He lifted his head again. “Minds can change, Astra.”
“Sure.” She smiled weakly. “Just look at you. A month ago you thought me nothing but a spoiled princess who would destroy everything you love. ”
He flashed a wicked grin. “Yes. And someday I may just change my mind.”
Astra paced forward, a dark laugh from him drawing her toward the melody.
“Well, if nothing else, you’ve stopped sighing every time I open my mouth.”
He nodded, spreading his arms back over the rocks behind him, his chest expanding as he inhaled.
“Earlier,” she whispered. “What was that between our palms?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said through tight teeth, his eyes shifting away from her.
She shook her head. “I think you are.”
“I truly don’t know,” he insisted, his eyes silently begging her to move on. “A trick I learned between battlefields and bar fights.” He changed the subject. “Daria…”
She sank back against the rocks, her head swirling with memories and regrets. The steam rose around them, like the haze over cups of warm tea Daria would bring her in the pale morning moonlight. “Daria and I were…”
“Complicated?” Lux arched a brow.
“Actually, no,” she sighed. “It was supremely uncomplicated at first. I had just been shipped to Celene. I happened across her path in the Midwood one day, and that was it. We were simply together. And it was nice until it wasn’t.” Astra swallowed. It caused her physical pain to reduce Daria to a nice time, but it was certainly easier that way.
“You loved her.”
Astra fought the urge to curse at him, but he was not judging. He was genuinely curious.
“I did.” She pressed her lips together into a wistful smile. “That was the problem, as it so often is. We were great together, but she wanted more than I could give. The clock was ticking until Mother needed me as a bargaining chip. She wanted to run away together, find some little city in Venus or Mars, and disappear. Which had its appeal, trust me.”
“What stopped you?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping city behind her, at the thousand women traversing their subconscious desires as they rested. The low hum of their dreams wafted over, like walking to a room after someone applied a floral perfume.
“I couldn’t leave. I saw the state of the city. They needed my help. She couldn’t understand why I would choose strangers over her, but that wasn’t it. The weight of a court… so few people understand the way a crown breaks your neck and straightens your spine.” Emotion climbed her throat, digging its skeletal fingers into the soft flesh.
“You chose to be a queen.”
“Queen-adjacent,” she snorted. “I might never be on the Lunar Throne, but I still love the people who serve it. It was my fatal flaw with Daria. I couldn’t choose heart over duty, and she resented me for it. Things ended in a plume of smoke, as you’ve gathered. I never meant?—”
She bit back a violent wave of tears, searching for a breath.
“I never wanted to hurt her. You may think me a feral animal now, but a few years ago… feral almost feels too generous a term.”
“It must be lonely,” Luxuros murmured, his throat tightening, a familiar ache in his chest. “Always feeling for everyone else, but never being allowed the same grace.”
Her eyes flickered over him, the warmth in his tone unexpectedly comforting. It was so rare for someone to even consider how it wrecked her, wading through the court’s internal wars day in and day out, let alone give her the space to explore it.
“I can count the number of times I’ve been completely alone with my thoughts on one hand. Even now, you’re a brick wall, but the women beyond us… they dream in such divine palettes… it’s lovely some nights, but on others, their nightmares take root in my lungs. It costs me days when I can’t find the energy to block it out. It’s like my mind is constantly on fire and no one ever smells the smoke until it’s too late.”
He stared for a beat too long, his eyes swirling like pools of molten honey. Something about him this way, in the starlight, surrounded by a warmth she understood, a warmth she expected, pulled her in. She couldn’t have fought if she wanted to as she stepped forward, a strange insistence in her chest.
The crash of her knees colliding against his sent her back in shock. The heat of his skin—the one she understood so much less—flooded her senses as she lost the focus that constantly ran in the back of her mind to disarm his lineage.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her, reaching for his chest—closing himself off. “We haven’t slept. We’ve been drinking. I’m not being a complete hardass for once.” He laughed at himself as he looked beyond her, toward the glow of her windows. “Just a body, right?”
