Chapter Twenty-Nine
The halls were silent as she swept through them. The sconces on the walls burned low, her breath still catching as the panic coursed through her veins.
She’d failed her. She’d failed her sister once again, letting her take on far too much for her benefit. It was unfair of her to even lead Astra to believe it was her job to step in—she should have never created this mess in the first place, let alone let it spiral so far out of her control.
Her muscles burned with anxiety that was begging to go somewhere, anywhere but there, anywhere but spinning out in the empty corridors of a palace she wasn’t sure she could protect any better than she’d protected her sister.
“Fuck,”
she muttered under her breath, pacing beyond her own bedroom door, heading for Astra’s chambers directly. She could still change her mind.
And she just might have, if only her sister were available. Lunelle hesitated outside her door, and she was glad she did as she heard a high-pitched giggle followed by a rumbling groan from a certain commander’s chest.
Lunelle snorted. She should have taken Mirquios up on his offer after all.
She could have returned to the Mercurian Court, it wasn’t much of a jaunt. She certainly wouldn’t be getting any sleep next to those two. She found herself wandering toward the Andromeda wing. Perhaps she could tuck herself into the king’s bed and at least surround herself in his scent for the evening.
Lunelle was midway through the courtyard when she felt something shift in the shadows, a breath holding in the dark. She knew it was him before she spotted his long limbs crossed over one another in the twinkling starlight above. She felt it tug against something deep within her chest. It was not like the Tether—it was harsher. It did not glimmer, but rather curled against her ribs like smoke.
“Princess,”
Arcas said quietly, gathering a stack of hazy green stones from the table before him.
“What are those?”
she asked.
“Aventurine,”
he said, snorting, the darkness within him painted all over his face.
“They’re good for mental clarity. And for Mercurian engagement rings,”
he muttered.
Lunelle leaned over the table, plucking one from his pile. It was a raw version of the carefully cut stone in her sister’s ring, a gentle green with smooth facets, cool to the touch.
“Did you find the clarity you seek?”
His sapphire eyes flickered up to her, thick black lashes blinking slowly.
“Perhaps I did.”
His eyes fell over her fingers, stroking the flat surface of the stone, and traveled up her arm, settling on her face, where he saw it land—what he hadn’t said.
“Arcas—”
“Fascinating,”
he scoffed.
“I no longer even need you to speak to hurt my feelings, Lunelle.”
She hated him. Hated that he was so resistant to change. Hated that he was speaking with such softness now when she knew he would rip it away at the next turn. Hated that she longed to bend forward and soothe the pain within him.
She sat across the table, smoothing her skirts over her knees as she tried to ignore the strange pulsing in her stomach. She only managed to battle it back a few moments before the question emerged.
“Do you think there’s a world, in another court, or another life, where we’d have been strung together by Fate?”
Arcas flinched.
“No,”
he said, swallowing.
“The gods have their reasons.”
“But what if they’re wrong? They’re wrong in so many other ways?—”
Arcas leaned across the table. “Please,”
he hissed.
“Please, Princess, I cannot take on more pain at your hands. I know you do not trust me. You do not admire me the way you admire braver men, but I am doing my godsdamned best here?—”
“Do better,”
she pleaded.
“You could do better!”
“I was not made for you!”
Arcas ground out between clenched teeth, slamming his palm against the table.
“I was not threaded to your Soul in some cosmic map of the universe, but that never once stopped me from seeing you as you are and loving you anyway. From the moment I met you, from the moment you dared to dress me down, I knew.
“I knew I was being punished for my cowardly heart. I knew I was not good enough or bold enough or, or, or anything enough for you! I was a fool to think I might be worthy of even a moment of your time. I am sorry that I was not crafted from stronger stars than this, but I am who I am, and I thought you could—”
Arcas stopped himself, hanging his head forward.
He rose, sweeping his stones from the table and clenching his jaw.
“I thought perhaps you could find something within me worth loving anyway.”
He barreled out of the garden, leaving her to contend with a heart trapped in the eye of a storm, the weight of his declaration choking her. She listened as his steps faded, each click of his boots yanking at something ugly within her.
Something she recognized.
The pain of an older sibling doing what they thought was right, desires be damned.
The cowardice of hiding behind duty to escape what is difficult.
The reluctance to admit when they’ve been defeated by forces outside their control.
Fuck, she thought, her breath catching somewhere in her ribs.
It was as if all the darkness in those places he pulled at consolidated at once, falling into a single star that embedded its sharp corners into her lungs, refusing to let her breathe.
“Arcas,”
she called as she stood so quickly she knocked her chair back into the stone. She left it there as she chased his shadow through the courtyard, breaking into a run as the star rammed its razor-like edge into her.
“Arcas!”
she called again, his shoulders hardly visible in the low light of the halls. He stopped outside of the Plutonian quarters, turning with a pained grimace, unsure if he could take another round.
But she did not slow, she slammed against him, sending his back against the amethyst and stone of the palace wall, wrestling every stubborn piece of him into her hold as she gasped for a breath that would not come. The sharp edge in her lungs dug deeper, stung against her as she fought to find his mouth, his shock freezing him against the wall.
He began to say something, but she could not hear him. She could not hear a godsdamned thing but the air whooshing from her lungs as his arms closed behind her back, fingers ripping at her loose waves to find some sort of control over her.
“Princess,”
he whispered, hands curling into her, his breath just as short.
Lunelle ignored him, nipping at the edge of his jaw, running her hands through his onyx silk strands. She moaned against his throat, desperate, frantic. Somewhere, on some level, she was aware that he backed her into a bedroom, the sound of a door thudding against its frame nearly breaking her focus.
Nearly.
He twisted her, slamming her against the frame of something, gods knew, as he tore at her dress, shoving it against her hips and ruffling his fingers through layers of lace to get to her.
“Fuck,”
Lunelle whined, his fingers unforgiving as he sank his teeth into her neck and stroked her, the fury with which they both moved spinning the room into a haze. She yanked at his shirt, needed to get to more of him, to feel the flex of his muscles as he ground against her hips.
“You will kill me,”
he rasped.
“You will kill me, Lunelle.”
His fingers curled within her, drawing a yelp as her head leaned back against the wall. She could not breathe, could not think, could not see anything but him.
“I need more,”
she whispered, grabbing at his waistband and the length of him beneath.
The prince’s breath shuddered at her touch, his mouth hanging open against her ear as he withdrew his hand, pushing her toward the bed. She hadn’t looked at which room he was in, hadn’t cared. Nothing mattered but numbing the sting in her chest with the salve of him.
Arcas stripped as they crossed the room, landing on his back against the headboard, more than ready for her as she flung her dress away. Lunelle climbed over him, his wide hands gripping her hips and guiding her over his lap. Her lips parted at the sensation of him within her, pausing only for a moment to find her bearings before his hands squeezed and pushed her further down.
Her chest ached, the sting spreading through tissue and muscle as he pushed her faster, his head tucked against her neck. Lunelle rocked in brazen circles, pulling at his hair, his shoulder, anything available to her.
Arcas pulled one hand from her hips and clutched his chest as she sped up, desperate to fall apart.
“Look at me,”
he said, sliding his free hand up her back and pulling her hair into his fist. “Lunelle.”
She could not. She could not look at him, for fear that she’d see so much of herself within those sapphire eyes that she’d never be able to look away. He pulled tighter.
“Look at me,”
he pleaded.
“You do not have to say it out loud, Lunelle, but godsdammit I want to see it.”
“See what?”
she gasped.
“That you do love me, in spite of all the hell we’ve put each other through, and all the hell we’re still yet to rain on one another,”
he growled, pulling her hair tightly as he forced her to face him. She cried out at the sting in her scalp, momentarily able to forget about the pain in her chest as she fought his gaze. Fought his accusation.
Fought the truth as it whispered across her tongue.
Lunelle whimpered, her hands bracing herself against him, eyes closed as his hips drove into hers with such force she thought he was wrong. She would not kill him. He would be her death in the end.
“Arcas—”
“Look at me!”
he demanded, a crack in his voice breaking her into pieces.
She turned her eyes to him as she shattered in his lap, something so dark, so craven cutting through her chest as their eyes met and she bared it all to him—that she did love him, no matter how wrong it was.
No matter how much Fate had already given her in another.
She still wanted more—whether she deserved it or not.
Lunelle shook around him, her entire body drowning in shadows and starlight, a darkness wrapping around them and tying her into knots in his arms. His sparkling eyes, so drenched in pain, widened as something shifted between them, something deep within their spines. His breath came in low groans as he kept moving inside her, the air thickening with something neither of them understood.
A bond as dark as the obsidian of his gaze.
Arcas sucked in a breath through his teeth, close behind her as he mumbled as much into her shoulder. Lunelle wrestled with herself, wanting to feel his release within her, but her head won out over her body. She slid off him, kneeling beside him and taking him in her mouth as he stroked her hair—her name left his lips in an exhausted sigh as she took everything he had to offer to her.
Arcas leaned his head against the headboard, fighting for breath.
“You do not have to say it,”
he whispered, running his hands through her hair.
“But you will always feel it between us, braided between the wisps of our Shadows.”
Lunelle sat up, the stretch between them palpable. Her eyes widened as she felt the tug within her, nothing like the Tether she held between the king, but an attachment all the same.
“What is that?”
she gasped.
Arcas sighed.
“You and I… we may not be bound by Fate. But we are bound by certain dark things that, try as we might, will always seek one another out.”
She pressed her hand against the space between her ribs and her stomach, the space she’d hidden him away in.
“Did you know that would happen?”
His sharp gaze narrowed.
“No more than you.”
Lunelle reached between them, desperate to understand, but nothing buzzed or hummed.
It slithered.
“I do not believe you,”
she mumbled.
Arcas winced.
“Who chased whom this evening?”
Lunelle shook her head, attempting to clear the strange sensation away. She crawled over him and off the bed, snatching her dress from the floor, the darkness in her chest delighting in her ire.
“Lunelle,”
he breathed, leaning over to grab her, but she was already too far away.
“I cannot love you, Arcas. I cannot love anyone who would let their court rot when the right thing to do is within their grasp.”
Lunelle ran from his room, burying herself in the king’s bed, each breath pulsing with two very distinct, very strange responses.
One that sparkled and begged her to bury deeper within the soft silk of Mirquios’s bed, and another that steeped her in ceaseless darkness, drenched with questions she desperately wanted answers to.
She awoke to two strong arms wrapping around her shoulders, sweeping her hair off her neck as Mirquios pulled his quilt over them.
“You’re home,”
she sighed as she rolled over and wrapped her arms around his neck.
His lips tightened into a half smile. Home was a loaded concept.
“Is Astra doing all right?”
he asked, rubbing her shoulder.
“Well,”
Lunelle laughed, though the sound was hollow. There was so much within her that ached.
“I went to check on her, but it seems the commander was… tending to her needs.”
Mirquios closed his eyes and sighed.
“Good for him, I suppose.”
He pressed a kiss to her lips.
“What time is it?”
“It’s early, but people are definitely awake. You’ll have to be careful.”
“Or,”
she mumbled, snuggling further into him, letting the light of them warm her.
“I could stay here forever, and we don’t have to deal with any of the nightmares awaiting us.”
“Flawless plan,”
he agreed and brushed her hair away from her face.
“I see no issues at all.”
He eyed her as she inhaled slowly.
“Are you well?”
“How do you mean?”
“You seem… weighed down. It’s hard to describe. Is it Astra’s deal with Selenia?”
Lunelle swallowed the acid in her throat. “Yes.”
The king held her tightly against him, the Tether in their chests jumping with a brightness she didn’t deserve as he stroked her hair.
“Let her do this for you, Lunelle. For all of us.”
Lunelle nodded against him, something deeper than the Tether rolling inside her. She wondered if it was the crushing anxiety of Astra taking on too much, or if a certain prince was awake for the day, storming the palace in search of another way to twist her world on its head.
“I should go before the halls fill with courtiers,”
she whispered, forcing a smile.
He only nodded sleepily as she kissed his cheek and slipped away from his room, her heart wrapped in both lightning bolts and thunderclouds.
“Oh gods, smite me,”
Nayson muttered to himself as he came down the Mercurians’ hallway.
He stumbled into Lunelle, pulling the king’s door shut behind her.
“Father!”
she yelped, silver eyes aflame.
“I, uh, well, good morrow, darling.”
Nayson ran his hand through his hair, desperate for air. His warm gaze was surprisingly hollow as he glanced behind them.
“I was just leaving a note for the king. He is away,”
Lunelle said sharply.
“Oh,”
Nayson sighed.
“Of course.”
She tilted her head.
“Are you all right?”
“Better now,”
he admitted.
“You girls certainly keep a man on his toes.”
“A family trait,”
Oestera said over Nayson’s shoulder as she passed the mouth of the hall.
“Mother!”
Lunelle smoothed her hair.
“Far from your chamber, are you not, Lunelle?”
Lunelle bit her lip.
“The king requested a list of Astra’s favorite poets. For a gift.”
Oestera watched her curiously, her gaze mirroring her daughter’s. She was no fool, Lunelle knew, but she also didn’t have time to dabble in madness.
“I believe your sister was searching for you in the garden earlier,”
Oestera said.
It all came crashing back on her—Astra’s commitment to Selenia. The guilt fell in sheets of ice down her back.
“Lunelle?”
her father asked.
“I should go find her,”
she muttered, pushing between them and breaking for her bedroom.
Lunelle had lived in the murky haze between light and dark for days—floating through every meal and returning to her library as often as possible to avoid everyone and everything.
It was the night before her Trial Ball, and she was tucked away in the safety of her library when the commander interrupted her evening tea.
“Luxuros,”
she said without needing to look up from her book. She’d learned the strange heat that preceded him well. It prickled at her neck as he sat across from her.
“You’ve been hiding,” he said.
“Correct,”
Lunelle admitted readily, folding her book into her lap.
“Your king is worried.”
“Your king is worried,”
she corrected, sitting up straighter.
“Lunelle.”
She huffed a long, irritated sigh.
“I am not avoiding Mirquios. I am avoiding… feeling anything. At all. It has been a long few months, Commander, as you no doubt understand.”
Luxuros nodded, his bronze waves slipping through scarred hands as he smoothed his hair back.
“I received a note from Kwan this morning.”
Lunelle perked up at this, tucking her ankles beneath her and fixing her eyes on the commander’s fiery stare.
“Seems Yallara has reason to believe her brother may be softening in his stance.”
Lunelle’s lips parted, but no words came. She closed her mouth again. It was much easier that way.
“Kwan says she is to be crowned queen, regardless of the outcome of your trial.”
Her eyes narrowed, the confusion settling in the fine lines of her frown. She shook her head.
“What would have changed his mind?”
Luxuros waved a hand.
“That’s none of my business, Princess.”
Her cheeks warmed. She wondered for a moment how much he knew, how much Mirquios had shared with him.
“Once Yallara is on the throne, the pathway to felling Pluto is clear. As are Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Earth.”
Lunelle’s heart sped forward, the commander’s own excitement clear on his upturned lips.
“And the Lunar Court, of course,”
Luxuros added.
“Of course,”
she agreed.
Lux leaned forward, catching her eye.
“Whatever you’ve done, Lunelle, it worked.”
She smiled tightly, a well of strange feelings opening up in her chest.
“What does Astra think?”
Lux stood, brushing his palms against his thighs.
“Astra is not actually part of the rebellion yet. I thought perhaps you might like to bind her.”
“I thought the elves?—”
“Didn’t work out,”
Lux sighed, glancing toward the window at the endless night. She saw it then, the strain on him. The weight of loving her sister the way he did. The pain he carried in his heart for her.
“You should be the one to do it, Commander.”
His fingertips grazed the leather cord around his neck.
“Is that your blessing, then?”
She arched a brow.
“It is a prayer, Luxuros. Don’t fuck it up or she’ll destroy you.”
Lunelle sipped her tea.
“And I’ll help.”
The commander laughed, though she saw the heat in his eyes flare.
“I suppose I must express the same sentiment to you on behalf of Mirquios.”
Lunelle nodded.
“Let us agree to never become enemies then, Luxuros.”
The commander offered her a crooked smile before he faded quietly, taking his heated bloodline with him.
The moment she could breathe again, tears slid over her lips, the salty brine swirling against her cup as she silently spiraled in her favorite chair, with her favorite tea, without any of her favorite people.