Chapter 8 _Chains and Velvet

The high collar of the ceremonial velvet uniform was a chokehold disguised as honor. A heavy gold braid coiled around my neck, holding my head at a rigid angle, while stiff, bone-lined fabric encased my chest. It pressed the canvas binder beneath my bruised ribs with every shallow breath I managed to draw.

​I couldn’t feel three fingers on my right hand. I had spent forty-five minutes before the banquet wedging a heavy silver fork into my palm, testing for sensation until the skin bled, but the numbness remained solid and cold. I had dragged my formal glove over the dead limb, pulling the white kidskin tight so no one would see the waxy, bruised flesh beneath.

​The Great Hall of the Academy was suffocating. Hundreds of candles flickered in overhead wrought-iron chandeliers, dripping wax onto the marble floors below. High-ranking nobles, decorated generals, and ambition-blinded cadets laughed over roast game and spiced wine. To them, the upcoming winter expedition to Mount Kosciuszko was a glorious display of imperial reach.

​To me, it was a graveyard. And I was already half-buried.

​"A brilliant performance at yesterday’s tactical briefing, Cadence Officer Tarni," Lord Malakor said, leaning across the table with a sleek, oily smile. His glass of amber spirit sloshed over his greasy knuckles. "The High Council was thoroughly impressed by your ruthless efficiency. They say you lead like a man twice your age."

​"The Council honors me, My Lord," I replied. My voice was a calibrated blade smooth, flat, and sharp enough to deter further small talk.

​I didn’t turn my head, but I felt the weight of a gaze that was far more dangerous than Malakor’s shallow flattery.

​Directly across the long, flower-draped table sat Commander Vance.

​He didn't wear the high-collared velvet required of junior officers. Vance wore dark, unadorned military wool, stripped of gold braid, as if the grand tradition of the imperial court was beneath his notice. He paid no attention to the duchess whispering in his ear, nor to the high general at his right who was aggressively lecturing him on supply lines.

​Vance sat back, one hand rested lazily on the table, long fingers tracing the rim of his crystal wine glass. Squeak. Squeak. The low, rhythmic sound was lost to the room’s chatter, but to me, it sounded like a slow fuse burning toward powder.

​His dark eyes were fixed entirely on me.

​He hadn't stopped looking at me since I walked through the heavy double doors. Every time I lifted my left hand to sip watered wine, his eyes followed the movement. Every time my chest hit the wall of stiff velvet and I faltered in my breath, his jaw clenched slightly, a terrible, knowing amusement glittering in his gaze.

​He knew my hand was dead inside the glove. He knew the tonic he had given me was poisoning my veins. He knew I was standing in a room full of wolves, bleeding internally, pretending to be a predator.

​"You look tense, Cadence Officer," Malakor pressed, his breath smelling of sour wine as he leaned closer. "Surely the pressure of the vanguard isn't getting to you? It would be a shame if our finest young sword fell ill before we even hit the snowline."

​Before I could answer, the sharp clink of silver against glass cut through the chatter of the head table.

​The hall quieted, line by line, until even the brass band in the balcony cut their melody mid-bar.

​Vance was standing. He didn't rise with the theatrical grace of the courtiers; he moved like a threat taking shape, tall, broad-shouldered, and entirely indifferent to the sudden silence hanging over the room. High Councilors straightened their posture, noble women adjusted their fans, and hardened soldiers instinctively sat up a little straighter. Vance held an absolute, terrifying command over this room without ever raising his voice.

​He held his crystal glass aloft. The dark red liquid within caught the candlelight, throwing blood-colored shadows across his knuckles.

​"A toast," Vance said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried to every corner of the vast hall, low and raspy, scraping against the stone walls. "To the vanguard."

​A murmur of approval rippled through the nobility. Glasses were raised across the room.

​"To the brave souls who walk into the freezing darkness of Kosciuszko," Vance continued, his eyes sliding slowly past the generals, past the nobles, until they locked directly onto mine with violent, suffocating focus. "And especially to our esteemed Cadence Officer, Tarni."

​My spine went rigid. The air stalled in my throat.

​"Many in this room look at her and see a weapon of the state," Vance said softly, taking a slow step around his chair, his gaze never leaving my face. The entire hall watched him, utterly captivated, but he spoke as if there were no one else in the room but the two of us. "They see armor. They see cold steel and unyielding obedience. They admire the mask, because it protects them from the harsh reality of what it costs to keep them safe."

​A chill swept down my spine, so cold it made the numb fingers in my pocket throb with phantom cold.

​"But I see something else," Vance whispered, his voice cutting through the silence like a drawn wire. He lifted his glass higher, angling it directly toward me. "I see a soul burning itself alive to keep the cold away. I see a creature trapped in beautiful, velvet chains... running out of time."

​Gasps flickered through the crowd of nobles, but Vance paid them no mind. Lord Malakor shifted uncomfortably beside me, clearing his throat, but no one dared interrupt the Commander.

​Vance brought the crystal glass to his lips, holding my gaze over the rim as he drained the dark wine in one smooth, agonizingly deliberate motion.

​He set the empty glass down on the table with a hard thud.

​"To your health, Tarni," he murmured, the words meant only for me, though they echoed in the dead silence of the hall. "May you survive the night."

​He turned on his heel, his heavy dark cloak sweeping behind him as he walked out of the banquet hall without asking for leave from the High Council, without nodding to a single noble. He simply left, leaving a heavy, toxic silence in his wake.

​My heart hammered so violently against my bruised ribs that I thought the canvas binder would snap. The room began to spin, the candlelight melting into long, smeared lines of yellow and gold. I couldn't breathe. The high velvet collar was choking me, cutting off the blood to my brain.

​I stood up abruptly, my chair screeching against the marble floor.

​"Excuse me," I choked out to a stunned Lord Malakor, not waiting for a response before I turned and hurried toward the side doors that led to the icy outer balconies.

​I burst through the heavy glass doors into the biting midnight air of the terrace. The freezing wind slapped my face, burning my cheeks, but I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. I collapsed against the stone balustrade, clutching my chest with my left hand, gasping, coughing raggedly into the darkness.

​It's poison. It's moving faster.

​I pulled my right hand out of the white leather glove, trembling. In the moonlight, the dead flesh wasn't just white anymore. Dark, ink-black veins were webbed across the back of my hand, spreading rapidly toward my wrist like spilled shadow beneath the skin.

A shadow stepped out from the stone archway beside the terrace.

“It spreads quickly once it gets into your blood,” Vance said in a low voice.

He walked into the moonlight and leaned against the railing, only a few inches away from me. I was still shaking. He reached for my hand and grabbed my cold, blackened wrist, lifting it into the light.

“You have three days before it reaches your heart, Tarni,” he said quietly. His thumb moved over the dark line beneath my skin.And the antidote is in my pocket.”