PART III: The Masquerade
Six years later.
Prince Nex moved through Drakmoor citadel like a ghost—silent, watchful, existing in the spaces between other people's lives. Godmother Lucy had become his entire world.
The woman who had raised the emperor's other children poured all her warmth into the boy everyone else seemed determined to forget.
She remembered what Aurora had whispered—maybe. She told herself it was her imagination. But sometimes, when Nex was silent for too long, she caught herself holding her breath.
Each morning, she would find him already awake, those unsettling sea-blue eyes staring at nothing.
Sarah, the sword master, had become something between teacher and aunt. Even at six, Nex moved with an uncanny grace that made seasoned knights pause and stare.
The Annual Unity Festival arrived with its usual pageantry. Representatives from all three allied kingdoms descended on the citadel, their children in tow for the grand masquerade.
Lucy's fingers trembled as she helped Nex into his costume—black velvet trimmed with silver, and a mask carved like a crow's head with empty eye sockets that seemed to drink in light.
"You look like a mysterious prince from the old stories," she said gently. The prince didn't react. He knew his father had chosen the costume. Lucy's gentle words did nothing to soften it.
The great hall blazed with a thousand candles. Noble children from all three kingdoms darted between the adults like bright birds—golden lions and silver dolphins,
rainbow peacocks and emerald serpents. Nex stood in the shadows, his black costume making
him nearly invisible. He watched his half-siblings charm visiting nobles, watched games he had never been invited to join. The loneliness was a familiar weight in his chest,heavy as armor.
"You're the crow boy."
He turned to find another child watching him—a girl about his age, dressed in white silk
that seemed to glow. Her mask was carved like an owl.
"I'm Mallory. Duke Ravencrest's daughter, from the Western Kingdom." She stepped closer. "My father says I should stay away from you. But I've never been good at doing what I'm told."
Mallory's body shifted, fingers curling tightly around the edge of her sleeve. Her eyes flickered briefly to the crowd behind them, then back to Nex, steady but cautious. A faint crease tightened her brow—an unspoken war between the rules she was raised with and the risk she was taking.
Before he could respond, a group of older children approached.
"Look what crawled out of the dungeons," sneered a boy wearing a golden mask. "The crow and the owl, sitting together like a funeral procession."
"You're that cursed one, aren't you?" another chimed in. "The one whose mother died birthing him. They say you're marked by death itself."
A young man stood near the edge of the great hall, his eyes briefly catching on the peacock mask bobbing above the crowd. His younger brother—loud, spoiled, too quick to follow crueler boys—was among the group circling the boy in the crow mask.
Prince Nex.
Llouch stiffened, recognizing him instantly. The so-called Death Prince.
He wanted to call out, to pull his brother away, but a voice pulled him back to the present.
"I do not think that is a fair trade, young Llouch."
Duke Flamee's presence towered over him—broad-shouldered and regal, his dark skin and bald crown unmistakable, even without the crest he no longer needed to wear. His voice was measured, edged with kindness, but not indulgence.
Llouch straightened instinctively. His uniform bore the crest of House Britta on shoulder, chest, even the hem of his leggings—a silent scream of lineage. "Forgive me, Duke Flamee. I only meant to say... the wool from our farms is of the highest quality. I will hand-pick the fleece myself. And as for compensation—I ask not for a physician, only to send one of your doctors west to teach medicine in the schools of Lavat."
Flamee's eyes narrowed. "The textbooks are worth more than an army. Do I seem that stupid to you, Llouch?"
Llouch flushed. "Forgive me, Duke. I was only saying—if it's a bother to bring a doctor all the way to Lavat, perhaps there is another solution. I will send one of my brothers to your estate until he learns, and you shall have an endless supply of wool—thirty of every hundred bundles we make will go to you, if you wish it."
Llouch's jaw tightened, a shadow flickering across his face. Sending one of his brothers away wasn't a decision he made lightly—after their parents' deaths, each of them was a lifeline for the family.
Yet the hope that their wool might secure some favor pulled at him stronger than the weight of his fear.
Flamee's eyes darkened with a shadow of conflict. "You misunderstand, Llouch. The knowledge of Eastern medicine is not something I—or anyone outside the kingdom of Wu—may freely share. My family's access to these teachings is bound by an ancient debt owed by the old King of Wu to my ancestor, a debt sealed with an oath I swore never to break."
He looked away briefly, the weight of his responsibility evident in his voice. "To send a doctor west without the king's express permission would be to break that oath. I would risk more than just honor—I would risk the fragile trust between our houses and kingdoms."
Llouch swallowed, sensing the magnitude of what he was asking.
After a long pause, Flamee's gaze hardened with resolve. "Very well, young one. I will consider your proposal—but only if I receive permission directly from the King of Wu himself. Send me one of your brothers with the necessary documents. And let us hope it is not that one." His eyes flicked toward the peacock-masked child among the crowd surrounding Prince Nex.
A sharp chill settled between them.
Nex felt the familiar chill of exposure, but Mallory stepped forward.
"Back off," she said quietly. "Unless you want to tell my father on you."
"We're not monsters," she added, her voice carrying across the hall. "We're just different.
PART IV: The Crow and the Owl
"Come on." Mallory's hand found his, warm and steady. "Let's get some air."
They slipped through the crowd like shadows, two small figures in black and white
fleeing judgment. The balcony overlooked the citadel's courtyard, where torches flickered in the evening breeze. They pulled off their masks and sat on the stone ledge,legs dangling over the drop.
Mallory's fingers tightened around the edge of her dress, a flicker of hesitation crossing her eyes before she met Nex's gaze. Deep inside, her mother's voice whispered—an echo that made her shiver for a moment—but out here, beneath the open sky, she let that weight slip away, if only briefly.
His eyes fell on the carved owl now resting between them... ,He thought of what the owl meant to her people: a blessing, a guide through shadowed paths.
He tightened his cloak around him, the dark shape of the crow heavy against his chest—his father's choice, a symbol wrapped in silence and shadow.
They wore their legacies on their faces, but their meanings—hope and omen—were worlds apart.
"Thank you," Nex said quietly. "For what you said in there."
"Don't thank me yet. I might have made things worse for both of us."
He studied her face in the moonlight. She was pretty in a way that made people uncomfortable—all sharp angles and dark eyes, with black hair that seemed to swallow light.
A thin white scar cut through her right eyebrow like a lightning strike. He noticed it but didn't ask—he knew better than anyone how painful it was when people stared at your marks.
"I know who you really are, Prince Nex," she said, breaking the silence. "Everyone does.
They whisper that you bring death wherever you go."
"Maybe they're right." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "My mother died giving birth to me. My father can't stand the sight of me. Even the servants avoid me when I pass."
"And you believe them?"
He shrugged, the movement small and defeated. ""What else am I supposed to believe? I've seen what happens when people get too close to me—like my old butler. My father had him executed."
"They call me the prince of death," he said finally, his voice hollow with acceptance.
"And your name?" he asked suddenly. "Do you know what it means?"
She blinked, caught off guard. "Mallory? No. Why?"
He studied her face for a beat too long. "Nothing. Just wondered."
"They say I'm unlucky too—that I bring misfortune to anyone who gets close. "My own mother avoids me like I'm some bad omen." But you know what?
Every time someone whispers about my 'dark nature' or crosses the street to avoid me,
it just makes me more determined."
"Determined to what?"
"To prove that I'm more than their fears. That I can be something beyond their superstitions." She turned to face him fully. "They want me to be a harbinger of doom? Fine. But I'll be the kind that tears down the things that deserve to fall."
Nex stared at her, seeing a fire in her eyes that he'd never felt in himself. "You're not afraid of what they say?"
"I'm terrified," she admitted. "But I'm more afraid of letting them be right. Of becoming the monster they already think I am just because it's easier than fighting."
"What if we can't fight it? What if we really are what they say?"
"Then we choose what kind of destruction we bring." Her smile was sharp as a blade.
"I'd rather be a storm that clears the way for something better than a slow poison that just... exists."
He envied her certainty, her refusal to accept the weight of other people's expectations.
Part of him wanted to catch that fire, but it felt safer to accept what everyone already knew about him.
"And you think we can choose?"
"I think we have to try. Because if we don't, then everyone who ever called us monsters will be right." She paused, studying his face. "You've already given up, haven't you?"
The question hit him like a physical blow because it was true. "It's easier than fighting a war I can't win."
"Maybe. But I'd rather go down swinging than just... fade away." She stood, brushing dust from her white dress. "I won't let them decide what I am. And someday, when I'm strong enough, I'll make them regret ever thinking they could."
Nex stared at her, the fire in her eyes both unfamiliar and incomprehensible.
Her courage was something he couldn't quite grasp—not weakness, but a fierce defiance that made him feel both unsettled and oddly hopeful. He wondered if he would ever have that kind of strength, or if he was destined only to carry the weight of his silence.
"What if I'm not strong enough to be like you?" The question slipped out before he could stop it.
"Then stay as you are. But don't expect me to do the same." Her voice softened slightly.
"I can't save you from what you think you are, Nex. But I won't let you drag me down with you either."
For the first time in his life, someone was looking at him without pity or fear—but also without the desperate need for him to be something he wasn't. She saw his resignation and wasn't trying to change it.
As the night wore on, they talked about everything and nothing—loneliness, expectations, and the weight of other people's fears. They shared stories of the strange, even humorous lengths people went to avoid them.
"Will I see you again?" he asked as the party began to wind down.
"Of course. We're bound now, you and I. The crow and the owl, defying nature itself."
He didn't answer. Just watched a moth fling itself into a torch's flame again and again.
Then he smirked—small, bitter.
Not because she was wrong.
But because she might be right, and it wouldn't matter.
When her family's carriage finally rolled away into the darkness, Nex stood at the palace gates long after the lights had disappeared. Lucy found him there an hour later, still in his crow costume, still watching the empty road.
"Come inside, little prince. The night air is cold."
As they walked back toward the citadel, the same crow that had witnessed his mother's final breaths settled atop the highest tower, its eyes reflecting the dying torchlight. Some bargains took years to fulfill. Some debts were passed down through generations.
Natural enemies, brought together by shared loneliness and the stubborn hope that destiny could be defied.
In the servants' quarters, the head maid who had attended Aurora's final moments whispered a prayer.
The secret she might carry—if it truly was a secret and not just her imagination—would die with her. Some names were too precious to share.
The game was far from over.