She woke up to darkness. As if synchronised with her waking, red candles lit all around the room she was in. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she grew aware of her surroundings: rich furs decorated the top of an enormous bed in the centre of the room. The bed had an inviting look to it, as if consciously willing her to sit and rest.
But her wrists and ankles were tied to the floor and ceiling with a magical rope, making her unable to move. It glowed as she looked at it, almost more luminescent than the candles.
The position of the rope ties in the ceiling forced her to bend forward, arching her back and pushing her butt up and out. Her somewhat sizeable breasts had fallen out of her dress and now dangled in front of her, followed by curls of her pale hair. To say the position was uncomfortable would be an understatement.
"Ah," a woman's voice said from behind her. "I see you're finally awake. Good, that means we can get started."
*
A few hours earlier...
*
"Miss, we're not letting anyone else in. I'm very sorry, but you'll have to join the other guests permitted into the courtyard. Lady Stoneforth's hall is full for the night."
"I have an invitation," the girl said to the guard. He was dressed in a red gambeson. The colours of House Stoneforth, she thought to herself. Lobstered gauntlets held a halberd barring entry to the feast.
The guard sighed. He was probably worried about her complaining to his superiors, and the swift punishment he would very distinctly feel the following morning as a result. "What's the name, Miss?"
"Sophia." Her first name would be enough. She showed the guard her invitation. Without a word, he raised both eyebrows and stood aside, letting Sophia into the feast.
Sophia walked through the long hallway and emerged into a richly decorated room. Tables had been put out along the walls, each filled with food and drink. The cleared centre allowed for the noble guests to dance.
"Nice mask," a passing butler said as he ran to fetch another platter of drinks.
Sophia smiled at him. Tonight's party was a little something different to the usual feast. She'd never been to a masquerade before, but she had to admit, the anonymity was exhilerating. Here, nobody knew who anyone else was. If one played the game cooly, no-one would ever know. The only way for people to identify a guest was to catch them acting out, which for once subdued the usually brash noble men and women at the party.
Sophia didn't need to catch the eyes of several groups as she walked past to know she looked attractive. It was something she knew instinctively. Though she had doubted herself in the past, she was now something more than that entirely.
She walked up to Lady Stoneforth, identified by her beaver mask, and took a goblet of wine from a nearby table. It was custom for the host to be easily identified by everybody at a masquerade, mainly so they couldn't get up to no good. Lady Stoneforth, in turn, recognised Sophia by her fox mask. The request for her to wear one had come in the letter pleading for Sophia's aid this night.
"My, my, what an exquisite dress!" Lady Stoneforth said. Sophia recognised the coded greeting and followed her employer away from the throng of guests.
"Well, is she here?" Sophia asked.
"Yes," the woman turned, eyeing nearby guests. "I can sense her in the crowd tonight. You will have to be ready. My son is in the gardens with his friends: I would recommend taking watch there."
"I will employ my methods as best I see them, my lady, though I will make sure no harm comes to your son tonight."
The woman looked visibly relieved, though stress still gnawed at her brow. "You must keep him safe. If you can do that, the reward is yours."
Sophia nodded. "He will be protected. You have my word."
Another man approached Lady Stoneforth, giving Sophia an excuse to slip away quietly. Over the next few minutes, she drank her wine and appraised the crowd. Amidst them hid a powerful sorceress, disguised by the game of the masquerade and come to kill the Stoneworth heir. Her motivations were unclear to Sophia, but a contract was a contract, and she had considerable experience handling mages.
Sophia didn't go to the gardens immediately. She knew sorceresses like Elluen, the woman who hunted the boy she was supposed to protect. She knew they were the kind of people that would never give up the chance to partake in a ball, even if they had other prey to attend to afterwards.
Sophia moved to the dance floor and almost instantaneously received an offer to dance from a young nobleman. She could tell he was nervous, trying hard not to look at her curves in the dress. Gracefully, she moved him through the steps and thanked him afterwards. The next three dances were practically identical to the first, but the fourth person to approach her was a woman. She had her blonde hair in an intricate set of braids and curls. The bulk of it tumbled down her back, but the rest was artfully styled to frame her shoulders and face. The mask obscured that face, but Sophia could tell just by looking into the woman's green eyes that she was beautiful underneath the mask. A sorceress, perhaps?
"You look positively stunning," the woman said. "Care to dance?"
The bracelet on Sophia's wrist tingled. Magic was clearly in her presence. "Yes, of course," she said, taking the woman's arm. Sometimes Sophia was glad that the South didn't follow the same strict view of religion as the West. Here, two women could dance at a ball and the worst thing that would happen is them drawing unwanted attention from nearby men. In the West, the stories she'd heard horrified her.
Sophia could tell this woman was a natural. She moved with a fluidity and grace that Sophia almost struggled to match herself. Unlike her other dance partners, the woman was bold enough to start a conversation as they moved through the steps.
"What's a girl like you doing at a feast like this?" the woman asked, seemingly seeing through Sophia's finery and boring into the last year she'd spent on the road. "It's nearly scandalous."
