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Here, each triad that lives in these ancient walls adds to the collective knowledge. I shiver, imagining when it was built—was the Pentaris alliance formed, or were we still five warring planets? No one knows how long Aurelians have been here, on Colossus.

I hold the package gently, setting it down on the mahogany coffee table and sitting in the human-sized chair.

There’s a light knock at the open door. “Beg your pardon,” comes the soft voice from the entrance. I turn to see the older servant, whose outfit is fresh pressed, her hair done in a tight bun without a single strand of hair out of place. “Would you like any coffee or tea? Or for me to get the fire going for you?”

“Thank you, no. Just some privacy, I have a call to make.”

“Of course,” she says, closing the heavy wooden doors behind her, sealing me in.

I run my hands over the matte paper of it, guessing the contents. It’s long enough that the only thing I can imagine my sister would send me was a dress, but she would not have had enough time to make one, let alone send it here. My hands shake as I gently undo the twine, then unfurl the paper so as not to rip it. It’s a lifeline to my former life, and as I see what’s inside, my eyes get wet.

My wedding dress.

I have no idea how she managed to craft it in time. “Oh, Junebug,” I whisper to myself, imagining her sleepless nights. The pure white fabric is smooth and soft to the touch, and it comes alive under my fingers, the strands seeming to mold and shape themselves against my skin. My eyes widen as I realize that while it is not full a pleasure dress, the silk is intertwined with the living strands of the shimmering cotton designed to tantalize and tease the wearer, embedded not in the dress itself, but in the perfectly stitched white leaves and flowers that run up the high neckline down the bodice. June used the material not to torment and tease the wearer, but to bring life to the leaves that are so detailed they could be real.

I stand, letting it drape against my body.

I can see my sister in every line, every curve of the fabric, and I picture myself standing in the Arena of the Gods in front of my triad.

Everything I ever was, everything I fought for, all of it will melt away. My life had a plan. A form. A direction, and Doman and his triad did more than just throw it off course. Bonding myself to them won’t shift my life’s arc, it will extend it, until the decades I have lived so far are insignificant.

My most precious memories, reduced to blips.

Will I forget the little details of my sister in a hundred years? Her laugh, her smile, our inside jokes? What about a thousand?

Or is it like Evelyn said, and the memories are so precious and clear it feels like you live them again, and I’ll think of her every day when I’m still young and she is long gone? Will I remember her as she was, in our childhood, growing up together, sneaking out of our home, or will I replay the end over and over in my head, when she’s on her deathbed, her hair white, her body failing, while I remain unchanged?

I always knew I’d have to say goodbye to my parents. But the thought of my brother and sister on their deathbeds, surrounded by grandchildren who look my age, fills me with panic. The human mind is not built to contemplate such things. We weren’t meant to live for thousands of years, and even centuries twist and change us into something more alien to ourselves than even the Aurelians. Would Queen Jasmine as she was, a smuggler spitting in her hand to seal deals, even recognize herself now?

I place the dress gently down on the long coffee table, smoothing it, and walk to the circular window. Looking out at the rolling hills, empty estates stretch as far as the eye can see.

This isn’t what I want.

I’m promised a marble palace, servants waiting on my every need, the cold, suffocating masculinity of the Aurelian Empire surrounding me. Everything planned. Everything arranged perfectly. Instead, I yearn for the wild forests of Virelia, where our homes intertwine with the nature around us.

I turn, looking back to the heavy wooden door, towards the bedroom where the triad waits. I like them. I really do. That moment on Virelia, when we were on the treetops under the moonlight, was one of the happiest of my life. The night we spent on Frosthold, cozy in the igloo under the endless stars, is so precious.

But do I love them?I barely know them.

For them, it’s so easy, so certain. Aurelians have a single Fated Mate, and that is all there is to it. They find her or they search their entire lives and die alone. Their last thoughts must be of regret, with the tiny hope that as they consign themselves to the cryo-bays, the next of their line will succeed where they failed.

It must be torturous, living through centuries of life, wondering if their Fated Mate’s human lifespan was gone in a blink while they were in Academy, or in the hundred years of service they pledge to their Empire. But if they do find her, their story is complete. They’ve achieved all they could have dreamed. Their only aim is to sire an empire of sons, restoring not only their alien species but building their legacies.

For humans, for me, the emotions are almost too much to handle. I try to picture the triad as if they were humans, and how I would feel about them, but it’s impossible. I never dreamed I’d be marrying multiple men.

They are good men. That, I know. Men of honor, but not so rigid they blindly obey commands they know are not just. Men of war, but not so bloodthirsty that peace would be foreign to them.

I sit down, heavily, running my fingers up and down the lace.

I’ll marry them. Yes. That’s the way to protect Pentaris.

But what would they do if I told them I can’t be Bonded to them? That it’s unnatural, that humans were not meant to live like them?

Would Titus be filled with blind rage, Doman with hatred for himself, both feeling as if they are not enough for me? Would Gallien’s cold, calculating gaze pierce me, weighing my motives, his every thought hyper-focused on the words he could say to make me reconsider?

I press my smart-watch, hoping June will pick up. She does, near instantly, and she appears in holo-vid, groggy in her bed.

“Oh shit, sorry. The time difference.”