The palace loomed under a blanket of velvet night, its marble columns kissed by moonlight and ghosted in silver mist. All was hushed save for the distant chirp of crickets and the occasional sweep of a guard's boots across stone. Most of the nobility were deep in wine-drenched dreams by now. That was when he moved best, when the world was still and the silence sharp.
Wrapped in a simple woolen cloak, the painter made his way through the southern corridor, a satchel of charcoal pencils and vellum strapped across his back. The guards at the lower gates barely spared him a glance. He was well-known now, praised for his murals in the east wing, for the frescoes that adorned the ballroom's vaulted ceilings. The queen herself had once remarked that his hands held heaven's talent.
He used those same hands to kill.
The painter's fingers twitched as he passed the gallery of ancestors, their oil-painted gazes following him with suspicion that none of the living offered. He gave them a tight smirk. The dead always knew.
A servant bustled by, surprised to see him. "Working late, sir?" the girl asked softly, bowing with practiced deference.
"Couldn't sleep," he murmured, his voice like velvet laced with steel. "The arches in the western hall, the way they catch moonlight, it's maddening not to capture it."
She curtsied and left, and he moved on.
Each corridor deeper into the palace led to less-traveled spaces, to silence so thick it hung like drapery. He reached the grand library at last, a behemoth of ancient wood and towering shelves, lit only by two dying hearths and the pale slivers of moonlight spilling through stained-glass windows. He pushed the door open with the reverence of a priest approaching an altar.
Inside, it smelled of dust, aged leather, and wax. He inhaled deeply. He loved this place. Not for its beauty, nor its wealth of knowledge, but for the silence. The kind that lets a man plan murder without guilt.
He moved through the aisles, past ancient tomes and scrolls, until he reached the western alcove, a hidden space tucked behind a false row of encyclopedias. A trick only a careful eye would catch. He pressed his thumb to a warped spine, shifted the book slightly, and the shelf creaked open just enough to slip through.
They were already there.
Two cloaked men stood in the shadows, their faces obscured beneath deep hoods. One leaned against a carved column, arms folded; the other crouched beside a rolled parchment, its edges pinned with small stones. The room reeked faintly of oil, sweat, and foreign tobacco. One of them glanced up, and though the hood cast his eyes in shadow, the glint of steel was unmistakable.
"You're late," said the crouched one, in the clipped, foreign accent of the southern isles.
"I'm careful," the painter replied, slipping the satchel from his back and kneeling beside them. "You should be glad."
He spread out his new drawings, meticulous diagrams of the palace's ballroom, the servant passages, the wine cellar, even the king's private study. Red ink notations detailed guard rotations, changing every three hours. Arrows showed escape routes. Circles marked weak points in the floor, rotted planks, hidden trapdoors, servant vents.
"You've been busy," murmured the taller man. "Impressive work… for an artist."
The painter's lips curved in a humorless smile.
"I see beauty in function. And death."
The other man gave a short, approving grunt.
Still kneeling, the painter pulled out a small glass vial from the lining of his coat and handed it to them. "This will go in the King's cup. Tasteless, odorless. He'll choke on his own lungs within minutes. The fire in the western wing will keep the guards too scattered to react. In the chaos, we slip out through the kitchen tunnels. A boat will wait at the riverside."
It was all coming together.
But even as he laid out the plan, a sliver of unease stirred in him.
Something… something tugged at his attention.
He stood, brushing dust from his knees. His gaze drifted, not toward the conspirators, nor the parchment, but toward the wall behind them. A narrow shelf tucked beside a towering case of religious texts.
There. Wedged between two volumes of poetry was a small red ribbon, the silk faded at the edges, as if fingered often.
His heart stuttered.
That ribbon. He knew it. It had once been tied around fiery red hair, soft and defiant. The color of flushed cheeks and gasped moans.
Eliza.
His fingers curled instinctively. A flash of memory, her body pressed against his, those lush breasts exposed like offerings to the gods, her eyes wide with shame and something far more dangerous: curiosity. Desire.
He blinked. The room returned. The men were watching him.
"You listening?" the one on the right asked sharply. "Or are you painting fantasies in your head again?"
The painter turned, his face unreadable. "I heard you."
"You're not getting soft, are you?" the taller one asked, voice a low threat.
"Not soft," the painter said coldly. "Just patient."
He rolled the plans back into a neat cylinder and handed it to them. "The Autumn Ball is five nights away. That's when it ends."
"Good," one of the mercenaries said. "Because if you're hesitating—"
"I'm not," he snapped.
But he lied.
Because when they turned to leave, he didn't follow them. Not right away. He waited until the echo of boots faded down the corridor.
Then he walked slowly to the shelf and reached for the ribbon.
It was soft. Warmer than it should have been. Like a whisper from her throat.
He didn't tie it around his wrist. Didn't pocket it.
He only held it.
The palace walls were closing in on him, her scent is everywhere, keeping him captive.
And with a sense of urgency, he left the palace, to break away from her curse.