Page 22 of The Veil of Hollow Gods

She pauses, deciding whether or not I’m worth explaining to. "Some Graceborns are amenable to practicing our skills on lower lords before we’re assigned a king. And some lords are more…" She pauses, searching for the right word. "More demanding than others."

We drift farther from the crowd to a darkened corner.

"Emile, I’m completely out of my depth with all of this," I admit, gesturing to the crowd.

"But as I understand it, if you’re both willing…

" I let the sentence fade away. "I’m not judging you. But you should never have to do anything against your will. You know that, don’t you? ?"

She purses her lips at me. "Of course I know that. I know how to outmaneuver men like Sorrell. It’s what Graceborns are made to do. "

I nod, watching her features shift.

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t end things with Sorrell. He’d take his aggression out on his Lady."

I take a moment before responding.

Emile shakes her head. "You don’t understand what a Graceborn does, Amara. And that’s all right. Maybe you aren’t meant to."

She drifts away, toward the crowd, letting them swallow her up .

I catch sight of Ashera with the Shrouded King—smiling, lowering her lashes just so.

I thought Graceborn were trained to please men. To be winsome and fawning while also confident. But it seems they were trained how to break and bend and disappear under the weight of men’s corruption.

It makes me nauseous.

I continue walking, skimming the molding along the walls with my fingertips, watching the shadows play as the light shifts.

From the crowd, Lorien approaches, his shining white coat billowing out behind him like some great train. He smiles at me, and my knees wobble under my dress.

He is extremely beautiful. But now that I’ve seen the other kings, I know he’s using that beauty for some greater ploy. There’s a reason for it, just like all the others.

I just don’t know what yet.

"Amara," he whispers my name like a prayer, like it’s sacred, before offering me his arm.

I take it, and he aims us for the crowd.

Wonderful.

The nobles and wardens part before him, giving us a wide berth.

"How are you enjoying the ball so far?"

My shoulders droop with the weight of how much I want to tell him that he and this ball can both get fucked. "It’s lovely," I say sweetly, conjuring that charisma Ashera seems to keep tapped into at all times.

"I tried to offer you my cloak before, but you were taken to the next king so quickly. Would you like it now?"

I turn to him, meeting his gaze. "What for?"

He beams at me, a blinding display of sparkling teeth. "Seems you’re adjusting quite well, then. "

I say nothing.

"I wonder. Would you care to share a dance with me?"

I hold his gaze. "There isn’t any music," I answer.

And that perfect mask of his slips the slightest fraction. Beneath the charm and effervescent beauty lies another king entirely.

I only catch a fleeting glimpse but it’s enough to raise the small hairs on my neck and put a pit of dread in the hollow of my stomach.

"Shame then." He removes my hand from his arm with care, but a remnant of his touch lingers. "I suppose I’ll leave you to make your rounds, then." He disappears into the crowd, and I breathe easier for it.

The moment he leaves my side, the crowd closes in around me.

My breaths become shallow, but I make my way out, head high, teeth firmly clamped on the inside of my cheeks.

"You don’t like the attention, do you?" the Withered King, the king I’d first presented to, the one I said was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, asks, appearing next to me from somewhere unseen.

"I do not, no."

I can’t help staring because, with his power tamped down, I see beyond the decay, to the impossibly strong god-king beneath.

"Crowds don’t seem to sit well with you either."

"That’s true," I say as he puts a regal hand on my forearm, guiding it to his arm.

He takes the place of all the others who’ve guided me around this ridiculous room tonight.

"You know, some enter for the adoration. For the feeling of all those eyes on them, knowing that those eyes want what they have. "

I can’t imagine that.

"Some do it because they truly believe in the Maiden. What she will do for our kind."

I nod, unsure what to say to the silver-eyed king.

"But you…" He pauses to stare down at me, the weight of that gaze boring into me like a thousand stars. "I can’t quite glean why you’re here." Pressure, deep and terrible, weighs on the top of my head. As if he’s trying to pry back my skull. "Ah, there it is. You’re here in place of another."

My breath stumbles in my chest. "That’s not any of your business," I hiss and try my damnedest to close my skull back up.

The king lets out a slow chuckle. "Little Maiden, throwing all her might at an ageless being, thinking she’ll make one mote of difference."

I pull my arm from his, and he stops doing whatever caused that awful sensation.

"Better?" he asks.

"Much. Don’t you know it’s rude to crack open people’s minds?"

He stares at me, silver gaze glowing brighter by the second until I finally have to look away. "Of course. But you’re the first to notice, let alone complain."

He continues scrutinizing me, and I continue to ignore it, keeping my gaze ahead.

"Dance with me," he murmurs.

I blink, the words catching me off guard. "What is it with you kings and dancing to silence?"

His smile deepens, and the weight of his silver gaze presses against me. "For some of us, silence is a symphony."

I balk as he redirects toward the crowd. "But perhaps somewhere less…suffocating?"

He nods, leading me to a quieter corner. The king raises my arm with quiet authority. "Only the Graceborns know the steps. Just follow my lead."

So I do. Except I can’t follow what I can’t see, and our bodies are so close, I can’t see his feet. Instead, I just take tiny steps in no particular direction and lean when he leans.

"There! Now you’ve got it."

I’d beg to differ, but as long as the Withered King is happy, I suppose.

He spins me this way and that, a silent symphony only he hears guiding the movement. Until someone taps him on the shoulder.

"May I cut in?"

He’s asking the Withered King, I know it, but the way Tyr looks at me, the way those words land on my skin?—

"Certainly, if the lady agrees."

Both kings look at me.

And then?—

Then I hear it.

The lilting, swaying music playing somewhere and everywhere. It’s slow but entrancing, swelling with strings and harmonies, and I only have one answer.

"Yes."

Tyr sweeps me off my feet and into his arms.

The Withered King is a distant memory in the Shadow King’s arms.

And I am following Tyr’s steps with no need to count or concentrate. The moves are simply there, as if I’ve always known them.

"Why would you dance with him?" his voice cuts through the melody like a blade.

I blink up at him, thrown by the sudden shift. "Because he asked. "

His jaw tightens, grip on my waist firming. "And is that all it takes for you? A polite invitation?"

Heat rises in my chest. "Whatever game you’re playing, I’m not interested. I agreed to dance, not to be interrogated, Tyr. I hope my meaning is clear."

Tyr’s grip on my waist tightens again as the music swells, the strings rising to a fevered, stuttering pitch.

The space between beats draws out, making me feel suspended, movements fluid almost hypnotic.

A breath of hesitation before the next step?—

And then the room pulls me back into the rhythm.

My thoughts stumble over his words, replaying his anger. Reliving it snapping out like a whip once more.

I push it away, turning my attention to the room, the crowd.

The world beyond his touch.

And then I see it.

The floor shifts beneath me—or perhaps it’s the shadows playing tricks again.

A stage rises from the far end of the ballroom, the performers illuminated in a ghostly glow.

They’re not human, or at least, not entirely.

Their bodies twist and spin in impossible ways, faces hidden behind grotesque masks.

The crowd watches, entranced, as though under a spell.

I should find it beautiful. Graceful.

Instead, my stomach twists at the sight of them, their masks staring blankly out at the crowd. The gray and black checkers of their impossibly tight costumes highlight the way their movements snap and shift—more like something being torn apart than a dance.

They move too perfectly, too precisely, as though pulled by unseen strings. Their masks erase all traces of humanity, yet their movements pulse with a mockery of life—too perfect, too precise. Like something pretending to be alive.

Tyr pulls me closer, his hand firm against my back. "You’re distracted."

I meet his gaze. "Your games and spells don’t interest me, Tyr. Not anymore."

He smirks, but his eyes don’t match the expression. "Then let me show you something more interesting."

The music shifts, a low, aching wail that draws my attention back to the stage. Another slab rises from the center of the room—a great stone platform where there was nothing before—revealing a band of corpse minstrels.

Four musicians dressed in faded, tattered finery. Their instruments look as though they’ve been pulled from graves—violins carved from bleached bone; a cello strung with shimmering silver threads.

The music swells with aching beauty, notes occasionally bending and shivering like the instruments themselves are alive.

Behind them stand what I can only call glass sirens.

Singers veiled in gauzy, iridescent fabrics. Their voices carry impossible harmonies, but their faces seem warped beneath the veils, like they’re not entirely human.

As they sing in a language I don’t understand, their shadows writhe independently. The monsters beneath the elegance.

And it’s all a spectacle. A beautiful, strange, off-putting show.

But for whom?

To show the other kings how powerful or magical or wealthy Tyr is?

Or something else.

I don’t know .

My gaze finds his, watching me as I take in his unholy creations.

"I hope you at least pay them well."

His lips lift into a smile, but that mirrored gaze plows into me. "You feign displeasure so effectively I wonder if I’ll recognize when I eventually have pleased you."

My heart stutters, and suddenly, the world is reduced to the space between our lips.

I stare at his, perfectly shaped, made for kissing.

The air thickens with possibility. Tension crackles along my spine.

His hand travels up my arm, to the lace along my neck, my jaw.

He traces a single finger over my lips.

"Careful, Amara. Keep looking at me like that, and I might just forget my restraint."

I suck in a breath, startled, and mentally fortify the wall between us.