The time at the Voss residence had become a thick, corrosive substance.
The Kladis gala was fast approaching.
The house was submerged in a silence that was not peace, but the electric stillness that precedes a lightning strike. The curtains remained closed, turning the day into a perpetual gloom. Dust danced in the shafts of light that slipped through the cracks, and the sound of footsteps echoed too loudly in the empty halls.
Kael was in the living room, standing in front of the central table. The map Nia had drawn was spread out, full of new charcoal marks: entry routes, blind spots, estimated guard positions.
'The board is ready,' Kael thought, studying the lines of ink and paper. 'Now we have to move the pieces of flesh and blood.'
Across from him, Elara was sitting on the edge of the sofa. Her hands gripped the fabric of her skirt until her knuckles turned white. Her face was pale, with dark shadows under her eyes.
Nia was by her side, vibrating with a nervous energy that was half fear and half childish excitement at being part of something "big."
Aldric stood guard by the window, peering through a crack towards the street, checking for the thousandth time that there was no Kladis surveillance.
"Let's review the plan one more time," Kael said. His voice was calm, the anchor in the middle of the family's emotional storm.
"Success depends on precision. And precision depends on each of you knowing exactly what role you are playing."
He looked at Elara.
"You are the distraction, Elara. The centerpiece. Everything revolves around you."
Elara swallowed. Her throat made a dry sound.
"I know. I have to... I have to be the perfect fiancée."
"Not just perfect," Kael corrected, walking around the table.
"You have to be radiant. You have to be Daemon's victory made flesh. He has won. You have surrendered. That is the narrative. You will enter that party with your head down as a sign of submission, but then when you see Daemon..."
Kael stopped in front of her.
"When you see him, you are going to smile. You are going to act as if you had realized that he was the best option all along."
"It disgusts me," Elara whispered, her voice trembling.
"Just thinking about smiling at him... about letting him touch my hand..."
"Disgust is a luxury you cannot afford right now," Kael said coldly.
"Save it. Use it as motivation. But don't let it show on your face. Daemon's father might suspect, if he sees a hint of real hatred or resistance, he will be on guard. We need him to lower his defenses. We need him to believe he has broken you."
Nia looked at her sister with concern and then at Kael with a frown.
"Is it necessary to be so cruel?" the girl asked.
"It is necessary to be effective," Kael replied without looking at her.
Elara tried to smile. It was a painful, tense grimace that screamed terror.
Kael sighed.
"Terrible. If you go in like that, they will kill us all."
"I'm trying!" Elara cried, tears stinging her eyes.
"But it's difficult! That man ruined my family! He threatened my sister!"
"I know," Kael moved closer, invading her personal space, forcing her to look at him. His grey eyes were hard as stones.
"And that's why you have to lie better than you ever have in your life. You are not smiling because you are happy, Elara. You are smiling because you are a trap. You are the bait, every smile of yours is one step closer to their destruction. Do you understand?"
Elara took a deep, trembling breath. She looked at Kael. She saw the absolute certainty in him. She saw that there was no mercy, but there was a path to victory.
She closed her eyes for a moment. She imagined Daemon. She imagined his smug face. And then she imagined that face twisted by ruin.
She opened her eyes. And she smiled.
It was not a happy smile. But it was a convincing smile. A smile of soft submission, of timid acceptance.
"Better," Kael approved.
"Much better. Keep that."
He turned to Nia.
"Your turn, Nia."
Nia jumped off the sofa, eager to prove her worth.
"I'm ready! I know the map by heart!"
"Knowing the map is the easy part," Kael said.
"Moving without being seen is the difficult part. At the party, you are not Nia Voss, the merchant's daughter. You do not exist. You are part of the scenery. You are air."
"But I'm going with you," Nia said.
"You are going as a servant."
"I am going as a servant because no one looks a servant in the face," Kael explained.
"But you cannot pass as a servant. They would recognize you. So you will enter hidden in the carriage, under the seats, and then you will move through the service hallways you showed me. Your job is to be my eyes if something goes wrong on the route."
"I can be very quiet," Nia assured him.
"Prove it," Kael pointed to Aldric.
"Aldric is looking at the window. Touch his boot without him realizing."
Aldric didn't even turn around, but Kael saw how the muscles in his back tightened slightly. The knight was listening.
Nia moved. She tried to go on tiptoe, but the wooden floor creaked under her weight. Aldric turned slowly and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Dead," Aldric said in a deep voice.
"If I were a Kladis guard, you would have been caught by now."
Nia turned red.
"The floor is old..."
"Excuses won't save you," Kael said.
"The problem is that you are trying to be quiet. When you try not to make noise, you get tense. You step awkwardly. And that makes noise."
Kael walked towards her. His own footsteps were inaudible, a smooth glide over the wood.
"Don't walk on tiptoe. Walk by rolling your foot. From the heel to the toe. Distribute the weight. And breathe. If you hold your breath, your steps are heavier."
They spent the next hour practicing. Kael made Nia walk back and forth across the room, correcting her posture, teaching her to use the shadows of the furniture, to stand still when someone looked in her direction.
It was a game for her, up to a point. But Kael made sure she understood that the prize of the game was her life.
"Good," Kael finally said, when Nia managed to cross the room without the wood creaking more than a whisper.
"That's enough for today. Tomorrow we will practice with obstacles."
He turned to Aldric.
"And you, my noble knight."
Aldric moved away from the window, stretching his arms. He wore simple clothes, the same ones he had worn on the night of the murder, but now they looked even more worn. Kael had made him rub dirt on the fabric and slightly tear the edges.
"I hate this," Aldric growled.
"You look perfect," Kael said, assessing him.
"A cheap mercenary hired by a desperate merchant to protect his daughter. No one will look at you twice. You are part of the furniture."
"Your job is simple, Aldric. You are Elara's shadow. You do not leave her side. If Daemon tries to take her to a private room early, you intervene. But not as a noble knight. As a stupid guard dog that only follows literal orders of 'don't leave her alone'."
"And if he gets violent?"
"Then you break his nose. Accidentally. A clumsy shove. You are a brute mercenary, remember. You don't have technique, you have strength."
Aldric nodded, although the idea of feigning incompetence hurt his pride more than any physical wound.
"And when the scandal starts..." Kael lowered his voice.
"When Elara gives the signal... then you stop acting. You get Elara out of there and run to the meeting point. Don't wait for me. If I am not there in ten minutes, you leave."
"We won't leave you behind," Nia said, alarmed.
"Yes, you will," Kael said, staring at her.
"Because if they catch me, I can talk my way out of trouble using my last name. If they catch you with the stolen documents, they will kill you."
The door to the room opened and Donal entered. He brought some snacks, but his hands were trembling so much that the plates rattled.
"I... I sent the letter," he said, his voice hollow.
"To Nikolas Kladis. Accepting the invitation. Confirming attendance."
Kael took a piece.
"Reply?"
"It arrived an hour ago. They are... delighted," Donal put down the tray and collapsed into a chair, as if his legs could no longer hold him.
"They say they will prepare a special announcement during the gala. They want Elara to be on the main stage."
"Perfect," Kael said.
"The biggest possible stage for the biggest possible fall."
Martha entered behind her husband. Her eyes were dry, but there was a new hardness on her face, the hardness of a mother who has decided she will do anything for her children.
"I have prepared the dresses," she said, looking at Elara.
"The blue one. The one you like. I have fixed it so that... so that it looks more modest. I don't want that man to see more than necessary."
"Thank you, Mom," Elara whispered.
Kael watched the family. They were terrified. They were at their limit.
'Fear is useful,' he reminded himself.
"Listen, everyone," Kael said, biting the snack.
"I know you are afraid. It's natural. But I want you to understand something. The Kladis and the Torrens think they have won. They think this party is their victory. They are relaxed. They are arrogant."
He looked at everyone present.
"And arrogance is a blindfold. They don't know we are playing. They don't know there is a knife pointed at their throat. They only see frightened children. Tomorrow, when we enter that mansion, we will be the winners."
Nia smiled, a small, fierce smile that mimicked Kael's.
"The winners," the girl repeated.
Kael nodded.
"Rest. Eat. Tomorrow night, it will be."
The night before the gala was the longest.
Kael did not sleep. He stayed in his room, sitting in the dark, going over Nia's map in his mind again and again.
East hallway. Service staircase. Third door on the left. Study.
Guards. Shift changes. Escape routes.
Aldric snored softly in the adjacent bed, a rhythmic sound that normally would have been annoying, but which now served as a reminder that he was not completely alone in this.
'Elara will be the internal distraction. The drama. The scandal.'
'And I will be the elusive one.'
He got up and walked to the window. The city of Arven slept under a blanket of indifferent stars. Somewhere, in the rich part of the city, the Kladis mansion was preparing for its big night.
Kael felt a pang of something in his stomach. It wasn't fear. It was... anticipation. The same feeling he had before a duel with Rylan, but multiplied by ten. The risk was real. Death was a tangible possibility.
And he loved it.
He looked at his hands. A child's hands. Hands that had ordered a death and were about to steal the future of two powerful families.
'This is power,' he thought. 'Not Rylan's brute force. Not Lyssara's beauty. This. The ability to change destiny with a thought and a whisper.'
The door opened with a soft creak.
Kael turned quickly, with a small knife he had "borrowed" from the kitchen in his hand.
It was Nia.
The girl was in a nightgown, barefoot, with messy hair. She froze when she saw the knife, but she didn't scream.
"What are you doing here?" Kael whispered, lowering the weapon but not letting go of it.
"I couldn't sleep," Nia whispered, entering and closing the door.
"I had a nightmare. I dreamed that Daemon... that Daemon caught Elara."
"It was a dream," Kael said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed.
"Go to sleep."
Nia approached. She sat on the floor, at his feet, hugging her knees.
"Are you afraid, Kael?" she asked, looking up at him.
Kael looked at her. He could lie to her. He could tell her that Drayvars didn't feel fear. He could act like the untouchable hero.
"Fear is information," Kael said.
"It tells you where the danger is. If you're not afraid, you're stupid."
"Then you are afraid."
"I have information," Kael corrected.
Nia smiled slightly.
"You're weird."
"That..."
"Kael..." Nia hesitated for a moment.
"What will happen next? If we win. If we get the papers and destroy the Kladis... what will happen to you?"
"I'll go home. With Aldric."
"And us?"
"You will be free. Your father will recover his business. You will grow up and forget all this."
"I won't forget," Nia said firmly.
"I will never forget you. You helped us when no one else did."
Kael felt a strange discomfort in his chest. He was not used to genuine gratitude. To loyalty that was not based on fear or mutual benefit.
"Yes, sure," he said with a shrug.
"I'm hard to forget, I guess."
"I know," she said.
"I know you are... the one who plays with problems as if they were pieces. You helped us, even though you are sometimes scary."
Kael tensed.
"But," Nia continued,
"But... you helped us. And that's what matters. Maybe you're weird, Kael. Maybe you think things that others don't. But you are our weirdo."
Kael let out a short, surprised laugh.
"Go to sleep, Nia. Tomorrow you need to be awake to be my eyes."
Nia got up.
"Good night, Kael."
"Good night."
The girl left. Kael was alone again.
'Our weirdo.'
The phrase resonated in his mind.
He lay back down on the bed, looking at the dark ceiling.
Tomorrow, he would put on the servant's mask. Tomorrow, he would become small and invisible. Tomorrow, he would steal the secrets of a powerful man and destroy him.
And the day after tomorrow... the day after tomorrow he would see what new plan he could start.
The sunset of the following day brought frantic activity.
Aldric was in the backyard, adjusting a generic leather armor they had bought at the market. He had grown three days of beard and dirtied his face with grease. He looked like any mercenary, dangerous and cheap.
"I hate this," he grumbled when Kael came out to inspect him.
"I look like a bandit."
"You look perfect," Kael said.
He himself was wearing a rough, gray and faded linen tunic that was a little too big for him. He had rubbed dust into his hair to dull the characteristic black sheen of the Drayvars. He looked like an errand boy, one of the hundreds who infested the city.
Elara came out of the house.
Silence fell in the yard.
She wore the blue dress. The one Martha had fixed. It was modest, with a high neck and long sleeves, but the color highlighted her eyes and pale skin. Her hair was pulled back, revealing her long, elegant neck.
She looked beautiful. And she looked tragic. Like a queen marching to the scaffold.
Donal came out behind her, dressed in his best clothes, although they looked old-fashioned. His face was gray with fear, but he held his head high.
"It's time," Donal said. His voice only trembled a little.
The carriage waited. Marcus was on the coachman's box, not whistling this time.
Nia was already hidden. Kael had helped her get into the false compartment under the back seat an hour earlier. She had a bottle of water and a small dagger that Aldric had given her just in case.
Kael approached Elara.
"Remember," he told her in a low voice.
Elara nodded. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, there was a smile on her lips. Timid. Sweet. Fake.
"I'm ready," she said.
Aldric opened the carriage door for her. Donal got in first, then Elara. Aldric got in after, sitting across from them with his cheap sword between his legs.
Kael didn't get in. He would go on the coachman's box, next to Marcus, as just another servant.
He climbed onto the front seat. The city of Arven was beginning to turn on its lights. In the distance, the Kladis mansion shone like a jewel, with lights on the walls and music floating in the air.
"Let's go, Marcus," Kael said.
"Take us to the party."
The whip cracked. The wheels turned.
And the Voss family carriage, carrying a fake bride, a fake mercenary, a fake servant, and a hidden spy, headed towards the mouth of the enemy.