Chapter 18: Masks and Monsters
The Vantier executive boardroom was unusually quiet.
Twelve high-backed chairs stood around the obsidian table. Eleven were filled. Aria stood at the head — alone, deliberate, in tailored black and blood-red silk. A symbol of control.
Damien stood guard at the doors.
Kestrel, cloaked and quiet, leaned in the shadows.
And in Aria's hand?
Her father's soul crystal — tucked into her jacket pocket like a loaded weapon.
"This meeting wasn't optional," Aria began, her voice cold and even. "You all received my summons."
Silence.
Then a throat cleared.
It was Chancellor Brynn, the most senior board member — all silver hair, polite smiles, and veiled condescension. "You've made quite the dramatic return, Miss Vantier. Public statements. Executive firings. Security sweeps. Now this."
"This is called housecleaning," Aria said. "And we're far from done."
Across the table, Executive Tilda Ren raised an eyebrow. "You think a purge will stabilize the company?"
"I don't want stability," Aria replied. "I want truth."
She placed a small device on the table.
It pulsed once — neutralizing every charm and enchantment in the room.
No glamours. No illusions. No hidden spells.
"What the hell is that?" muttered someone.
Aria answered, "A binding veil disruptor. Courtesy of Damien's team. Every secret you carry — magical or mundane — is about to bleed through."
A low ripple of anxiety moved through the room.
Then something flickered.
At the far right of the table — where Board Member Elias Crowne sat — the air shimmered.
And his face began to change.
The charm peeled back.
And revealed skin like glass, eyes black as ink.
Hollow.
Damien was on him in a blink, blade drawn.
But Aria held up a hand.
"No."
She stared at the creature wearing Elias's name.
"You infiltrated the board five years ago. Replaced the real Crowne. You helped Rhys poison my father."
The Hollow didn't respond. Just smiled.
Aria stepped closer, her eyes burning.
"You thought I wouldn't see through you. You thought I was still the girl hiding behind my father's desk."
She drew a slender obsidian dagger — carved from Faerondel stone.
The Hollow's smile faltered.
"This is a cleansing blade," she whispered. "Once I use it, your name will never return to the Veil."
She stabbed him through the chest.
The Hollow screamed — a terrible, echoing cry that wasn't human.
Then he burned into ash.
Gasps and shocked silence.
Tilda stood sharply. "You brought a weapon into a board meeting?!"
Aria turned to her. "I brought justice."
Chancellor Brynn rose slowly. "And how many more of us do you plan to accuse?"
Aria's gaze sharpened. "Just the ones who lied about my mother."
The room froze.
Brynn blinked. "Your mother?"
"Yes," Aria said. "She disappeared when I was ten. You told me she was unstable. That she ran. But you knew she didn't."
Tilda's lips parted. "Aria…"
"You covered it up. Why?"
Nobody answered.
So she pulled out a second item from her coat pocket.
A torn photo.
It showed a woman in Vantier blue, standing in the same Iceland facility they'd just escaped — dated only months before her supposed disappearance.
"My mother was in the breach project. She wasn't insane — she was silenced."
Kestrel stepped forward from the shadows.
"I cross-checked voice records. A woman matching her vocal profile transmitted a distress signal from Site Zero three days before it was buried."
Brynn sat down.
He looked tired now.
Old.
Defeated.
"She begged your father not to go through with the sealing," he said quietly. "Said the Hollow would retaliate."
"She was right," Aria whispered.
Brynn nodded. "She went back anyway. Alone. To shut the portal manually. The backlash—"
"—Tore her apart?" Aria finished. "Or did you just say that because you didn't want to keep looking?"
"No one wanted to find her body," Tilda murmured. "Not after what happened."
Aria stepped closer.
Then threw the photo onto the table.
"That was taken months later," she said. "You lied. All of you."
A long silence.
Then Aria said, cold as a blade:
"Effective immediately, I'm restructuring this board."
Gasps again.
Tilda protested. "That requires full majority—"
"I already have it," Aria said.
She pulled a sealed envelope from her bag.
Inside: her father's original share directive, encoded with his blood seal — granting her not just inheritance, but executive override.
Brynn exhaled. "You found the last testament."
"No," she said. "It found me."
She turned to Kestrel.
"Remove everyone with falsified disclosures from the building. Quietly. No press."
Kestrel nodded.
Several members paled.
As the room emptied, Damien came to stand beside her.
"You didn't just win," he said softly. "You turned the whole game on its head."
Aria didn't smile.
She stared down at the photograph of her mother.
And whispered,
"Then let's start playing for real."