Chapter 15. The Game of Appearances
The ballroom was long empty, but the echoes of forced laughter and clinking glasses still haunted Elara’s ears. She stood on the penthouse balcony, watching the first hints of dawn smear the city in bruised gold. Last night had been a performance, a flawless, agonizing, dazzling show of unity.
She hated how good they’d become at pretending.
Damien stepped onto the balcony, barefoot, his dress shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up. A rare vulnerability clung to him in the early light. He looked more like a man than a monster in the quiet hours before the world demanded masks again.
"I hope you’re not planning to jump," he said lightly, his voice rough with sleep and something unspoken.
Elara didn’t look at him. "If I were, I’d have the decency to take you with me."
A smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth, but it didn’t last. He walked to her side and placed something cold in her hand, a sleek black card embossed with a crescent moon and a name she hadn’t heard in years.
Seren Holt.
She stiffened. "Where did you get this?"
"Someone slipped it to me last night. A woman with a scar across her collarbone. Said she knew your real name."
Elara’s fingers curled around the card. Her throat tightened.
"She’s Resistance," she said quietly. "Old guard. She disappeared when I was seventeen. They said she was dead."