Chapter 1
Mask
Christine thought she looked like a doll, dressed so regally with a mask plastered across her face.
She could not tear her gaze from the mirror, the fine, beige leather adorning her features. The fine trace of an edge that only she could see. Deep, dark eyes stripped of their gleam. Waxed over lips, hidden dips from protruding cheekbones.
The night's guests had long since left, but not once did she venture out. She instead stayed in her chambers, knitting, painting, twiddling her thumbs.
She was not afraid, nor fragile.
She was bored.
She undid the clasp tucked under her hair and peeled the mask away from inflamed skin; the air against it a bittercold kiss of relief. Her eyes shut on their own accord, trauma, anxiety, whatever it might be.
This nightly ritual had yet to become easier.
Without giving herself time to hesitate she opened her eyes. Each time caused her heart to sink a little further down in her chest. There were no more tears at the sight after these few fragile months. She was drained of all her tears within the first few weeks. Now all she felt was a numb, dull disappointment.
Her face held little semblance that it once had. Warped, angry scars wrapped across her features, red in some areas, bone-pale in others, like a streaky painting. Her thin, perfect eyebrows no longer grew in, nor did most of her once long, flirtatious lashes. The curve of her hairline was destroyed as singed strands began to sprout back in unevenly. Roots and veins of mottled tissue pinched and cut across her once-soft cheeks, now rough to the touch.
She could still see the fire sometimes, reflecting in the dark pools of her eyes.
The door creaked open and life burst through its threshold behind her fiance. She broke her gaze to the mirror and lowered her head, gently folding the leather mask in her lap before placing it on the vanity. Raoul shucked off his suit jacket, began to unbutton the collar of his shirt. He offered a soft smile in her direction, spotted through the mirror's reflection. "Everyone was asking for you," he told her.
"I do hope you told them I send my warmest regards," she murmured. Her voice did not sound like her own, so soft, so quiet and hesitant.
"Of course." The vicomte shrugged off his button-down, continued to the bathroom to run a bath. In the meantime, Christine popped the lid to her two facial balms. A generous swipe of her index finger from each, then combined, was the routine nighttime concoction. She smoothed it across her wrecked skin, falling into a too-familiar daze as she gently worked it into the bags under her eyes.
She sealed the balms, sliding them away from her. Never once did she break her stare back to herself. Her mottled face shone with medicine, throbbed from the mask. Her eyes remained blank, offering nothing to her, portraying no bit of emotion. There was nothing left to give.
Raoul padded across the floor of their expansive chambers once the bath had started, pausing for a moment before reaching out to his lover. He placed both hands on her shoulders, leaning over her to look at the two of them in the mirror's reflection. His tired, understanding smile made her bristle, but she leaned back into him anyway.
"Let's go to bed, darling. Tomorrow's a new day."
Christine felt something dark and forlorn build deep within her chest, something prodding at the back of her mind. Tomorrow was another day she did not want to face.
She stood, blew out the candle to her vanity. The mask peered tauntingly back at her through nonexistent eyes for the duration of another sleepless night.
