“You two are relentless,” the commander groaned. “I’ll go so you can stop your ridiculous silent conversations.”
“See you at dinner,” Astra laughed.
“I’m taking this,” Luxuros muttered, holding up the book. “I love a good romance.” He winked at the women, disappearing between two shelves.
Astra couldn’t help but shiver in the sudden chill of his absence.
“I think it’s time we moved on from history,” Luxuros rumbled in the palace gardens over lunch. He set down the letter he’d received that morning from Mirquios, ingesting the latest discussions between courts. His fingers drifted toward his chest, rubbing at a sore spot in his muscles. “I can’t watch you suffer anymore, and I know you’re never going to admit you need my help, so why don’t we just skip the part where we argue for days and I show you how to mute my heat?”
Astra looked up from her tea, dropping the silver spoon against the crystal cup. She’d been several chapters into Ehlaria’s novel, though she hadn’t read a thing that made any connections to the Rift. She folded the pages into their package and rested her hands on the wrinkled brown paper.
“I’m getting used to it,” she insisted.
Luxuros leaned forward, a tidal wave of heat crashing over her as she leaned away. “Name four cities in the Mercurian Court.”
Her head swam, the bastard had been holding back for her benefit, she realized. “Cereulia, Jestine, and, um, fuck,” she murmured, closing her eyes against him.
The commander leaned away, taking his boiling temperature with him. “You hear half of what I say on a good day, Astra.”
“That’s because you’re boring,” she teased.
“My gods, you are stubborn!”
She straightened her shoulders. “I prefer ‘dedicated to my craft.’”
Luxuros gripped the bridge of his nose. “Have you considered that whatever you call it, it’s extremely off-putting?”
“Have you considered, Commander, that I’m not trying to be on-putting?”
“Fine,” he sighed, rising from the small garden table. “Let me put this in a way I think you’ll appreciate. You need to get over me, or we’re fucked, Fire Queen.”
It stung, the disappointment in his eyes. The expression was so similar to the way her mother would look at her.
“Okay,” she whispered, stuffing the scarlet shame back into the box she kept all her self-loathing. “Impart your wisdom on me, oh wise one.”
“Do you meditate?”
“Not frequently,” she confessed. She knew she should. It always helped when she did. But shaking off the thoughts and feelings of dozens of other courtiers, let alone her own, was daunting at best.
“Why not?”
“My mind is not one that thrives on silence.”
“That’s because you’re undisciplined,” he said, shrugging. “It’s a cyclical problem. You don’t meditate because you can’t stand to be alone with your thoughts. And you can’t stand to be alone with your thoughts because you don’t know how to observe them or parse them out from the surrounding ones.”
“So, what? I meditate, and then boom, I stop spitting fire when you piss me off?”
“That’s another thing entirely, I’m afraid.” His eyes dropped to her fingers. “I’ve known many people with intuitive abilities similar to yours, but I’ve never seen that.”
Astra frowned. “My mother was pregnant with me during The Flare. We think it’s a weird side effect.”
The commander’s eyes widened. “She was there?”
“If the rumors are to be believed,” Astra said. “She doesn’t speak of it.”
“I can understand that,” Luxuros said, his lips twisted into a pained knot. He paused for a moment to resettle himself. “Sit on the ground. Really root yourself to it and try to clear your mind. The goal isn’t to think nothing; it’s acknowledging what you do think without dwelling on it.”
“Got it,” she said, sinking to the ground and arranging her linen skirts over her knees. She laid her hands over her thighs, straightening her back. The warmth of him stung her lungs as he brushed by, walking around her in a circle.
