Page 9 of A Legacy of Stars (The Lost God Legacies)

9

STELLA

S tella and Teddy were allies in nothing except this battle with their parents.

Now that the opening event had dissolved into afterparties, Stella and her parents and Teddy and his were gathered in the McKay Estate living room.

Cecilia paced and Stella could tell she was winding up for a tirade. For once, Rainer wasn’t trying to stop her.

Teddy’s parents had taken a completely different approach. King Xander and Queen Jessamin stood by calmly, whispering quietly to each other on the other side of the room. Their lack of drama unnerved Stella more than her mother’s bluster.

Cecilia stopped and spun toward Stella, pinching the bridge of her nose. “So let me get this straight. First, you lie to us and say you’re sleeping over at Kate’s house and instead you run off to the Temple of Desiree to get heart-bonded in the middle of the night without telling any of us. Then you enter yourself into the Gauntlet Games to ‘fix’ this problem. This isn’t storytime, Stella Selene, this is real life. Those are real warriors and you have never seen a battle.”

“I’m aware of that, Mama,” Stella said. “But it’s the only clear path to what I want. ”

Her mother continued pacing the sitting room, wringing her hands. Rainer leaned against the doorframe. Stella gave him her most pleading look, but the crease in his brow remained. He was usually a pushover for her and her siblings, but safety was always his greatest concern. She wouldn’t be getting off easy this time.

Stella cleared her throat. “It’s not a big deal, Mama?—”

“Not a big deal!” Cecilia spun on her. “Not a big deal to run off? To come back heart-bonded to a prince ? To enter yourself into a deadly competition? Really? Tell me—does it feel like not a big deal?” Cecilia tapped her sternum.

Stella hated the constant reminder of Teddy’s cresting waves of emotion in her chest.

How on earth did her parents deal with this? Was it like this for everyone? Surely Arden would be steadier.

A floorboard creaked on the stairs just outside of the living room. Leo and Rosie had been sent to their rooms to give Stella, Teddy, and their parents some privacy, but it was clear they were just listening from their perch at the top of the stairs.

“There’s nothing to be done now,” Stella said. “It will fade in a few weeks and all will be well.”

“And what of the competition?” Xander asked.

Stella winced. “We hoped my parents could advise us on how to control our temporary bond better.”

That was the entire reason she and Teddy had fessed up about what they’d done. If they were just navigating it in daily life, they probably could have gotten away with it, but in the Gauntlet Games, feeling each other’s every rush of panic and pain would be very distracting.

“As if it’s such a simple thing to learn,” Cecilia snapped. “All for some man.”

Rainer finally stepped in. He brought his hands to Cecilia’s shoulders. “If anyone should understand impulsive decisions made for love, I would think it would be you.”

Cecilia cast him a scathing glare. “Then wouldn’t I know best?”

“I take offense to that,” Xander interjected .

Cecilia shook her head and pointed at Xander. “You stay out of this, Xan. You may be king, but this is my house and my daughter.” She turned and poked Rainer in the chest. “And you! Could you be any more wrapped around her finger? She lied to us, ran off with an unmarried man. Then she entered herself into the Gauntlet Games in the year it’s being managed by Endros!”

Rainer blew out a breath and gave Stella a look that said he knew there was no winning. No matter who he sided with, he’d face fury. Stella had inherited her mother’s temper—it burned hot and fast but fizzled out quickly, though she had the same propensity for thoughtless words.

“I’m saying that those of us in this room are the only ones who know about this, and both Stella and Teddy have reason not to share this secret,” Rainer said, his voice calm.

Cecilia rubbed her temples. “I wonder what Sylvie thinks. It’s so unlike Grace to go along with a plan like this. Gods, I’d pay good money to hear what Evan has to say about it.” She muffled a laugh and looked to Xander.

The king smirked. “The Gauntlet Games aren’t Teddy’s only concern right now, I’d say. Interesting that these two ended up connected, though.”

“It’s not as if I was trying to be bound to Teddy,” Stella huffed.

Rainer held his hands up to try to ease the tension. “Any other secrets we need to be made aware of?” he asked. “Like maybe why you were at the Temple of Desiree in the first place.”

Stella looked down at her hands in her lap, ignoring her mother’s burning gaze. “I went to be bonded to Arden.”

“Teripin?” Her father was slow to anger, but she sensed it in the tone of his voice. “As in the prince of Olney? As in the man whose betrothal to Princess Eleria was announced at dinner the other night?”

“As in the prince she’s been sleeping with for the past six months,” Cecilia said.

Stella’s cheeks burned furiously. “Mama, you said you wouldn’t say anything. ”

Cecilia glared at her. “Trust is earned, Stella.”

Rainer looked crestfallen. Stella watched as he realized she’d been lying to him regularly for months. He had always prided himself on having a great relationship with Stella and her siblings. She knew he’d be hurt that she had held something so important back.

She pressed her hand to her sternum. “Isn’t being connected to His Broody Highness punishment enough? I know that I messed up, but it’s only a temporary problem.”

Cecilia twisted her hands in her skirt. “Maybe we could get them out of it. Maybe there’s something written into the covenant of the Games.”

“I don’t want an out,” Stella said. “I want to win.” She looked pleadingly at Teddy.

He finally spoke up. “We thought maybe since you all created the Games all those years ago that one of you might have a loophole in how the rules were written.”

Stella tipped her head back and sighed. “For the last time. I’m not quitting so you can win. If you want a loophole, let’s be clear that it’s so you can save face.”

“I can’t quit. I would never live it down,” Teddy said. “I thought maybe another god could step up as gamemaker.”

Rainer shook his head. “The gamemaker rotates every year, but once a god has taken up the mantle, they have to finish it—just like there’s no way out for either of you once you’re bound to the tournament.”

Xander sighed and rubbed his temples. “We were very intentional. The covenant of the Games is bound by the gods and holds for as long as peace does. So unless you want to start rooting for a rebellion, the competitors are held to their binding promise the same way the gods are held to deliver a favor to the winner.”

Stella fisted a hand over her heart. “Sayla’s bow! What is happening? There’s all this pressure. It feels like my heart is going to arrest.”

Cecilia crossed the room and sat next to Stella, placing her fingers on her pulse. “Your heart rate is fine. Send me the memory of it. ”

Stella closed her eyes for a moment and passed the memory to her mother. When she blinked her eyes open, her mother’s expression turned from concern to soft understanding and she looked at Teddy. “That’s just anxiety. It seems His Grace is quite worried.”

“How do you know?” Stella asked.

Cecilia nodded at Rainer. “Years of experience connected to your father.”

“That is what Papa feels like? Gods, that must be exhausting.”

Her mother laughed and it broke all the tension in the room. “You’ll get used to it. Imagine it like a funnel. You can learn how to narrow it down, so just a little comes through. If it’s that intense, he’s probably feeling a lot.”

Teddy cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt a family spat because it’s entertaining, but can we not speak about me as if I’m not here?” He glared at Stella and rubbed his sternum. “And for the record, you’re not a dream either. It’s like a swirling river of emotions that shifts current every other minute.”

“Apologies,” Cecilia said. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m just at my wit’s end with what to do with my daughter who seems to have temporarily lost her mind.”

Stella cocked her head to the side. “I’m twenty-three years old. What are you going to do? Ground me? Tell me I can’t compete in a magic-bound tournament?”

Her mother’s face went red with fury.

King Xander covered his mouth, his eyes full of mirth. “Love, she could not be any more your daughter.”

Cecilia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know. It’s so frustrating and so deserved.”

Stella held up her hands. “I know I made a rash decision—several. But I’m capable of taking care of myself.” She looked at her father. “Have you not trained me since I was a child to be able to handle myself? Am I not both of you? Your talent with a blade and Mama’s magic?”

Rainer flexed his hands. “Yes. You’re our daughter and that has clearly bequeathed you with your mother’s recklessness and a healthy dose of overconfidence, but this is not training, Stella. This is a fight to the death and there are plenty of men who would love to make a point of besting you.” He paled and shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of a bad memory. “I have every confidence in you, but these are tense times and you have a target on your back.”

“Why don’t you understand that I need to do this?” Stella asked.

“For that boy?” Rainer asked.

“He’s not a boy, he’s?—”

“Engaged to someone else?” her mother interjected. It was just like Cecilia to pipe up when she could be the most cutting.

“Yes,” Stella said tightly. “Which is precisely why I need to win this contest.”

Her mother frowned and crossed her arms, then laughed. “Oh, you mean to ask for Arden’s hand?”

The way her mother said it made Stella feel like an idiot for thinking it was possible. But it was possible. It was the only path forward now. The winner of the Gauntlet Games could ask for a favor from the gods and it had to be granted. There were limits to what could be requested. She couldn’t ask to be made a goddess or ruler of either kingdom, but she could ask to marry someone she loved and they wouldn’t be able to refuse her. Really, it would be a favor to her and Arden, who clearly didn’t want to marry Eleria.

“You wouldn’t be the first one in the family to make bad decisions because of sweet words from a prince,” Cecilia said. “But a couple pillow promises should not be enough for you to risk your life. Do you have any idea?—”

“About how you killed Endros and now he’s back for revenge?” Stella asked. “Yes, Mother. I’m painfully aware that I walk in the shadow of greatness every moment of every day. I’m sure that the ascended god of war has a score to settle and you want to tell me how idiotic it was that I allowed myself to be baited into a trap. I know. But as you’ve all said, I’m bound to the competition and I can’t change that now. So instead of berating me for my streak of bad decision-making, why don’t we talk about how Teddy and I are going to survive? ”

Xander stepped forward. “I’m going to choose not to be offended by that exchange.”

“Look at you making good choices,” Cecilia said.

The king smiled at her indulgently. “I’m also going to agree with your daughter. There’s nothing we can do to get them out of the competition now. If I interfere, it will look like I’m giving preferential treatment and the Sons of Endros will have a field day with that. It will just add fuel to their fire about how they want equity.”

Cecilia threw her hands up. “But they don’t want equity. They want to set us back twenty years and erase all the progress we have made. If they have it their way, women will go back to being property of their fathers to be passed on to their husbands. We have worked too hard to go back. They don’t want a seat at the table. They want to set the table on fire.”

Stella slumped further into her seat. She hadn’t even been thinking about the tense politics of the kingdom when she entered herself into the Games. Obviously, she had noticed the rise of revolutionary activities, but she’d thought the Gauntlet Games would be insulated from the influence of the Sons of Endros.

Her mother was right. Any of her fellow competitors could secretly be a member of their organization. And Stella had given them all the perfect opportunity to make an example of her. Not only was she a woman, but she was the daughter of the woman who had slain Endros—the harbinger of all the changes in women’s rights that had come after.

In short, Stella had made herself the perfect target.

She glanced up and caught Teddy staring at her. His expression mirrored her own and his anxiety tangled around hers through the bond. He had probably realized that he also made a great target.

“They are both well-trained, but we have to assume that Endros will make it as hard on them as possible,” Xander said, turning his attention to Rainer and Cecilia. “Fortunately, he has to make it just as hard on everyone else. The most important thing is that you teach Stella and Teddy how to manage this bond and that we keep the knowledge of it to just us. If any of the other competitors find out, they can use you against each other.”

Rainer crossed the room and sat down next to Stella. He squeezed her knee. “All will be well.” He sounded more like he was telling himself than her. “Your mom and I will teach you some basics to control the bond this afternoon, and then you’ll come out and spar with me.”

Stella’s relief was profound, and for the first time, she realized just how exhausted she was from the anxiety of the day.

Queen Jessamin crossed the room and kissed Teddy’s cheek. “You and I will speak later. For now, listen to everything Rainer and Cece tell you and then come back to Olney Castle ready to train with your brother.”

Teddy nodded and watched his parents leave. He sat rigidly beside Stella as Cecilia dragged a chair in front of the couch so she could face them.

“You can’t let anyone know about the bond. It will be a liability,” Rainer said. “You’re both so unpracticed. It will be distracting if either of you are scared or injured. You have to cultivate tremendous focus.” He brought a hand to his heart. “Cece and I had years of practice before we were ever in real combat together, but the two of you don’t have that luxury. I don’t mean to be patronizing, but I don’t think you understand yet just how distracting it can be.”

Teddy shifted and chewed his lower lip.

“I’ve seen you fight, Teddy,” Rainer continued. “You have excellent focus and you’ve learned from the best, but you’ve looked at my daughter thirty-six times since we brought you both into this room.”

Stella remembered the bolt of pain she’d felt when Teddy made his binding vow to the tournament—and that had only been a cut on his palm. What might it be like if he was seriously wounded?

“How do I block him out?” she asked.

Rainer shrugged a shoulder. “Your bond is different than the one your mother and I have, so at least you have that going for you. Truthfully, I don’t know the ins and outs of a heart bond, but you could probably ask your Aunt Desiree. She’s been refusing to answer when your mother tries to summon her, but maybe she wouldn’t ignore a request from you, Stell-bell.”

Stella arched a brow.

Her father laughed. “Fair enough. Now let’s focus on this bond. I’m guessing that it’s only the strongest emotions that will come through, so it’s important that both of you try to stay as steady as possible even when you’re surprised in the tournament.” Rainer reached over and pinched Stella’s arm.

She hissed in pain and wrenched her arm away at the same time Teddy’s hand flew to his chest.

“That pain could hit you at any time and you have to ignore it,” Rainer said. “Ideally, we’d have time to teach you the scope of pain and shock you might feel, but we have hours, not years.”

Cecilia placed her palm over her heart. “Close your eyes. First, focus on just feeling the bond.”

“How?” Teddy asked.

“You should have some awareness of what doesn’t belong in your chest. What feels foreign, or like it just doesn’t quite belong. To me, Rainer always feels a bit off of my own natural rhythm of emotions.”

Once Stella closed her eyes and paid attention, it was actually remarkably easy to sense the bond and start to feel what was her and what was Teddy. The bond was tucked in the space just beneath her heart, pulsing with a subtle rhythm.

“For me,” Rainer said, “Cece feels more extremes. There’s more variability to her rhythms and mine tend to be naturally a little more subtle.”

Teddy shifted beside Stella, his thigh brushing hers. “I feel it, but I’m not sure if I know what part of it is her.”

“That’s okay,” Cecilia said. “I want you to both think of the bond as a funnel. Something is always going to be coming through. It’s not likely that you two will get to a place of being able to shut each other out completely. We need to work with a baseline expectation that you’ll always feel something.”

Stella clenched her hands in her dress. The thought of not having her heart to herself for the next few weeks was exhausting. She wanted to slam the door closed on Teddy—to keep him from finding out that every assumption he’d ever made about her was true. She was too soft, too angry, too petty, just too much, and now she wouldn’t be able to hide it from this smug prince.

“Our goal,” her mother continued, “is to help you limit what passes through the bond. Now that you feel the bond, I want you to take turns noticing each other’s particular signature. Stella, think about something that makes you very angry.”

Stella blew out a breath and thought of Desiree joining Grace and Arden’s hands. She waited for the rage she’d felt—or at least the confusion and dread.

Neither came. All of her anger must have been spent in that moment and the moments after when she’d been attached to Teddy.

Instead, she was hit with an immense wave of sadness. It hurt to think about losing the thing she was so certain about. The grief that the relationship that had always been so effortless for her to slip into was slipping away with that same ease.

Teddy’s rough palm slid into hers. Stella’s eyes snapped open, and she looked at him, expecting a taunt. Instead, Teddy’s eyes were full of disarming gentleness.

“I know,” he whispered.

Her eyes burned and she could barely swallow around the lump in her throat.

This wasn’t the real Teddy Savero. It was just because she had helped him in a bad moment. This was just a transaction—a way for him to ease the inequity between them.

Stella looked down at her pale hand in Teddy’s. “That wasn’t anger. I thought it would be.”

“That’s okay. I could tell what it was,” he said.

Cecilia cleared her throat. “Teddy, why don’t you try to think of something that makes you angry?”

Stella closed her eyes and tried to make sense of the strange pulsing feeling in her chest. Heated rage sparked through the bond. It was so much more intense than Stella expected, even when it faded from the bond a moment later. It had bled into her body .

“I feel it like an echo,” Stella said.

“That’s good. Does it feel like yours?” Rainer asked.

It didn’t. It felt like Teddy had invaded her chest and left his fury behind. Though it was fierce and bright like hers, there was a pattern to it that felt like a dance move one beat out of step.

Stella’s eyes shot open. “I hate that. It feels like it’s everywhere.”

Her father just smiled. “It will fade in a moment. Take a deep breath.”

It was too private. Too intimate. She wanted to scratch out the incessant itch of Teddy. She was so angry she couldn’t rip him out of her chest like a weed pulled up from a flower bed.

The candles on the table beside them sparked and the flames burst upward.

“Steady, Stella,” her mother scolded.

“I hate it,” Stella panted. “I hate him.”

Cecilia sighed and held up her hands. “Whatever is between you two that has had you at each other’s throats in the past needs to be left behind now. I don’t want to know what it is, but you need to be done with it, because some petty childhood grudge is not going to be the thing that takes one of you out in the tournament.”

Stella crossed her arms. It was ridiculous to pout when she knew her mother was right, but the bond was already disorienting. Removing the comfortable disdain between them would make everything even more chaotic.

“Figure it out and call us back in once you do,” Cecilia said, rising to her feet.

She and Rainer left the room.

Teddy cleared his throat. “Let’s go back to the beginning and get it all out at once.”

“I told you back at the temple,” Stella said. “I’m sorry that I made Juliana cry by saying she would never be prettier than Alexandra. I apologized to her back then, but I didn’t apologize to you and I’m sorry.”

Teddy pursed his lips. “I’m sorry I put mud on your seat at the Solstice Festival family dinner four years ago. ”

“It looked like I shit myself, Teddy. I loved that dress and you ruined it.”

He smiled smugly. “I know.”

“I cried.”

The smile fell away from his face. “I’m sorry. It was unkind and I’m sorry I ruined the dress. You look pretty in lavender.”

They both froze. The compliment was new territory. As far as she could remember, he had never seriously complimented anything she’d worn. Usually he just said he liked her dress sarcastically and then she’d spend the night second-guessing what she’d worn and wondering if Rosie and her mother were lying when they said she looked good.

His strategy was perfect in its wretchedness.

“I’m sorry that I slipped a laxative into your drink at the winter solstice three years ago. I was trying to get you back for the dress,” Stella said.

Teddy leaned back and crossed his arms. “By making me actually shit myself?”

Stella burst out laughing. “I said I was sorry.”

Teddy arched a brow. “Yes, your sincerity is written all over your face.” He shook his head, but his lips tipped into a smile. “I missed my father’s birthday party because I was trapped in a washroom until dawn.”

Stella muffled her laughter. “Tell me—did I use enough herbs to dislodge that stick up your ass, or should I use more next time?”

Teddy glowered at her as she laughed harder. He leaned against the arm of the couch and waited for her to settle. When she finally composed herself, he grinned again.

“I’m sorry that I used a tongue-tie spell on you to make all of your words twist at the winter solstice party two years ago.”

“That was you?” Stella was utterly flabbergasted. “Teddy! My mother sent me to the healer because she thought there was something wrong with my brain. She went through my entire head after that. Do you have any idea what it’s like to hide private memories from your memory witch mother when she’s hunting through every dark corner of your mind for a problem?”

It was Teddy’s turn to laugh. “I hadn’t considered that, but now that you mention it, that’s very funny.”

Stella sat up straighter. “Well, I’m sorry that I cast a scent spell on you when you were meeting with the delegation from Aldrena at last year’s summer solstice and wrote the spell so that you wouldn’t be able to smell it.”

Teddy’s eyes went wide. “That was you. I was so confused why all of them would only speak to me for a moment at a time and would keep shifting farther and farther away as we were talking.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t know until Grace asked me what I’d had to eat to smell so ripe. That was diabolical.”

Stella leaned back in her seat and grinned. “Thank you for noticing.”

“I’m sorry that I messed with your measurements at the seamstress and had her shorten all your dresses for last year’s winter solstice visit,” Teddy said.

Stella shook her head. “How on earth did you manage to do that from a kingdom away?”

Teddy smiled sheepishly. “I used Uncle Evan’s network.”

Stella stared at him, slack-jawed. “Theodore Davide Savero. You used a spy network for a prank?”

Teddy burst out laughing. “Uncle Evan thought it was funny. We just had someone stop at the seamstress and tell her you’d been wearing the wrong shoes when you were measured.”

“I had to rip out all the hems myself. I looked like a mess all week.” Stella laughed in disbelief. “I can’t believe your commitment to being petty.”

“I recognize a worthy adversary when I see one—in pranks, I mean.” Teddy leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Is that all of it? Can we call a truce now? To be honest, I feel a little silly given that I started it over something small, but you know how it is when you see one of your siblings upset. You?— ”

“Have me wipe their memory so they can’t compete in a tournament?” Stella suggested.

Teddy glowered at her. “You’ve made your feelings about that clear, but I swear I have good intentions.”

“I know that, but Alex is a grown woman, and she deserves to make her own choices. I understand the protectiveness, but you have to let her make her own mistakes.”

“There are mistakes I’d gladly let her make.”

“You coddle her.”

“I guide her. It might be different if she hadn’t been through so much recently, but she isn’t focused and I couldn’t risk it.”

Stella sighed. She understood, but she had a bad feeling about it. “You won’t be able to do that forever. If she doesn’t get the instinct to protect herself now, she won’t have it later when she needs it.”

Teddy dropped his head back. “I get it. I don’t need another lecture about it, okay? Can we just have a truce?”

He held out his hand. Stella hesitated a moment before shaking it.

“Truce,” she said. “For now.”

“For now,” Teddy agreed.

Stella summoned her parents back into the room, and they picked up where they’d left off.

Much to Stella’s chagrin, it was easier to control their connection now that there was less tension between them, but it still wasn’t comfortable. Bumping up against the heart of someone you had no business being so emotionally intimate with was strange—like reading the journal of your nemesis.

They traded feelings back and forth for what felt like forever but was really only an hour. Stella was ready to crawl out of her skin by the time her parents finally gave them a break.

She didn’t want to know Teddy like that and she didn’t want him to know her back. She just wanted to survive the competition and wait for the nightmarish bond to fade and all the senses in her body to be her own again .

Finally, her parents deemed that they had done enough and they sent Teddy back to the castle.

Cecilia excused herself to take a nap, but Rainer stood in the garden window, watching Teddy leave through the back gate.

“You did well today, but it will be another thing entirely when you’re in the middle of a fight,” her father said. “Gods, I hate this. I wanted a world where you would never have to take a life.”

Stella had been doing her best to ignore that possibility. It was foolishness that led her to do so. She simply couldn’t think about it too much or she’d be completely paralyzed by fear. Now was a moment for courage, and she needed to focus on one problem at a time.

Rainer sat in a chair by the window, pulled out a half-carved star flower, and began to chip away at it with a blade. Stella crossed the room and sat down in the chair beside him, watching his practiced movements transform a lump of wood into a petal.

After a few minutes of silence, he put the flower and knife back in his pocket and looked at her. “This last year has been frightening for us with the way the Sons of Endros have become bolder. It feels like the kingdoms are backsliding and it brings up bad memories for me and your mother. We had hoped the world would be different by now—better. We wanted to create a world where you could choose the future you wanted.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, Papa,” she said.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. With his face heavy with worry, he looked so much older. “I know. I’ve seen it before. Do you know what your mother said when she saw you standing in that arena?”

Stella shook her head.

“She said, ‘Is that your daughter down there?’ And I said, ‘No, sweetheart, that’s your daughter.’” Rainer smiled and shook his head. “You are so much like your mother.”

“Then shouldn’t you have confidence in me?”

Rainer clasped his hands. “I do. I know that you have her strength of will and, even if I could change your mind now, you’re bound to this path. Forgive me for worrying.” He looked out at the garden and swallowed hard.

Stella wished she could reassure him, but if it was Leo or Rosie who had entered, she would feel the same.

“I’m ready for this, Papa.”

He looked at her with so much grief in his eyes. “I know. That’s what frightens me.” He cleared his throat. “Just tell me this to ease my mind—when does a warrior put down her blade?”

Stella’s lips twitched toward a smile. “When she’s dead, or when she’s lost the will to fight.”

He nodded in approval. “That’s my girl. Keep your blade in hand. Never let your guard down. Don’t trust anyone.”

“What about Teddy?”

“Especially not Teddy,” he grumbled.

Stella laughed. “But you all said we should stick together.”

Her father rubbed a hand down his face. “Yes. You should trust him not to kill you mid-competition, but he can’t lose this tournament, Little Star. The heir to the Argarian throne cannot weather that kind of public loss.”

The words twisted knots in Stella’s chest. She and Teddy couldn’t both win. If she lost, she would lose Arden and this beautiful love story that was just beginning. But if Teddy lost, he would lose Grace and take a humiliating blow to the ego he might never recover from.

But he was a prince. He had power. At the end of the day, if he really wanted to marry Grace, he could probably find a way to make it happen. If Stella didn’t win, she would be powerless to stop Arden from being with Princess Eleria. He couldn’t call off the engagement without causing an inter-kingdom incident. But if Stella won, she could ask for Arden’s hand and the king would have no choice but to grant her a marriage sanctioned by the gods. Even the people of Jeset were incredibly devout to their gods. They would respect the outcome.

Her father leaned forward and squeezed her hand. “I know Endros will make it harder on both of you. Please promise me that you’ll remember Teddy is not your savior. He’s your competition.”