smooth. "You speak as if I plucked him from the sky myself."
"If you didn't," Elias said, stepping closer, "then tell me who did. You own this city. You know every secret door, every foreign name. You knew we were coming before we did."
The master took a long sip.
Silence bloomed.
Then he set the goblet down. "There are things in Khyronia that walk beside us, but not with us. Old debts. Old blood. You are not the only one hunted here."
Elias's jaw tightened. "You knew he was in danger."
"I knew he was bait," the master murmured. "But I didn't know the trap would be set so soon."
Everin spoke for the first time, voice low. "Then who laid it?"
The master walked to the edge of the hall, toward a window of shifting glass that seemed to ripple with starlight. "Elarith Vale," he said. "A forgotten place beyond the Ashen Ridge. A prison of elegance. If he's there…"
He looked over his shoulder, something like regret flickering behind the mask.
"…then time is not your friend."
Elias stepped forward, fire rising in his blood. "Then tell us how to get there."
The master turned fully now. "You'll need more than rage, Elias. You'll need maps only the dead remember. Courage deeper than fury. And…"
He tilted his head.
"…a reason he should hold on."
Elias's voice came low, like thunder kept in a bottle. "He will."
The chamber held its breath.
Elias stood motionless, hands still clenched from the storm that had passed through him like a sword too sharp to scream at. The mask-maker — the puppet master — stood by the tall arched window, fingers wrapped loosely around a glass of dark wine that had not once touched his lips.
Caldris Rheyne.
The name itself tasted like velvet over iron.
"He endures," Caldris said again, his voice like rainfall on cold marble. "August bleeds in silence, for a debt that isn't his. But that is the poetry of legacy, is it not? We inherit not only names but enemies."
Elias didn't speak. He didn't need to. His silence pressed against the walls.
Caldris turned, eyes like dying stars. "Raden Everheart August's father ended Sevrin Noctis. That death split Killian in half. He was six. Did you know that?"
Elias's breath caught.
"Since that day, Killian learned to walk without a shadow. He took oaths with blades and brotherhoods. And when he came to lead the Eclipse Elite, do you think he forgot?" A pause. "No. He waited. Patient. Cold. When the masquerade opened its doors, he saw his chance not for Elias, but for vengeance."
Elias finally raised his eyes. "He took August instead."
"Yes. A poetic injustice," Caldris said. "The son of Everheart, suffering in the place of the boy he tried to protect. And what's more cruel—August doesn't even know why."
A long silence.
Then Elias spoke. "Where is he."
Caldris exhaled softly, as though Elias had finally passed a test.
"There is a path," he said. "Not through gates—but beneath them. Beneath the vale, where light does not reach and mercy was never invited."
From the folds of his dark robe, Caldris produced a key. Blackened bone and silver vines etched its surface — runes of old blood and older vows.
He placed it in Elias's hand.
"You'll find him in Elarith Vale. But be warned… that place was not built for heroes."
Elias's jaw set. I'm not one."
The walls of Khyronia's masquerade halls whispered old secrets behind painted masks and polished doors. Torchlight flickered along the mosaicked floor like fire crawling across a battlefield — and in the center, Elias stood like a statue cut from silence.
Behind him, footsteps. Everin.
"You're going after him," Everin said flatly. "I'm coming with you."
Elias didn't look back. "No. You're not."
"You don't get to decide that," Everin snapped, stepping closer. "He's my cousin too. I may not be the one who shares stolen glances with him behind curtains, but I'm not some porcelain ornament either."
Elias turned then, slow and cold.
"Don't flatter yourself," he said, voice low and sharp as broken glass. "You're not made for blood. You're made for silver spoons and safe endings."
Everin's fists curled. "You think I'd just watch him disappear?"
"I think," Elias said, stepping into his space, "if you scratch that golden face of yours, your family will come down on this place like hounds, and August will be twice as lost buried under your consequences."
A pause.
"And I'm not cleaning up after your mistakes. Not tonight."
For a breath, Everin looked like he might swing. There was fury in his eyes, but no focus — only the helpless rage of someone not used to being told no.
"I can help."
"No," Elias said again, colder now. "You'll get in my way."
Silence stretched like a blade between them. One held it by the hilt. The other, by the edge.
Behind them, Caldris Rheyne remained seated, sipping wine with the calm of a man watching children tear each other apart for a dying crown.
"How touching," Caldris mused aloud. "A friend who burns, and a boy who thinks he's fire. But the masquerade's over, gentlemen. Secrets are falling like ash now. One of you has to go. And one of you will be left behind."
Elias turned back to the door.
"If something happens to August," Everin called after him, "and I stayed behind—"
"Then you should die first before he could knew."
And with that, Elias vanished into the hall.
Everin stood still, jaw clenched so tight it trembled.
But he didn't follow.