Lena stared at him, beyond infuriated that he could say those words—the ones she’d ached to hear and convinced herself she never would—and that he could say them now, in the past tense, with such cool remove. The emotions of the past blended with those of the present, and she wanted to simultaneously weep and rage. Worst of all, she hadn’t learned. Some foolish, self-destructive part of her hoped—actually hoped—that Rhyian might love her still.
Rhyian could always do that to her, lure her in with his sensual teasing and flattering attention. When he looked at her, she felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. The intensity of his regard had always turned her head, sweeping everything else away until she lost all of her good sense and only wanted. Well, you can’t want Rhyian, she told herself firmly. She’d had him before, and she’d paid the price. He was like a dragon, so beautiful and enticing with his jeweled scales, that seductive dark magic in him shimmering, luring her to warm herself in the heat of his unwavering regard—until some little thing annoyed him and he turned her to ash with a cruel remark that breathed fire.
“How can you say that to me?” she demanded, but it came out as a broken plea. “I don’t want or need your lies.”
He stood, raking a hand through his hair again, more agitated than she’d ever seen him. Starting to reach for her, he jammed his hands into his pockets instead. “I’m not lying.”
“Then why did you—” She’d thought it would do her good to say the words, to make them both relive that terrible morning. How she’d awakened in his bed full of bliss, transcendent with happiness. Rhyian had been gone, but she’d lingered, happily anticipating his return with the Nahanaun coffee she loved and pastries they could feed each other in bed. It was the first time they’d spent the night together—and the first time they’d made love all the way—but they’d stayed up until dawn plenty of times, cuddling and sharing those intimate breakfasts.
And after a while, her joy had chilled as his spot on the bed cooled, an ice of dread forming on the edges. Even then, she’d known, though she’d denied it. Just as she’d denied everything she understood about Rhyian and didn’t want to. When she dressed and went to find him, she’d tried to hope she was wrong.
“Why did I go from your arms to someone else’s?” he asked, the words bitter, his shoulders rigid.
“Yes.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks, amazed that she could still cry over it, over him. “You wanted me to find you.”
He met her gaze, his eyes deep blue with turbulent emotion, his face ravaged. “Yes.”
And there it was, the admission she’d craved and dreaded. “Why?”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
She gaped at him, cleansing rage rushing in to displace the old, festering hurt. Launching herself at him, she shoved him hard. He staggered back, eyes flying wide in surprise. “Don’t you dare!” she shrieked at him. “Don’t you stand there and snigger at me and say you were in love with me but don’t know why you did the one thing certain to break my heart and drive me away.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he shouted back. “I was stupid and I was terrified. You said you loved me and I-I panicked.” He raked a hand again through his already wild hair. “I knew it was the worst thing I could do to you. And when you found us…” He turned away to stare into the fire. “I’ll never forget the look on your face. And when I heard you’d left Annfwn, I was…” Blowing out a harsh breath, he met her accusing gaze. “I was relieved.”
She huffed out a bitter laugh, reliving that rending pain, the betrayal. “A relief to be rid of me, I’m sure.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Relieved that I didn’t have to face you, to justify actions that couldn’t be justified.” Dragging his hands from his pockets, he swept her an elaborate bow. “And thus the feckless bastard before you was born: lazy, useless, loathed by one and all.”
Staring at him, she found herself dry eyed at last, shaking her head slowly from side to side. “I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”
“Good,” he said, jamming hands back in his pockets. “Because I don’t deserve any sympathy, least of all from you—the one person I cared about most and the one person I’ve hurt the worst.” He took a deep breath. “But I want to apologize to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, and certainly not to forget, but I am sorry, Salena. I’m so very sorry for how I hurt you and betrayed your trust.”
Her heart turned over, a painful wrench that made her dizzy. “You never apologize,” she said faintly.
“Yes, well, I saved them all up for this.” He gazed at her, longing in it. “I only wish I could do or say something that means more.”
“Do you know what I threw in the fire?” she asked, the question jumping from her lips.
He assessed her cautiously. “I’m afraid to find out.”
“You,” she said bluntly, rather enjoying his flinch. “I wrote down your name and burned it, because I just want to be done with you, Rhyian. With this.” She flapped a hand between them.
“Fair enough,” he replied. “Do you think it worked?”
“Obviously not,” she ground out, “or I wouldn’t be locked in this room with you, rehashing the worst experience of my life.”
“Maybe we have to wait for midnight,” he suggested, “when Moranu will magically wipe the slate clean.”
It seemed absolutely impossible that she wanted to laugh at that. But that was Rhyian, too—irreverent and cynical in all the same ways that she was.
“Amusingly enough, I burned something similar. A rune,” he explained when she raised a brow, “representing the past self and all its myriad flaws. I’m fully confident that sunrise will see me as an entirely new person.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way,” she commented drily.
“No? Alas for that. I doubt that anything less than divine intervention could make me into a worthy person at this point.”
She considered him, taken aback by the level of self-loathing in his words. He wasn’t being flippant, either, but brutally honest. “The goddesses can’t change us, Rhy,” she said gently. “We have to do the hard work to change ourselves.”
“Ah. Hard work,” he replied in the same tone. “Also not my forte.”
“It could be, if you want it enough.”
“Hmm.” Moving slowly, he edged closer to her. “Maybe if there’s a tempting reward?”
She didn’t step back—couldn’t make herself—but she stopped his approach with a hand on his lean chest. “I can’t be your reward. That’s all in the past. I can’t… go through that again.”
He grimaced, then searched her face. “But we both burned the past. It’s gone. What we have is the present. Tonight. Right now.”
“I—” She hated how she faltered, how she so wanted to hope. How foolish it would be to let him hurt her again.
“I have something for you,” he said, drawing a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Taking her hand, he placed the square in her palm and closed her fingers over it, holding her gaze all the while. “I can’t change the past, Salena, but I can try to change the future.”
With shaking fingers, she opened the tightly folded square, the Tala rune shimmering with promise. “The moon?”
He quirked a smile. “I always forget you know everything.”
“When your mother is a proficient linguist and practically lives in the library…” she commented with a smile. “You’re giving me the moon?”
Breathing a laugh, he touched her cheek. “It’s my wish for the future. It’s you. Your name means the moon. It was the only thing I could think of that I want, that I felt was worth wishing for. I know I don’t deserve your love or regard—I never did, and that was part of the problem—but I wish that…” He trailed off, sounding so wistful that she couldn’t help moving into his touch. “I’d like to give you some joy and pleasure, Salena. To at least leave things in a better place between us. Instead of ending as we did. Would you let me try?”
She shouldn’t want this. She couldn’t seem to refuse him.
“How about just tonight?” she breathed. “One night when we forget the past.”
“I would love that,” he answered, long fingers trailing over her jaw. His eyes focused on her mouth, and he tilted his head, slowly closing the distance. Lena held her breath, anticipating.
Outside the door, trumpets blared, announcing the advent of the high queen. Saved by a well-timed fanfare, Lena thought wryly to herself. And she was a fool to have needed saving. Firmly, she stepped away from temptation. “I have to go.”
“Can I come with you?” Rhy asked, uncertain, searching her face.
She laughed, feeling the release of a burden she’d carried for far too long, and seized his hand, pulling him to the door. “Yes. We must hear Her Majesty’s speech.”
“Oh, joy,” he commented, sounding so much more like his usual self that she giggled, heady with relief that they’d finally put the hurt and heartbreak behind them. And he’d been in love with her. It didn’t change anything, but knowing that helped. At least she hadn’t been a total fool.
Lena found them a spot below the balcony where she’d watched the ball earlier with Gendra and Zeph, a good position to see and hear the queens.
“Salena,” Rhy breathed in her ear as he settled his hands on her waist, his body hot against her back. “What if we—”
Another fanfare drowned out his words. “Shh,” she hissed.
Everyone had fallen silent, turning expectant faces upward. A third, longer fanfare echoed, and into the ensuing quiet, a herald called. “All hail the High Queen of the Thirteen Kingdoms, Her Majesty High Queen Ursula.”
The crowd broke into frenzied cheering—except for Rhyian, still pressed against her—so she elbowed him hard in the gut.
“Ow!” he yelped.
“Cheer,” she tossed over her shoulder, glaring at him.
“Whee,” he said, perfectly deadpan. “Ooh. Ah. Look, it’s Danu made flesh.”
She successfully suppressed a laugh, turning her back on him to see Ursula arrive at the balustrade, waving to the people below. A lean blade of a woman, she wore a simple sheath of white-gold, bright as the midday sun—high noon belonging to the goddess Danu—and Salena recalled her mother saying that Queen Amelia had insisted on dressing Ursula and Andi. Ursula wore her deep-auburn hair coiled against her head, topped by the tri-point crown of the Thirteen Kingdoms that paid homage to the three sister goddesses. She smiled, thin as a sword’s edge, her steely gaze that of a warrior queen.
“And Queen Andromeda of Annfwn and Queen Amelia of Avonlidgh,” the herald declared as Ursula’s sisters joined her.
Ami had clearly run with the theme, dressing herself in palest pink to honor Glorianna, goddess of love and beauty. Elaborately beaded with tiny crystals, the dress caught the light, glowing like dawn, though dim compared to Ami’s own radiant beauty. The poets fell out evenly on whether her rose-gold hair, tumbling in glossy curls to her waist, resembled sunset or sunrise, though all agreed her eyes were the violet of twilight—intense enough to be visible at this distance.
On Ursula’s other flank, Queen Andromeda wore a gown of stunning black, though crafted of a shining material that shimmered with silver like the moon. Andi wore her hair loose in the Tala style, a cloak of night that gleamed with bloodred highlights, and her magic shifted around her like an unseen fog.
The three daughters of the old high king had long been likened to the avatars of the sister goddesses, and Salena had never seen the truth of that so clearly before this moment.
“Mother looks quite impressive,” Rhyian whispered in her ear, managing to sound impertinent despite the innocuous words.
“People of the Thirteen Kingdoms,” Ursula called out to silence the cheering crowd, “I have no wish to observe formalities tonight. My sisters and I have gathered here, in our childhood home, together with our families, to celebrate the Feast of Moranu and Her crystalline moon. We welcome you all—regardless of age, wealth or station—to celebrate with us. Danu confers her bright sword to allow us to gather in justice and peace.” She glanced to Ami.
“And Glorianna bestows her unconditional love,” Queen Amelia declared in her angelic voice, “so that we may set aside old hurts and past conflicts, to gather with joy.”
“But tonight belongs to Moranu,” Ursula continued, “so I yield to her avatar, Queen Andromeda of Annfwn.”
This time, Rhyian cheered with real enthusiasm, and Lena thought Andi noticed, picking her son out of the crowd and giving him a grateful smile as she took point position at the front of the balcony. Unlike her sister, she didn’t silence the crowd, but waited in quiet for them to settle. The magic that had been shimmering darkly around her began to expand, flowing outward, the black mist shooting with sparks of light no longer tightly contained, but billowing as it grew.
“Moranu is the goddess of night,” she intoned in a quiet voice, the crowd falling to a hush to better hear. “The goddess of the moon, of mutability, of the intangible and the shadows that shift, waxing and waning, to hide and reveal. She of the many faces embraces all of you tonight, you in all your multitudes, your dark faces and your bright ones. Unlike Danu, Moranu has no interest in the division of lines—She will not judge you. Unlike Glorianna, Moranu doesn’t ask for your beauty—She embraces the darkness in you, the parts you would keep in shadow and hide from the light of day.”
Lena didn’t think she imagined that Andi’s gaze lingered on Rhyian as she said those words, and Lena felt his stillness behind her. As Andi spoke, the room filled with the glittering black mist, the formerly bright light dimming, and it seemed night shadows flowed from the corners, nocturnal creatures softly calling. Looking down, Lena realized a lightless fog had shrouded the floor to knee height, heightening the feel of otherworldliness. It was as if the castle had receded and they’d truly stepped into the mind of Moranu, full of tenebrous mystery.
“We have two hours until the stroke of midnight,” Andi said into the hush. “Until then, we shall keep the fires burning, though night will continue to deepen Her sway. Use this time to reflect on your shadows, to offer the detritus of your soul to the cleansing flame, and set down your intentions, your hopes, and promises for the new year.”
“Didn’t we already do this?” Rhy muttered in her ear, clearly recovered and neatly dodging her elbow this time.
“As midnight draws nigh, we shall gather on the battlements,” Andi continued, smiling as the crowd muttered in dismay. “I promise you will be warm, that you will be sheltered from the cruel winter winds—and that we will see Moranu’s crystalline moon. For now, discard your old hurts and angers. Leave them in the fire, and make your way to the battlements, where we will greet the new year with the light of the crystalline moon.”
“That’s my cue,” Lena told Rhyian, extracting herself from his hands as the crowd broke up into excited murmurs, people streaming toward the scribes’ tables or lining up at the bins with blank scrolls.
“Wait,” he said, clever hands simply finding a new purchase on her waist as she turned. “Where are you going?” In the magical dimness, Rhyian’s eyes seemed to catch the sparks of light, like distant stars glittering in a midnight sky. Shadows clung lovingly to the gorgeous planes of his face, his black hair falling loosely around it, reminding her of how he’d looked after kissing her senseless, when he’d been naked against her, skin to skin and—
“I have a job to do.” And focusing on that job would help her to remember that making up with Rhyian didn’t—and shouldn’t—mean anything more.
“At a party? I thought we were taking tonight to enjoy. Please, let me try to do better.”
Softening—truly unable to resist him when he spoke honestly—she caressed his cheek, catching her breath when he turned his face to brush his mouth over her fingertips. “I mean I really can’t, Rhy,” she breathed. “I have to go clear the sky and make it warm.”
He stared at her, arrested. “You can do that?”
She found herself grinning, delighted by his astonished admiration. “I can. Unlike some people, I have been practicing my skills.”
Rhy clapped a hand over his heart, gasping as if mortally wounded. “So unkind, fair Salena.”
She shook her head at his histrionics and untangled herself from his hands once again. “I will see you later, after my work is done.”
“Can I come with you?” he asked, striding beside her as she wended her way through the crowd.
Giving him a sidelong look, she raised a brow. “It will be cold up there, summer boy.”
“But I have a weather witch to keep me warm,” he replied, making her laugh. “Also a cloak, if we can stop to grab it.”
“All right, then.” Her smile so wide it threatened to crack her cheeks. She treasured the headiness of his company. And maybe the opportunity to show off for him a little. “Come see this.”