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She doesn’t know she has one sitting right here. And I’m no savior.
I don’t want to leave her.
The thought slips in quiet, but it lands like a stone. Dense. Absolute. Uncompromising.
I’ve followed Lucien for centuries. Through battles, through blood. Through betrayals I still taste when I close my eyes. But tonight, I want to tell him no. I want to shove the plan down his throat and stay right here, five paces from her, with this cursed warmth on my skin and the sound of her breathing making my bones ache.
She shifts. Crosses one ankle over the other.
It’s the most devastating thing I’ve ever seen.
Luna doesn’t know what she does to me. Or maybe she does. Maybe she sees all of it—the hunger I’ve spent years burying beneath logic and lectures. The desire that lives in my hands and my teeth and the way I say her name only when no one is listening.
I was not made for softness. But she has it in her. And I want to be near it until it scalds me.
She’s the moon,I think, watching the firelight dance over her cheeks.The stars, the galaxy—all strung together in the shapeof a girl who has no idea she’s carrying the whole fucking universe inside her.
And I’m going to walk away.
Because if Branwen commands it—if she ever uses that frayed, rotted bond to pull me toward Luna with a blade in my hand—I know I would be the one to gut myself before I touched her. But that wouldn’t stop my body. Not if I’m commanded.
That’s the danger. That’s why I sit here in silence, letting Lucien spin his half-truths and justifications, knowing I’ll follow. Not because I agree. But becausewe—Lucien, Caspian, me—are the ones with hooks in our flesh.
And she cannot afford to be close to anything that can be turned against her.
So I say nothing. I don’t challenge Lucien. I don’t look at Luna when her eyes skim over me like she’s checking to see if I’mstill here.
I am. But not for long.
I stare into the fire, and I memorize her—every freckle, every twitch of her fingers, every breath. I won’t let myself say goodbye. I won’t let myself feel the weight of this.
Because if I do—I’ll stay.
And staying might kill her.
Lucien’s voice cuts through the low hum of conversation, sharp and clipped like he’s barely keeping the leash on whatever command he’s choking back. “Orin.”
My name. Just that. But it carries weight, the kind of weight that has nothing to do with tone and everything to do withurgency. The undercurrent of expectation, the tightening noose of the plan we haven’t spoken aloud near her.
I rise.
My knees creak. Dust clings to the fabric of my pants where I’d knelt too long in the dirt. And still, I hesitate.
She’s leaned back now, one hand braced in the grass behind her, the other cradling a half-eaten fig she’s forgotten to finish. Her eyes—gods, those eyes—track me like I’m a shadow she’s not sure how to name. Not suspicion. Not quite curiosity. Just something in the in-between, where knowing lives.
I meet her gaze. I shouldn’t. But I do.
And she quirks a brow at me—mischievous, knowing, almost mocking. It guts me. That she can still smile like that. That she trusts me with that.
So I give her one back. Casual. Easy. The kind of smile that would fool anyone who didn’t know what I was.
She does.
Her eyes narrow just slightly. Smile deepening. Like she sees the lie and doesn’t mind. Like she’s letting me pretend, just this once, that we’re two people sitting near a fire, not one girl made of stars and the ancient thing that wants to swallow her whole.
A thousand things pass between us in that look. None of them said.
I want to stay.You can’t.I know.