The Prism Conservatory had not seen such a spectacle in centuries. Parisa, tangled in stolen festival silks, plummeted into the heart of the Loom chamber, a spool of raw sun-filament held aloft like a trophy. She landed with a jarring thump, the makeshift glider crumpling beneath her. Kaveh, stunned by the unexpected intrusion and the shower of colored glass, let his purple-tinged rage scatter. “You! You accomplice to anarchy!” he shrieked, his Fate-shear glinting. He lunged, but Parisa, surprisingly nimble, ducked beneath his wild swing, rolling to her feet with the sun-thread still clutched tight. “Roshanak, grab him!” she yelled, kicking clear of the wreckage. “We can’t fight him here!” Roshanak didn’t need a second urging. Kaveh was distracted, his attention fixed on Parisa, who was already sprinting towards the far end of the chamber, deliberately drawing the High Inquisitor’s fury. Roshanak seized Iskandar’s arm, ignoring the way the black soul-thread binding them throbbed with a sickly energy. He stood motionless, the heavy neck-ring a dark foil to his raw, weaponless vulnerability. Without his shadows, without his combat magic, he was simply a very large, very well-muscled man. Unresisting, he let her haul him toward a secondary archway that cut deeper into the Conservatory’s upper corridors. “This way,” she hissed, dragging him through a narrow service corridor. The sounds of Kaveh’s enraged roars and Parisa’s taunts faded behind them. They burst into a section of the Conservatory dedicated to the elite, where plush carpets muffled their frantic footsteps and the air smelled of spiced perfumes and expensive polished wood. Ahead, through an open doorway, she spotted the grand wardrobe antechamber, a retreat of silken privacy for court fledglings. “In here,” Roshanak commanded, shoving open the lacquered panel. Discarded finery cluttered the floor: gold cloaks pooled on chaise lounges, powdered wigs leaned on wooden stands, and bolts of damask spilled over cedar lowboys. Iskandar stepped inside, his dark eyes taking in the opulent chaos. The dark band gleamed starkly against his travel-stained tunic, casting him as a prowler in a perfumed parlor. Roshanak’s gaze fell upon an atrocious coat of peacock plumes, paired with an enormous cambric neck-cloth. “Splendid,” she muttered, snatching it down. “You mean to disguise me?” Iskandar’s voice was a low rumble, carrying quiet curiosity. He inclined his head, letting her peel away his plain wool and wrestle his broad shoulders into the iridescent sleeves. The peacock feathers tickled her nose, and the rich silk felt alien beneath her fingers. This was a man of shadow and blood, not preening plumage. The sight bordered on high comedy, coaxing a choked snort from her throat. Just as she wrestled the stiff neck-cloth over the iron, voices echoed off the corridor tiles. The latch gave way, and the carved panel swung wide. A gaggle of six young nobles, chattering like a flock of indignant magpies, swept into the room. Their eyes, wide with a mixture of gossip-fueled hunger and horror, instantly fixed on Iskandar, then on Roshanak, and then on the black glow connecting them. A shrill silence descended, ripe with aristocratic venom. “Roshanak Firoze?” Lyris, an acquaintance with sleek almond curls, blinked behind an ivory fan. “Rumors claimed you were rolling in pig mire near the Loom, yet here you are, scrubbed pink. And who is this?” Her gaze, full of thinly veiled condescension, swept over Iskandar’s newly adorned form, a smirk playing on her lips at the sight of the peacock coat. Roshanak drew herself up, a familiar, icy haughtiness settling over her features. The feral persona was gone, replaced by the full, terrifying might of a Firoze matriarch. “Ah, Lyris. Still wearing that ghastly shade of chartreuse, I see,” she drawled, her voice dripping with disdain. “And your companions, bless their ignorant hearts, seem determined to prove that taste is entirely divorced from lineage. Tell me, did you acquire those fabrics from a discount bin for rejected funeral shrouds? Or perhaps you simply enjoy resembling mildewed curtains?” The nobles gasped, their faces shifting from curious horror to genuine outrage. Roshanak didn't give them a moment to recover. “As for this gentleman,” she continued, gesturing imperiously toward Iskandar, who remained unmoving with amused glints in his pupils, “he serves as my private guard. A necessary wall against dullards, though none of you possess enough wit to warrant protection.” Lyris’s face crumpled. Another girl, whose skirts Roshanak had previously compared to mildewed curtains, sniffled into her lace. The flock backed into the hallway, offended murmurs replacing their earlier smugness. They scurried past the brass threshold, leaving the wardrobe chamber quiet once more. Roshanak felt a brief surge of triumph. Some things, it seemed, she was still exceptionally good at. She turned back to Iskandar, whose posture remained unnervingly still. The stiff lace flared around the dull metal choker, masking it as a garish piece of court jewelry. As she reached forward to adjust a fold, her fingers brushing against the cold metal, a profound stillness settled between them. The black thread, connecting them from chest to chest, seemed to draw taut, humming with a suppressed energy. Iskandar’s gaze dropped to her hand, then to her face, his dark eyes unreadable, yet intensely focused. “This ring,” he murmured. “You hold the key.” His thumb, scored with blade-scars, brushed the knuckles she had resting against the lace. The contact, light as it was, sent a peculiar warmth through her, a sensation that had nothing to do with the external chaos. “If we survive this… all of this… the key is yours to use. To release me, or to keep me bound. However you please.” The air grew still between them, settling past the noise of the hunt outside and the distant menace of the Solstice Severing. He offered the choice cleanly, without defense, leaving her fingers tingling against the cold metal. Before she could assemble a retort, the corridor door flew open with a hollow wood crack. Parisa stood framed in the doorway, a wild, disheveled grin on her face, the raw spool of sun-thread glowing ominously in her hand. “I figured out how the prophecy works, but Roshanak, you’re going to have to die for a minute.”

Cravats and Confessions