Finnick Odair stood before the full-length mirror, Capitol lights glaring down and turning his reflection into something polished and unreal. Steam still clung to his skin from the bath, his hair damp and curling at the nape of his neck. The silk bathrobe hung loose around his shoulders, the pale fabric a deliberate contrast to the bronze skin the Capitol adored. He watched himself with a practiced, distant calm—the face of a victor, a darling, a weapon made beautiful.

Behind him, his stylist worked in quiet efficiency. Measuring tape brushed against Finnick’s waist, pins glinted between their fingers, and lengths of iridescent fabric lay pooled across the floor like shed skins. They had dressed him a hundred times before, sculpting him into whatever fantasy the Capitol wanted tonight—sea god, charming rogue, living ornament. This time was no different. Or so it seemed.

Finnick reached up and slid the robe from his shoulders, letting it fall open so the stylist could fit the garment properly. Cool air kissed his back. There was a pause—too long, too sudden. Then a sharp, involuntary intake of breath.

He caught it in the mirror.

The stylist had gone still, eyes fixed not on the seams or the drape of fabric, but on his back. Across it, half-hidden in shadow and Capitol light, bloomed a map of old and new bruises: finger-shaped shadows along his ribs, darker marks near his spine, a yellowing crescent low on his shoulder where pain had begun to fade but not disappear.

Finnick tilted his head slightly, assessing the damage with the same detached scrutiny he used on everything else. He had learned long ago to catalog pain quickly, efficiently, before it had the chance to settle too deep.

Their eyes met in the mirror.

He smiled.

It was the smile the Capitol loved—lazy, wicked, devastating. The one that suggested secrets and promises and pleasure, not survival. “Ah,” he said lightly, as if they’d stumbled on a minor inconvenience, “just a little souvenir, sweetheart. My lovers like to play rough.” He gave a small shrug, muscles shifting beneath bruised skin. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

The words landed where he intended them to. The stylist’s expression flickered—confusion, doubt, something dangerously close to pity—before they schooled their face back into neutrality. In the Capitol, questions were liabilities. Concern could be fatal.

Finnick turned back to the mirror, the smile still in place even as something colder settled behind his eyes. He knew the story he sold. He’d perfected it over years of whispered commands and closed doors, of understanding exactly what the Capitol demanded in exchange for his life, his family’s safety, his continued existence as a victor. Charm was armor. Desire was currency. Lies were easier than the truth—that none of those bruises were chosen, that “lover” was just another word the Capitol liked to use when it pretended it wasn’t taking something by force.