Lunelle backed away from her, twisting her fingers against her chest.
“The Mercurian king bound me into the rebellion.” Just breathing around the sounds of his home court felt impossible.
“Mirquios! Oh, that’s fantastic, do you think he bound your sister as well?”
“I do not know,” Lunelle mumbled. “But something… else. Something else happened between us.”
“Oh,” Lura gasped, a shadow passing over her face. “Oh, Lunelle. These things are hard to navigate, I’m sure your sister can forgive?—”
“Not that,” Lunelle interrupted. “It’s worse than that. The king and I… when our palms touched…” Gods, how to say it, how to commit to it? If she said it, she could never escape it. “I believe we Tethered.”
Lura’s eyes flared, the amethyst swirls darkening as she considered the implications.
“You… you believe? You are not sure?”
Lunelle shook her head. “I do not know what else it could have been! I ran from him immediately, I was so overwhelmed.”
“But if you aren’t positive… what if it was not a Tether? What if it was just the alchemy between a demigoddess and a man as he bound you? Our blood is not like his.”
“What do you mean?” Lunelle sank into an armchair, her head lighter now that she’d found someone to share her burden with.
“We share blood with the gods Above, Lunelle. We do not bleed crimson like the humans do. There’s something within it, something gilded, something that sparks and hums. You’ve felt it—surely.”
Lunelle thought back to her stibnite pieces, how they seemed to sing at her touch.
“I always thought that when—if—it happened, I would not be the least bit unsure.”
Lura kneeled before her, taking her hands from her lap.
“That’s how it should be, Lunelle. There should be no doubt. What if this is all just a misinterpretation?”
“Perhaps,” she admitted, daring to relive the moment in her mind.
She’d felt her entire being shift, hadn’t she?
She’d heard the way her bones creaked as they moved to accommodate the weight of his Soul within hers.
She’d felt him pace the halls all morning, wandering back and forth, the cord between them ebbing and flowing in response. Hesitating outside her door last night.
Or perhaps it was all in her mind, her sick,twistedmind.
What if she was merely assigning a myth to the irredeemable feelings bubbling under her skin when she was near him?
Was she trying to excuse the betrayal of her sister?
“I suppose the only way for you to know is to see him again.”
Lura stood, offering her hands to pull Lunelle forward.
She sighed. “I’d sooner tell my mother I joined a rebellion against her throne.”
Lura winced. “Start with the king, perhaps.”
Any hope Lurahad inspired in her chest that it had all been some sort of cosmic misunderstanding disappeared when Lunelle felt the king’s anxious energy hovering outside the dining hall.
She’d felt it when he left his room and again when he returned to it. She felt it tense and stretch as he stopped dead in his tracks entering the hall, his bright gaze falling on her.
She felt the shallow breaths rippling from him as he did the calculations and realized how limited his seating options were. But his crown prevailed, the pride woven into his muscles carried him through the hall’s doors.
