Chapter 1 #2
“Starshine!”
My father’s voice—booming and oblivious—sails through the air from somewhere inside the estate. I flinch like I’ve been slapped.
Rayek’s gaze shifts instantly, like a predator returning to patrol.
“Your father,” he says flatly.
“Yeah,” I mutter, pushing away from the board. “My cue to go pretend I’m excited about monogrammed wedding goblets.”
I stand, brushing imaginary dust off my dress.
Rayek rises too, taller than the archways, broader than the damn garden statues. He doesn’t say anything. Just watches me.
I want to say something. But the words dry up on my tongue.
So instead, I smile. One of those tight-lipped, hollow things I’ve perfected over the years.
“Don’t go losing to anyone else while I’m gone,” I toss over my shoulder as I walk away. “I’d hate to think I’m not special.”
I don’t wait for his reply.
The corridors of the palace are quiet except for the soft click of my heels and the insufferable prattle of my mother.
“I was thinking the Feldspars should sit at the north end of the terrace,” she muses aloud, trailing lace-gloved fingers along the curve of a marble banister.
“That way the breeze catches the lilies and the musicians don’t drown out the toasts.
Or perhaps the center patio. Yes, something symmetrical. ”
I nod like I’m listening. I’m not.
Everything she says glides right past my ears like birdsong—pleasant, harmless, utterly detached from the storm inside my chest.
“And Kaspian,” she continues, in that syrupy voice she uses when she thinks she’s being subtle. “He’s turned out so well, hasn’t he? Strong jaw, kind eyes, cultured accent. And he’s taller than his father now, did you know that? And clever! Just like his grandfather was before the alcohol.”
I press my fingertips into the side of my temple. “Mother, please don’t talk about his alcoholic grandfather while planning my wedding.”
She laughs—like tinkling glass over poison. “Oh hush, it’s not like anyone else remembers. That whole scandal was ages ago.”
She sweeps into a turn, skirts fluttering, her heels clicking in rhythm with her breathless optimism.
“Honestly, darling, I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet.
You’ll be beautiful. The Feldspars are thrilled.
Chamberland will unite with Zarathe, and this whole region will finally stop holding its breath. ”
“I didn’t realize I was personally responsible for the planetary lung function,” I murmur.
She clicks her tongue. “Don’t be flippant. This is legacy, Star. This is what we raised you for.”
Raised me for. Like I’m a wine meant for opening on a political anniversary. Like I’ve been corked and shelved and aged just right so someone else can swirl me in their glass and declare me palatable.
She doesn't notice my silence. Or maybe she does, and just decides to talk louder.
“We’ve got the floral techs arriving next week to design the centerpiece, and the composer’s already sent over samples for the procession. Oh, and your father—bless him—he finally agreed to wear the old family sword for the ceremony, can you believe that? He says it’s heavy, but I told him—”
“Mother.” I stop walking. She halts mid-sentence, skirts rustling.
I take a breath, slow and shallow, and meet her gaze. “Can I… have a little time? Alone?”
She tilts her head. Her eyes, all amber sparkle and painted lashes, narrow just slightly.
“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”
I want to scream. I want to rip open the velvet curtains and let the Akuran wind tear this whole building down to its foundation. I want her to look at me—not the future duchess, not the pawn on the political chessboard. Just me.
“No,” I say softly. “Just tired.”
Her expression smooths like polished porcelain. She leans in, presses a kiss to my cheek that smells of rosewater and control.
“You’ll see,” she whispers. “Once you put on the dress, everything will make sense.”
No it won’t.
But I nod anyway.
She glides away down the hall, and I retreat toward my suite like a ghost with a curfew.
My room is quiet. The kind of quiet that hums in your ears when the door clicks shut behind you and the whole world stops pretending to care what you think.
I drop my heels near the velvet settee, let the dress pool to the floor like spilled silk, and pad barefoot to the window.
The training grounds stretch out beyond the rose garden—barren, blistering, and brutally real. No manicured hedges. No servant girls giggling. Just flat stone, battered holograms flickering in and out of combat stances.
There he is.
Rayek.
He’s moving like a storm unchained. No armor. Just black training pants and a sleeveless tunic soaked through with sweat. Muscles shifting under scale and scar as he drives his fists into one of the combat holo-drones.
The machine flickers, readjusts, tries to counter. He slams a knee into its midsection, spins, ducks, shatters the holographic skull with a vicious elbow. The next drone materializes and he doesn’t even flinch.
I press my forehead to the window glass.
He fights like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this world. Like he needs to move, to hit, to burn. Like silence eats him alive if he doesn’t beat it back with brutality.
And gods, he’s beautiful.
Not in a pretty-boy way. No soft smiles or delicate hands. He’s made of violence and heat and sacrifice, forged from a thousand lost battles and stitched together by duty. Everything about him should terrify me.
It doesn’t.
It makes me want to open my chest and let him carve his name on my heart with those claws.
The window fogs where my breath hits the glass.
I know what this is. What I feel. I’ve known it since I turned nineteen and caught him watching me with an expression so raw it made my skin flush. Since he stopped being just “Rayek the bodyguard” and became him—the one I dreamed about. The one I couldn’t touch.
And now I’m supposed to marry someone else. For peace. For legacy. For duty.
For everyone but me.
I close my eyes, trying to push the ache down, but it rises anyway. Thick and hot and unrelenting. A slow, golden execution. That’s what this is.
My fingers curl into the window frame. My nails bite into the paint.
What good is knowing what you want… when the universe has already written your ending?