Chapter 49: A small feast

Scars… So many scars.

That was the first thing she noticed. Lucrezia had heard so many tales about Sins and their indulgences that the sight before her felt almost… restrained.

A long table stretched across the chamber’s center, carved from a single slab of dark stone and set low to the ground. Candles burned low casting a sharp, deliberate light along the dishes arranged with deliberate care rather than excess: platters of roasted roots glazed with honey and spice, dark breadsth something she didn’t recognize, bowls of jewel-bright fruit split open to reveal glistening flesh, and so on. There were decanters of wine so clear it caught the light like glass, and others so dark they swallowed it whole.

The plates lay untouched and goblets waited. Lucrezia had imagined a feast where servants hovered and the orchestra or pianoforte played, but there was none.

Silence was the music added to the dark ambiance the room consumed, and the… creatures present carried the intimidation worn by a thousand.

She knew she should move, but her feet remained rooted to the ground. Lucrezia could feel their eyes on her skin, inflicting bruises enough to leave blotches on them, but she couldn’t move.

As she lingered on the threshold, her pulse surged so fiercely she feared it might betray her presence before she spoke a word. Lucrezia could feel the tug of vertigo at her outer vision, teasing her with the awfulness of what could happen; how easily she could fall, how easily she could fail.

A wave of sickness had her clenching her fist; she swallowed back the panic of having vertigo along with the emotional upheaval of what she faced, but the effort felt futile.

“There you are,” came a voice rich with amusement carrying a geniality so polished it rang effortlessly in the chamber. “Come! Join us!”

Thankfully, it broke her from the embarrassing spell of vertigo just enough for Lucrezia to swallow and draw a breath. She forced her feet to move. Her small steps echoed too loudly against the stone as she crossed the distance toward the table.

She felt them watching her openly now. Some leaned back in their thrones, studying her with naked curiosity. The others sat forward, elbows braced on knees with their eyes sharp as blades. Lucrezia noticed one reclined sideways as his head propped in his palm with boredom etched into every elegant line of that heinous-looking face.

Gods, she wanted to puke. Not out of disgust, but of fear. Fear so deep it gnawed on her skin and hollowed her from the inside. If this was indulgence, it was the kind that came after centuries of having tasted everything already.

Thankfully, her eyes met those hazel ones startlingly less-alive orbs among so many gazes that felt dead or distant around the table. He was dressed in his usual armor, ever so composed and utterly breathtaking. Unlike the rest of them, he was the only one on a mask that was different than the usual kind she’d seen him wearing.

Lucrezia noticed it was the type that left his lips out of view, while concealing the rest, as his expression remained unreadable. Yet his eyes betrayed him.

Something was fleeting in them – an intensity hotter than flames – when it raked her body, drinking the sight from her head to toe.

Lucrezia caught the glimmer of desire that tightened her stomach and sent an unwelcoming heat spiraling around her chest, causing her knees to almost betray her.

It was a kind of hunger, flaming her chest, making her heart race wilder than usual, suddenly reminding her of the dream earlier.

The memory rose unbidden, causing her to recall. Of closeness, of warmth, of his presence lingering too near, and of a touch that had felt real enough to wake her breathless and shaken.

It wasn’t something she could name aloud, nor something she wanted to examine too closely. Lucrezia’s cheeks warmed at the thought, and she shuddered a breath.

Before those eyes could cause anymore castastrophe than it already had, she tore her gaze away, struggling to consume enough air into her lungs before she fainted while grounding herself in the stone beneath her feet. In out. In out. She continued, but no matter how much she reminded herself that dreams were only dreams, Lucrezia couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever awaited her here was far more dangerous than fantasy.

Lucrezia still felt his awareness cling to her skin like a creeper, until at last she reached the table. A chair waited for her set apart from the others, and she hesitated only a moment before sitting.

The stone seat was cool beneath her palms, grounding her in a way nothing else had. Up close, the feast looked no more inviting than it had from afar and the distance felt measured. Close enough to be seen clearly. Far enough to remind her she did not belong among them. The food remained untouched, pristine, and no doubt ceremonial.

Every slight movement she made felt observed, making her feel sick. Lucrezia folded her hands in her lap to still their trembling and lifted her chin, forcing herself to meet the weight of the room head-on.

Gods, she couldn’t mess up. She couldn’t give in to their intimidation no matter how impossible it was. Because then, Lucrezia felt this was not a trial of strength or wit. Not yet, she supposed, but it was a test of composure. Something told her it was of endurance. Of whether she would fracture beneath their gaze before a single demand was made. She would not give them that satisfaction no matter how her heart thundered or how the scars she had seen lingered in her mind.

Lucrezia sat still and for a moment, no one spoke.

Then a soft laugh broke the silence. “Well, she’s quieter than the last one,” said the figure seated on obsidian. His voice was silked with amusement, sending a shiver down her spine.

From her angle, she could look at them clearly this time, and started with the one who spoke.

He should have been beautiful in the way marble statues were carved to suggest divinity, but the illusion fractured the longer Lucrezia looked.

Old scars marred that perfection with ruthless candor across his throat and jaw. It was a cruel notch splitting his lower lip, faint crosshatching along his cheekbones that was not hidden nor softened, but worn like proof.

His eyes were a cool, luminous shade that settled on her with something almost kind in their depth. That was the most dangerous part. The false sense of security curled around her ribs, easing her breath while sharpening her instincts all the same.

With a shaky breath, she tore her haze away, meeting the next one that was lounged with careless grace, one arm draped lazily over the arm of his throne.

His beauty was sharp with angles too precise, and smile too knowing, and yet it was the utter absence of restraint in his posture that unsettled her most. His gaze skimmed her openly. There was no pretense of courtesy nor a mask of civility, but interest stripped bare and worn without shame.

Lucrezia’s spine stiffened as she realized he wanted her out of curiosity, and whatever danger he posed, would not come hidden behind manners.

And then the next. And the next. And the next. Until she stopped at one that was… unbelievably terrifying yet breathtaking.

He leaned forward just enough for the flickering candlelight to catch on the waves’ long, flowing, and firebrand of red hair that seemed to burn even in the shadows. Every strand shimmered with a vitality that was almost alive, falling like liquid flame over his shoulders and down his back.

His features were striking, sharp enough to draw the eye and cruel enough to warn it away. With high cheekbones, a jaw that could cut stone, and lips that remained immovable. And yet it was his eyes, a storm of green flecked with gold, searing and consuming that rooted her in place, as if he could read every thought she dared not speak.

There was danger in him that hummed in the air like static, but also an impossible allure like a magnetism that promised both ruin and exhilaration. Lucrezia’s chest tightened, half in awe, half in terror, knowing she could never let herself trust someone who radiated power so effortlessly.

At that moment she felt how everyone of them offered a different flavor of threat. Some blatant, some beautifully disguised, and she understood she must be wary of them all, especially the ones who smiled as though they might catch her when she fell, and the ones that didn’t smile at all.

“Never underestimate silence for weakness,” came another voice from her right. Lucrezia turned to meet a woman who looked young and undeniably beautiful with freckles marring her features. “Words are merely courtesy. Silence is the most dangerous,” and her eyes met hers.

Her hair was the color of dark honey, pulled back simply. It fell smoothly on her luminous skin marked with sigils also. She studied Lucrezia with the ease of someone accustomed to being studied herself, with a warm, steady gaze.

And then she smiled, inclining her head slightly as a gesture and Lucrezia returned the smile genuinely for the first time since she’d arrived.

“I do wonder how much have changed since I last saw you, brother,” came a voice undoubtedly from one of them with amber eyes as he picked up his goblet. Assessing it almost out of boredom, “Your lack of wit, patience, or perhaps, your restraint has finally grown thin?”

A ripple of faint amusement stirred the table when he concluded, and Lucrezia almost sighed in relief at the sudden shift of attention.

“I’d be careful, if I were you,” Lord Vaeron’s voice was low and edged like a steel when he spoke. “Mistaking observation for insight is a fool’s jest,”

His lips curved into a smile. “Is it?” he purred. “Considering how long it has been since we caught a glimpse of your shadow is enough for certain considerations be drawn. Who knows, mortality wears not just your skin, but has taken your essence,”

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