“You do not want to touch me, I assure you,” he warned, glancing frantically around the hall as courtiers shoved and pushed them into the walls.
“You need to get control of them!” Mirquios yelled over Lunelle’s head. “They’re panicking!”
Arcas spun, eyes wide as he took in the crush swelling around them. An Earthen councilor slammed into Lunelle’s back, pulling at her shoulders as he struggled to right himself. Mirquios shoved the man back, getting between them as best he could, but the crowd was too dense, too uncertain of where to go.
“Arcas!” Mirquios yelled once again. “This is your court! Manage it!”
Yallara glanced between the men, mouthing something inaudible to her brother as he paled. Mirquios pushed Lunelle toward the wall, her back aching as it crashed against the smooth marble. He pulled Yallara away from the prince, handing her off to Lunelle, who held her tightly as the Earthen Court spiraled into itself.
“Is there still a threat?” Mirquios said, gripping Arcas’s shoulders and shaking him when he did not respond.
The prince shook his head.
Someone’s body fell at Lunelle’s feet, bouncing off the tile as the crowd stepped over him.
“Help me get him up!” she hissed to Yallara, stooping as another wave of courtiers poured from the dining room. Yallara gripped the man’s hand as Lunelle pushed the crowd back, helping him to his feet as Mirquios’s voice boomed above them.
Their eyes snapped forward, finding the Mercurian king perched atop a bust of some ancient Plutonian king, his eyes wild as he screamed over their heads again.
“Do not move another inch!”
Mirquiod cupped his hand over his mouth to amplify his thunderous words.
“People of the Inner Courts! Silence!”
Heads turned, the clamor still rising over his pleas as the edges of the crowd pressed inward.
“Silence!” Mirquios roared, the sound striking something deep within Lunelle’s chest and earning the eyes and ears of most of the hall. “This evening’s threat has been dealt with, but please be aware of your surroundings as you head back to your chambers for the evening. We will debrief with the monarchs in the western wing library. Go! Calmly,” he added, dropping from the statue into the crowd as it slowly shifted away from the dining room doors.
“You should go to bed,” Arcas said to Yallara, who was still clinging to Lunelle’s arm.
“I will do no such thing,” Yallara cried, pushing away from Lunelle.
“I was not asking,” Arcas hissed. “You’ve already been threatened once tonight. Isn’t that enough?”
“All the more reason I need to go with you?—”
“Enough!” Arcas said, cutting his hand through the space between them. “I will come find you when we’re done.” Yallara held her brother’s gaze, her shoulders set in defiance as his eyes softened. “It is not personal, Yallara, you are indanger,” he said as he waved a guard forward from the doorway. “See that the princess gets back to her room safely.”
Yallara relented, following the crowd as they dissipated.
Arcas looked to Mirquios for a moment, the hesitation clear on his face.
“Go change into something less bloodsoaked,” the king muttered. “We’ll meet you in the library.”
The library wasquiet as they trickled in.
The walls were draped in ancient maps, peeling at the corners, framed by portraits of eyes that followed Lunelle as she shifted against the black velvet sofa.
Lunelle had not let go of Yallara’s hand, though not for lack of trying. The young princess had resisted both times she tried to untangle their fingers. She needed something to hold onto, and Lunelle did not mind being her anchor. Nor did she mind having one in return.
“You cannot be sure of their association,” Omnir, the Martian prince, said as he folded his bronze arms against his chest. He leaned his head back against a densely packed shelf, glaring at the Plutonian prince as he paced between the tufted seats and rows of bookshelves.
“A dagger through the heart might as well be a dagger through a crown,” Arcas hissed, pausing in his path just long enough to throw a look at his sister. Yallara stiffened against Lunelle’s hand as their eyes passed one another. “The symbology was clear.”
Lunelle looked to her mother, her concerned face set in the corner of the room. She’d disappeared with Kahlia, the Venusian High Regent, in the chaos, only to reappear in the library with a marked coolness to her gait.
Oestera was nothing if not calm under pressure.
