“I cannot tell you more,” Oestera mumbled. “I wish to, I will one day. I need you to understand. I need you to trust me.”
Lunelle exhaled a long, tortured sigh.
“The only person I trust in this world is my sister,” she said. “I only wish to do right by her.”
Oestera nodded, biting her lip.
“You and I are on the same side, Lunelle. I need you to search your Soul and see that I am earnest.”
Lunelle backed away a step, so unsure of what to think.
“I will try.” It was all she could offer.
“That’s all I ask,” her mother murmured, dropping her hold on her shoulders. “That and… and if you find Le—Leona.” Oestera’s voice caught on her sister’s name. Lunelle had never once heard it on her tongue, not in the decades of dancing around the subject. Moonbeams brushed her face as she watched the maidens string roses across the terrace, lightening the darkness and sorrow cast over Oestera’s expression.
“If you see my sister… tell her I hope she can forgive herself. Because my anger died with her final breath.”
Oestera cleared her throat, leaving Lunelle in the cool darkness of the temple.
ChapterThirty-Three
“Why am I always letting you into my bedroom against my better judgment?”
Mirquios stepped aside, allowing Lunelle to slip beneath his arm and into his study. She had been pacing in circles for the better part of an hour, awaiting her summons to the Lunar Gate and she could not take the loneliness another moment.
“Because you love me,” Lunelle said simply.
His eyes dropped to her hands, twisting together into a knot.
“Gods be damned, Lunelle, I do,” he sighed, wrapping her into a soft embrace. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “And you love me, too.”
“From the moment you drank that horrifying tea for me,” she whispered.
He leaned away from her, searching her gaze, the greens of his eyes even brighter without any darkness within him to shade them. She looked away for a moment, desperate to regain her composure.
“My mother wants us to wait to cross back through the gate.”
“What?” He released her, unsure what to make of the suggestion.
“She knows we’re bringing Astra with us. I don’t think she knowswhy, but she begged me to trust her.”
“And?”
Lunelle frowned.
“And… I do not know what to do,” she sighed, sinking against him.
“If your sister goes through the gate first…”
“She becomes queen.”
His brows tucked together. “Well, that’s not going to work?—”
“It does if a certain commander goes with her.”
Mirquios winced. “Solan would set this entire court on fire if he found out.”
“I know my sister, Mirq. The moment she realizes what’s happened, she’ll likely overthrow the entire system anyway. The Fire Queen would live up to her name.”
