Chapter 15
Juniper shimmied a celadon gown over my hips. A delicate leaf embroidery brushed against my skin as the bodice shifted into place. Sheer sleeves fell from my shoulders—my fingers wrapped around the bedpost.
I inhaled sharply as she pulled the corset tight. “You look beautiful, my lady.” She offered a sweet smile as she finished my braid.
“Thank you,” I whispered through ragged breath. The corset pinched my skin as I shifted.
I didn’t want to go—wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing him after our conversation earlier. With a sharp inhale, my eyes welled with tears.
“My lady? Are you alright?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, but a single tear escaped. It rolled down my cheek. Juniper pulled a cloth from her skirt pocket and handed it to me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She fumbled with the clasp on my onyx. With one more click, it finally snapped back into place. I shook my head, talking about how I felt would only make it worse.
“You will be expected shortly in the great hall—but if you need time, you can take it. He won’t send for you if you’re a little late.” She grabbed her cloak and left quietly out my chamber door.
He wouldn’t send for me.
Not until he needed me.
Everything he did—giving me Gaia, pressing me about how I felt him at the willow. I thought maybe his feelings matched mine.
They didn’t.
I thumbed the onyx, admiring its glimmer in the mirror, until finally the tears stopped. My gown caught on a loose wooden floorboard; I pried it free. Unraveled threads poked out of the hem. I exhaled.
I smoothed the hair at my part that led into my braid. Tonight, I would be exactly what they expected. Everything was riding on it. At any time Lioran, or Pyrran, could decide my fate in a way that couldn’t be undone. I couldn’t go back to Bailoc, not after I fled into Nythrel.
An enchanted tune lured me out of my chambers and toward the great hall.
A grand staircase gave way to the ballroom below.
Elric stood at the bottom. His silver hair glimmered as he smoothed his pristine sky-blue tunic.
For a moment I relaxed in his gaze—grateful for a familiar face before I faced the ladies and lords of Lythira.
“My lady, you look like a dream.” He extended his hand out to me.“May I walk you in?”
I hesitated for a moment. Facing the crowd alone felt impossible. Lioran would be in the center of it all. I didn’t want to see him. My hand slid into Elric’s, and he nodded, as if he didn’t even notice my hesitation.
Massive, broad tree trunks braced the walls of the grand room—tree limbs and vines wrapped the walls framing an opening where the ceiling should have been. Cora stood to the side in a simple golden gown. The fabric hugged her curves—no corset held her in place.
Fyn surveyed the crowd beside her until he came across Elric and me.
My hand trembled in Elric’s, but he held it steady. “Breathe,” he whispered. I hadn’t realized that for a second, I wasn’t. My next inhale left my lungs throbbing.
No formal announcements were made, only whispers in a grand ballroom aglow from candlelight and the glittering sky.
“You have nothing but my admiration, Aelira.” I stiffened at his words. What would make him admire me at all?
The crowd parted. Lioran and Pyrran were standing side by side. Their silk tunics gleamed, perfectly pressed—Lioran in emerald and Pyrran in scarlet red. Lioran looked at my hand, still in Elric’s grasp.
My breath hitched. “Thank you.”
“It is an honor, my lady.” The chill of his lips pressed my knuckles. Elric’s attention shifted to Lioran, and I dropped my hand from his.
“Lord Elric, it is good to see you.” A fae lord approached, and I slipped away back toward Fyn and Cora.
“Well, I must say I’m surprised.” Fyn fumbled over the silk fabric as he attempted to cuff his sleeves. Cora grabbed him by the arm, she rolled the fabric without thought—until his cuffs were both even. “I am almost never incorrect about these things, but here you are…trying to prove me wrong.”
“Fyn…” Cora’s gaze held on my tear-stained cheeks too long. “Aelira can make her own choices.”
“I didn’t want to enter by myself,” I said.
Fyn grinned. “Oh, so I wasn’t wrong.”
“I need you to stop.” I recoiled from them both.
“I don’t know what the two of you are going on about,” Cora’s hand rested on my shoulder. “But surely Fyn, you can give her a moment of peace.”
He only nodded.
My gaze met with Lioran’s from across the room. He held it for only a moment, before turning to speak with his brother.
Starlight and the moon’s glow cast light onto the intricate stone floor through the opening in the ceiling. As the musicians lifted their instruments, fae ladies and lords collected in the center of the room.
“A dance, my lady?” Elric returned to my side, his hand extended. I tensed at his request. “It may calm your nerves.”
“Aelira.” Lioran’s jaw hardened as he stepped in front of us. “You look stunning.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” I curtsied toward him as Elric’s voice eased the silence.
“Please excuse us, Your Highness. Lady Aelira and I were just about to dance,” Elric said sharply.
“You were?” Lioran gripped his biceps as his gaze hardened on mine. He didn’t interject. He said nothing at all.
“We were.” I slipped my hand into Elric’s. Lioran nodded without another word.
The fae felt the music—there was no formality in their dance, only the freedom. I tried my best to move in unison with the music, to bring myself back to the moment.
My thoughts remained with Lioran as I waited to see who he would dance with. He lifted his wine goblet to his lips, his eyes peering over it at me.
“We are much alike.” Elric’s grating voice brought me back. His blue eyes fixated on mine and the hairs on my arms rose.
“How are we alike, my lord?”
“Lythira isn’t my home, either. I was sent here by the High Court to help the Prince as he attempts to restore his lands.” With the next beat he stepped closer, his hand slid down to my waist.
I wanted to pull away—to free myself from him, but it wouldn’t be worth the scene it would cause.
“Do you work for the high court, or for Prince Lioran?” I searched for Lioran as the crowd turned around me, but he had vanished.
“I serve the greater good of our people and the kingdom of Nythrel. My assignment in Lythira is only temporary.” His hand held steady on my waist, pressing the corset into me further. “May I offer a piece of advice?” I nodded.
He cast a glance in Cora and Fyn’s direction. “Who you ally yourself with will be extremely important.” A knowing smirk crept across his face.
His words were so familiar—my stomach curdled as they echoed.
Thalen said something similar to me.
Elric bowed to me as the final note was strummed. I lowered into a shallow curtsy as everyone parted from the dance floor. He couldn’t have known. They were only words. It was only a phrase.
Cora reached for me as I pushed past her. I didn’t turn back.
My feet trailed the steps, pushing me out into the open. The crisp night air swirled around me, but my ragged inhale caught.
“Aelira.” Lioran chased behind me. “You left abruptly. Are you okay?” He motioned to a stone bench for me to take a seat.
Suddenly he cared—suddenly, he wanted to say something.
“I needed…air.” Elric’s gaze felt like it still had a hold on me even as I slipped away.
“Did Lord Elric say something to upset you?”
“No,” I lied.
He sat beside me on the bench. My breathing slowed to match his, and his hand slid over mine.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said, his shoulders rounded. “Pyrran has a way of unraveling me. And the blight…it’s haunting me in every waking hour of the day. The pulse of Lythira is slowing.” My lungs caught a sharp inhale. “It’s dying. And I can’t save it.”
I had to touch the trees, where it existed, to feel it. But here he was telling me he felt it always.
“You feel it? All the time?”
“Every breath I take, every waking moment—I feel it.”
I saw the pain behind his eyes and wanted to reach for him—to take his hand in mine, but I couldn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t carry it like I do.”
“How do you know what I carry? You’re not the only one that carries this burden.” I pulled back from him. “It doesn’t hover over me, like it does you, but I hear when the land cries, when it falls silent.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He shook his head.
“Earlier, you were trying to deal with all this weighing on you? When I walked into your study…I thought—”
“I don’t just care about your magic.” A loose strand of hair hung over my eyes, but I couldn’t break the hold his gaze had on me. He brushed it away. “I care about you…immensely.”
My breath stilled in his grasp. “Lioran…” I almost told him everything, but instead I swallowed hard, tucking the truth deep inside of me. It would linger under the surface, unspoken.
He leaned in closer to me. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you earlier.”
“You won’t mind if I steal my brother, Princess.” Pyrran interrupted Lioran—I needed to know what he needed to say. “It seems my visit was appropriately timed,” Pyrran continued.
Lioran sprung up, he hovered in front of me—like a shield between me and Pyrran.
“It is amusing, really. She’s even dressed like she’s yours—the green, the regal gown,” Pyrran scoffed as his hands settled on his hips.
Juniper said he requested I wear it. It wasn’t like what Cora wore. Did he think this was what I wanted?
Pyrran took a step forward and a menacing smirk crept across his face as he assessed me. My thoughts had betrayed me, again—the truth written all over my face. Delight flickered in Pyrran’s eyes as if he were savoring this moment.
I rose to stand beside Lioran.
“That’s enough, Pyrran.” He growled as he spoke. “Don’t drag her into this. Your qualms are with me.”
“You and the Princess of Bailoc…” His laughter boomed. “It’s too good to keep to myself.”
“I can assure you, none of this is what you think.” My voice held steady. I didn’t know if there was truth in my words.
“How intriguing.” He glanced down, towering over me. “Lioran, a word alone.”
My nails bit at my palm. He would use whatever he thought this was against him—against me.
“Oh, Aelira…Save a dance for me later. My brother can’t be the one having fun with you tonight.” Pyrran’s voice trailed behind me, and I froze for a moment.
“Touch her, Pyrran, and I will—”
“I think whatever you’re implying is best left unsaid,” Pyrran scoffed.
Lioran’s hand curled into a fist. “Don’t test me, Pyrran. If you lay a single finger on her, I will break it.”
I didn’t stay to hear the rest. Pyrran wouldn’t have another moment near me.
Stepping back into the great hall reminded me I was an outsider in their world. Heads turned; whispers mixed with the lulling violin. I couldn’t hear their words, but the concerned stares gave me enough to imagine the rest.
My gown dragged across the stone floor.
“Aelira?” Cora reached for my hand as I passed her and Fyn. “Please tell me what’s wrong.” Her hand squeezed mine.
There was nothing I could say. Each moment with Elric, Pyrran, and Lioran left me feeling haunted. No one here could understand the pain I felt.
If Ashlyn was here, we’d escape to my chambers.
I’d cry, she’d make me laugh, and the sun would rise before we ever made it to bed.
My chest ached. I had traded that world for this.
Ashlyn was too far to reach, and if I ever saw her again, she wouldn’t want me there.
I wasn’t her sister anymore—I was fae, or half of one.
My hopes were bound tightly by the words Lioran could have said, but he hadn’t said them at all. “I…”
Fyn slid between me and the rest of the room, shielding me as the tears pooled.
I gripped at the fabric of the gown, a desperate yank at the fabric as it suffocated me. Too many thoughts flooded my mind. I had to get free. “I’m going to my chambers. Goodnight.”
“I can walk you back,” Fyn said.
I shook my head. “Thank you, but I just want to be alone.”
The bustling noise from the feast faded with every step I took.
The door slammed behind me as I tore at the corset laces free. The gown fell to the floor. I was free—the weight of it was gone.
Silky, white fabric slipped over my head. It fell around me. I laid down on the bed, but my thoughts remained with Lioran. The door remained still. No one knocked. The handle didn’t turn.
He almost said something that felt real. Pyrran made sure he didn’t.
Their world was so different. Maybe the fae were freer with how they interacted. Touch might not mean what it did in Bailoc. The way we were together would have never existed in my kingdom.
Maybe it meant nothing to him. Tears pooled on the fabric of my night gown.
It meant everything to me.
Lanterns flickered on the river, their golden light lulling me into stillness. My hands hid my tear-streaked cheeks. I sat with the silence for a moment, letting every feeling wash over me.
Then I reached for the little leather book—it had been too long since I read its pages. There were times I felt I didn’t need to be guided, but tonight, I needed its wisdom. The weathered parchment pressed open easily.
Trust yourself.
I growled, thrusting it down on the bed—the words faded.
“I can’t go after something that may hurt me. I don’t belong with…” I couldn’t say his name. Just thinking of him caused another surge of pain to shift through my chest.
Ink raced across the page again, curving as it formed each letter.
This isn’t about him.
It’s your story.
Your path.
You worry you can't belong amongst the fae.
“What if it breaks me? What if staying here…trying to fit into this place is a mistake?”
All the strength and magic to stand on your own is there within you.
No one can take that from you.
“Everyone has always seen me as less than what I am. King Ardyn couldn’t love me, Agan couldn’t bring himself to understand me…Because maybe they both knew what I was.”
It is their loss to never know your strength.
Do not carry that with you here—release it.
My fae heritage revealed a side of me too raw for me to accept. Everyday felt like I was pretending to be something I wasn’t—pretending I fit in when I didn’t. Pretending Lioran could have feelings for me, when maybe the truth was, he didn’t.
Fear hovered over me; it controlled my thoughts—controlled every word I said. A part of me was still the hurt little girl, looking up at her father, begging for love he could never give.
I was her still—always looking for someone to approve of me.
That life, that hurt, lingered even after I left it. Maybe it always would. I never sat with it, never truly felt it until now.
If I continued to live in that story, it would break me.
It was time to change it all—to rewrite it.
To breathe, to run—to embrace everything that made me, me.
If Lioran couldn’t see it, or Fyn, or Cora…then I would accept it.
At least I would see me.