A Masquerade of Spiders

Chapter 27: Lies That Come To Life

Chapter 27: Lies That Come To Life

I was about to take the black stone out of the socket in the secret door to Waryn's room, but stopped when I heard voices.

"...Pregnant... well that explains a lot..." It was Waryn's voice.

"It was meant to look like revenge, but Golia wouldn't retaliate that fast." Nava was in there too. "Aspertin would know this and wouldn't risk his alliance with Ulumie."

"Someone's panicking, then... But who? And why?" Waryn said.

"The why is easy, Waryn. We're not the only ones who know about the descendant from the Jura line." Leah's voice was easiest to hear. She was standing closest to me. The Jura line was the last line of kings in Vynam. From the stories I heard, there were no longer any direct descendants alive, but they were just stories.

I wasn't sure I heard correctly, but if I did, I now knew Waryn's full game. There was someone among the nobles who was a direct descendant to the last line of kings—which meant they had the legal right to the crown. Presented under the right circumstances, this information could reinstate the high king with as little bloodshed as possible.

But what were the right circumstances?

There would be blood first, and then Waryn and his friends could swoop in with the truth and steal the crown without a blight to their names.

"I think your peasant friend belonged to the Kiri all along," Nava said.

They were talking about me.

"I had her working Mica and it didn't look like that," said Waryn. "It has to be someone else. We've missed something..."

"I still think her operator lost her," Leah said and there was a pause in the conversation. "What? They can't be thatgood. I've had her accounted for during every moment since we discovered her and there was no one approaching her."

"We have to start getting deeper," Nava said. "We'll never be able to win this if we've got cloth dolls when our enemies are swinging around hatchets."

"Dylana isn't a cloth doll," Waryn argued

"Dylana is void."

A pregnant silence followed this statement. My heart sunk. Waryn had nothing to say to contradict it.

Dylana was void.

I was void.

The void was me.

"Let's go, Leah," came Nava's voice. "Waryn needs a moment to remember that he's not spineless."

"It's a shame," Leah said. "There really was something special about her. I wonder where she could've gotten to if she didn't hang herself by her own ambition."

Waryn's silence continued for a long time after Nava and Waryn left. I leaned against the wooden pane and waited for my heart to grow still.

"The best lies," Pyren had told me once. "The best ones are the lies that become your truth."

"You mean, I forget they're lies?"

"No, Yael." He was in high spirits, and grinned out to the distance. "Lies are stories, intricate stories you weave to shape the world around you to your own convenience. Lies transform reality so that it could serve you best. Like with every creation, they take on a life of their own."

"And you think that's a good thing?"

"It's the best thing. It gives value to the game. When you live your lies like they're real is when you yourself become your own creation. There is nothing more freeing."