Page 108 of Courting Death & Desire
“You seem… weighed down. It’s hard to describe. Is it Astra’s deal with Selenia?”
Lunelle swallowed the acid in her throat. “Yes.”
The king held her tightly against him, the Tether in their chests jumping with a brightness she didn’t deserve as he stroked her hair.
“Let her do this for you, Lunelle. For all of us.”
Lunelle nodded against him, something deeper than the Tether rolling inside her. She wondered if it was the crushing anxiety of Astra taking on too much, or if a certain prince was awake for the day, storming the palace in search of another way to twist her world on its head.
“I should go before the halls fill with courtiers,” she whispered, forcing a smile.
He only nodded sleepily as she kissed his cheek and slipped away from his room, her heart wrapped in both lightning bolts and thunderclouds.
“Oh gods, smite me,” Nayson muttered to himself as he came down the Mercurians’ hallway.
He stumbled into Lunelle, pulling the king’s door shut behind her.
“Father!” she yelped, silver eyes aflame.
“I, uh, well, good morrow, darling.” Nayson ran his hand through his hair, desperate for air. His warm gaze was surprisingly hollow as he glanced behind them.
“I was just leaving a note for the king. He is away,” Lunelle said sharply.
“Oh,” Nayson sighed. “Of course.”
She tilted her head. “Are you all right?”
“Better now,” he admitted. “You girls certainly keep a man on his toes.”
“A family trait,” Oestera said over Nayson’s shoulder as she passed the mouth of the hall.
“Mother!” Lunelle smoothed her hair.
“Far from your chamber, are you not, Lunelle?”
Lunelle bit her lip. “The king requested a list of Astra’s favorite poets. For a gift.”
Oestera watched her curiously, her gaze mirroring her daughter’s. She was no fool, Lunelle knew, but she also didn’t have time to dabble in madness.
“I believe your sister was searching for you in the garden earlier,” Oestera said.
It all came crashing back on her—Astra’s commitment to Selenia. The guilt fell in sheets of ice down her back.
“Lunelle?” her father asked.
“I should go find her,” she muttered, pushing between them and breaking for her bedroom.
Lunelle had livedin the murky haze between light and dark for days—floating through every meal and returning to her library as often as possible to avoid everyone and everything.
It was the night before her Trial Ball, and she was tucked away in the safety of her library when the commander interrupted her evening tea.
“Luxuros,” she said without needing to look up from her book. She’d learned the strange heat that preceded him well. It prickled at her neck as he sat across from her.
“You’ve been hiding,” he said.
“Correct,” Lunelle admitted readily, folding her book into her lap.
“Your king is worried.”
