“I have no need for a title or any further clarification between us outside of the scraping of your Shadow against mine. I will be everything to you and nothing at once, and it will be enough.”
Arcas’s lip twitched in the silence as he stood, bare before her in a way he’d never risked before.
“Well, then,” Lunelle said, exhaling slowly as she reached for her boot, slipping her Mercurian dagger from between her ankle and the soft leather, dusted in the Nether’s dunes. “I wonder if my Shadow bleeds red or blue?”
He leaned toward her, whispering, “I bleed sapphire and silver.”
She snagged his hand, carving the slightest crescent moon into the pad beside his thumb before giving herself a matching mark on her opposite hand from the king’s mark.
“Arcas Hydranos, formerly the cowardly Prince of Pluto, you will forsake your regency and fight alongside the people you once ruled. You will seek truth and justice, and you will reject the hierarchy that has oppressed so many. You will never reveal your association or another Nova’s as long as we both breathe.”
“You forgot that I will bow to only one goddess for the rest of my days,” he whispered.
Lunelle giggled. “I will not bind you to that?—”
“Please,” he whispered. She lifted her eyes to his, unsure if he understood what he was asking. “I will never be yours in the eyes of the gods, allow me to be yours in the confines of an oath.”
Lunelle swallowed, the dark space they shared seeming a little lighter now. She pressed their palms together and made the addition.
“Arcas Hydranos, formerly the cowardly Prince of Pluto, now the devoted acolyte of the goddess of death and desire, you will forsake your regency and fight alongside the people you once ruled.”
He left his hand in hers for as long as she could allow it, as long as she could stand it before pushing up to her toes and leaving him with one more kiss.
“I have to go check on my sister,” she sighed.
“As do I,” Arcas replied.
“When will you return?”
Arcas ran a fingertip over her lips.
“The moment you sing for me, starling.”
“You’re in pain,”Lunelle whispered into the king’s ear, reaching for his hand as he braced himself against the back of the Celestial Hall, wrapped in finery they’d no longer need by the end of the evening. She flinched as he winced and readjusted his stance.
“I’ll make it through this evening,” he mumbled. She watched his chest rise and fall with a sharp breath, the pain more than he let on. She felt it tighten between their chests as the sting reverberated.
“I’ve got a tea that can help,” Arcas said, leaning from his station behind the king, his glimmering eyes taking in the swirling courtiers and their half-filled glasses, clinking over jovial whispers that knew nothing of what they’d witness in a few moments.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Mirquios laughed, the sound deep, rich, like a warm cup of coffee. “Your sister took us down that road once before.”
Arcas’s lips tilted, a quiet hum in his chest as he pushed off the wall.
“I should take my place, your sister demanded I be front and center.”
“Don’t fuck it up, Lieutenant,” Mirquios said, his fingers closing tighter around Lunelle’s. Arcas pushed his shoulders back, appearing that much taller at the use of his new title, the one he’d avoided for so long, and yet rested atop his head much lighter than any crown ever had.
“She can do this, right?” Lunelle asked, craning her neck over the buzz of the ballroom. Her mother and father stood, tolerating Ellume’s High Priestess and her ramblings as Oestera glanced over her shoulder toward the moonstone staircase on which Astra would appear soon.
Mirquios’s brow curved. “My love, I would be hard-pressed to think of a single thing a Lunarian woman could not do.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re biased.”
“I’m also right.” He pulled her closer, resting her back against his chest as the music quieted to a hush. Lunelle’s breath caught at the doors in the mezzanine swung open, revealing her sister, looking more like a queen than she ever had.
Lunelle turned her head to the side, his lips close to her ear.
“The robes suit her.”
