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“One champion is so very dull. Two is interesting...” Selenia stepped in a circle, soaking up every ounce of apprehension in the room.

“Three,” she laughed. Her cold eyes fell on Astra.

“Three’s enticing. You’re in quite the predicament, Oestera,” the goddess continued, pacing along the edge of the crowd.

“The Solar king is mounting an attack, he’s already invaded Saturn and Jupiter.

Is Pluto really the best Outer Heir you can do? ”

Arcas opened his mouth but shut it just as quickly as she pivoted on her heel.

“Did you even attempt to find a stronger alliance?”

Oestera’s jaw tightened. “I?—”

Selenia huffed, “Spare me, Oestera. Luckily, as always, I’ve done the work for you. My right hand discovered something quite fascinating when your second-born came to visit me.”

Astra’s mother’s eyes widened, any evidence of her calm mask now disintegrated. Astra watched the floor, ashamed at the pain in her expression.

Selenia continued with little regard for her daughter’s emotions.

“It’s always the secondborn that breaks your heart, wouldn’t you agree, Oestera?

Now, you younger lot may not know this—it’s not well documented in the Living Courts—but there’s only one way to get through the Court Above’s gates outside of a Solstice or Equinox. No mere mortal can pass.”

Astra felt it before she said it, in her bones, bouncing between vein and vessel.

“Now, a demigod has certain privileges. So color me intrigued when a certain commander came to collect my granddaughter.”

Astra searched for Lux, the panic crawling through her chest in muddy rivers of colors too complex to name. Lux , she sent, but nothing connected. His mind was too fogged over.

“And now that I see you, Commander, the resemblance is truly uncanny. Wouldn’t you say, Oestera?”

Oestera twisted, finding Luxuros in the crowd. He stepped forward, his chest a hurricane of alarming sunset oranges. Astra flinched. Her feet strained to cross the ballroom and get between them, but Mirq’s hand caught her arm.

Selenia frowned. “Well?”

Oestera did not speak, but Astra saw it in her eyes, the spark of recognition. The details she’d missed when she revisited The Flare. The slope of his bronze nose, the amber eyes, the proud shoulders bred to carry courts, scarred by Solan’s pain.

“Luxuros Soleras,” Selenia gave a sick grin—a wolf spotting a wounded rabbit. “The heir to the Solar Throne. Two thousand years of trials and we’ve never had a champion of your lineage for obvious reasons... but it does make one wonder.”

Astra , Lunelle’s voice rang like a bell. Ameera shifted at the edge of the door, she felt her amber glow flare into a fully stoked fire as she paced. Lux did not move, frozen to his place, a thousand thoughts racing over his skin, drowning him.

“You seem confused,” Selenia cooed, stepping closer to Luxuros as Astra pulled her hand from Mirquios’s grip.

Lux did not reply.

“No matter,” she sighed. “It’s settled. You will join your king and the Plutonian prince to compete for Lunelle’s hand. Good luck, Commander.” Selenia gave the onlooking courtiers a sinister smile. “Now, we were celebrating, were we not?”

She clapped her hands twice, and that’s all it took.

The music flooded over the tension in the room, covering the soft gasp Astra finally managed to force out. Selenia disappeared into a glittering mist, a chill rippling over the room.

The Solar Heir .

Here in her court—in her own hands, and she’d never even considered it.

Astra’s head swirled, a dozen different outcomes flashing before her, each more disastrous than the next.

Lux moved for her, the shock on his face too painful to be manufactured, mirroring her own.

A dozen threads snapped at once, Lunelle and Nayson both weaving through uneasy courtiers to get to Astra.

The careful grip Astra had learned to hold around her heart shattered, all of the confusion and angst in the room crashing over her in a vicious myriad of colors.

It sucked the air from her lungs.

“Not here, Sol’ah .” Lux gripped her arm tightly as he hauled her into the crisp night air, the Winter wind a fraction of the relief she needed. She gasped for more of it, trying to push out every ounce of crushing surf with icy air, the sting of it giving her something else to concentrate on.

She felt Ameera, Lunelle, Mirquois—each of them trailing behind the commander, but something stopped them from approaching.

She looked at Lux, his chest filled with just as much misery as hers.

“I didn’t know,” he insisted, his hands wrapping around her, clutching to her shoulders. She wasn’t sure which of them was holding the other up. “I never dreamed?—”

“I know,” she breathed. “I believe you.” She reached for his jaw but stopped herself, cognizant that everyone was watching.

“Nayson,” Lux called out as he released his grip on Astra, fading back into the hedgerow. Her father’s boots stomped against the cobblestones as he rushed to them.

He grabbed his daughter, wrapping her in the kind of embrace a child received when they fell and scraped a knee. When she didn’t respond, Nayson looked to Lux.

“Luxuros? Are you well?”

“I–I don’t know,” Lux murmured, stepping closer to Astra, the release on the Tether one less pull on her grated nerves.

“Astra Leona!” Oestera’s voice was tight as she rushed into the gardens. Astra’s head snapped toward her, a scarlet flare of anger in her chest settling between them. Their eyes met, her cold irises searching her daughter’s flickering gaze.

“We didn’t know?—”

Oestera stepped forward, tilting her head to the side.

“What have you done?” she asked.

Astra pushed away from her father’s grasp, her heart lurching forward.

“What?”

Oestera was frenzied as she spat her questions.“Why did you go to her? What did you offer her?”

“I didn’t?—”

“Do not lie to me!” Oestera shook as she yelled, her nostrils flaring. “I can feel it! What did you do? ”

Astra slammed her foot against the pavers between them, all but baring her teeth as she snarled.“I did what you wouldn’t!” Her lips curled as hot tears fought to escape. “I protected my sister!”

“You have no idea the kind of evil you just put yourself in leagues with.” Oestera rubbed her forehead, a red flush washing over her, no attempts at hiding it.

“You just couldn’t be patient with me! You couldn’t trust me!

And you .” She cast her blazing eyes toward Luxuros.

“Was this your plan all along? Infiltrate my court and destroy it from the inside out?”

Astra’s eyes locked onto her mother’s, a merciless cloud of burgundy rage spiraling against her ribs. Oestera squinted from Lux to Astra, the anger shifting to something much less manageable.

Fear.

Astra winced. “Why would I trust you? On what merit, Mother? You’ve never once trusted me!

Did you think I would just blindly hope that you’ll do something when you’ve sat here and let the court rot for decades?

”She was yelling, she knew she was out of line, but she couldn’t bring her voice back down where it belonged.

Her eyes flared, a dangerous warning behind them.

“You’ve just wrecked a plan thirty years in the making,” Oestera all but whispered, tucking any trace of passion safely inside of her.

“What?” Astra looked to her father, who sighed as he hung his head. She asked him, “What does she mean?” He only glanced between the women.

“It doesn’t matter,” Oestera snapped. “None of it matters now. Whatever you did, it’s too late. You made your decision and now we will all burn for it!”

She swept out of the gardens, leaving behind a shocking silence as Nayson followed her.

Astra couldn’t breathe, glaring red filling her lungs like blood. She wanted to run, but her feet remained rooted to the moonstone pavers.

“As,” Lux rumbled, pulling at her elbow. Smoke built within her, her mind on fire with the possibilities of what Oestera meant.

“Brother,” Mirquios said, stepping into the courtyard from the edge of the hall. He placed a hand on Lux’s shoulder, exchanging a glance that asked a million questions. Lunelle slipped from the shadows and looped her fingers through her sister’s. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Lunelle said, clearing her throat. “This is certainly more complicated.” Her eyes fell on Lux’s hand wrapped around Astra’s arm. “ Much more complicated.”

“We need a new plan,” Astra said, her skin flushed pink as she swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “A good one.”

“I’ll get coffee,” Ameera whispered from behind them, darting into the halls.

“The Solar Heir,” Lunelle whispered to herself, watching Lux’s face carefully. “I suppose you’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, sister.”

Astra managed a shallow snort, her pulse still racing through her body, but that was nothing compared to the torrent within Lux’s chest.

“We’ll meet you in the Andromeda wing in a moment,” Astra said to Lunelle. She listened to their footsteps fade as she tried to sort through the tangled emotions within them and the real, logical sentiments that drove them.

“I told you I would destroy you,” Lux whispered, afraid to look her in the eye.

“And I told you,” she reached for him, letting her palms rest against both sides of his face.

“That I don’t care whose blood runs through your veins.

I care what runs through your heart. And whatever happens, whatever Selenia or any god throws at us, I am yours Luxuros Soleras.

” She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his briefly, all too aware that anyone could be watching.

“Now let’s go figure out how to keep you from having to marry my sister.”

* * *

She hadn’t been asleep long when she sank into herself, falling fast through a disorienting ribbon of shapes and colors, her feet landing with a thud against the forest floor.

“Don’t panic,” a voice said smoothly. Astra’s eyes adjusted, taking in the ground covered in silver and gold leaves.

“Alastair?”