Viola Grace - Mask of the Overlord Read Free

rooms were arranged to avoid any external light. Please, sit.” At the touch of a button on the wall, a dressing 11
     
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    table and chair emerged.
    Hellara took her seat and the dressers sprang into action. One dried her hair, another curled and pinned it up. Her nails were coloured a peacock blue, her lips stained pink with a lavender tint. The eye makeup had to be applied carefully, but when the dresser backed away, the visible lids behind her mask were the same blue as her nails.
    The only dresser who spoke to her mentioned,
    “Now, we tint your mask to match your dress.” In a moment, the pattern of a blue-green peacock feather spread across each side of the mask.
    “Now, for the dress.”
    The dressers swarmed her and tugged her to her feet. Her towel was stripped from her and her feet shoved into heeled golden slippers. The peacock patterned gown was slipped up her legs, over her thighs and laced tightly around her torso.
    Her breathing was lightly restricted, but her body was all heady curves when she looked in the mirror. The creature that looked back at her was fantastically feminine, and well deserving of the sweat on the brows of the dressers.
    “Your guards are waiting, lady.”
    “Thank you for your hard work.” She smiled at them and they grinned at her.
    “Thank you for making it worth our while. It is gratifying to see our arts so gracefully displayed.” She blushed, the colour staining her cheeks, but hidden by her mask. The open expanse of her chest 12
     
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    was the largest telltale marker of her embarrassment. “I… Thank you.” Hellara left her chamber ahead of the dressers and six guards were waiting to escort her to the ballroom.
    They surrounded her and walked her from her chambers, past a number of unmarked doors, toward a well-lit atrium. “I thought we were going to the ballroom?”
    “Not yet. The Overlord wished to speak with you privately first.”
    She swallowed. “Ah.”
    The atrium was filled with flowers on one side and a throne filled the other. The throne was occupied by a masked Overlord proxy. As she approached, the guards fell behind and left her alone with him.
    “Hellara, thank you for coming. You look amazing.” He beckoned for her to approach.
    She made a careful curtsey and walked toward him. “I don’t understand why I am here.”
    “Because I wished you to be.” He got to his feet and met her halfway. “I wish to take you on a tour of the grounds.”
    He extended his hand and she placed hers on the back of his knuckles.
    She walked with him through endless wings of the house in silence. Finally she said, “this isn’t much of a tour.”
    He laughed. “I apologize, but I have something 13
     
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    to show you in the east wing.”
    “Fair enough. Why is the city unoccupied?” His lips tightened. “My folk are afraid that I will take their daughters, so once a year, all who can, leave.”
    She scowled. “What do you mean take ?”
    “That is a discussion for another time. All you need to know is that there are only twelve women left here in the palace. The others were returned from where they originated.”
    A large metal door loomed at the end of the hallway. The Overlord walked up to it and placed a hand against it. “Behind this door is my body.
    Once a year for the last ten years, it has unlocked to allow a special woman inside. That woman will be able to free me from my mask and in doing so, she will free my people from the knowledge that they are ruled by Proxies.”
    Hellara nodded. Proxies were a limited range technology. A very strong signal needed to be sent to keep the mechanicals moving. If the Overlord was stuck, that meant he was ineffective as a representative for his people. They were crippled by his condition.
    “Why is your body in there?”
    “It began as a treatment for a genetically engineered virus, but it was later found to have been a ploy to lock me in stasis. The Proxies