Page 7

Before I could stop her, she reached down and tore the covers away.

The cool night air prickled against my skin, highlighting every imperfection.

My legs were bent awkwardly, pale and too thin beneath the rough fabric of my trousers.

There were reddish roses blooming on my knees where they’d slammed into the floor earlier, angry bruises spreading like ink beneath my skin.

Along my shins, faint red marks traced where the forge fires had kissed too close during my work.

A network of scars ran over my ankles, faint and silver from the strain of walking, running, existing in a world that was too heavy for me.

I couldn't feel a thing, not with her floral magic still caught in my nose and on the tip of my tongue.

She didn’t say anything at first, just knelt beside me, her lavender fingers trailing over my battered knees.

Her touch was feather-light, almost reverent, as if she feared breaking me further.

The sight of her inspecting my weaknesses like it was her right to do so made my stomach twist. I turned my head away, swallowing down the shame.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said.

“You never need to apologize to me.”

“You always get in trouble because of me. And I just… I never — I’m a bad friend. You take the blame for me, you protect me, and I—” Charlotte shook her head. “It’s never the other way around.”

“I would never let you take a punishment for me. That’s what friends are for. ”

She looked at me then, her eyes searching mine as though trying to find the truth in my words. I held her gaze. Neither of us spoke. Then she slipped closer and settled beside me on the straw mattress, but not before pulling the thicker blanket down from its high perch.

I couldn't feel any pain, not after she'd sighed her magic into me back in the dining hall. It was only my pain receptors that were muted. Charlotte's body next to mine set off pings of pleasure in every part of me.

“Do you want to hear who won the match?”

I nodded, leaning back against the wall as she began to speak. She rested her head on my chest. It was something she'd started doing last year when she'd first begun sneaking into the stables and lying next to me in the middle of the night.

I ran my fingers through her hair, braiding and unbraiding it. Which was another thing she’d told me she liked. Not so much my braiding designs, which she always unraveled because they were—in her opinion—awful. What she liked was the feel of my fingers in her hair.

Charlotte's voice washed over me like a gentle tide, each word soothing, even if I wasn’t really listening.

I caught fragments—the match was close, the final blow was devastating, her favorite champion had won—but most of it blurred together into a comforting hum.

I closed my eyes, letting the sound of her voice ground me more than anything else in this world could.

She shifted closer, her arm brushing mine. My eyes opened. I turned my head to find her watching me. Her blue eyes were soft but intense.

"We're running out of time. We only have two more moons."

I didn't know what she was talking about. I was too fixated on her lips. They were a paler purple than the rest of her skin. I didn't know the name of the color.

“Jorge?”

She leaned in, her face so close now that I felt her breath against my cheek. My heart raced, a wild, uneven thing in my chest. She couldn’t be about to?—

I stopped her, my hand coming up to gently touch her shoulder. “You can’t.”

"You don't want me to kiss you?"

"Of course not."

"Of course not?" Charlotte reared back, putting an arm's length of distance between us.

"Charlotte, you know I'd give you anything, but?—"

"It's my birthday. You haven't given me a present yet. And this is what I want."

"A kiss? From me?"

She nodded curtly. No, not curtly, courtly. It was the nod of a noble who expected their will to be followed without question .

"We can't."

“Is it because of the eclipse? Because tonight is the Hunter’s Moon?”

On Lunaterra, it was sacrilege to share intimacies under any celestial event unless the couple were making a vow—a promise of forever. The gods were said to watch closely on nights like this, their judgment swift and merciless.

“You can’t kiss me any day or night, Charlotte. The moons would damn me. Your mother would have me killed.”

“No one will kill you,” she snarled like a feral creature. “You are mine—You are my… you’re my best friend.”

“That’s right.” I ran my fingers through her hair, unraveling the braid I'd done for her. “I’m yours.”

Charlotte's anger melted into something softer. Still feral, but with more presence of mind. “I don’t want to marry him, Jorge. I don’t want to be a sacrifice. I want… I want to go and see the games. Would you come with me?”

"Me?"

"Of course you. You promised you'd never leave me."

She was everything I wanted—everything I would never have. None of that mattered. I would give her anything. I would be anything. I would sacrifice everything just to see her happy .

“Of course I'll go with you. I'll follow wherever you lead."

It happened so fast there was nothing I could do. One moment, she was sitting an arm's distance away, her fists clenched and her eyes fierce. The next, she launched herself at me. Her arms wrapped around my neck. Her lips crashed into mine.

She was soft petals. I was brittle bones. Together we were forged steel—unyielding, unbreakable, fire and desperation.

I felt the first rays of the returning moonlight shining in through the cracks of the stables. The Eclipse was ending. Avarix was watching. He would punish us both.

I couldn't find the strength to care. Not when the object of my every waking desire was this close to me. Not when her warmth sank into my weary bones.

I had said I wouldn't kiss her. Let Avarix try and pull me away from her now. I wouldn't go. Not unless Charlotte pulled away from me.

She did not. She deepened the kiss, and I opened my soul to her. My heart was already hers; my entire existence might as well follow too.

When she pulled back, her breath came in soft, uneven gasps. Her face was so close I could still feel the heat of her skin against mine. Her blue eyes searched mine, wide and unguarded .

"You're mine."

The weight of her words settled deep in my bones, down into the marrow and reworking the cartilage. I could've moved a mountain if she'd asked. That kiss had changed everything. The trajectory of my life had shifted, tilting irrevocably toward her.