Page 49

Chapter Thirty

I t was silent in the Midwood, save for the ragged breaths settling between them, neither of the two sure what came next.

“Astra,” Lux said again, “Look at me.”

She stammered, “Wh… what just happened?”

He only stared at her, wordlessly. His eyes brimmed with so many layers of feelings she had to parse through them one by one, untangling the muddy quarrel in his chest.

She saw every last one of them.

Every midnight pang of guilt, every violet flare of angst, scarlet terror, peony pink desire… the palest drop of blue hope, like the Somnia under a full Moon.

Every imaginable emotion, laid bare in a palette of rich colors she never knew existed.

She moved first, leaning back onto her heels, pushing up to stand before him. The turmoil within him wasn’t all she could feel now. Between them, a tightrope of stardust and sunlight and shadow stretched. She felt the gentle shift of his soul as Lux’s body leaned forward in response.

Lux whispered, “Please, say something.”

The heat in her veins was gone, extinguished by the icy chill of his betrayal.

“You knew,” she cried. “This whole time? Last night— you lied !”

“I will explain, I promise, but please, just tell me what you’re feeling first. I can’t, I don’t, I never—” He fell into a silence, tripping over his words.

His demand astounded her. “You want to know what I’m feeling?”

Lux rose, stepping closer, which only pushed her back. “Of course,” he said, his eyes pleading with her for a mercy she had no access to.

“After months of hiding this from me, of hiding every feeling you’ve ever had, you want me to bare my soul to you? Can’t you see how unfair that is?”

“Astra,” he begged, his voice so unlike that of the man she thought she trusted. “I know. I know. But this was never supposed to happen. It was never going to happen. Fuck! I should have moved faster, I shouldn’t have pushed you?—”

“Luxuros.”

One word, but it held so much.

A command. A prayer. A dismissal.

A plea for him to come closer. A fear that he might.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking at the top, so faint she almost didn’t register it.

She could do nothing but stare at him, pain from depths she might never understand washing over his sharp features. Regrets and secret wishes spiraled within him, fighting to be seen.

He’d asked how she felt, and she had no answer.

She’d spent her entire life desperate to be seen—starved for someone to wonder about her beyond her talents.

She let her eyes fall over him again—his skin so scarred from years of fighting for someone else. Everyone else. She took one step forward, the tension on the Tether loosening, sighing. She reached for it, her fingers finding nothing but buzzing energy between them, invisible but undeniable.

Humans and gods alike faced death before they faced denying this little slip of space.

They traded their prized possessions to prevent them from destroying their plans.

They started wars in the hope they could sever them.

She drew in a shaky breath, unsure if she would use it to kiss or kill him.

Every longing stare she thought she imagined, every hostile argument about her safety, every brush of his hand… dozens of moments from the last three months crashed down on her at once, the weight of it unbearable.

Every dream she’d shoved down, every burn, every call to lean forward and touch she’d denied.

The man I’d met on my birthday.

My destiny.

“Astra,” Lux said once more, his hands thrown up in surrender, a white flag waving within his ribcage. She stepped forward, chest to chest with him, so overtaken she wasn’t sure she was breathing. “Please, you must know…”

She wanted no apologies or explanations. They would have to come later.

For one moment, she only wanted to let the forbidden static of the Tether brush against her skin. She only wanted to give in to it. It would all be gone soon, but here in the meadow, she could indulge in it.

She wondered as they stared at each other if he could feel the way her entire being centered around him the moment she stopped fighting and just let the Tether bloom. Her muscles shook with a desperate need to reach out, to surrender.

There was no fear within her, no hesitation, but she felt it all in him.

A war raged within his chest, a thousand shades of gray spinning and whirling in on themselves. It overwhelmed the brilliant bouquet of pastels and deep maroons and ocean blues that fought for the light.

The guilt.

The pain.

The doubt.

Those dark masks pulled at the light, tainting them and embedding them deep in his chest.

The yearning. The desperation. The overwhelming need to protect her.

The same colors she’d been painting against her ribs for weeks without even realizing it. She only ever felt the guilt, missing the hope entirely.

She’d missed the challenge of him, lost in the taunting. She’d missed the respect that blossomed despite the rocky soil.

She fought for air as the feelings rolled over her, the warmth of him evaporating against her skin. His eyes met hers and she saw it so clearly.

She would not be winning the war within his heart.

She ignored the doubt she found there and went on the offensive instead, bringing her hand up to the golden planes of his face. Lux leaned his forehead against hers, but his soul was already retreating.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, pulling back from her.

“Please,” she begged. “For a moment, forget about everything else. Just one minute. I know it can’t last, but please.

” She wanted to reach within him and pull the shame and anger and guilt from his muscles.

She wanted to pluck them out one by one like needle-tipped feathers and use them to ink a sacred prayer into her hands.

“Don’t do it,” he whispered, his eyes closed against her skin.

“Why?”

“Because the dreams are hard enough to let go of. If you kiss me here, in the real world, where I can taste you, I’ll never recover.”

Even before Lux left her hands she felt everything within him vanish, sucked back into the vortex of his mind, shoved into drawers and baskets.

“What if you don’t need to recover?” she asked, her empty arms falling to her sides.

“I can’t,” he groaned, his face flushed in the moonlight.

“You can’t or you won’t?” She reached for him, but he stepped back, hands digging into the leather across his legs. Ryegrass crept over his ankles, holding him in surrender.

“I won’t,” he sighed, the weight of it settling between them.

“Oh.” She tried to catch her breath, but it caught her first, the air ripping through her lungs like a knife to the heart. She backed off, trying to get out from under the haze of him, the Tether stretching and groaning as she ventured farther.

“We can’t,” he said again, his shoulders falling as he finished fastening the cord around his neck.

Everything between them dulled slightly, but not enough to survive.

“You know the stories. Even if you weren’t a princess and I wasn’t his commander, his best friend ,” he swallowed.

A fresh wave of pain rolled over his shoulders.

“We were born to hunt one another. I was honest last night when I told you I was terrified of what might happen… of destroying you.”

As she watched him steep in his own self-loathing, she couldn’t help but think it would be a godsdamned privilege to be destroyed by him.

“Why? Why would you torture yourself like this— me like this? You’ve said yourself a million times you have no loyalty toward Solaris, you’ve never hurt me and you’ve had every opportunity!

When I had your life in my hands, before I even knew who you were, my bones knew I had to spare you. It was never even a question!”

His eyes remained focused on the ground, a warrior defeated.

They closed gently against his bronze cheeks, his lashes wet with all the emotion he’d been burying for weeks.

She moved toward him, unable to fight the Tether’s insistence, even muted by the amulet.

Her fingertips were cold against his chin as she turned his face toward her.

“You have a king,” he whispered. “You don’t want some warrior with nothing to offer you. Ask your mother how much it cost her.”

Everything in her twisted into a furious supernova, ready to burst and birth an alternative universe where kings and queens didn’t exist.

“I don’t need a king.” She gripped his chin, holding onto him, forcing him to stay in the tension with her. “I don’t want a king! Surely, he would understand. It’s not as if we had anything deeper than a mutually beneficial arrangement. It’s not like this—not like?—”

“There are ways to sever a Tether,” he said, his voice distant, poisoned with something so bitter. He pulled his chin from her grasp. “It would be painful, but not impossible.”

She scoffed, “So that’s it, then? You’ve just decided for both of us? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve been making decisions for me all along,” she said, the Tether between them threatening to snap as he got farther away.

“This isn’t about what we want. This is about entire courts and what they need right now. You have faced this decision before, and you know the pain it’s causing me, but it’s the right thing to do.” Lux turned, glancing up to the top of the ashen treeline.

“You’re a coward.”

“And you’re reckless!” Lux raised his voice, his temper flaring to protect himself from the other feelings dancing below his skin.

“For millennia, our ancestors have stumbled over one another and left nothing but devastation in their wake. I come from a long line of men bred to hate you, to hunt you. It may lie dormant now, but I cannot spend the rest of my life wondering when the final thread will snap. When my cursed bloodline will drag you into some horrible danger I can’t protect you from.

This godsforsaken bond might make you believe we’re special, but we’re not.

No one is above the gods’ sick twists of Fate. ”

“What if?—”

“No. No what-ifs! No maybes. We’re not playing some lighthearted game here. The gamble is that we either will or won’t cost one another our lives. That’s why I did what I did to stop it. It’s why I’ll find another way to stop it.” Lux stomped through the meadow, set on a path back to the palace.

“I might be reckless, but at least I’m honest about how I feel,” she spat. “I didn’t need a Tether to force me, either, Lux. It would have happened anyway, and we both know it.”

He spun and she crashed into him, the contact a delicious relief in her chest. He grabbed her by the shoulders, dipping his face so that he was staring directly into her eyes as he ground out the next few words, battling his emotions into submission.

“You will marry him. You must marry him. You two will do good for the courts, please,” he said, his voice shaking with a twist of rage and fear.

“And what of you?”

His eyes softened, the anger fading into something even more horrible. Acceptance.

“I will stay until I can’t take it anymore.

I’ll find another way to dampen it. I’ll make another trade with the elves.

I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe until the only threat that remains in your world is me.

And then I will go. I’ll find another court to continue the fight in, but I will not be the reason all the work we’ve done fails. ”

His words hit like bricks.

They could give in and become yet another duet of star-crossed enemies in centuries of failed attempts—fodder for tragic poetry and paintings—or they could suffer apart and have an actual shot at change for their people.

It didn’t matter which option she’d choose. Lux had decided, and there was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise.

And as much as she wanted to deny it, he’d made the right one.