Thirteen
A quiet knock on the study door that evening ripped her from the book Ehlaria had left her. It was written in an Elvish dialect she didn’t quite understand.
She spoke modern Lunar Elvish fluently, but this one was strange. Her translation was murky at best. She’d thought about sending it to Cameren in Celene for help, but was nervous to let it out of her sight.
“Come in,” Astra said, resting the book on her desk.
“I brought you some dinner,” Ameera said, setting a tray before her. “Figured it was easier than eating with everyone else. Emotions are still running quite high.”
“Thank you. Did you eat?”
She nodded, sitting on the sofa against the far wall and tucking her feet beneath her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she huffed.
“Even with the Tether?”
Astra smiled tightly. Of course, she should be in utter disorder. The glaring flaw in her plan with the king was that neither of them had the first clue about what a Tether felt like.
“It strains, I suppose.” She rested her hand on her chest, breathing deeply. “Very irritating, but not nearly as irritating as his commander’s opinion on it.”
Ameera nodded, watching Astra’s face carefully. “Speaking of the commander?—”
Astra groaned, focusing on her plate. “Ah, yes, Luxuros. He’s only part Solarian, as it turns out. Doesn’t remember anything from before The Flare and swears he isn’t here to harm anyone. Pledges his loyalty to Mirquios, and thinks I’m a disastrous half-wit who will destroy the Mercurian court with my reckless curse... to sum it up.”
“I never said you were a half-wit,” a deep voice thundered from the hallway. Astra’s eyes whipped upward, her cheeks turning a deep shade of pink. The commander leaned in the doorway, far enough away that she hadn’t realized the faint prickling against her arms was due to his approach. As he stepped into the room, the smoke of him filled the space, fogging her mind even more than the embarrassment.
“The commander is here,” Ameera mumbled, finishing the sentence Astra had cut short.
Astra groaned with embarrassment, clenching her teeth. “Thank you, Ameera. Might I help you, Commander?”
“I have a note for you.” Luxuros held up a tightly wound scroll. “Came just a bit ago. Seems everyone has arrived and settled into the Plutonian Court.”
“You may leave it with Ameera,” Astra said, casting her eyes back to her plate. Ameera stood, caught off-guard at her sudden involvement. She reached for the missive, but Luxuros flicked his hand upward from her grasp, stepping forward to leave it on Astra’s desk. She glared at him before sliding it into a pile of communications she’d been meaning to get back to.
“Is that all?”
“That’s all, Princess.”
“Goodnight,” Astra said as Luxuros gave a brief two-finger salute and backed out of the doorway, his leather boots squeaking against the mirrored obsidian tile. Astra rose and slammed the door behind him, turning toward Ameera.
“Really, Ameera?”
“I tried to tell you!”
“Gods, he is irritating,” Astra hissed. “I have got to figure out a way to function around him.”
Ameera rolled her eyes. “You are aware that you’re to be his queen, not the other way around, yes?”
“If he doesn’t talk Mirquios out of the whole thing!”
“I only mean that you’re letting him intimidate you because, what? He thinks you’re undisciplined? Half the council, and your own mother for that matter, have said as much and you’d never dare let them make you feel small.”
“He doesn’t make me feel small,” Astra sighed, sinking into her chair. “He makes me…” She closed her eyes, unsure she could say it out loud. The thought had been rolling around in her mind for days, and the shame was almost too much to bear. “He makes me believe they’re all right about me. It’s different. My mother has had thirty years of questionable decisions and behavior to shape her opinions. I understand why it’s hard for her to see me as anything other than reckless.”
Astra stood, unable to stop herself from fidgeting anxiously in her seat. “The council doesn’t concern me. They share one mind between the lot of them. But the commander has known me for all of three days and already sees me for exactly who I fear I am.”
Ameera absorbed this, quietly organizing her thoughts in a way Astra always envied. “I know he’s riled you. But you know that you’ve worked hard over the last few years to get control over yourself. You could have killed him in the woods, and you only left him with a little scrape. What he thinks is his business, not yours.”
