Face-Slapping10 min read
"I Remember the Masked Man" — A Lost Goddess, A Court Decree, and One Very Public Reckoning
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"I won't let you go."
I said it before I could stop myself. The words were too big for my little chest, but they spilled out anyway.
I am Ariana Marino. I woke in a stranger's body once—then again. I remember a cold platform, white silk, a blade of thunder, and names that burned like brand marks. I remember being a god called Ice Phoenix, and I remember jumping from the execution stand because living hurt too much.
Then I was born into a noisy house, all boots and commands, and I had six huge brothers who smelled like iron and rice. I came back with a tiny phoenix mark on my forehead and a world of old memories in a child's mind.
"Papa, look," I squealed, clutching the coral box while my brothers argued in a pile behind me. "Can I touch it?"
Knox Coelho, my father, looked so big and furious all at once that my knees went soft. He loved me and scared me at the same time.
"Not now," he said. "Sit still, Ariana."
My mother, Elisa Cook, wiped her eyes and smiled. "Child, you are our luck."
They called me "our little jade," "our stubborn spark," "the daughter that arrived after five boys." I learned, fast, that "our" came with rules.
The first time I saw him in person, I was three. He stood like a shadow at the edge of the room, all black and quiet, and a mask hid his face.
"Grey," someone whispered.
I already knew his voice from a hundred dreams that weren't mine. When he bent and said "Ariana," my name fell like a bell in the room.
"Grey Cuevas?" I asked. I had never seen anyone like him. "Why are you here?"
"To look," he said, and his voice was the warm kind of cold. "And now that I have, I will not let you belong to this place."
My whole body felt like it had been pulled by strings.
"Is he my...?" I asked, the idea bright and ridiculous in my three-year old mouth. "Is he my husband?"
"Not husband today," my uncle Angelo Case said too loudly from the side and then coughed as if he'd swallowed coal. "But he has...plans."
The real world is cruel and fast. The emperor—thin and fickle, but useful when commanded—presented a yellow edict one rainy night while thunder spat at the palace tiles.
"By imperial decree," the official announced, baring a roll of gilded paper, "Ariana Marino is betrothed to Regent Grey Cuevas. Wedding to be set."
I spat out my milk. "What? I'm three."
"This is an order," my father said with his jaw like a clamp. "We must obey."
I watched my mother's hands tremble. The queen from the western lands, Denver Barron, arrived like a storm and kissed my mother's cheeks while the whole hall bowed.
"She is special," the queen said in a voice that smelled of far country spices. "The old stars have moved."
"Special old stars," I mouthed.
It was not all gold and songs. The decision sent a thousand people scurrying—some scheming, some praying. Not everyone greeted my betrothal with gifts.
"She belongs to the sky," Grey had told me once when he tucked me under his arm like fragile porcelain. "Not to a house, not to a line. I will take her, and I will protect what is hers."
I did not understand then how dangerous that promise was.
Weeks later, rumors rose like smoke: a long princess, Zhang Yanzhi, small in the palace but large in venom, and her friend Siko—famous for the red snake bracelet that hid a darker art—were not happy. They wanted influence, not a child promised to a man who stepped out of shadows and made the court obey by the weight of his silence.
"She'll be a pawn," Siko hissed. "A three-year-old pawn."
"She'll be a throne for him to lean on," Zhang said, eyes like knives. "We won't let that happen."
I heard their plotting in pieces—a silk sleeve dragged, a voice like sugar turning sour. I was too young to stop them, so I learned to watch.
"Why did you save us?" I asked Grey the night after he first killed for my life.
He sat on the low step and watched the moon. "You have a light that does not belong to this place. I could not watch it be squandered."
"Are you my husband?" I asked again, more earnestly.
He laughed, a single thin sound. "Not yet. But I will make the world sign an oath."
The world signed that oath with yellow paper. The emperor's decree spread like a net.
Then the real trap came: the snake bracelet. Siko's charm had blood inside it—an old curse the queen's seer had felt. She sold it to the long princess, who thought of wars and moves.
I don’t forgive easy. But I forgave less after what they tried to do at the palace banquet.
"Sit," Grey told me before the banquet. "Do not draw attention. Do not ask for sweets."
I did not plan to disobey, but the silk was snug and my curiosity loose. The long princess came with carved smiles and more attendants than sense. The table was a forest of voices.
"My dear Grey," she purred as she approached, "a soul as rare as Ariana's should have no marks of danger. Let me inspect her for... omens."
"No," Grey said. "She is not an object."
"Oh? The regent speaks," she simpered. "Do not let titles cloud your judgement. You are not the king."
"She is under my protection." Grey's hand lifted. The court dropped into a hush like a held breath.
"Who is the child?" someone whispered.
"Regent's bride-to-be," someone else answered.
They drank, and things smelled of sweet bread and iron. Winters steel in summer air.
Then Siko stepped forward, the snake bracelet bright on her wrist like a heart of fire. She smiled as if she had swallowed a secret. I remember the exact movement: a bowl poised over my cup, a tiny hand guiding fate.
"Would you like some soup?" she asked me with a honeyed voice.
My fork was small. I, curious, reached. The soup was warm and safe, but the air tasted wrong. Grey's eyes slit, and he moved fast as lightning.
"Stand down," he said to Siko. "Do that again, and the crown will fall."
Siko laughed too loud. "And who will stop me? The regent's not a god. You cannot arrest me for a bowl."
"Watch me stop you," Grey said.
The room exploded.
"Stop right there!" he barked. "Bring out the seals."
A guard unsheathed a small glass case from the regent's aide and set it at the center. "The regent requests a proof," the aide announced in a calm that steadied a room. "Let these be shown."
Grey's men pulled away velvet and silk. Where once the long princess had thought to slip poison was instead an illusion. The regent's men had prepared counter-magic—a screen that would show truth. It was not a common trick. The emperor watched, fascinated.
The screen lit.
Siko's face, in bright detail, wavered on the screen. At first it was still: her hands, the bracelet, the bowl. Then the image flickered, and the bowl became a different one, the soup replaced by a dark, glittering powder. On the screen, Siko's hand moved as if in a play, the powder tipping from her sleeve into the bowl. The long princess watched her own wrist, then the image of herself whispering in the ear of a courier, the courier clutching a pouch.
"No—" Siko's voice was a thin wire of shock. "This is—this is false!"
"It's not," Grey said coolly. "You used a charm. You tried to strike a child."
The hall was loud then. Voices rose like a tide. Someone cried, "What trick is this?" Another: "They put on a show."
Mother sobbed and gripped my small hand. "Ariana, stay close."
I did not realize at first that I had been trembling. Then I understood. They had shown the truth.
Siko's color changed. The long princess turned pale as old paper, and the queen—Denver Barron—stood as though cursed.
"No, I didn't!" Siko screamed. She tried to step forward but a ring of Grey's guards blocked her with a sound like a closed gate.
"You put your hand," Grey said, voice steel now. "You wore a charm with a blood-stone that sings when it tastes malice. The court has seen you."
The court did not stay calm. Eyes moved to the emperor, then back to the long princess. Servants pressed their faces to the lattice and took out their small boxes—those tiny glass eyes that record today—and pressed buttons until the whole room hummed with the sound of seeing.
"Why did you do this?" the emperor demanded.
Siko's mouth twisted. "I—" she tried to find a lie, but the images pulsed again. The courier, the whisper, the bowl. Evidence cracked like brittle glass.
The long princess's demeanor switched from silk to snake in a breath. Her smile dropped into a snarl. "Grey! This is barbaric. You can't—"
"I can and I will," he said. He stepped forward and pulled the long princess's sleeve down, exposing the bare arm circled by the snake bracelet. "This will be a public affair. The court will see everything."
"What does that mean?" she asked, voice thin.
"It means," Grey said, "you will stand in the center of the great hall. You will recount everything you planned to do. You will tell everyone who helped. You will return whatever you stole. The emperor will decide additional penalties."
"No!" The long princess's voice cracked. "You—You're power-hungry, Regent!"
"Am I?" he asked softly. The soft was a blade. "You tried to harm a child who is an innocent. You used hidden poisons, hidden pacts. Now explain to these people why you put a curse against my bride."
She started to scream. Everyone turned their faces like a fan spreading. Some people covered their mouths. Some held out their phones to the light—they were recording.
He had created the perfect trap: a public reveal. The emperor nodded solemnly. The guards formed a ring. The long princess had nowhere to hide.
"Tell them," Grey said.
She tried to laugh. "This is a lie! I only—"
"We have the praise of the West Queen," Grey continued, and everyone looked at Denver Barron, whose expression was closed like a shell. "You sent a courier to the prison in the south. We saw the seal."
The long princess ran for denial. "You are wrong! I—"
The screen replayed the courier leaving, hands exchanging a small box. Siko's face shrank. The recording spun the moment again and again until the images were fire and the hall full of tinder.
The silence broke into noise.
A common woman in the gallery spat on the ground. "How dare she!"
Another man shouted, "Kill the witch!"
"Silence!" the emperor slammed his fist. "We will not have blood without cause."
Siko's knees buckled. For the first time, she was small.
"No!" she wailed, throat raw. "You don't understand. I only wanted power. I—"
"You wanted to blacken a child," Grey said. "You wanted to ruin a family."
Tears streaked Siko's face. The long princess's throat worked, and for a moment she was only a terrified woman instead of a grand title.
The emperor held up a hand. "Kneel," he ordered. "You will kneel now."
The long princess sank until her forehead hit the marble floor. Siko went down next to her, the snake bracelet loose and suddenly plain as a rope.
"Beg," Grey commanded.
"Please," Siko choked. "Please forgive me. I—please—"
"No," the long princess said through gritted teeth. "I will not beg you."
The gallery leaned in. People whispered, then burst into coarse laughter. A few started to take photos. Someone in the crowd, bold, filmed the kneeling woman and streamed the live feed. The clip went lightning across the city. Within hours, men at taverns replayed the scene, and women pinched and gasped at every close-up. The image of a high-born lady on her face moved faster than rumor.
They pleaded. The long princess's face crumpled like old cloth into a mask of ruin. "I did it for power. I—"
"Tell everyone you failed," Grey said. "Tell them who gave you the bracelet. Who sent the courier."
She named names with a cracked voice. The court wrote them down. The emperor declared confiscation of titles and goods. "Your bracelet," he said to Siko, "will be broken. The people who follow you will be banished to the mines. This court does not spare treachery."
The long princess fell into a scream that changed to a wail. Then she lapsed into begging. "Please—please help me—"
They dragged her out. Hands grabbed at her silk, tearing the expensive cloth, exposing the trembling woman beneath to the crowd and to the wide net of gossip. People pointed and recorded. The cameras were cruel. The long princess's mother tried to step forward and was shoved back by guards. Her status meant nothing now; the court had witnessed the act and had made their judgment loud as a drum.
Siko's last act before she left the hall was to look at me. Her face was hollow. "You won't live long," she whispered. "The regent can't protect you forever."
Then she was gone, dragged through the marble entry and into the yard where the public watched. They placed a simple wooden stake. She begged and then begged some more. She called every name she had in her pocket. People spat and laughed. Children pointed. A magistrate wrote notes.
In the days that followed, the palace servants whispered about the long princess as if she were a scarecrow. The recording ran for weeks. For the first time in my small life, I saw what it meant for the powerful to fall—how quick the world is to chew those who aimed too high.
Grey watched all of it with nothing but a steady look. After the public scolding, he came to me and said, "You saw it. You saw that the court can be cruel. But it can also be just."
I blinked and nodded. I was small, but the world had teeth.
Months passed. Grey came often. He read to me from books I did not yet understand. He sat by my bed when thunder came. He stopped at the palace gates if I wanted a treat from the food stalls. He never smiled much, but sometimes, when he thought no one saw, he would brush a fingernail along my phoenix mark and look like a man who had found something he had been searching for a long time.
"One day," he said, "you will remember everything plainly. When that happens, you must choose. I will stand with you, whatever you wish to do. But now, child, sleep."
I did not sleep. I listened to the rain and the guards and the palace clock and the way he breathed like a steady drum. I learned that promises can be as large as empires, and sometimes large promises need large punishments.
The long princess's fall taught the court a lesson: no one is beyond the law if the regent wills it. People who saw the spectacle said the regent had done right; others said he had done it for his own reasons. In the months and years that followed, my life filled with lessons: to read, to test a silver needle's flight, to take a careful step in a gilded maze.
When I was old enough to understand vows and heavy words, Grey took me in the palace garden and gave me a choice.
"Will you let this be your life?" he asked.
"I will," I said, because I had already made a promise in the dark that I would not let pain silence me again.
He bowed his head and kissed my forehead the way a man returns a relic to its rightful place.
The world shifted. People whispered and watched. Some would always hate him. Some would worship him. I only knew that when he held me, the storm felt gentled.
Years later, when duties multiplied and enemies schemed again, the recording of the long princess's kneeling would be shown to new courtiers as a warning. People still pointed and recorded, but those who moved against the household did so for a single reason: fear.
And me? I kept the mark on my forehead. I listened for the god's memory like a tune, and I learned to sing back.
"Promise me," Grey said once, when dusk lay like silk on the palace roof.
"What promise?" I asked.
"That you'll live," he said simply. "Live, Ariana. Not for crowns, not for men, not for revenge."
"I promise," I said.
"Good," he murmured. "Then remember to be cruel only to those who have earned it."
I laughed and I kissed his hand. I was no god anymore in flesh, but in the quiet between the palace walls I held a little of the old thunder. When the world tried to burn what I loved, I would be the one to make sure others paid in a way that could be seen.
It was not mercy that made me do it. It was justice—and a grown woman who remembers a past life learns the taste of both.
The End
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