“Good enough for me,” Astra replied. “I may not even attend this year. I owe Ehlaria a visit.”
“You don’t think the court will notice the only Lunar Princess missing?”
Astra crumpled inward, her shoulders falling. She’d forgotten about her duties on nights like these, taking part from the sidelines most of her life. “Damn.”
“Your mother picked out a stunning gown for the occasion…”
“You knew I wasn’t leaving the moment I got here, didn’t you?” Astra sighed, Ameera’s eyebrows wiggling.
“Oestera missed you, As. I know it’s hard to believe.”
“So I won’t.”
Ameera only glared at her.
Astra laughed at the familiar expression. “You’re spending too much time with the commander.”
“You have got to stop leaving your right side open when you block me on the left,” Lux groaned.
She heaved a sigh. They’d been at this for an hour already.
Roll, rise, block, attack. Over and over again until her head drowned in delirium.
“If someone attacks me, I’m not wasting my time with a physical altercation. I’m much more powerful in here.” She tapped her forehead with one hand, flashing a flame between them with the other.
Lux shook his head. “There are a dozen situations I can think of without even trying where your magic wouldn’t matter. Your hands could be bound, or someone could dampen your abilities. There are ways to ward against elemental magic. You can’t always rely on that.”
“Fine,” she relented. “Again.” Lux dove for her ankles, taking her down for the hundredth time as she rolled from his grip, kicking his bad shoulder.
“Fuck!”
“Shit,” she whispered, crawling back toward him, “Are you okay? I forgot which side—” He cut her off with a push onto her back. He slid over her, knees squeezing her sides, and pinned her hands above her head, pinching her skin. The ryegrass in the same meadow they’d met tickled her wrists. Mocking her.
“Roll, rise, block, attack,” he hissed against Astra’s face. “If I was your enemy, would you stop to make sure I wasn’t hurt?”
She grunted, attempting to pull her wrists from his grip, the weight of him making it impossible. “Let me go!”
“You have no clear firing path,” he ground out, pushing her wrists into the ground harder. “What’s your move?”
She scrambled, trying to think. She held him in her mind the same way she had the Solarian in the Midwood, sending a spiraling cloud of smoke into his face. He backed off, but he only lost his concentration for a second.
“If I’m trying to kill you, I’ve already done it. Think, As.”
The weight of him over her, the leather and oak scent of him, the heat rising as she lost her grip on his bloodline—it was all-consuming. She wriggled again, hoping to get a knee free, but he was just too heavy.
“I can’t think! You’re drowning me!”
“Come on, Fire Queen, you’re better than this,” he whispered against her ear, hands tightening. A dark thought rippled through Astra’s mind for a second. From here, it would take only an accidental brush of her hips, or a whisper of something utterly distracting to break him. She shook her head, clearing the fog in her mind, embarrassed she’d even let herself imagine such a thing.
He was the king’s commander, not a plaything. She was to be his queen. The king’s wife. She was supposed to be Tethered to the man for gods’ sakes.
“And you’re dead,” Lux muttered, releasing his grip on her wrists and rising off of her. Astra’s head swirled, the heat rolling away like a smothered campfire. He held a hand out to help her up. She reached for it, letting just a slip of flame lick at her fingertips. Searing his palm enough to cause him to pull back, but not enough to melt flesh.
“Do better tomorrow.” Lux flexed his hand, refusing to give her the satisfaction she sought as he left her on the ground. She would happily let him sit in his disappointment. The alternative was to drown in this dizzying haze as sparks of white-hot guilt for feeling anything come alive under his touch blazed against her.
He was right before, on the way out of Celene.
She’d been left alone too long.
