A wide smile broke across his lips, but it burned out quickly as Lunelle’s eyes turned on him, lit with a disgust that forced him back a step.
“You hold your cities, your people in such little regard that you’d rather pawn them off on someone else than work hard for them? Nearly unchecked power, and instead of using it for good, you throw it away because what? It’sscary?”
Arcas tilted his head. “You do not knowscary, Princess.” He stepped closer. “Look at me. Look at my court. Do you think I’m ignorant of my situation? Blind to my ineptitude? My father pillaged these cities and left entire villages for dead rather than go without a single luxury. Do you know how I ended up on the throne, Lunelle? Has the gossip reached the Lunar Court’s lofty halls?”
He paced around her in a wide arc, his lips curled in a snarl as he spoke.
“I am my father’sthirdson. My father, mymercilessfather, beheaded my eldest brother for treason, and the next, he poisoned slowly over the course of a year just to prove he was weak. And do you know their crimes? Their grave missteps that cost them their lives at the hands of their own flesh? They wanted to grant citizenship to the Sirens of Sephonia, but because they were all female, my father did not see the point. So hekilledthem.”
He stopped beside her again, leaning his back against the rail and folding his arms. The bronze buttons at the end of his sleeve caught their matching pairs at his chest, tugging the dense navy velvet.
“I should have been an ambassador somewhere, just interesting enough to make me forget my rotten luck at being born the last son, and yet here I stand, crumbling under a crown I never wanted to touch.” His eyes glazed over as he looked over his shoulder at the orchard. “It digs into my skull and whispers nightmarish cruelties to me in every damned reflection I have the misfortune of coming across.”
Lunelle swallowed. “Arcas?—”
“And now,” he continued, fighting for a steady breath. “Now, I’ve been cast aside by the Outer Courts, forced to beg my way into the Inner Courts, and instead of focusing on improving things for my people, I’m going to be thrust into a war we cannot afford in riches or in bodies. I set aside my pride and invite the most powerful people in the entire system to my home and, on the first night, I leave dinner soaked in blood with my tail between my legs.”
He exhaled, waving a hand between them.
“So yes, Princess, I’d crown someone else. Perhaps the Mercurian king. He seems more than suitable for the job.”
“I’m sorry,” Lunelle whispered. Her pulse raced beneath her skin. She moved toward the ballroom, needing a few steps to shake off some of the energy she’d absorbed from him. It was a dark thing, soaked in ancient lust and wrath. “I did not know?—”
“No. You didn’t. Apologies, Lunelle, I should not have been so free with my words?—”
“No! No, don’t apologize. I actually appreciate seeing a side of you that isn’t so… stiff.” She frowned. It wasn’t the right word. But he seemed to understand.
“The last season has been hard. I was blindsided by my father’s sudden Descent. I was unprepared for every aspect of the throne before the Solar Court began their plans. And then the rebellion took root—I feel as if I’m floundering at every turn.”
He inhaled, the tip of the breath shuddering under his anxieties, the misery of his station carved into shallow lines around his eyes.
Lunelle took in the real Arcas for the first time. Not just the misguided prince who couldn’t seem to get his priorities straight, but the little boy within him, terrified to be in any position of power. His lips twisted into a worried knot, and his chest sank in. She paced toward him, her sparkling lavender train dragging softly against the stones of the terrace.
“Arcas?”
His head snapped toward her, a softness at the edge of his eyes that betrayed his brooding exterior. He was not all Shadow. There was a lightness within him, wrestling with the weight of his lineage.
She edged closer, waiting for his eyes to pour into hers, waiting for him to shake the swirling thoughts distracting him so he’d hear her clearly.
“You need to look the child within you in the eyes and tell him to grow up.”
The prince’s nostrils flared, his gaze widening as her words bounced against his chest.
“Oh,” he said, clearly taken aback. “I… I suppose I was expecting something… something?—”
“Soft?” Lunelle asked, her delicate brow carving into an amused arch.
“No,” he started. “No, well, perhaps a bit less harsh. You’ve been much less… blunt in our meetings.”
Lunelle’s jaw snapped, the threads she wove so carefully between her lips in the name of peace unraveling.
“I am quiet, Arcas, but it is not because I do not have anything to say.” She rolled her shoulders back, breathing into a space between the strong muscles she’d neglected to stretch for too long. “There is an advantage in keeping your mouth shut and your ears open—in watching. Waiting. You can learn so much in the number of breaths someone can tolerate without speaking, in the way their hands tick as they itch for their turn to speak. It’s shocking how much a single glance can give away.”
She inhaled, watching the curl of his fingers against his thigh as he made the calculations of what she’d seen, what she knew about him that even he didn’t.
She continued, “Someone told me recently there is strength in silence, but I don’t think he realized how right he was. There is truth in silence, and truth is power.”
Arcas glanced over her shoulders, the muscles in the side of his neck tightening as he searched for words. After grasping at a billion rebuttals, he settled on a simple, “Thank you.”
