She was not a silly girl, she reminded herself as she stepped out onto the rocky cliffs, now desolate after teeming with so much life and so much death.
She was not in denial. She knew what was happening.
She was falling for a man who was not available to her, and she saw and felt it as clearly as a full Moon.
She’d felt it the moment they arrived, really, that he was not just another courtier to fool into believing she knew what she was doing here. He was smart, but perhaps not smart enough to realize the precarious position they were in.
Her sister did not deserve her betrayal, and neither did Arcas or Mirquios.
As she settled on the edge of the cliffs and rooted herself into the blue-gray dust, she forced herself to lean forward, for just a moment. The black sea churned below—not all that different from the one she’d grown up over in the Lunar Court—but everything felt unknown here.
Shefelt unknown here.
Her entire life, she’d been so certain of who she was and the role she played in her court, in her family, in her relationship with her mother, her sister, her father.
Her people.
But a single dance, a few compliments, and now she was slipping under those black waves, unable to keep her head up.
It was pathetic.
Worsethan pathetic.
Lunelle lay back, letting her bones settle in the Plutonian dust like so many who came before her, staring at the sky above. The infinite swirl of stars and Moons, the winking pastels of the Rift—it all stared back.
Watching.
Judging.
She closed her eyes, if only to escape their criticisms, and perhaps to gain the courage to do as the divers had done at the festival—but there it was again.
That slip-sliding feeling at the base of her neck, the temptation to let her entire mind drain within her and tumble into another universe.
Had she not been so disturbed, she would have ignored it. But its insistence took her along—another distraction she couldn’t deny.
Lunelle fell into her soul, spinning and whirring amongst a Rift of her own doing, landing with a harsh jolt on a soft bed of moss and moonblossoms, unfurling in a delicate Spring rainstorm. She could taste the sea on the raindrops as they landed on her rose-petal lips. She sat up, pushing against the damp moss and shaking off the mist clinging to her.
“Princess,” a velvet tone hummed.
Her eyes searched for the harmonic sound but found only a deep forest to peer into.
“Hello?” Lunelle whispered.
“What a heavy heart,” the voice cooed. Lunelle could feel it then, the weight of the words, coming from behind her. She spun on the moss, raising to her knees.
The goddess before her was no one she recognized, but pieces of them seemed to be acquainted.
Her hair fell in delicate pink curls, the shade of strawberries when they first popped from their leaves, unripened but full of promise. Her hazy eyes were wide set, seeing everything around them at once, the kind of eyes that had seen everything. She was long and curved, a strength running in her thighs as she gazed upon Lunelle’s hands.
She kneeled just a short distance from Lunelle, her long hair falling over bare breasts and pooling into her lap. Her arms were adorned with strange tattoos, rippling in navy ink, Plutonian runes running the length of her olive skin.
“You brought me a gift,” she said, her voice singular but laced with the wisdom of a million women. Lunelle looked at her hands, fitted gently around the swollen red fruit she’d nabbed before leaving the palace.
“Proserpina,” Lunelle breathed, her heart stopping as the goddess stretched her hand toward her. She reached forward, placing the offering in her iridescent palm.
“Thank you for this,” the goddess said. “But what did you hope to receive in exchange for it?”
Lunelle shook her head, her silver waves glistening in the misting rain.
