THE PRINCE'S MASK

Three hours earlier, Kaelen Thorne had practiced dying.

He sat cross-legged on the floor of his private chambers, breathing in the precise pattern his meditation master had taught him fifteen years ago. Four counts in, hold for seven, out for eight. Slow the heart. Quiet the mind. Build walls around anything that felt like emotion until there was nothing left but silence and control.

It wasn't working today.

He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. They were steady — they were always steady, one of the few things he could count on — but beneath the skin, he could feel it. The Thread-weaving. His cursed, secret magic stirring in response to something he couldn't name. It wanted to reach out, to connect, to *bind*. It always did. And he always pushed it down.

"Your Highness?" His valet's voice through the door. "The festival begins in two hours. Your attire is prepared."

"Thank you, Dorian. I'll dress shortly."

The footsteps retreated. Kaelen stayed on the floor a moment longer, studying the room around him. These chambers had been his since he turned sixteen, ten years of political training and emotional suppression contained within walls of pale stone and dark wood. Everything was ordered. Everything had purpose. Nothing was here by accident — including, he sometimes thought, himself.

On his desk sat the Thread Laws. Not the public version that every citizen could recite, but the original drafts, written in his own hand at nineteen, after his mother died and left the realm in chaos. He'd been so young. So certain that emotions were dangerous, that connection led to control, that the only way to prevent tyranny was to regulate the very bonds between people.