The Capital Again
? Ivy ?
The capital’s white towers rise from the valley beyond the last ridge, bright against the winter sky and too clean after the north’s dark stone.
Printed broadsheets flap on the gate boards beneath the royal notices. One calls me the Northern Bride. Another asks whether Roman stole the future Luna. The capital has been arguing about my life while I was gone.
Snow lies thinner here. The roads are swept. The gates gleam with silver banners, and every guard at the outer wall looks polished enough to make me wonder whether anyone in the capital is ever allowed to look tired.
My body recognizes the city before my mind decides to.
My fingers tighten once in my lap before I loosen them.
Roman sits across from me in the carriage, one hand near the window and the other braced against his knee.
He’s spent most of the journey quiet, though not distant.
He doesn’t stare at me or fill the silence with careful instructions.
He lets the quiet sit between us like something we’re both allowed to use.
That’s become its own kind of comfort.
When the city walls come fully into view, his gaze lifts to mine. “The outer court will be waiting.”
“I know.”
“Jace will likely try to greet you publicly.”
“I know that too.”
Roman’s jaw shifts. “If he reaches for you, refuse him.”
“I was planning to.”
His expression changes by a fraction.
Then he leans back slightly. “Good.”
I look down at my hands. The black gown pools around my knees, smooth even after hours of travel. Silver cuffs hide the mark at my wrist, though I can feel it warming steadily now that we’ve crossed into the capital’s reach.
The court will see black first. Then Roman. Then me.
For once, I’m not sure which part will disturb them most.
Dane rides ahead of us with the first line of the escort.
Holt is in the carriage behind ours with enough copied records to make the council wish literacy had never been invented.
Nora insisted on riding with the medical cases instead of sitting beside me, which she framed as practicality and everyone understood as permission for me to arrive without being watched like a patient.
I appreciate that enough not to say it aloud.
The carriage slows at the first gate.
Voices shift outside. Hooves stamp against stone. The metal fittings on the harnesses jingle in sharp, orderly notes that don’t sound like the northern courtyard at all.
The door opens, and cold air enters first.
Dane stands below, expression calm and shoulders squared as if he’d gladly fight the gate itself. Beyond him, capital guards line the courtyard in silver and white. Their eyes move from the northern escort to the carriage, then to Roman when he steps down.
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s assessment.
Roman turns back and offers his hand.
He doesn’t reach in for me. He doesn’t take my wrist. He offers. I take.
The moment my black skirt appears in the carriage doorway, the courtyard changes.
A guard’s chin lifts. A servant near the archway slows with a tray in her hands. One of the court heralds looks from my gown to Roman’s coat and forgets the line he was prepared to announce. Then I step down.
The black wool settles around me. The silver at my wrists catches the pale capital light. I keep my hand in Roman’s until both my feet are on the stone. Then I release him.
A herald recovers enough to bow. “Alpha Roman Maddox and Lady Ivy Maddox, summoned for royal review.”
Lady Ivy Maddox. Not Luna.
The title lands carefully, like someone’s laid thin cloth over a blade and asked me not to notice the shape underneath.
Dane hears it. Holt hears it from the second carriage. Roman’s face doesn’t move, but the mark at my wrist gives one quiet pulse.
I lift my chin. “You may announce me as Luna.”
The herald’s eyes flick toward Roman. Roman says nothing. That’s answer enough.
The herald swallows. “Alpha Roman Maddox and Luna Ivy Maddox.”
The word moves across the courtyard faster than the wind.
Some of the guards lower their heads by instinct before they remember where they are. Others only look uncomfortable. That’s almost better. I walk forward.
The courtyard is the same one I crossed after the vow ceremony, though it feels altered now because I am.
The last time I left this palace, I wore white and tried not to look ruined.
I remember hands guiding me, voices speaking over me, the carriage door closing while the court watched to see whether the rejected bride would sob, faint, or disappear neatly.
Today, they watch for a different reason.
They want to know whether I belong to Roman, and if the north has remade me.
At the inner arch, Jace waits.
He stands in formal silver, polished from collar to boot, his fair hair arranged like the court has been combing him into a story since birth. Sloane stands a little behind him in pale blue, beautiful in the way she’s always been beautiful: soft enough to invite trust, sharp enough to use it.
The sight of them together strikes the old bruise before I can brace.
It hurts, but less than before.
Jace steps forward with a practiced expression of concern. “Ivy.”
Roman locks beside me, but he doesn’t move between us.
“Prince Jace,” I say.
Jace’s gaze flicks over my gown. He doesn’t hide it quickly enough. Surprise comes first, then calculation, then something uncomfortably close to irritation.
“You look different,” he says.
“I am.”
The answer is simple enough that he has to decide how to take it.
His mouth tightens, then softens into something meant to appear wounded. “I meant it kindly.”
Dane makes a very quiet sound behind me that might be a cough if anyone is charitable.
Jace’s attention sharpens, but he keeps his smile. “The journey must have been difficult after everything that happened in the north. I’m relieved you arrived safely.”
“Are you?”
His expression falters. Only a little.
Sloane steps in before the silence hardens. “Ivy, please. Jace has been worried sick.”
The old Ivy would’ve apologized for making anyone uncomfortable.
I look at my sister and wait.
Sloane’s smile warms as if she’s decided the watching court needs softness. “We all have. After those rumors about your mark, and then the attack, and now this review, I can’t imagine how overwhelmed you must be.”
Concern as a cage.
“I’m not overwhelmed,” I say.
Sloane blinks. Jace tries again. “You don’t need to perform for us.”
“I’m not pretending.”
His eyes move to Roman. “Did he tell you to say that?”
The courtyard goes very still.
I turn toward Jace before Roman can answer. “Roman didn’t give me the words.”
For one perfect second, Jace has no response. Sloane’s smile thins. “You’ve changed.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
Jace steps closer and lowers his voice just enough to pretend intimacy while still allowing those nearby to hear. “Ivy, I know we have much to discuss. I was hoping we might begin again with civility.”
He offers his hand for the old court gesture. His palm turns upward, waiting for my fingers, waiting for him to bow over them in apology, courtesy, claim, or some mixture of all three.
For half a breath, the courtyard becomes the Moon Chamber.
Then Roman’s warmth steadies beside me without closing in. I look at Jace’s hand. Then at his face.
“No.”
Jace’s hand remains suspended between us long enough for everyone to see the refusal. Color rises along his cheekbones before he draws it back.
“I meant no offense,” he says.
Sloane’s gaze cuts toward me. “There’s no need to humiliate him.”
The unfairness is so familiar it could’ve been embroidered on my childhood pillow.
“I’m not taking his hand,” I say. “That’s all.”
The horses sound loud in the silence that follows. Jace’s face changes.
For one moment, the polish cracks and something resentful looks through.
Then he lowers his head, playing regret for the watching court. “I deserved that.”
“No,” I say.
His gaze lifts.
“You deserved the truth. You didn’t give me any.”
Roman’s breath shifts beside me, almost a laugh, and I feel its heat through the bond.
Sloane recovers first. “Mother and Father are waiting inside.”
My stomach tightens once. Then releases.
I’ve survived worse than their disappointment.
“Then we shouldn’t keep them waiting,” I say.
Jace’s gaze moves again to my gown. “The council expected ceremonial white for the review.”
Roman finally speaks, his voice low enough to avoid performance but clear enough that Jace hears every word. “The Luna chose her gown.”
Jace’s attention snaps to him. “You expect us to believe that?”
Roman’s face remains calm. “Believe what you want.”
The palace doors open before Jace can answer, and the sound moves through me like cold water.
The inner hall waits beyond them.
White stone. Silver lamps. Court banners. Floors polished enough to catch the shape of anyone who walks across them. My body knows this place.
It also knows Roman’s room now. The fire. The storm. The kiss I chose. The stop that protected it.
The capital no longer owns every memory inside me.
That might be the most dangerous thing I’ve brought back. We enter together.
The court gathers along the hall, and the whispers begin as soon as the doors close behind us. I hear my name. I hear Roman’s. I hear black, curse, north, mark, review. Someone says Sloane softly, as if comparing us out loud might still matter.
I don’t look toward the voice.
Marissa and Wade stand near the first archway.
Wade’s face is arranged into the version of concern he wears when reputation is at risk. Marissa’s mouth is tight enough to cut a cleaner line than any blade.
She looks at my gown first. Then my face.
Then my hair, my wrists, and Roman standing beside me.
“Ivy,” Marissa says, each letter polished thin. “This is hardly appropriate.”
Once, that sentence would’ve made my skin shrink.
Now it only makes me tired.
“For what?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow. “For the review.”
“The court sent a gown,” Sloane adds softly from behind me. “We only wanted to make the day easier.”
I turn my head enough to look at her. “A replica of the dress I wore when Jace rejected me wouldn’t have made the day easier.”
Holt’s voice comes from behind us. “The storage number belongs to the king’s ceremonial office. It left the palace with the summons.”
Several whispers die at once. Sloane’s face stills. Marissa’s color shifts.
Jace looks sharply at Sloane, and that’s interesting. Not because he’s innocent, but because he may not have known the full shape of that cruelty.
Wade steps in with the heavy voice he used when the Brooks household needed obedience dressed as reason. “This isn’t the place for family grievance.”
“You brought me here to be judged by strangers. I’ll speak where I choose.”
A court attendant appears at the end of the hall, pale-faced and careful. “The council is ready to receive you in the Moon Chamber.”
The words strike the floor between us: Moon Chamber. No one moves until Roman turns slightly toward me.
He doesn’t ask the question aloud in front of everyone. I move first.
The hall to the Moon Chamber is exactly as I remember. Silver sconces line the walls. White banners hang in the high air. The floor slopes gently toward the double doors at the end, where two guards stand with ceremonial spears and trained blankness on their faces.
Jace and Sloane follow behind us. Marissa and Wade come after them. Roman walks at my side, close enough that the bond stays warm, not so close that I disappear behind him. Dane, Nora, and Holt remain with the northern escort.
At the doors, the court attendant bows. “Luna Ivy Maddox and Alpha Roman Maddox.”
He uses the right title. I accept it. The doors open.
The chamber sharpens around me. The arch isn’t as tall as I remember. The aisle isn’t as long. The dais where Jace stood looks polished, expensive, and small.
I step inside before anyone can guide me.
The black gown moves around my legs. The court turns to watch. Roman stays beside me, and for the first time, the altar doesn’t look like the end of my life.
It looks like a place that once misunderstood me.
A printer’s boy is already shouting the council notice in the square. The capital has heard about me; listening will be harder.