The air in the room tensed, several sets of shoulders pulling taut as Lunelle’s face reddened. She could not bear to look at Mirquios’s face, she felt enough pain in the Tether.
“There will be no trial, then?” Kahlia asked, their brows arching over their sharp cheekbones.
Oestera rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder as if to prevent her from running.
“We will still hold a coronation trial, of course. It’s important to uphold such a sacred tradition. But Arcas will be joining as the sole Lunar champion, as a symbol of our dedication to this partnership.”
Lunelle was gone, outside of her body, watching from the depths of the Nether and fighting the urge to vomit. Arcas stood at the end of the table, raising a glass.
His lips twisted into the smirk she saw in her nightmares, the one she’d once thought was enough to take away the pain in her chest.
Gods, she was stupid.
Arcas gestured to Lunelle. “It’s my honor, Oestera. A toast to my bride, Lunelle, and her ceaseless dedication to keeping me as honest as she is.”
The table raised their glasses as Lunelle felt her stomach turn, her mother’s grip on her shoulder tightening.
“We will begin the return to our courts tomorrow, but tonight, we will celebrate!” Oestera declared.
Arcas signaled his servants, who stepped forward with glittering bottles of bubbling wine, filling sapphire flutes. Lunelle finally risked a glance at the end of the table, where two jade eyes held onto the plate before him.
Oestera reached a hand to Lunelle. “Shall we dance, darling?”
There was something in her eyes, something like sadness, that Lunelle couldn’t quite understand. She wondered what Astra would see—would a plume of some vivid shade of shame fall over her mother’s shoulders before she could spirit it away?
Lunelle sighed, scooting back her chair and slamming the glass of sparkling wine, welcoming the way it stole her breath as her mother led her across the dining hall into the center under a dome coated in delicate blue and violet flowers.
The strings from the quartet shifted as they saw the dignitaries take their places, slowing into something soft, something fluid.
Oestera held her daughter’s frame and stepped back as she spun them into a well-worn waltz.
“You could smile,” Oestera murmured as Lunelle’s muscle memory carried her through a dance they’d performed a million times together.
She did not respond.
“This was what you wanted, Lunelle, was it not?”
She snapped her eyes to her mother’s—that cool, icy stare so like her own, and yet they saw everything so differently.
“Yes,” Lunelle whispered.
“Then what plagues you?” Oestera twisted them back, Lunelle’s pale pink skirts fluttering behind her. The pull in her chest tightened as the king rose and moved toward the floor.
“There’s no issue.”
“You’re sure?” They held still for a moment, and Lunelle wondered—for just one breath—what her mother knew.
What she didn’t know was more frightening.
As they turned, Lunelle’s spine tightened, the weight of it all settling between cartilage and vessels, flowing through her entire body in the span of two breaths. Tears slithered up the back of her neck, begging her to speak. To drop her mother’s hand, to expose herself before Arcas could.
And then he was there, at the edge of the dancefloor, stepping into her line of sight, twisting his blue fingers together as he eased in front of Mirquios.
She hated him.
She’d been so confused, so dizzy over trying to understand him, trying to parse out the facets that might be redeemable. She’d sifted through layers and layers of fear and cowardice, and at the bottom, there was only disappointment.
“Lunelle?” her mother asked again. “This was what you wanted, yes?”
