Astra swallowed the shame rising in her throat. “So you’ve known this whole time?”
He nodded. “I suspected.”
She folded her arms, anger and regret swirling into a gray mass in her chest. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Who am I to interfere in what’s best for the courts? We need you. And you need us. Who cares how messy the truth is if it means we’re that much closer to our goals?”
She stared at him for a long minute, trying to understand the desperation in his voice. The fear of who he might have been. The respect for his king. The protective instinct over her. It was all genuine—she could feel the regret in his chest even over the shield, the fear that at any moment he might slip and she’d learn something neither of them could unlearn. Even if he didn’t let her see it, anyone could feel it.
She could understand that, couldn’t she?
“Fine then,” she relented.
“That’s it?”
She dropped her head back, an irate laugh escaping her throat. The war commander, muscles always wound tight, prepared for a battle.
“If anyone can understand fearing who you might be, and forsaking it all for the benefit of your people, it’s me.” Her eyes dropped to her fingertips, buzzing with sunlight after years of flickering in flames.
“I didn’t know about the sunlight,” he murmured.
She shrugged. “Many, many surprises this evening.”
“I am sorry. For what it’s worth.”
Her lips twisted into a half smile. “It’s not worth much, Commander.”
“You should sleep.”
She furrowed her brows, the irritation still twisting in her gut. “You’re going to stay up all night staring at that door, aren’t you?”
He didn’t respond. He simply scooted the chair so that it faced the door straight on.
Astra rose and reached behind herself to loosen the ribbons holding her dress together. There was no way she could sleep in the stiff bodice.
“Shit,” she whispered, her fingers just missing the top loop.
Lux tensed behind her, his eyes still fixed on the door. She struggled for another moment before she heard heavy boots brush against the rugs. Searing fingers pulled gently at the laces, first unraveling the tight bow Ameera had carefully constructed, and then loosening them loop by loop.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She felt another tug, and the bodice sighed in relief as she held the front of her mother’s masterpiece against her chest. She expected a rush of cold when he inevitably darted back to his perch, but he stayed.
He lingered.
A rough fingertip traced the petals of the moonblossoms jutting out from the full Moon at the center of her spine.
She held her breath, afraid if the ink so much as twitched, he’d disappear. Lux exhaled, the warmth tickling her neck.
“Goodnight,” he mumbled as he circled the Moon one last time, leaning beside her to extinguish the sconce on the wall, plunging them into darkness. She let the breath go, dropping the gown to Ehlaria’s floor and sliding under the velvet quilt. She watched the constellations woven into the canopy glint in the faint glow from the window, revelry still floating on the late-night air.
She understood why he lied, logically. She even understood why he left so many unspoken threads floating in the air between them—why he could only bring himself to trace lines and never cross them.
She nearly preferred it that way.
But in her gut, under all the rationalizing, there was still a bright white heat that burned against bone and vein. How many times now had she caught him in a lie designed specifically to control her actions? To curb her decisions?
It was hard to be angry with someone who believed they were protecting her, even if it was from herself.
