ChapterOne
Of all the feelings in the world to detest, Lunar princess Lunelle Aurellis hated the vibrations of uncertainty most.
She could tolerate a white-hot rage well enough.
Shivering nerves? Not ideal, but nothing she couldn’t subdue with a few deep breaths.
A burning jealousy was uncomfortable, of course, but at least it stirred something intriguing within her.
But the back-and-forth icy heat of simply not knowing what to do tingling in her spine was by far the worst of the fluttering emotions battling for dominance as she searched her vanity drawers for nothing in particular. She just needed to keep moving.
“You don’t need to do that, Princess, we have it all handled,” her maiden, Lura, cooed as she folded a set of impossibly soft silk day dresses into a trunk. Her amethyst gaze watched Lunelle’s ticking fingers grasp for air.
“I’m glad one of us does,” Lunelle sighed, leaning against the smooth iridescent opal of the vanity. She pulled at the ends of her silver curls, the candlelight of the sconce above casting an amber glow onto the blank canvas of her silk skin.
“It won’t be for long,” Lura assured her. “And aren’t you alittleexcited to see what lies beyond the walls of the Lunar Court?”
Lunelle’s pale pink lips folded into a soft pout. “A little. But I don’t like leaving Astra. Not with so much up in the air.”
Lura squeezed her hand briefly as she moved about the room. “Why don’t you bring her in here, hmm? She’ll be a great distraction.”
Astra certainly was that.
Come pack with me, Lunelle beamed toward the amber energy she’d grown to associate with her sister. She’d missed their shared silent conversations in Astra’s exile, but their little trick had snapped back between them with no effort at all.
Astra’s raspy velvet tone echoed back.Be right there.
Lunelle was wrong. There was a feeling she hated more than uncertainty.
Sorrow.
Astra had spent the last three years exiled at their mother’s directive and was hardly home a fortnight before the Solar king’s movement in the Outer Courts was ripping them apart once more.
She rolled her shoulders back, attempting to dispel the uncertainty pooling in her chest.
It was in Lunelle’s nature as the ever-cautious eldest sister, the heir to the Lunar throne, to remain poised under pressure. Her head shook side to side as she searched for one of her journals in her nightstand.
That wasn’t actually true. It wasn’t in her nature at all.
It was in the painstakingnurtureshe’d endured those thirty-some-odd years beneath her mother’s weighty wing.
Everything from the way she held her chin as courtiers spoke—angled just so to appear engaged and open to the speaker no matter the subject—to the speed at which she set her fork down—too quickly could be seen as a declaration the meal was over—was carefully curated by thousands of years of women who could never shake the weight of judging eyes on their shoulders.
Lunelle tucked a few leather-bound journals into a bag as several maidens poured into her room, whisking through her things as Lura directed them. Her sister’s fiery curls followed, casting a warm glow around the room that almost soothed her nerves.
Almost.
Lunelle could not stop the lingering fear from manifesting in a mumbled, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Of course,” Astra agreed. Her lips pulled into a tight line as she stretched the muscles in her long legs, wincing as she tried to block out the dark rumblings in Lunelle’s chest.
Lunelle envied many things about her younger sister, but her constant vulnerability to the ever-shifting emotions in any given room was not one of them. Some things were better left to interpretation—but Astra had no such luxury as her intuition translated every passing feeling into overwhelming color.
Lunelle tamped her anxiety down, finding that well of swirling ink where she kept most feelings from the time Astra’s abilities became clear to the rest of the family.
“I’ve been training my whole life for this,” Lunelle forced through a pained smile. It was true—shehadspent her entire life navigating the complex politics between the Inner and Outer Courts, she had just always assumed she’d be crowned queen by the time she had to put any of it into practice.
“And you’ll have Mother, for better or worse,” Astra sighed. She sat up against the bed, folding her legs beneath her rather like she would when they were just girls.
