Whatever she might have said, whatever she wanted to say, was silenced instantly by the look of pure horror on Lux’s face, falling into absolute dread as everything in the meadow stilled.
More shocking than the expression on his pained face was the way she saw the dread, black as night, tightening within him, spiraling into a glittering cloud.
His eyes widened, and she felt that tug in her chest again. The one that had gotten her into nothing but trouble lately, starting deep in her lungs, but it didn’t crash against her ribs and stop like it had when they were training. Like it had last night.
It did not stop at the contracting muscles around her bones.
It did not stop at her skin, flushed with sweat and dirt and goose flesh.
It did not stop until it collided in the space between them, wrapping itself around its invisible twin, tangling into a sacred knot.
“As,” Lux gasped, his hand flew forward to reach for her, but he thought better of it.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he had grabbed her and thrown her into the meadow, claiming her as his own right then and there. She wouldn’t have felt it. She was no longer in her body. She was floating somewhere above, watching the consequences of what she’d done unfold in a fever dream.
She was dust on the wind as the early Autumn breeze swept through the meadow, the only sound she processed as the tension between them stretched and pulled against her heaving chest.
The Tether strained, collapsing her entire world into a single gilded thread, the end and beginning of everything she was now woven deep within the commander’s very soul.
Chapter
Thirty
It was silent in the Midwood, save for the ragged breaths settling between them, neither of the two sure what came next.
“Astra,” Lux said again, “Look at me.”
She stammered, “Wh… what just happened?”
He only stared at her, wordlessly. His eyes brimmed with so many layers of feelings she had to parse through them one by one, untangling the muddy quarrel in his chest.
She saw every last one of them.
Every midnight pang of guilt, every violet flare of angst, scarlet terror, peony pink desire… the palest drop of blue hope, like the Somnia under a full Moon.
Every imaginable emotion, laid bare in a palette of rich colors she never knew existed.
She moved first, leaning back onto her heels, pushing up to stand before him. The turmoil within him wasn’t all she could feel now. Between them, a tightrope of stardust and sunlight and shadow stretched. She felt the gentle shift of his soul as Lux’s body leaned forward in response.
Lux whispered, “Please, say something.”
The heat in her veins was gone, extinguished by the icy chill of his betrayal.
“You knew,” she cried. “This whole time? Last night—you lied!”
“I will explain, I promise, but please, just tell me what you’re feeling first. I can’t, I don’t, I never—” He fell into a silence, tripping over his words.
His demand astounded her. “You want to know what I’m feeling?”
Lux rose, stepping closer, which only pushed her back. “Of course,” he said, his eyes pleading with her for a mercy she had no access to.
“After months of hiding this from me, of hiding every feeling you’ve ever had, you want me to bare my soul to you? Can’t you see how unfair that is?”
“Astra,” he begged, his voice so unlike that of the man she thought she trusted. “I know. I know. But this was never supposed to happen. It was never going to happen. Fuck! I should have moved faster, I shouldn’t have pushed you?—”
“Luxuros.”
One word, but it held so much.
