31. Chapter 31
Lunette
Shadows cast by the unsteady flame of the torches in their iron brackets danced along the stone walls as we left the feasting hall behind. The unfamiliar slippers I wore hugged my feet with a cozy warmth, yet did little to ward off the creeping chill that seeped into me with every step.
My cheeks still ached from smiling at people whose names I’d already lost. They’d treated me like someone with a title, and I’d sat there in borrowed silk and answered question after question while I tried very hard to be whatever they needed me to be.
It left me nearly as exhausted as healing the king had been.
I kept my eyes resolutely forward because I could feel Owain standing behind me—broad shoulders squared, jaw locked. Something in his expression had seemed so lost… so lonely all evening. But when we were alone, he’d looked at me like everything made sense again.
If I looked back, I’d break.
I hadn’t let myself think about how much I’d missed him since leaving Selmont. It was easier that way. But the moment he stepped into the hall and said my name, it all came crashing back.
Hate would’ve been so much easier than the pull he seemed to have over me. Even now, my shoulders had unknotted, as if my body had decided that he was still safe. My bruised heart was the only thing keeping me in check.
Tonight Owain had worn a crown. He looked regal, every inch the lofty prince. Yet… he had also defended me like I knew Rowan would have.
I’d been right about Fate—and I’d been right about how much it hurt. The goddess had dropped a man with Rowan’s gentleness and Owain’s undeniable authority on my doorstep.
Gods help me, I liked every piece of him.
The memory of his warm, devastatingly tender touch lingered. I tried to ignore the way my chest pulled tight, tugging me toward him. I tried to push it down like I was suppressing everything right now, but it wasn’t working.
I clenched my palms in the folds of my skirts to stop their trembling. The silk at my temples felt smothering, the delicate chains woven into my hair suddenly too heavy. I barely resisted the childish urge to tear them out and scatter gold across the floor.
I was doing a terrible job of hiding how I felt from Reina. Her steps were slow beside me, but her utter lack of fluidity screamed “performance.” She was unnerved by the news breaking so quickly.
We rounded the next bend, and I slowed. The corridor hummed with tension, taut as a bowstring about to snap. There were more guards than before. Each man stood rigid, hands near sword hilts, eyes sharp beneath their helms.
“They’re…new,” I whispered.
“Presence to tame nerves, nothing more,” Reina replied evenly.
“That’s only half true,” I said quietly.
“Correct,” she said, finally turning her head to look directly at me, one eyebrow raised. “In a place full of dangerous individuals, how safe people feel often matters more than their actual security.”
I nodded. Having only been brought to my room once before while I was unconscious, and once to leave it for dinner, the corridor was still unfamiliar.
I only recognized the distinctive door next to mine, but there were two guards flanking it this time.
I stopped in front of it, making Reina back up a few paces to join me.
“I’d like to heal His Majesty again before sleep if that’s possible.” Hearing about his wife’s passing had pulled at my heartstrings and made me more determined to stabilize him.
“Well,” Reina said, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “I think you going in there would send the wrong message.”
“You said everyone already knows about me!” I kept my voice low so the watching guards would have to strain to understand.
“That, my dear, is Owain’s apartment. The king’s is down the hall.”
My cheeks combusted into flames at the unspoken implication. “Oh, I…see. ”
“You inhabit the princess’s suite.”
I’d known there was no princess, yet the revelation still hit me hard. My stomach suddenly felt like it was being squeezed tight, rejecting what little I’d managed to eat of the decadent food earlier. They’d nailed perches all over the princess’s suite for me?
Luna, you cannot hyperventilate in front of Owain’s room. That would definitely send the wrong message.
Reina smirked at the expression of shock I couldn’t keep off my face. She asked, “Is it possible for you to restrict your healing enough to walk back on your own?”
I nodded. “I know my limits.”
“Good,” Reina said. “Because Owain is occupied with reassuring the banquet’s remaining guests. And I think he would execute anyone I permitted to carry you to bed.”
Something like hope bloomed in my chest before I could squash it down with the reality we were facing.
I had mistaken my usefulness for my intrinsic value for years. And here I was, doing it again—trying to walk into a dying king’s room because it was the only armor I knew how to put on.
The guards straightened as we approached, and the doors opened at Reina’s command.
The room remained unchanged, with the king still resting in his bed, cocooned by a thick layer of furs. Though this time he stirred slightly at the intrusion.
“Your Majesty,” Reina announced in a subdued voice. “Apologies for the unplanned visit.”
Berian’s lashes fluttered once, twice, and then his eyes opened. Unfocused and confused at first, they settled on me only briefly. Then they slid past me to Reina, sharpening with a glint of interest.
“My Duchess,” Berian murmured, voice rough with sleep and whatever draughts his other healers had been pouring into him.
Reina flinched at the familiar use of her title, then glided across the room. She lowered herself gracefully onto the edge of his mattress near his shoulder. Her blue skirts pooled across the furs, a lighter splash of nighttime sky against the dark bear fur.
“I’m afraid you’re not dead yet,” she replied with honey-sweetness, though her posture was stiff enough to look uncomfortable. “Though you insisted on testing the boundary multiple times. Dying is unacceptable, Berian.”
His mouth curved into a crooked, boyish smile that reminded me of his baby brother.
“Shame,” he said. “All it took was dying to get you in my bed.”
Oh dear gods, please tell me I didn’t walk into something about to turn very awkward.
My hands went still at my sides. My gaze shot toward Reina and I realized I was very very wrong.
But Reina didn’t even blink—like she was used to being talked to like this. If anything, her smile softened with fond indulgence. It was a performance so smooth that I almost doubted the tension I still saw in her posture.
There was something between them. Something I didn’t like because it reeked of coercion. Queen Isca had warned me that Owain’s relationship with his brother was complicated, but seeing this made me think the full picture was darker than I’d thought.
I stepped forward when she gestured me closer. “Your Majesty,” she said lightly, “this is Owain’s friend. A grand magus of healing.”
Berian’s gaze drifted over me more slowly this time. “How rare for my shadow to bring home a gift.”
Was that supposed to be a compliment? Or did he mean it literally?
The tone he’d used when he’d called Owain “my shadow” made protective heat flare in my chest. He spoke with a dismissive air, implying that his magic was a mark of imperfection. That was the same tone people used in Selmont when referring to my heritage—disdain sprinkled with possession.
Did the king think he owned his brother? Me?
In the ways that mattered, he did. The divide between the brothers yawned wider in my mind. My objective here wasn’t to repair relationships, only bodies.
“I’ll have to place my hands beneath your tunic, Your Majesty,” I said, forcing my voice into something clinical.
He grunted affirmation, eyes still hungry on Reina.
I adjusted the furs as I moved on the opposite side of the bed. I slipped my hands under the hem of his tunic, careful, professional, though my pulse was less steady than I would’ve liked.
At the same time, Reina took his hand, almost as if the action were a distraction. “Berian,” she said softly. “Theresa is dead.”
As I inspected my previous work, I watched as Berian’s brow furrowed faintly. His expression lacked depth. There was no sorrow. No anger—only calculation flickered from behind half-lidded eyes.
I had just begun to push the first strands of magic out through my hands when it faltered for half a second. I stared at the place where my hands disappeared beneath his tunic, suddenly acutely aware of the king’s pulse beneath my fingers—and the way it didn’t stutter or even quicken with grief.
He only huffed a breath that might have been a laugh and said, “Inconvenient.”
I knew marriages at his level of society were often political, but still. His wife had been dead for less than a day.
Reina’s fingers tightened around his. “I’m sorry, Berian.”
“I’ll have to remarry,” he said, voice drifting.
My hands stilled again before I forced them to move, rending one tiny invisible scar after the other that had been choking his organs. Easy, low-cost magic only.
“Yes,” Reina said coolly.
He turned his head toward her, a faint spark of life returning with my warming magic. “You.”
“I’m too old to bear you an heir,” she replied smoothly.
Berian offered a languid, pleased smile. “Part Fae. Doesn’t matter.”
“It most certainly does,” she insisted. I knew that wasn’t true, but I’d rather eat glass than correct her in that moment.
Her smile didn’t falter, but something in her eyes went flat. “I would make a dreadful queen.”
On the other side of the bed, my magic burned hotter than it should have. I had to clamp down on it before I accidentally created new scars instead of destroying them.
Berian was speaking of remarriage as if selecting a new cloak, one step away from proposing to the woman who’d just told him his wife was dead. Utterly distasteful.