Season 1: Awakening the Viliness

  Ch 10: The First Party

  The House of Crimson Fme shimmered in the dark like a prayer half-whispered, half-seduced.

  Mira stepped through the arched gate as the scent of spiced wine and divine current thickened in the air, her heels tapping softly on the warm obsidian floor beneath her. Pale white veins ced the stone like cracks in something holy, polished to a shine that reflected ntern light and the slow glide of silk-cd nobles drifting between velvet-draped archways.

  Incense burned from carved braziers—amber, honeyed smoke rising in slow spirals, curling through the perfumed air. A harp murmured in the distance, its notes nguid, drawn out like stretched breath. Everywhere she looked, bodies touched. Hands on thighs, fingers curled into hair, soft gasps turned divine with every offered kiss. Power pulsed faintly overhead, visible to those attuned—ribbons of light trailing from pet to master, from whispered devotions and grazed skin. Intimacy made visible. Pleasure made sacred.

  They called it a revel, but it was a temple. One where flesh worshipped flesh, and love—real or not—was currency. This was the party the pro-church faction was holding in support of the newly found Saintess; the one the invitation expected attendance.

  Mira walked without pause.

  She wore bck velvet, floor-length, fitted to the waist with a high colr that brushed the line of her jaw. Her veil was gold ce, translucent enough to show the careful shape of her mouth, the tilt of her brow. No jewellery except a single garnet set at her throat—Nysera’s sigil. Her gloves were stitched in dark coloured thread, gleaming in the low light.

  Luceran was barefoot, clothed in bck silk that clung to him with deliberate precision—nothing too tight, but everything meant to suggest. His colr was smooth, polished onyx, a single ring of metal at his throat. A velvet leash, braided and dark as her gown, clipped from his neck to her hand. He didn’t resist. He didn’t hesitate. He walked with the kind of poised stillness that came from long, deliberate training.

  The room noticed.

  Heads turned. Conversations quieted. A noblewoman with a half-mask of silver ce touched the cheek of her kneeling attendant and murmured something Mira didn’t catch. A younger man near the stairs raised his goblet in subtle salute. Across the chamber, a White Veil devotee gave a slow, precise nod—acknowledgment, not warmth.

  Nysera had arrived.

  And her pet still followed her.

  The main chamber unfurled like a theatre, wide and domed, the ceiling enchanted to shimmer with stars even through stone. Thick curtains veiled the corners, framing low lounges and divans where nobles reclined with their chosen attendants. Light glowed low from crystal sconces, casting the room in gold and rose, like it was permanently caught in the breath before dusk.

  Mira walked down the central aisle between the crowd, and Luceran followed—precise, untouchable, his eyes lowered but never vacant.

  Everywhere around them, desire moved freely.

  A priestess in vender robes sat on a velvet couch, her divine companion kneeling between her legs, head pressed to her thigh as her fingers threaded zily through his hair. Power flickered softly above them—light weaving in and out of his skin like smoke. A nobleman in storm-blue silk leaned forward to feed his pet a sugared plum from his fingers. The man took it with his mouth, slow and eager, a soft sound of pleasure making the nterns above them hum.

  They were leashed and touched and adored. Not shamed for their beauty or need. Not hidden.

  This was what divine society celebrated now: open affection, shared pleasure, power through love freely given.

  Mira walked through it like a myth. Cold. Composed. Unaffected.

  Luceran trailed behind her like a shadow made flesh, a warning in silk.

  She stopped at her appointed pce near the raised dais—half a step lower than the hosts, perfectly visible to the room. A cushion had been pced beside her for Luceran. She didn’t gesture. He knelt anyway.

  His hands rested on his thighs, his back straight, head angled just enough to suggest reverence without submission. There was no leash tension. No visible restraint.

  He simply waited.

  And the room watched them.

  They always watched her. But tonight, they watched him too.

  One noble leaned in to whisper to another, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. A woman in red ce lifted her fan to hide the flush at her cheeks. One of Mira’s White Veil followers—dressed in cream and silence—smiled approvingly and said, just loud enough, “Still a creature of discipline. Good.”

  Mira said nothing.

  But under her veil, her throat had gone dry.

  Mira sat as Nysera would have—spine upright, ankles crossed, gloved hands folded over her p. Luceran knelt beside her, a step behind, his colr catching the low light. The leash y across her p like a warning. She didn’t hold it, but she didn’t need to. The symbolism did all the work.

  Around them, the revel unfolded like something out of a fever dream.

  One noble guided his companion through a prayer posture that ended with an open-mouthed kiss to his boot. Another—barely masked behind a vine-draped column—stood with his attendant pressed to the wall, mouths locked, their divine current humming like a song only the faithful could hear. A girl in sheer silver robes y across a chaise, her head thrown back in ecstasy as three hands—only one of them hers—traced the arc of pleasure into something sacred.

  Mira watched it all with the frozen poise of a woman who’d spent years learning how not to blink in public. Not to look too closely at the man facing the outside wall of a pub, to not look at the person on the tube who removed their clothing, to not pay too much attention to the crowds at the music festivals.

  It was too much.

  Too open.

  It made her feel like an alien wrapped in velvet.

  This isn't a metaphor. This is their religion.

  She understood it, conceptually. She’d read the book. Seen the power charts. She knew divine current was fed through love, pleasure, connection. But watching it—here—was something else. It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t fake. It was terrifying. Beautiful. Real.

  And beside her, Luceran was trembling.

  Not visibly. Not to anyone else.

  But she felt it in the air between them. The stillness wasn’t peace. It was restraint at its edge. His breathing was too careful. His hands too precise. Every muscle in his body held with tension that had nothing to do with fear. This wasn’t the poise of a man proud to be colred.

  It was a man starved.

  He wants this, she thought. He was made to want this.

  Not the chaos. Not the noise.

  Touch.

  Connection.

  Meaning.

  And he couldn’t have it—not with her, not like this, not here where everything they were was a symbol. Not when the leash y across her p like a verdict.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t beg.

  But Mira gnced down, and his thighs were tense beneath the silk. His jaw was clenched. His eyes—half-lowered, bnk to others—were gssy with denial.

  Wanting wasn’t a sin in this world.

  But it was for him.

  She saw it now: how they had trained him to need it, then punished him for asking. How every twitch of hunger only made him more valuable, more divine.

  And here she was, pying her part, holding the leash and watching him ache.

  He’s begging me without moving. And I don’t know what scares me more—his silence or what I’d do if he asked out loud.

  The divine current shifted. Not dramatically. Not with a crack of thunder or a chorus of trumpets. Just… softened. Like the room exhaled.

  Mira didn’t have to look to know the cause. The hush in the air told her everything. The Saintess had arrived.

  Fae entered the revel without a mask. No veil, no ce, no artifice. Her gown was simple—cream silk, off-the-shoulder, cinched gently at the waist with a band of golden thread. Her hair was loose, curled soft around her face like the night itself had kissed it into pce. She walked with bare feet, each step leaving the faintest trace of divine current that shimmered for half a second before fading.

  One of her companions—a tall, bronze-skinned man wrapped in ivory robes—walked beside her. Not behind. Not leashed. He held her hand. When he leaned in to whisper something, she ughed. A bright, surprised sound, light with delight and unashamed.

  There was no fanfare, no announcement. Just warmth.

  Fae smiled at every person she passed. Not with condescension. With curiosity. With care. She stopped once to touch the hand of a noblewoman’s pet, who had flinched too fast. She whispered something no one could hear, and he smiled after she left. He glowed.

  Mira felt the shift around her. People leaning subtly. Heads tilting. Not away from her—but toward Fae. Even the White Veil women, pale and perfect as they were, began whispering behind their gloved hands.

  Luceran hadn’t moved. But Mira saw it—his eyes flicked to the Saintess. Just once. Then back to the floor. He didn’t lean. Didn’t speak. But she felt it. Recognition.

  Mira didn’t know if it was memory or instinct, but she felt him react, like the divine current in him stirred without permission. And for the first time, she wondered if it wasn’t just the crowd slipping away from her. Maybe it was him, too.

  Fae made her way toward the dais with easy grace, pausing now and then to speak with others. She wasn’t being drawn into power. Power was gathering around her. No masks. No titles. Just... affection, faith, and open eyes.

  Fae passed close—close enough to feel the ripple she left in her wake. She gnced up and met Mira’s gaze. No challenge. No mockery. Just a smile. Sincere. Warm. The kind of smile Mira hadn’t seen aimed at Nysera since she arrived.

  Fae’s gaze dropped to Luceran. She tilted her head, curious. Then she smiled again, smaller this time. Sad, almost. Like she saw something and chose not to name it.

  Then she moved on. She didn’t say a word.

  But Mira felt the verdict all the same. She wasn’t the future. She was the one they’d turn from. And Luceran… was watching the girl who didn’t wear gloves.

  The revel wound on into midnight, a blur of soft gasps and clinking gss, whispered prayers and moaned invocations. The air thickened with divine current until it became background noise—heat in the walls, the hum beneath every breath. Mira did not speak again. She didn’t need to. Her presence alone said enough.

  Luceran remained beside her, silent and unmoving, the leash still resting across her p. He knelt exactly as he had been trained to: poised, reverent, unshaking. But Mira saw what the others didn’t. The way his jaw had clenched after Fae passed. The way his gaze lingered not on pleasure, but on connection—raw, simple, offered without command.

  He pyed his part to perfection. And she hated him for it. Hated herself more.

  When the crowd began to thin and the wine was reduced to dregs, Mira rose. The hall fell respectfully quiet as she did. The White Veil women followed her lead like spectres. Luceran stood at her side and did not speak.

  They began their retreat toward the grand entry hall, the night almost over, the mask held just long enough.

  Then she saw the man waiting near the main staircase. Tall. Slender. Dressed in ste grey, with a smile so polite it felt like a bde held ft across the wrist. He was already speaking to the host. Already nodding toward her. Already moving forward.

  Luceran stopped. Just for a second. It was enough.

  The man approaching had Luceran’s cheekbones.

  His mouth.

  His eyes, if they had been carved without mercy.

  “Viscountess Nysera,” the man said smoothly, bowing with perfect courtly grace. “It’s been too long. I hope your pet is still as obedient as he once was.”

  Luceran hadn’t moved. But Mira could feel the leash go taut.