Chapter Twenty-Three
Dinner had already begun when they returned.
Lunelle felt the prince’s cold sapphire stare on her as she slipped into the hall, dropping into the seat beside her mother. The king followed shortly after, an absence Arcas had surely noted.
“You’re late,”
Oestera whispered.
Lunelle nodded in a simple acknowledgement. She would not apologize.
She’d hardly gotten a sip of wine in before her mother rose beside her, tapping the edge of her glass with a silver knife.
“Now that both parties are here,”
Oestera said, grinning as her eyes fell to Lunelle.
“The Lunar Court has exciting news!”
Lunelle choked, the bitter wine catching on her panic.
“Mother—”
Oestera ignored her.
“We’ve spent these last few months picking apart every possible detail of what it would be like to embrace the Plutonians as the Inner Courts’ newest allies. We’ve aired our doubts and concerns, we’ve made plan after plan, and I know we all agree that Arcas has demonstrated his dedication to our cause and his rejection of Solar dominance over the Living Courts. I believe we are all aligned on the benefits, and I am thrilled to seal their dedication and welcome Arcas to the Lunar Court beside Lunelle as our Lunar king.”
The air in the room tensed, several sets of shoulders pulling taut as Lunelle’s face reddened. She could not bear to look at Mirquios’s face, she felt enough pain in the Tether.
“There will be no trial, then?”
Kahlia asked, their brows arching over their sharp cheekbones.
Oestera rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder as if to prevent her from running.
“We will still hold a coronation trial, of course. It’s important to uphold such a sacred tradition. But Arcas will be joining as the sole Lunar champion, as a symbol of our dedication to this partnership.”
Lunelle was gone, outside of her body, watching from the depths of the Nether and fighting the urge to vomit. Arcas stood at the end of the table, raising a glass.
His lips twisted into the smirk she saw in her nightmares, the one she’d once thought was enough to take away the pain in her chest.
Gods, she was stupid.
Arcas gestured to Lunelle.
“It’s my honor, Oestera. A toast to my bride, Lunelle, and her ceaseless dedication to keeping me as honest as she is.”
The table raised their glasses as Lunelle felt her stomach turn, her mother’s grip on her shoulder tightening.
“We will begin the return to our courts tomorrow, but tonight, we will celebrate!”
Oestera declared.
Arcas signaled his servants, who stepped forward with glittering bottles of bubbling wine, filling sapphire flutes. Lunelle finally risked a glance at the end of the table, where two jade eyes held onto the plate before him.
Oestera reached a hand to Lunelle.
“Shall we dance, darling?”
There was something in her eyes, something like sadness, that Lunelle couldn’t quite understand. She wondered what Astra would see—would a plume of some vivid shade of shame fall over her mother’s shoulders before she could spirit it away?
Lunelle sighed, scooting back her chair and slamming the glass of sparkling wine, welcoming the way it stole her breath as her mother led her across the dining hall into the center under a dome coated in delicate blue and violet flowers.
The strings from the quartet shifted as they saw the dignitaries take their places, slowing into something soft, something fluid.
Oestera held her daughter’s frame and stepped back as she spun them into a well-worn waltz.
“You could smile,”
Oestera murmured as Lunelle’s muscle memory carried her through a dance they’d performed a million times together.
She did not respond.
“This was what you wanted, Lunelle, was it not?”
She snapped her eyes to her mother’s—that cool, icy stare so like her own, and yet they saw everything so differently.
“Yes,”
Lunelle whispered.
“Then what plagues you?”
Oestera twisted them back, Lunelle’s pale pink skirts fluttering behind her. The pull in her chest tightened as the king rose and moved toward the floor.
“There’s no issue.”
“You’re sure?”
They held still for a moment, and Lunelle wondered—for just one breath—what her mother knew.
What she didn’t know was more frightening.
As they turned, Lunelle’s spine tightened, the weight of it all settling between cartilage and vessels, flowing through her entire body in the span of two breaths. Tears slithered up the back of her neck, begging her to speak. To drop her mother’s hand, to expose herself before Arcas could.
And then he was there, at the edge of the dancefloor, stepping into her line of sight, twisting his blue fingers together as he eased in front of Mirquios.
She hated him.
She’d been so confused, so dizzy over trying to understand him, trying to parse out the facets that might be redeemable. She’d sifted through layers and layers of fear and cowardice, and at the bottom, there was only disappointment.
“Lunelle?”
her mother asked again.
“This was what you wanted, yes?”
It was in the way Arcas crossed before Mirquios that solidified her resolve.
The way his proximity to the king reeked of danger, and the way she’d do anything to protect him, she felt it in her very Soul. She could not give him the kind of love they both hoped for, but she could give Mirquios the protection she’d nearly taken away by her reckless actions.
She looked back at her mother.
“Yes. It’s what I want.”
Lunelle stepped back, bowing to her queen.
“May I have the next?”
Arcas was beside them as her head came up, his sky-colored palm waiting for hers.
The thought of touching him made her stomach twist.
Perhaps it was like any other pain—all-consuming at first, but eventually, a reluctant companion.
Familiar.
She rested her palm in his, a thin layer of chilled sweat coating her skin as he whisked her into another arc.
He did not wait for her to lead, and she did not fight for it this time—there would be plenty of that in her future.
“I must apologize for my harshness last night,”
he said quietly as they danced.
Lunelle snorted, a bitter laugh catching in her throat.
“Ah, yes, we’ve come to the part of the cycle where you confess you’re a scared little boy and I find something within the ashes of you to polish into a forgivable gem. I must say, Prince, you’re becoming predictable.”
Arcas exhaled, his lips tightening as he spun her away from him. He pulled her back and dipped his mouth close to her ear, the sensation no longer intriguing or mysterious.
Only cruel.
“I think you will find that I am not as pathetic as you’ve decided I am, starling. All I ask is that you leave room for me to surprise you.”
Lunelle wrenched her head back, her eyes narrowing into his, a softness to them she had seen so sparingly.
“Your last few surprises have been more than enough for me,”
she sighed, dropping his hand. She made a swift move for the gardens, desperate for fresh air.
Mirquios was there in moments, the tug on her chest crying out in relief.
“You cannot be out here,”
she said, cradling herself as she slipped further into the shadows of the towering willows at the far end. Their branches brushed against her back, soothing the ache in her spine.
“I know,”
he mumbled.
“Just go,”
she said, the first tear she’d been so desperately holding onto spilling.
“I spoke with Kahlia,”
Mirquios sighed, standing behind her, fighting the temptation to reach out and turn her toward him.
“The Venusians may be able to help. There’s a ceremony that some of their hierophants practice to sever Tethers. It cannot do anything to change the feelings, but it could lessen the physical pain?—”
“Sever it?”
Lunelle spun, the tears flowing freely now.
“I do not want to give you up, Lunelle. But if we have no other option, perhaps it can make it bearable.”
Lunelle hovered as close to him as she could stand, resting her hand on his forearm. She crawled her fingers over the slope of his chest, against the silver threads of his tunic, feeling his lungs rise and fall.
“I cannot tell what would be more painful—enduring the ache of the Tether for the rest of my life or only having the memory of it to hold on to. Lura has written to Camaren in Celene, she comes from centuries of historians. She might know something we don’t.”
“Maybe there is a time, after revolutions and wars, maybe the dust settles?—”
Lunelle winced.
“It’s a nice dream, Mirquios. But it is only that.”
“Weren’t you the one who said dreams might be enough?—”
Lunelle’s brows tucked together, her head tilting.
“When did I?—”
A half-smile tugged at his lips.
“In the library,”
he whispered.
Pink pooled on her cheeks, warming her face as she leaned into him, hiding her eyes.
“Do not do that,”
he chuckled, pulling her chin back toward him.
“You can never hide from me, Lunelle. I will always find you.”
When she’d finally pried herself from the eyes of the Inner Courts and stumbled back to her bed chambers, she was surprised to find a certain Plutonian princess perched at the edge of her bed.
“Yallara!”
Her onyx waves bounced as she rose at Lunelle’s voice, crossing the room and grabbing at her hands.
“Lunelle, my gods, I am so sorry!”
“For what?”
Lunelle could think of dozens of things one might pity her for, but not one of them was Yallara’s doing.
“I know that this isn’t what you intended, that last night things got heated, and he, he, godsdammmit,”
she cried, falling onto Lunelle’s sofa and pulling her into the seat beside her.
“I’d always hoped that there was more to my brother than our father’s brutal misgivings, but the destruction he caused last night… the pain. It will take Kwan months to rebuild?—”
“Yallara,”
Lunelle whispered, smoothing a tangled curl from her pale face, wet with tears.
“I understand your fears. And I will not lie to you and say I do not share them. But perhaps there is a way—with time—that I can influence your brother. I don’t believe that he’s half the monster he thinks he is.”
“Do you really think so?”
The sullen blues of her face seemed to deepen with her sorrow, the candlelight clung to her tear-stained cheeks as she drew a slow breath.
Lunelle wasn’t sure what she thought. She only knew what she hoped for desperately, and those were rarely the same things.
“I will do my best,”
she whispered.
“Princesses?”
Lura set a tray of tea down on the table before them, her own eyes welled with the frustration and anger of the room.
“If anyone can cause a boy to want to become a man, it’s a woman far too wise for him,”
Lura said with a quiet confidence Lunelle wished she could bottle. She leaned back into the sofa, maintaining a soft hand on Yallara’s forearm, who seemed as if she was finally able to take a full breath.
“Goddess speed to you,”
Yallara sighed, reaching for a cup.
“When you return to the Lunar Court tomorrow, I am calling a meeting with the rebels. I believe there are enough of us within the halls of the palace that, in my brother’s absence, we may be able to make strides toward dismantling his advisory.”
Lunelle’s lips twitched into a half smile, the most she could gather.
“Your brother was right to fear you,”
she giggled.
“You move things along here, and I will move them along with Arcas. If one wise woman can turn a boy into a man, imagine what two can do.”
Lura cleared her throat.
“Three,”
Lunelle corrected, feeling the slightest slip of lightness she’d hold close over the coming months.
“You shouldn’t be here,”
Mirquios groaned when a halo of silver curls appeared in his doorway in the middle of the night.
Not that he’d been anywhere close to sleeping.
She wore less fabric than he was capable of taking in responsibly—just a slip of white silk and a robe left open. Every detail of her sparkled in the flickering lantern light, something they seemed to realize at the same moment. She pulled her robe tightly over her body and tied the waistband, though it wasn’t much better.
“I couldn’t sleep,”
she sighed. She’d tried. She’d gone back into that ballroom so bravely, with a smile on her face even though she felt as if she were spiraling back into Pluto’s underworld. Yallara and Lura had stayed long enough to convince her not to fling herself from the Plutonian cliffs.
But the moment she was alone again, the pain struck up, flaring across her chest.
“You could at least have worn a very thick cloak,”
he muttered, rubbing at the ache in his chest. He moved from the doorway and let her in, the war within him seeping into the Tether. She slipped in like smoke, settling quietly into the corner of one of the armchairs near the window. He watched as she peeled back the curtain, spotting the Moon and her contemporaries in the sky and doing some sort of silent calculation.
“What is it?”
he asked, sitting gently on the floor beside her. She tucked her knees to her chest and pushed the curtain back further.
“I’m so disoriented after being in Pluto all this time. Just finding my bearings before we return home tomorrow.”
Lunelle leaned her chin onto her wrist, releasing a slow breath as the tugging in her ribs eased. Mirquios leaned his shoulder against her chair.
Not touching, though the weight of the air between them felt like a tight grasp around their throats.
“What Moon is it?”
She searched the sky, Pluto’s many Moons obscuring hers.
“Hmm, the Harvest Moon,”
she replied.
“But the next is the Mourning Moon, my favorite.”
The heft of the words settled on her shoulders. She sank further into herself.
“She knows it’s coming, the longest night of the year, and she weeps in the cold, but she shows her face regardless.”
“Is it the longest night of the year if day never comes?”
Lunelle giggled, a gentle release she so desperately needed. He had a point.
“I suppose that mythology works better in courts like this one.”
He was silent for a long moment.
“When we return home, we will figure this out, Lunelle,”
Mirquios declared.
Lunelle straightened in the chair.
“What is there to figure out? My mother has made her decision and she won’t change her mind. Arcas has threatened to expose every last one of us if I do not marry him. I do not want to get rid of this between us, and I suspect you don’t either…”
He sighed.
“Of course not.”
They were truly trapped, but there was something gnawing in the back of her mind—a constant whisper between heartbeats.
What if. What if. What if.
She could not let herself follow that trail. It would only lead to worse pain.
“Tell me more about the Moon.”
Mirquios leaned his head against the leather of the chair as she inhaled, trying to pin a place to start.
“When I was a little girl, my father used to tell me that the Moon was my real mother. That I was a drop of liquid moonlight escaped to the courts, and that he and my mother loved me too much to let me return. I used to cry in my bed, thinking I didn’t belong there.”
“Lu,”
he breathed, reaching a hand upward, toward the soft silk falling over her arm, but he thought better of it.
Lunelle had never said her next words out loud, never dared let them pass her lips.
“I think I’ve always felt like my court wasn’t my home, somewhere deep down.”
They sat in the silence of what she didn’t say—what she couldn’t say. That she’d never felt settled because, all this time, she’d never had him. That home would always be wherever he was—Moon, Mercury, or anywhere in between.
“Take the bed,”
he said, pointing to his unmade mattress.
“I’ll stay in the chair.”
“You don’t have?—”
The fire in his eyes stopped her protest. He was not interested in her independence. She resigned herself to his request and climbed over him, slipping beneath his soft sheets and letting the scent of him drown her as she fell into another world—the dream world they’d created together—her library, where he was already waiting with a fresh cup of tea and a new book.
She pulled her shoulders back, shaking off the misery from the evening.
“We need a plan for tomorrow,” she said.
Mirquios waited for her to elaborate.
“My sister will sense what’s happened immediately. If we’re going to suffer apart, I do not wish to bring her into it.”
“Of course,”
he said, a smirk unfolding.
“What?”
“I like Princess Lunelle, but my gods, Queen Lunelle does something frightening to me,”
he murmured, his bright eyes dancing as he watched her regal posture return, the desire to protect her sister reminding her just who she was.
“Well, steel yourself. We’ve got business to attend to, Your Highness.”