Lunelle snorted. She should have taken Mirquios up on his offer after all.
She could have returned to the Mercurian Court, it wasn’t much of a jaunt. She certainly wouldn’t be getting any sleep next to those two. She found herself wandering toward the Andromeda wing. Perhaps she could tuck herself into the king’s bed and at least surround herself in his scent for the evening.
Lunelle was midway through the courtyard when she felt something shift in the shadows, a breath holding in the dark. She knew it was him before she spotted his long limbs crossed over one another in the twinkling starlight above. She felt it tug against something deep within her chest. It was not like the Tether—it was harsher. It did not glimmer, but rather curled against her ribs like smoke.
“Princess,” Arcas said quietly, gathering a stack of hazy green stones from the table before him.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Aventurine,” he said, snorting, the darkness within him painted all over his face. “They’re good for mental clarity. And for Mercurian engagement rings,” he muttered.
Lunelle leaned over the table, plucking one from his pile. It was a raw version of the carefully cut stone in her sister’s ring, a gentle green with smooth facets, cool to the touch.
“Did you find the clarity you seek?”
His sapphire eyes flickered up to her, thick black lashes blinking slowly.
“Perhaps I did.” His eyes fell over her fingers, stroking the flat surface of the stone, and traveled up her arm, settling on her face, where he saw it land—what he hadn’t said.
“Arcas—”
“Fascinating,” he scoffed. “I no longer even need you to speak to hurt my feelings, Lunelle.”
She hated him. Hated that he was so resistant to change. Hated that he was speaking with such softness now when she knew he would rip it away at the next turn. Hated that she longed to bend forward and soothe the pain within him.
She sat across the table, smoothing her skirts over her knees as she tried to ignore the strange pulsing in her stomach. She only managed to battle it back a few moments before the question emerged.
“Do you think there’s a world, in another court, or another life, where we’d have been strung together by Fate?”
Arcas flinched.
“No,” he said, swallowing. “The gods have their reasons.”
“But what if they’re wrong? They’re wrong in so many other ways?—”
Arcas leaned across the table. “Please,” he hissed. “Please, Princess, I cannot take on more pain at your hands. I know you do not trust me. You do not admire me the way you admire braver men, but I am doing my godsdamned best here?—”
“Dobetter,” she pleaded. “You could do better!”
“I was notmade for you!” Arcas ground out between clenched teeth, slamming his palm against the table. “I was not threaded to your Soul in some cosmic map of the universe, but that never once stopped me from seeing you as you are and loving you anyway. From the moment I met you, from themomentyou dared to dress me down, I knew.
“I knew I was being punished for my cowardly heart. I knew I was not good enough or bold enough or, or, oranythingenough for you! I was a fool to think I might be worthy of even a moment of your time. I am sorry that I was not crafted from stronger stars than this, but I am who I am, and I thought you could—” Arcas stopped himself, hanging his head forward.
He rose, sweeping his stones from the table and clenching his jaw.
“I thought perhaps you could find something within me worth loving anyway.”
He barreled out of the garden, leaving her to contend with a heart trapped in the eye of a storm, the weight of his declaration choking her. She listened as his steps faded, each click of his boots yanking at something ugly within her.
Something she recognized.
The pain of an older sibling doing what they thought was right, desires be damned.
The cowardice of hiding behind duty to escape what is difficult.
The reluctance to admit when they’ve been defeated by forces outside their control.
Fuck, she thought, her breath catching somewhere in her ribs.
