Chapter 15 The Start Of A Cult (And Hopefully Tax Evasion)
Simultaneous Market Penetration and Brand-Leveraged Disposition was fun to do— but that name is too long for the people reading to understand so Maeve made it simpler so you grasp it better. The Montague Anomaly.
The first phase was Damage Control and Marketing A Saint Persona.
Maeve knew more than anyone else how easy it was for people below the elites— commoners they were called? To spread rumours. Wasn’t it how she got her information in the first place? So now, while she was still in church, she spread another one. And she knew from experience it would catch like wild fire.
A demon giving away her clothes and helping the orphans?
It was false. A trick. Some great evil!
But they didn’t know why she was doing it.
Maeve was using all of her willpower not to make a smug grin appear on her face. The one thing she was grateful for though was the prototype 36 over her eyes— in other words, sunglasses.
She didn’t make it— of course she didn’t, that was Lucien’s job. It was why it was prototype 36, because 35 more didn’t come out right. It was either too dark, too uncomfortable, not flashy enough, too flashy. But it mattered little because it was doing what it needed to do.
PHASE TWO: Strategic Provocation and High-end Shock Marketing.
She knew the nobles didn’t expect her to have the balls to come for this ball— okay, okay, she was funny— but she also knew her piety and new Saintly status meant nothing to them. She had to prove that she was something they cannot obtain. Something far out of their reach. Not only a curse. Something more.
And then the best part, (for her anyway),marketing it.
In the eyes of this world, Maeve understood there was a… rigidness to their culture, a style that needed fixing— needed something new. And fresh.
And the best part about freshness?
It meant more money.
She could feel the eyes of the people staring at her as they walked into the ballroom, though they were barely holding back their whispers or their glares. Which was fine.
‘Keep wanting. Keep staring. This increases the rates in which you’d buy this, hehe,’
A black silk slip dress with thin spaghetti straps that glided over her skin like the night sky, over her shoulders, a sheer black tulle overlay that is completely split down the front like an open robe with a black silk scarf around her neck. Her hair was straightened back with a small veil on her head and over her face, round black sunglasses.
Her makeup was pale, deathly pale, but she had on red lipstick and black silk gloves that stopped somewhere around her forearm with black high heels.
With the only hint of color being Amir.
He had on a light grey turtleneck wool sweater, black pants and a dark grey long coat with black gloves. His hair was put in a bun, showing off his ears that were covered in diamond (not real ones but Maeve doubted they could tell. Usually only poor people loud her bothered themselves with that detail), and a collar around his neck with the Montague crest.
Prince Cassian, who of course, was surrounded by many women and stood in the middle of the hall stared at them with something almost akin to contempt, which it was. Yes, the man had six beautiful women around him in high fashion and was telling them how he had a habit of trailing birth marks in the dead of night in his women.
Or he was until he saw her.
Cassian stopped. Stopped breathing, stopped speaking, stopped everything. He watched as she walked to him, her arm wrapped around another man. He saw this… strange outfit, and then those dark things over her eyes… dark glasses? And the way she looked like she had come to take his soul forever.
And for some reason, he wanted it.
“Your Highness,” She bowed, and the… thing next to her bowed. As he rose, Cassian took notice of the fact that he was not only an elf but one of his Mother’s many pets. Just like he was. What was he wearing? Why did he have the family crest? “The ball looks exquisite,”
“Your dress,” Cassian stared at her dress… at the figure the dress whispered to his brain. He was a man of honour. Of decorum. But this dress… it was almost akin to a nightdress, but on her, it felt even more intimate. Like a promise. Like a wish. “The people of Aeltherra have not worn silk in… years,”
“As many people know,” Maeve stated. Cassian noticed that her voice was different now. Less loud, more noble. It did something to his brain. Something almost similar to a fire burning through his head. “I have sold my very extravagant clothes out and given the profit to those who need it more. I had to make do with what I had, and that included the many lands—farms, if you will, that my Family seemed to have in our name,”
Farms… Cassian didn’t know a noble could use that word. Or at the very least even knew what it was. And the farms… lands of the men his mother had massacred and handed over to the four pillars. They were given to them only as some sort of… reminder that they were complicit to the murder of many.
No Noble ever expected them to use it. It meant they were cruel and heartless to use such blood spilled land.
And the Curse…
The Queens curse that ravaged the lands…
“You…” Cassian tried to find his voice, tried to fight the way his heart was racing now. “You made these… strange clothes from the plants that grow in those places?”
You are not supposed to survive walking into such lands in the first place.
Cassian couldn’t see her eyes, he realized. He didn’t like it. Because he knew if he could, he would see the sneer on her face as she answered, her lips practically fighting the urge to curve. “Yes? We… we had to make due of our resources at hand,”
Those resources were the death of millions, he thought but could not say. And the worst part of it all was the fact that he could tell she didn’t care. Not about deaths, not even about the fact that people were staring at her like she truly was the evil being she claimed to be.
But he knew something that was truly evil. He knew what true fear was.
Why was he burning to know more about her?
He moved, his body itching to bridge whatever this gap was between them before something— no, someone suddenly came between them. This person, he knew instinctively, was his cousin. Adrian.
He did not like Adrian.
The Duke stood with his sword pointed directly at Amir’s neck, his face filled with an emotion that Maeve might not know personally but knew on instinct it was something she should have felt when she realized that her stupid ex boyfriend was cheating on her.
Jealousy.
“What is your kind doing in a gathering like this?” He hadn’t even looked at her, or acknowledged her.
Maeve’s eyes flickered, waiting for NACE to pop up and mention something about approval rating dropping but that wasn’t happening. And it was all because his jealousy was overpowering the hate he had for her.
Her theory was right.
Bingo.
“He,” Maeve said, slowly slipping in between the Duke and Amir, her hand intertwining with hers. See, she did that only because she was trying to prove a point, and because of that, she didn’t notice the small shock and panic that crossed Amir’s face.
She would regret that soon.
Her focus instead stayed on the Duke who was staring at her with a look she knew she should have felt when
“Is my Vessel,”
The whole hall turned into an uproar.