Page 17

This perked her up. “Excellent point.”

“Relax a little. I’ll bring lunch to your room. You don’t need to be in the midst of so much chaos before your betrothal ball.”

Ameera closed the door gently, leaving her to sit at the desk alone, absorbing that tonight would be all eyes on her once again.

Perhaps for the last time, if things didn't go well in Pluto.

She shuddered to think of it.

* * *

Her back would not forgive her when she came to, slumped over her desk as she thought about the worn path in the Midwood between the palace and the Lunar Elven village.

She wasn’t sure what drew her hazy thoughts in that direction, but it was irresistible. A siren song she followed through misty layers of memory and emotion.

Draining her deep within herself, she spiraled through her mind and into the Midwood until she landed in her favorite clearing.

“Princess,” a silken voice cooed from the treeline. The woods sparkled in this version of the dark woods. Deep amethysts and emeralds hid the unimaginable creatures as they lurked.

Astra turned, her gaze landing on a tall, lithe form, dripping in jewels of all colors. Her lavender-hued skin glistened under the moonlight, and her snow-white hair fell in sheets of thin braids. Golden beads and crystals tangled with the woven threads.

But it was Ehlaria’s startling blue gaze that stood out against all her adornments.She stepped from the trees into the clearing, floating on the breeze as she kneeled before Astra.

“How long has it been, Astra?”

“Too long,” she returned, happy to know that even on this astral plane, the Lunar elf queen smelled of tea leaves and honey.

“We saw that beast of yours last week. I assumed you’d seek me out immediately.”

Astra frowned. “It’s been a busy few days, Ehlaria.”

“Oh, yes. I know.” She sat back on her heels, her dazzling robes pouring over her legs like liquid silver. “The man you met on your birthday—what an interesting little turn of events.”

Astra smiled, the gods may have abandoned her plea, but sometimes she thought Ehlaria was wiser than any ancient god anyway. “The king of Mercury.”

“He did have quite the regal posture in my vision,” Ehlaria nodded. “Very handsome. And kind.”

Astra held up her hand but realized a moment too late that, here, she wore no ring.

“You’re new to astral traveling. The details take many decades of practice,” Ehlaria laughed, tossing her pointed ears and sending a dozen earrings into a jingling hymn.

“Why am I here? Not that I mind the company, of course.”

“Your soul called to me,” Ehlaria said. “I heard it all morning.”

Astra inhaled, holding all the strange fear from the morning in her lungs. She released it, finding the queen’s gentle gaze.

“Pluto has been removed from the Outer Courts. I think war is coming, Ehlaria.”

The queen snorted a rather inelegant sound for all her languid gestures. “When you live long enough, Princess, you realize war is always coming and going.”

“Well, it’s my first time, so be gentle,” Astra huffed, drawing a laugh from the mystical queen.

“We believe you’re right. We’ve felt the rumblings from the Solar King for a while now. Something is off. The air sits heavier in our bones lately.”

“Yes,” Astra breathed. “I think something is wrong with the Rift.”

Ehlaria’s brows tucked toward one another. “What sort of something?”

“I keep running into this insufferable heat in the Midwood. I fear the wards have faltered and Solarians have infiltrated.”

Ehlaria’s eyes glazed over into a milky white, a transition Astra had seen before. “The man you met, the Mercurian. He is the key to your explorations, Astra. It’s hazy, but something you discover together will help you. Help all of us.”

Astra pursed her lips, hesitant to even ask lest she admit her skepticism in her own plan. “The king… is he a good man? Am I stupid to chain myself to him?”

Ehlaria’s eyes stayed locked to another dimension, seeing what Astra could not.

“The gods do not make mistakes, Astra. Be comforted in that.” Her cheeks heated.

She’d half-expected Ehlaria to know the Tether was only a ruse, but maybe her all-seeing eyes weren’t flawless.

“I have something for you, a book. It contains the origin story of the Rift. It was not always there, you know.”

“What?”

“Our worlds used to exist completely independently from one another.” Ehlaria held a small, black book.

The binding was cracked on one end. She handed it over, but here, in whatever space between they sat, the weight of it didn’t quite settle into Astra’s hands.

“Start with the Rift. You need to understand how we got here before you set it all ablaze, Fire Queen.”

“Thank you,” Astra whispered, running her fingers over the soft velvet cover. When she looked up, Ehlaria was gone, all her splendor disappearing in a blink.

Astra stood, careful to rise slowly and methodically, curious to explore the strange numbness of the dream. As she edged closer to the forest, she heard footsteps cracking over skeletal twigs and decaying leaves.

She felt it then—so much softer on this plane. A warmth, damn near pleasant through the rippled wavelengths of the dream’s distortion. She tucked herself behind a thick tree trunk, the bark peeling off in dead strips, listening.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice hissed from the other side of the tree, sending a shock through her ribs.

She reached for the pin in her hair, a crescent Moon with two fine points that wrapped around her fist. She could still hear footsteps, several sets, voices low as two men discussed something in a tongue she didn’t understand.

They must have been twenty, maybe thirty paces into the trees.

“Wake up, Princess,” the voice pleaded.

She squeezed her knuckles around the cool metal of her pin, her curls slipping freely over her shoulders as she leaned around the tree, the warmth growing more insistent.

“You,” she whispered through clenched teeth, spinning from her stance to shove an arm beneath the voice’s chin, pinning him against the decrepit bark.

He hadn’t anticipated she’d be bold enough to move on him.

Astra leaned into her stance, applying brutal pressure to the man before her, the heat of his skin intensifying with each passing second as he reached for the sharp pin in her hand. She pushed it harder against the soft flesh beneath his ear, digging the tip under the hood covering half his face.

The exposed skin she could see was a deep bronze, buzzing beneath her touch in a way that repelled her, that told her he was absolutely a threat. He glared down at her with an amber gaze that mirrored her own.

Thick, dark brows knitted together in irritation.

“Get your breathing under control or they’ll hear you,” he whispered harshly, holding his hands up in surrender. His eyes darted from her clenched jaw to the treeline.

The point of her blade carved a sizzling line beneath his ear as he moved, a mark that would surely hurt more when she released him from this strange dream state.

“And for gods’ sakes if you’re going to pin a man against a tree, at least anchor into your back foot so he can’t do this,” he muttered, shoving Astra backward and catching her hands in his fists.

He was only slightly taller than her, but he was broad in ways with which she could not contend, and clearly experienced in hand-to-hand combat.

He squeezed her fingers together, the pain jarring—she’d expected the strange, dull haze that suggested pain, but everything about the sear in her knuckles was real.

Her pin dropped to the brush between them as he released her hands without warning.

Astra tumbled to the forest floor and snagged the blade as the man attempted to run.

She swung her boot out and caught his foot, kicking it out from under him.

His heavy form slammed to the ground beside her.

She scrambled after him, climbing over his flattened body and regaining her position as she slid the curvature of her blade against his throat, pushing him into the undergrowth of the Midwood.

He wriggled beneath her, shoving his knee into her back and sending her forward but she regained her position quickly.

She could taste the anger on his breath, the misery in his sweat.

“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, his flailing stopping as the voices grew nearer.

“It doesn’t matter who I am! What matters is two Solarian sentries are about to step into this clearing and they won’t hesitate to kill us both! You. Must. Wake. Up.”

Astra stared down at him, adrenaline flooding her lungs.

She could not read a single whiff of emotion within him, neither intrinsic nor in the panicked expression falling over his face.

Another log shattered beyond the trees, they were closing in.

She squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to rouse herself, but she wasn’t sure what brought her here, let alone what might send her back.

“Come on, Fire Queen,” he growled against her blade.“Either wake up, or finish the godsdamned job. I’d rather die by your blade than theirs.”

Astra thought about it for a split second—she need only reposition her weight. A mere tilt forward and she’d sever the artery pulsing with the sizzling blood of the men who never once thought to spare her ancestors.

His knee rammed against her back again. “Make a choice , Princess!”

Her bones resisted as she made to lean forward, every flickering muscle in her back refusing to comply. She tilted her head, the panic in his eyes reflected in hers.

“Who are you?” she asked once more, her fingers loosening their grip on her pin. The man shoved her away from him, the sudden sting against her shoulder shaking the flames begging to spring free from her fingers loose. They leaped from her fingertips before she could gain control of the fury.

“Ah, fuck!”

He screamed and thrashed as he gripped his shoulder. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, though perhaps she should have, but she was too panicked to concentrate. He froze as she tried again, eyes wide as he took in the scarlet fire in her palms.

“So the nickname isn’t just because of the hair, then?” He smirked as Astra closed her eyes, letting everything within her burn her way out of the astral plane.

She heard two sets of boots sprint as the men yelled, the body beside her twisting and shuffling as she felt her grip on the forest fade.

She opened her eyes in her study, sweat rolling down her spine, an ache within her chest where bruises were surely already taking shape.

“There you are,” Ameera said, rubbing her back. “You were having some sort of nightmare. I couldn’t wake you!”

“Oh,” Astra mumbled, the haze of smoke and heat still drowning her senses.

“What’s that?”

Astra followed her inquiring gaze to a small black book resting beneath her clenched palms.

“Just a novel,” Astra said, unsure if she should burden her friend with the strange encounter she’d just had. Ameera seemed to accept this, though her demeanor noticeably shifted as she helped Astra prep for that evening’s events.

There were Solarians in her court.

She was about to be the only Lunar royal to come after—and when she’d had one’s life at the edge of her blade, she’d let him go.

She would not make the same mistake twice.