Part 3: The Devil in Silk
The Veilguard Winter Masquerade wasn't held in a hall.
It was held in a temple.
Once devoted to some forgotten goddess of moonlight and desire, it now belonged to gold and favor. The pillars gleamed with lightstone, and the floor rippled under guests' feet with illusion-magic that made it appear like they walked on mist.
Yuji arrived with his party flanking him like wolves in dress uniform.
Sylvia wore a silk tunic cut for mobility, her blade at her back, ears hidden under a silver hood.
Sacha had refused a dress outright and wore formal Valkyrie war-regalia—bare shoulders, braids tight, expression tighter.
Siora wore deep green, subtle druidic runes hidden in the folds of her cloak-dress.
Amelia wore nothing appropriate. And looked perfect. A black gown that shimmered like oil, slit high and low, her parasol folded into a cane of bone.
Yuji wore simple black—unbranded, unclaimed, eyes sharp.
They did not mingle.
They observed.
Kessel greeted them like old friends and quickly vanished into the crowd of nobles, merchants, masked politicians, and Church proxies dressed as aristocrats.
That was when she approached.
She moved through the crowd without parting it—people stepped aside without knowing why. Her mask was white porcelain shaped like a fox's face, with silver antlers arcing upward in elegant cruelty.
Her dress was pearl and frost-threaded, backless, sleeveless, silent.
When she reached Yuji, she didn't bow.
She tilted her head.
"You don't smell like what you pretend to be," she said. Her voice was velvet laced with embers.
Yuji replied evenly. "Neither do you."
She laughed. "Do you know how rare you are? Fertility, incarnate. A walking spring in winter. They should have locked you away before you bloomed."
Sylvia moved slightly, placing one step between them.
Thessaly didn't look at her.
"I mean no harm," she said. "Tonight."
Yuji's voice dropped. "What do you want?"
She reached up, removed her mask.
Her face was flawless. Too flawless. Her eyes gleamed faintly—not with magic, but hunger.
"To see you up close," she said. "To see what it is the Lich King fears."
Every part of the room around them seemed to soften, like the music slowed.
Yuji didn't blink. "You're with him."
"No," she said. "I serve him. But we've never spoken. He doesn't speak. He listens. And lately… he listens only to you."
Sacha stepped forward. "Back away. Now."
Thessaly smiled.
She leaned in close to Yuji's ear.
"He's waiting. Not to kill you. To see if you become him."
Then she turned. Walked into the crowd.
And disappeared.
Yuji stood still.
Siora came to his side and whispered:
"She wasn't alive."
"I know."
"She wasn't dead either."
"I know."
Amelia smiled faintly. "She'll be back. They always come back when they smell potential."
Yuji looked toward the door Thessaly had vanished through.
It still smelled faintly of rot.
Part 4: Beneath the Ballroom
The servants' corridor behind the wine cellars was colder than the rest of the estate.
Not magically chilled—just forgotten.
Yuji walked first, one hand brushing the wall for hidden glyphs. Siora followed close, casting muffling wards that made their footsteps sound like whispers. Sacha took rear guard, and Sylvia ghosted ahead in scouting intervals, moving with practiced silence.
Amelia didn't ask why they were sneaking.
She'd simply said: "He smiles too much. Men who smile that much bleed easy."
Behind a concealed panel—located exactly where Amelia said it would be—they found stairs.
Down.
The stone changed halfway. The new floor was older. Darker.
And when the final door opened, they knew they'd gone far enough.
The room wasn't a room.
It was a vault.
Wooden shelves stacked with parchment, scrolls, mana-pulse tubes storing living blood samples, chain fragments etched with anti-mage runes, and a desk bearing the personal sigil of Lord Kessel.
Sylvia stepped toward a wall lined with cages.
They weren't empty.
Inside hung husks—former demi-humans, their bodies bled dry and preserved in suspension, mouths sewn shut with ecclesiastical thread.
Siora's hands trembled. "That's druid binding silk. Only used for magical species."
Yuji opened a scroll on the desk.
Trade routes. Slave transports. Artifact trafficking. Bribery chains that looped into the local Church offices.
And next to it—a sealed envelope.
He broke the wax.
Inside: a letter.
"The envoy arrives tonight. You are to offer them the heretic and the mage—bound, not dead. Their essence is not to be wasted. You will be compensated with access to Ash Spire. Serve the Hollow Lord well."
Yuji folded it quietly.
Then: footsteps above.
Heavy. Coordinated.
Sacha snapped her axe free. "They knew."
Amelia smirked. "Of course they did. We're irresistible."
The door slammed shut.
A voice echoed from a grate above.
"You should have stayed in Ironhorn, little demigod."
Kessel.
Magic surged. The walls shimmered. Restraint wards activated—designed to suppress spellcasting and seal mana flow.
Yuji felt the pressure clamp down.
Siora staggered. Sylvia bared her fangs. Sacha roared.
Yuji closed his eyes. Focused inward.
Then whispered one word:
"Grow."
His Fertility magic ignored the seal.
It didn't push against it—it spread under it.
Rooted in it.
The glyphs cracked.
Mana bloomed.
Yuji opened his eyes, blazing gold.
"I don't stay where I'm told," he said.
Then he burned the vault clean.