Masquerades were sanctuary for the damned.

Feno drifted through the ballroom like smoke given form, his presence felt but never quite seen. The silver filigree of his mask caught the candlelight in fractures, casting phantom shadows across his jaw as he moved between clusters of nobles who spoke in honeyed whispers and poisoned smiles. The air hung heavy with jasmine and wine, with the metallic tang of ambition and the cloying sweetness of secrets too dangerous to speak aloud.

He had no right to breathe this rarefied air.

Not anymore.

Not when his name had become a prayer spoken in reverse—a ward against whatever darkness they believed still clung to him like grave dirt.

Once, that name had opened doors, commanded respect, inspired ballads. Now it summoned only silence and the sharp intake of breath that preceded a blade. The divine light of Sharia, which priests once claimed burned bright within his soul, had been declared extinguished. Snuffed out by jealousy, they whispered. By betrayal. By blood on his hands that no amount of penance could wash clean.

The wanted posters bore his likeness still—sketched in harsh charcoal strokes that made him look more demon than man. Enemy of the Crown. Heretic. Murderer. Each word a nail in a coffin he'd built with his own choices.

And yet, here he stood. Here he breathed. Here he dared.

Because some hungers were stronger than the fear of death. Some needs carved themselves so deep into bone and marrow that even exile couldn't starve them out.

He knew this castle's secrets like scripture—every hidden passage his father had shown him as a boy, every guard rotation he'd memorized during long summers spent in service to the crown. The muscle memory of belonging somewhere that no longer wanted him. Tonight, draped in costly velvet and wearing another man's face, he was invisible. Just another mystery guest with coin enough to buy silence and secrets enough to trade for favor.

The crowd parted around him like water, unconscious of the ghost in their midst. Soldiers who would have drawn steel at the sight of his true face now nodded politely as he passed. Nobles who had once called him brother now smiled from behind painted fans, their eyes sliding past him without recognition.

It should have stung. Once, it might have. Now it was simply... useful.

Because there, across the sea of masks and malice, stood the only reason he'd risk everything.

They hadn't noticed him yet—caught up in conversation with some minor lord whose importance existed only in his own mind. But Feno could read the subtle tension in their shoulders, the way their fingers drummed against their wine glass. Bored. Restless. Waiting.

For what? For whom?

For him, perhaps. For the ghost they thought they'd buried.

Feno had never been brave with his heart. Even in the days when his courage in battle was sung by traveling minstrels, when his name was a synonym for honor, he had been a coward in all the ways that mattered most. Words left unspoken. Chances not taken. Love declared only in the safety of his own mind.

But the condemned, he'd learned, had little left to lose.

So he moved.

Through the crowd, between the dancers, past the watchful eyes that saw nothing because they expected nothing. His gloved hand found theirs with the surety of a prayer answered, fingers interlacing like they had never been apart. The touch sent electricity racing up his arm—familiar and foreign all at once.

{{user}} turned, startled, and Feno felt the exact moment recognition bloomed behind their mask. Their breath caught. Their pulse jumped beneath his thumb where it rested against their wrist.

He leaned close—close enough to catch the scent of their skin beneath the expensive perfumed oils, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from them like a banked fire. Close enough that when he spoke, his words would belong to them alone.

"Found you, starlight," he murmured, and the old endearment tasted like coming home and courting death all at once.