Lightning Bringer: (Lighting Seeker Book 2)

The Masquerade

The corset was too tight. That's all Vale could think about as she adjusted her mask and tried to breathe without looking irritated. Her long silver lace gloves that ran up her arms and across her shoulders, held in place by small buckles attached to her cream-colored dress were far too itchy. Or rather one was. The other one was impossible to feel. The sole reason for why they must be worn. Having a metal arm would scare the other guests and that wasn't the point. Not yet anyway.

Her black hair was pulled back out of her face and fell down her back in what Geo had called enticing ringlets. Something she assured Vale would distract in the way that mattered. Female allure to make people see you but not what you are hiding, Geo had said with a giggle as she forced Vale's hair to tame to the shapes she had wanted.

Vale's long brown heeled boots clicked across the marble floor, another unnecessary but apparently necessary female weapon of enticement. After Geo and Ace attempted to teach her how to flirt and realized that the idea was too foreign or Vale was frankly incapable of the art form, they had landed on a visual approach. No words would be needed. She had forced them to promise that to be the case several times before she agreed to the insane plan. She felt out of her depth as she walked through the large finely carved oak doors and into the ballroom. She wasn't stopped, her elegant look, an automatic ticket inside.

Vale had never seen anything like the grand hall. Everything looked breakable, delicate, and glistening with sparks of light from the ornate chandelier that hung above the double-sided round staircase in front of her. "Head up Lightning Bringer," Geo chirped from her ear, no doubt watching Vale's entrance from the crowded room below.

Vale complied, tilting her head up, allowing her face to show her awe of the room as she began to descend the stairs. She wasn't accustomed to openly showing her emotion. Not any positive emotions. Not after fighting for survival as she moved through a world that had placed her on the Threats to the AI Directive List. Not that she didn't deserve it after destroying one of their ships. To be fair, however, The AI's had started it when they had attacked the ship she had been on, taking out half of the crew.

The world may depend on robots, but Vale had learned that AI's were far from trustworthy. She had come a long way to stop the AI virus from spreading, corrupting the entire technological system that humans so blindly trusted. Humans were now hardly capable of doing anything themselves, with robots tackling nearly every profession. It was marketed as a way to allow humans to focus on the arts, giving them the freedom to lean into their creative desires, but Vale knew the mask for what it was. A thinly veiled threat to keep humans from being able to survive on their own. And when people began to question the rules, they disappeared.

The whole ordeal thus far had taken Vale's arm and given her the code name Lightning Bringer. Vale made it down the stairs and scanned the room, looking for Geo and Ace. Both no doubt dressed to the nines in elaborate outfits, far more comfortable in this human crowd that had sold their freedom for the pleasures that the AI's had offered than Vale could ever be. She had grown up torn between watching her mother fighting in the illegal rings and craving to find her own place in the world.

And that past had brought her here. To a room of untrustworthy people, looking for a woman who she had been told hid in plain sight. Someone she needed if she or any of the other Tradesmen were to survive the night. We've gambled too much this time, Vale thought as she moved gracefully over to a chair at the bar and reached for her mask again, trying to adjust it so the ridiculous silver feathers that covered the contraption would stop tickling her nose.

Music swirled around her, loud and delicate, reminding her of not only how everything in the room was breakable, but how easy it would be to destroy others or destroy herself. "Don't just sit there girl, get out there, and find 'er."