Ashes to Ashes | ✓

5 || Humanity's Gift

"Excellent. This way then." She gestured toward her right with the flick of her wrist, her bracelets clinking against her skin as she moved. As she turned away, her gaze lingered on him until she fully faced the other direction. However, as she began to walk again, she didn't once look back to make sure he followed. She raised her chin high and squared her shoulders, clasping one hand around her wrist behind her back as she left him behind.

Even something as simple as this was difficult to read. Her blank was solid and strong, so much so that her actions seemed clouded. Confusing. Did she practice it or was it simply natural?

It can't be natural, he told himself as he followed her. It's too perfect. Too solid.

They left the smooth cobblestone for a worn path, overgrown by weeds and grass with a few stones as the only markers to reveal the path. Cinere carefully stepped from one stone to the next, sliding easily through the motions as if it were a dance; one she performed quite often. Beneath moonlight and starlight, cloaked in flaming reds, she possessed an ethereal appearance. As if she was as otherworldly as the magic she claimed to have knowledge of.

In that sense, it fit right along with her blank. It was all a character she constructed, acting in a way that would string him along with her. She was designed to be enticing; from her smiles, to her voice, to her laugh, to her walk, to her appearance. She was a perfect blank, acting as someone she wasn't.

And if that were true, what was she beneath the mask?

He shifted his gaze downward toward her wrists, pinned beneath the gold bands.

"How did you pass through the gates?" he asked as he stepped carefully around a dip in the dirt path. The path led them closer and closer to the inner wall, far from the well-kept gardens and nearer to the forest that bordered the other side. "You waved your bracelet at the gate. What was that about?"

Glancing down at her wrist, she hummed to herself. She lifted her hand to tuck her dark hair back behind her ear. "You could say it's a form of identification. All castle staff and residents have some kind of jewelry like this. It's made from a special material that lets them pass through the barrier. Invitations for events are written in ink possessing bits of the same material—guests without their invitation cannot pass, the same as residents and staff without their jewelry." She stopped and turned to him with a gleam in her eyes and a sly smile on her lips. "The palace is its own kind of prison. You don't get in unless The Core wants you to."

"The Core?" Felix furrowed his brow in thought. A sickening feeling landed in the pit of his gut, leaving a sour taste on his tongue. Holding his breath, he shot a glance back at the gates far behind him. "How did I get through then?"

She hid her laughter behind her hand, but the sound was as gentle and inviting as ever. If it weren't for the hammering of his heart and the nervous buzz in his mind, he might have smiled back. He might have fallen for it.

"The Ember Core." She smiled one of her painfully innocent smiles. "Ever heard the myth before?"

Felix frowned, folding his arms over his chest. She purposefully avoided his question.

The trail had led them all the way to a section of the inner wall on the west side of the courtyard. Ivy covered a section of the stone in sprawling green vines; tall grass sprang up along the path until it was finally swallowed by all the green. Moss clung to the wall's sturdy stone, as vibrant and green as the rest of the plant life around them. Compared to the clean, tidy courtyard they left behind, this patch was like an entirely different world.

Cinere tipped her head to the side, awaiting his answer.

"I come from Furvus. We don't discuss Niveus myths there," he said. It wasn't true, they certainly did. Nobles loved anything they considered to be "exotic" and apparently, Niveus was more popular in that category, despite being the closest kingdom to Furvus.