Chapter 23
Kai
Every step away from Hannah made my skin crawl.
I forced my feet to move forward to the eastern watchtower where the spy Dole waited.
He stood beneath the overhang, almost entirely wreathed in shadow.
Like me, he carried both Dusk and Night magic in his blood, though without the burden of a crown.
The shadows clung to him as if he belonged to them, loosening only when I stepped within reach.
“Report.” I needed information so I could get back to my mate.
Mate.
I’d come to terms with what she was to me, and I was done pushing her away.
He nodded. “It’s all true. Strange as it is, we’ve confirmed that the Night Court has withdrawn from around the Dusk Court.
We’re not even finding traces of them now.
” He stood with his arms at his sides, posture held but not rigid.
The mask concealed most of his face, leaving only a sliver at his neck where the insignia of my spies marked him as one of mine.
“Withdrawn.” I let the word settle. Wind cut across the tower, carrying an edge of frost that slipped through even my cloak. “From every position?”
“Every position we’ve tracked. The scouts near the eastern pass are gone. Patrols along the Rowan border have pulled back. Even the group near the Silver City waypoints broke camp two nights ago.” His voice remained level. “No skirmish. No engagement. They simply left.”
I braced a hand against the cold stone of the parapet and looked into the night beyond the wards. Somewhere in that darkness, Bram was moving pieces I could not yet see. The absence of his soldiers should have brought relief.
It did not.
It settled in my gut like a weight. “Where? Are they consolidating for an attack?”
“That’s the trouble, sire.” Dole shifted, the shadows around him rippling.
“They’re not forming camps, and movement is scattered with some north and some west. A few even turned south toward the Crystal Mountains.
There’s no pattern we can confirm.” A pause.
“They still hunt the Aurora Fae. There is a gathering near the Aurora Court. If one method for killing the heart of the Aurora Court proves insufficient…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. It wasn’t necessary for Bram to kill Hannah to kill the heart of the Aurora Court, but if he didn’t get through the shield to destroy the physical manifestation of the Aurora Court’s heart, he would stop at nothing to kill Hannah.
Cold settled in my chest like frost biting the stone beneath my hand. We were still weeks from the point where the weakening of Day and Aurora magic could be exploited. But brute force required no such precision. “What else?”
“Nothing more.”
I held his gaze a moment longer, waiting for something unsaid. There was nothing. Only absence.
Absence was worse.
“Continue tracking. I want movement reports without delay. If they shift, I know.”
“Yes, sire.”
I left him to the shadows and descended.
Folge met me at the eastern gate, snow from the higher parapets dusting his broad shoulders. He fell into step beside me.
“All quiet.” He scanned the area with one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Inner wall patrol rotated a quarter hour ago. Outer wall rotates in five. Every waypoint between here and Silver City and Oscoro Falls is manned and reporting.”
“The wards?” I already knew the answer, but things were so strange that I needed confirmation from those near it. Still, they bristled with all the potency that we had, and it was enough. Anything attacking from the outside would be repelled.
“Holding. Ashren inspected them before the guests arrived. I sent enchanters through again after the first wave was seated.” His gaze cut toward mine. “No disturbance. Not even a flicker.”
I nodded. Good. We didn’t need another surprise attack.
We walked the length of the eastern wall in silence, my boots striking the stone in a rhythm long since etched into muscle and bone. At the lookout, I slowed and stared over the city.
Lantern light spread in widening circles beyond the castle, the market squares strung with garlands of silver rowan and glowing orbs. Even from this height, the sound carried. Fiddles. Laughter. The bright cry of a child, and the steady beat of boots striking cobblestone.
My people were celebrating.
I rested a hand on the parapet and let the sound settle around me.
Bonfires burned in the squares. Tables had been dragged into the streets.
The scent of roasted meat and spiced wine rode the wind even here.
It would be the same in every city tonight.
Silver City. Hollowreach. Oscoro Falls. The smaller settlements tucked into the foothills.
Thea had ensured it.
They didn’t know how close the dark pressed against our borders, nor had they seen the shape of what approached. But they felt it…they had to. The shift and pressure before a storm.
Tonight, they’d been given something else to hold. A bit of happiness and hope before the darkest period.
I curled my fingers against the stone. Somewhere inside those walls, Hannah stood among my court in a gown the color of dusk and starlight.
My chest tightened. Her mouth against mine. That shouldn’t have happened.
Not there. Not in front of them all, with every gaze in that room waiting for weakness. My jaw tightened.
If the Night Court learned of this, they would read it as a claim and respond accordingly.
And she—
My grip on the stone hardened. She shouldn’t have been left alone in that room.
“Sire?” Folge’s voice pulled me back. He had stopped a pace behind me, patient as ever when he could see the direction of my thoughts.
“Nothing suspicious,” I said, though the words sat wrong. “And yet every instinct I possess insists otherwise.”
We had reinforced the wards after every breach, and because the last time they’d been tampered with from within, I had overseen the restructuring myself.
Layers woven through layers, each tied to watchers placed at fixed intervals so that no alteration could be made without being felt, without being seen.
Those responsible had been found and removed.
There should be no weakness left to exploit.
“Nothing suspicious.” He didn’t need to say more. The doubt was already there.
I turned north, toward the path carved into the mountain leading to the plateau.
The ridge curved around it in partial protection from the wind, though not enough to ease how exposed the terrain was.
I’d already chosen the place, already walked it, reinforced the wards there with my own magic until they were bound deeper than any enchanter could have managed alone. It would hold. It had to.
The plateau was a place of renewal, of vows spoken beneath open sky and falling stars, a tradition older than most courts still standing.
If Olen was correct, tonight’s display would draw even the most guarded of my people into something resembling wonder.
Under different circumstances, it would have been… fitting.
My hands settled at my sides.
“Nothing will breach the wards tonight. Whatever the Night Court intends, it will not be now. Even if they send wyverns again, we are prepared. The people should be allowed this night. I hope you will take some of it for yourself, Your Majesty.”
I inclined my head, my gaze drifting back over the city where celebrations burned against the encroaching dark. “See that you do the same when your shift ends. Send word immediately if anything changes.”
“Yes, sire.”
I didn’t linger. Remaining would only delay what I had already postponed for too long.
The dance and the kiss had been a beginning, and I had no intention of allowing that moment to stand alone.
I turned from the parapet and moved through the corridors, torchlight flickering and bending in my wake as shadows shifted along the stone.
The pull in my chest strengthened with each step, no longer something I could dismiss as distraction but something with weight and direction… something that led back to her.
When I reached the ballroom, the sound struck first.
Not the measured murmur of courtly conversation, but something lighter and threaded through the music in a way that didn’t belong to this room. Laughter carried instead of being contained, rising above the strings in a way that felt almost unruly.
I slowed beneath the archway.
The dance floor stood empty despite the musicians continuing their waltz. Couples lingered at the edges, but their attention had shifted toward the back of the hall where the feasting tables stood. A crowd had gathered there, several people deep, spilling outward and curling beneath the overhang.
Hannah’s voice cut through the noise, unconcerned with who might be listening. “Of course we can have another. And you can use different kinds of cheese. Just don’t burn it.”
A ripple of laughter followed.
“You didn’t just turn that with your fingers.”
“Well, you could use a skewer. But if you’re wearing something like this, you don’t want to get grease on it.”
More laughter. Louder now.
I stepped forward, and the crowd shifted instinctively, parting just enough to grant me a clear line of sight beneath the arch.
Whatever I might have expected to find, it wasn’t this.
Hannah stood at the center feasting table with a skillet held in one hand over the small fireplace’s golden flame, as if she had claimed the entire space by right.
Her other hand rested on her hip, posture easy and unbothered, like she was presiding over a kitchen instead of the Dusk Court’s ballroom.
Inside the skillet, two thick slices of bread had been pressed together, the edges darkening to a perfect gold. Cheese spilled out along the seam, bubbling and hissing against the iron. The scent reached me a moment later. Butter. Toasted grain. Something richer, sharper.
Cheese. Melted, not liquefied cheese. Placed between seared sides of bread and seared.
The smell curled through the air in a way that made my mouth water before I could stop it.
I moved closer, the crowd parting as I descended the last steps and stepped beneath the overhang.
Hannah had added a cloth napkin into the sash of her gown, grease staining the fabric in small, unapologetic smears.
“Now, if we were really doing this right, we’d have garlic salt,” she continued, as if instructing a class instead of a court.
“But since y’all don’t, we’re making do with regular salt. ”
She gave the skillet a small, practiced tilt, rotating it to keep the heat even despite the obvious strain in her arm. Then, without hesitation, she pinched the crust between her fingers and flipped it, revealing a perfectly seared underside.
A few gasps followed that.
“And that,” she added, satisfied, “is what you’re aiming for.”
Around her, the damage had already spread.
At the surrounding tables, several fae had taken up skillets of their own with varying degrees of success.
Lady Merynn’s was angled too steeply, her top slice sliding dangerously toward the rim while the cheese threatened to spill directly into the flame.
A younger noble had stacked his ingredients unevenly, the entire structure leaning as if it might collapse at any moment.
One of Folge’s cousins had managed to keep his skillet steady, but his bread had gone past gold into black, and he was stabbing at it with a skewer like that might somehow undo the damage.
Thea stood a few steps back, looking delighted while eating one of Hannah’s creations, which had been cut into neat triangles. Ashren stood beside her, holding his own portion between thumb and forefinger with visible caution as he rotated it and took a careful bite.
Hannah slid her latest creation from the skillet onto a plate, set the iron aside, and reached for a knife. “Now, there is some debate about the correct way to cut this.” She paused as if preparing to deliver something of great importance, “But believe me, it tastes better if it’s triangles.”
She cut diagonally through the center, then separated the halves with practiced ease. The crystals along her bodice caught the light as she lifted the plate with a small flourish.
Then she turned, and her eyes found mine.
The grin that spread across her face hit harder than any strike I had taken in battle.
“Well, look who decided to rejoin the party.” Her voice carried through the hush that had fallen as the others noticed me. She lifted the plate, offering it forward. “You want a taste of Tennessee tradition, Your Majesty? It’s called a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s delectable.”
The crowd shifted as I stepped forward, but my attention remained locked on her.
The loose fall of her hair escaping the tiara. The grease-stained napkin tucked into silk that had likely never seen such treatment. The gold in her eyes, brighter now, unguarded in a way I had not seen since she had come to this court.
She wasn’t being careful.
And the court was watching her like they did not know what to do with that.
“A… grilled cheese sandwich.” The words left me before I could refine them. I looked down at the plate she held out, at the golden triangles with cheese still melting along the edge, then back to her.
“It’s not going to bite you.” She tilted the plate closer. “But if you keep staring at it like it might, I’m going to be offended. This part works better if you actually eat it.”
Thea failed to hide her laughter this time. Ashren made a quieter sound, which he immediately disguised by taking another bite.
I took the offered piece.
It was warm. Greasy. Entirely unlike anything served in my court.
Every eye in the ballroom settled on me as I lifted it, waiting.
Taking a deep breath, I took a bite.