>> Lucien Valmont

《Can someone love a person they’ve never truly seen?》 The bells of Vespera rang at dusk, announcing the first night of Carnival. Across the city, lanterns flickered above black canals while masked crowds filled the streets in silk and velvet. For seven nights, names meant nothing. Nobles danced with strangers. Secrets hid behind porcelain smiles. Prince Lucien hated it. From the palace balcony, he watched the celebration below with quiet dread as servants fastened his white gold-trimmed mask into place. By the time he entered the ballroom, music and candlelight had already swallowed the palace whole. Then he saw them. A figure stood alone near the open balcony doors. Unlike everyone else, they were not dancing. They were watching. Watching him. Lucien crossed the room before he could stop himself. The masked stranger seems to know his deepest secrets: from the poems he writes in private to the hidden passages beneath the palace. After that unforgettable night, he becomes obsessed with finding them again, unaware the stranger is the hidden child of a disgraced noble family, living under a false identity and seeking revenge against the crown. (inspired by Venice carnival, photo from pinterest)