XX

Fanfare announced the arrival of Laila’s masquerade ball. She’d spent the morning sifting through lace-edged envelopes of cards congratulating her on her fiftieth earthday. The day her mother inserted the star that gave her life. Then she made her way through the steady arrivals of flowers, gowns, jewels, and chocolate-covered fruit bouquets until she found Darius’s gift at the bottom.

She picked up the rosewood music box, open-mouthed, observing the gilt roses inlaid on the lid. When she opened it, a ballerina sprang free and twirled to the tune of “My Radiant Warden.” Her throat thickened at the sound as she recalled the many times Léandre had played the lyre for her during times of sorrow. When she needed someone to guide her as the twilight star did for the person in the song. Tears were already forming from the thoughtfulness alone, but when she uncovered the pile of love letters hidden in one of the compartments, her cheeks were saturated in them.

The letters had been tied together by pink ribbon and were dated for ease of reading. Missives Darius had penned to her but never had the bravery to send. On the top of the pile was a card which read: In case you forget how adored you are when you return to Soleterea, here’s a few reminders.

She shut the box harshly, her chest trembling as she swallowed back a sob. She couldn’t afford to lose herself now, so close to the event. Her mother would be there, along with many other solarites, and she would need to maintain a guise of lukewarm cordiality towards the rex. She let the tears fall liberally to free them before she had to go downstairs. She wondered if there would ever be a time she could have it not throw her completely off-guard—the depth of his feelings for her.

After drying her eyes at the vanity table she continued with her plans, issuing orders and arranging rooms and adding the small finishing touches until evening fell.

She returned to her vanity to prepare herself, twisting her curls and threading pearls into the strands. Her gown for the evening was in the style of seafoam—a pale silhouette of silk chiffon with coral ribbons tied around the sleeves. Her matching mask was embroidered with pearl-encrusted starfish, and she painted her lips with a translucent gloss in the same nubile shade of coral pink.

To ground herself from any emotional turmoil, she reached for her mother-of-pearl snuff box and took out a fever pill, crushing it into a spoon. Then she lifted the spoon and vacuumed the line of fever through her nostrils, receiving instant relief from the drowsiness at the sickly tingle it provided. She would need all the help she could get if she was to face her mother tonight.

After dabbing her nose with a tissue, she snuffled, feeling the warmth of a blush that could easily be mistaken for pigment tinting her naked cheeks. A quick inspection in the mirror had her declaring absolution from any suspicion before she made her way downstairs.

In keeping with the combined theme of the event, she’d had the staff allocate a series of rooms for six different forms of entertainment, each representing a trait Calante bestowed upon his occassi. The first room represented Austerity, and she had transformed it into a barren coral reef setting where a platform and podium was set to relay her announcements.

Laila took to the podium to deliver her opening speech to the cluster of guests. They had come from all corners of the continent to the land deemed too precarious to ever breach.

“Good evening. I would like to begin by thanking each and every one of you for coming. I appreciate that you’ve travelled a long way to be with me here tonight. It is my honour to welcome you to my Thirtieth Annual Bal Masqué, where we not only celebrate my earthday but also share the festivities of the Mortesian Hexacost. Before we begin, I would like to offer my personal gratitude to Darius Rex for being so kind as to open up his home to us to host this event. Malborg Citadel has a very long and storied history with many hidden treasures—treasures I hope to share with you tonight. Both figuratively and literally.”

At this, the audience released a chortle.

“All proceeds from these treasures will help fund my initiative to bring ætherglass houses to Mortos. With your help, we can make this impenetrable soil bloom.” Her eyes found Amira in the crowd, who gave a barely visible nod of approval. Tonight would be the night to sway the electoral’s votes. “Now, I have invested my time into creating something I hope will be a bewitching experience. So please eat, drink, and be ready to loosen those purse strings. It is sure to be a magical evening.”

When she finished her speech she cast an incantation, and at once each of the imposing statues of three great whales spouted a jet of fine beverages. From one came a pale lager, from another a sweet wine, and from the last a euphoric nectar. The guests rushed to fill their cups.

Laila grabbed a glass to fill it with wine when she noticed Darius approaching her through a sea of bodies. He had spared no theatricality in his costuming, which consisted of a fitted grey suit with a dorsal fin and a red satin waistcoat with a ruffled cravat. Sewn into the lapels of his jacket were several rows of diamond-encrusted shark teeth, making him look as though he was in the midst of being engulfed.

“I hope that my speech was to your liking,” she said, seeking his eyes behind the red satin mask he wore.

“You spoke beautifully,” he commended and stepped forward to brush his lips against her ear. “I hope you enjoyed your gift.”

There was something so indecent about the smoothness of his voice that she shivered involuntarily.

“The gift was lovely,” she said, straining against infusing too much emotion in her tone. “Thank you, Darius Rex.”

A smile ghosted on his lips in response. “I’m also never going to forgive myself if I don’t mention how ravishing you look in that dress.”

Laila laughed, grateful for the levity. “Yes, you’d better get your best compliments in now, Darius Rex. I have to make room for all the others, after all.”

He chuckled. “I’m certain I can think of a few others.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to steal you away from your date,” Laila said, with simpering falseness. “I assume that you have one.”

Darius stretched out his arm, and a crimson-haired occassella stepped into it. She was conservative in a deep violet and iridescent blue kaftan with tiers of billowing tulle. Her head was eclipsed by a large hat, which protruded with the writhing appendages of an octopus.

Laila’s heart softened at the sight of her. “You look wonderful tonight, Domina Sabina.”

“As do you, princess.” She elbowed Darius’s chest. “Come on, I want a chance to demolish you at the tarot tables.”

Darius gave Laila a wry look before allowing Sabina to lead him away.

Now alone, Laila immersed herself within the crowd in the hope of attaining a familiar face. While she intended to put off approaching her mother for as long as possible, she had hoped to see Lyra present among the towheaded sprite guests. She concluded she and her friend must still be in conflict when she didn’t see her emerge.

Laila was trying not to let that sag too deeply in her chest when an occassella came swaggering into view with a brazen swinging of her wide hips. She cut an imposing figure in a dark green seaweed dress. Faced with her viciously rouged lips, her hair so black and unruly it slithered like tendrils past her shoulders, Laila felt suddenly pale and insubstantial.

“Well then, you must be the crown princess everyone has spoken so much about!” she exclaimed, her eyes of pure copper cast a scrutinising gaze from head to toe.

“Why yes,” Laila said, all southern charm with her cherry-sweet voice. “And you are?”

“Well, I go by many names. But I suppose officially I am known as Serafina Blackwood, High Sorceress of the Vidua Nocte.” Serafina curtseyed with flourish. “Though others may grudgingly refer to me as the rex’s mother.”

Laila recoiled. “You’re—you’re Darius’s mother?”

“Guilty,” she confirmed in an affectedly humble manner. “Are you all right, dear? You appear to be a bit red in the cheeks.”

Laila resisted the urge to put a hand to her cheek, knowing the fever was still singing in her veins. “I— Forgive me, I’m just surprised. I must say I never thought I’d see the day that I met you. Darius doesn’t talk much about you at all.”

“I can’t imagine he does. It would make for quite poor political discussion,” Serafina responded with a dry chuckle. “That is after all why you’re here, isn’t it? To discuss politics?”

Laila matched the laugh with something frail and thin before quenching her nerves with a long drink of wine. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, I have so many other guests to attend to.”

She turned on her heel with the intent to evaporate into the crowd, wanting nothing more than to escape this current predicament and the shame and embarrassment she felt at being caught so unaware.

Not long after, however, Darius managed to apprehend her. He’d observed the interaction from afar with a growing sense of dread and sought to end it when he realised what occurred.

Laila rounded on him instantly, her tone low and accusatory. “I thought you told me your mother was dead.”

“Not in so many words—”

She emitted a disgruntled sound in response and pivoted away from him only for him to pull her back.

“Wait,” he insisted. “I’m sorry, that isn’t how I wanted for you two to meet.”

“From the looks of it, you never intended for us to meet at all,” she said, trying to swallow the lump emerging in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut. She could not lose it here. She refused.

“You’re right, I didn’t,” he admitted, before sighing and massaging his temple. “Laila, you have to understand that things are complicated between my mother and me—”

“No, Darius, I cannot do this with you right now. I am in the middle of a party. Whatever excuses you have can wait.” She punctuated this with a petulant stamp of her foot. “Let me go.”

He released on instinct, and she disappeared once more into the crowd.

Exhaling, he turned back to where his mother was last seen.

“Well now,” Serafina crooned. In her excitement, her lips had curved upwards into a feral grin. Pearlescent fangs hung low over her painted lips. “There’s my precious boy.”

His legs grew heavy at the sight of her. He fought against it. He fought against the shadow of his boyhood and the slow encroachment of memories he had long discarded, tossing them away like purposeless parts—spare cogs, rusted springs, anything that bogged down the efficiency of his internal machinery. He had repurposed himself into something sleek and mechanical, well-oiled clockwork, that ceaseless tick, tick, tick that always ran and never stopped.

But when Serafina stepped closer, something jammed him to a sudden halt. He grabbed her harshly by the arm to drag her near.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled at her under his breath.

“Open invite.” Serafina cocked her head playfully. “Thought I’d dress up and join.”

He could kill her. He could wrench her heart from her chest at this very moment.

“Leave,” he ordered calmly.

“Now, Darius, don’t be a spoilsport,” Serafina sing-songed, tapping his cheek with a few condescending pats. “I’m already here, after all. And I don’t think your lovely star princess would appreciate a scene on her big day.”

He could feel his fangs aching at his gums and resisted. His mother was right. He couldn’t afford to make a scene, and Serafina Blackwood was certainly not one to leave quietly.

“So.” Serafina held out her arm with the blade of a smile. “Let’s go and eat, shall we?”

An underwater landscape eclipsed every surface of the Vigour room from the walls to the tables, providing the sense of having sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor. Mermaids serenaded inside the plump interior of a large oyster shell, surrounded by kaleidoscopic swarms of fish and dancing dolphins.

Laila couldn’t help but smile seeing it all come together like this, basking in the vocalised awe and admiration of her skilled work as an illusionist. She was so often unable to generate her own joy that only in the tangible emissions of others’ praise and adoration of her was she capable of feeling it. She collected brief moments of intimacy among her audience, watching as they stared incredulously at the rollicking dolphins. As though they might burst through the barrier of her illusion and submerge the hall.

Tables had been set in accordance with relationship and national status, and the table of honour sat on a raised platform, consisting mainly of the ruling class as well as their companions.

Laila took a seat by her mother, who was resplendent in a gown of seawater pearls—thousands upon thousands of the iridescent baubles threaded into one gauzy netting that chattered like summer rain when she moved.

It felt like an age had passed since she had last been in her presence, but Laila settled quickly into the reticent obedience her mother had coached her from birth to attain. Had their relationship been of a different configuration, Laila might have felt comfortable enough to take her aside and unleash her sorrows upon her breast in return for comfort. Instead, she mourned her heartache alone and drowned her anguish in copious amounts of nectar.

The dishes began with blini topped with sour cream and gold caviar, followed by several other delicacies offered by Mortesian waters: gleaming platters of oysters, mussels, and blood cockles; a phantom shrimp cocktail served in a thin-stemmed glass; miniature squids marinated in basil; and a rich, velvety soup of lobster claws. Even their more outlandish offerings made an arrival in the form of braised whale tongue and seal tenderloin dipped in cranberry sauce.

Laila had purchased it all from lupari fishermen for a fair price, for she wanted to familiarise herself with the local businesses and knew how much Darius favoured seafood over any other cuisine.

The chefs plucked live fish from the walls of her illusion with a steadied calm and deposited them squirming onto the chopping board, inserting spikes into their hindbrains. Laila watched the fish writhe anxiously against the inevitability of their fate before succumbing to limpness.

“Oh, how intriguing,” Amira declared as the chef sliced and layered the pieces of fish in an attractive array of raw pinks, dipped in sauce and garnished with grated herbs. “This is not unlike the Odakan demonstrations I’ve observed before. Though I suppose you’d have plenty of opportunities to become inspired by them with how many of their ships must have wrecked at your shores.”

She wrapped her pearl-encrusted lips around her glass of nectar with a subtle titter of amusement. Laila could already tell her earlier anxieties were not unfounded. Mortos’ brutal isolationism leading to several mass shipwrecks was still a topic of sore discussion.

“You’ve reminded me that I shall have to take a visit to that fine country one day,” Darius responded, unperturbed by Amira’s commentary.

“I’d advise you to avoid some of the more devoutly religious areas.” Amira smiled, sharp and scintillating as glass. “They don’t take kindly to creatures of chaos.”

“Duly noted.”

Laila ate a bite of salmon topped with caviar and followed it with a sip of wine.

The thin pupils of Serafina’s eyes watched her with interest the entire time they had been seated. Darius had insisted room be made at the table for her so he could keep her under his supervision.

“My, you’re like a little bird the way you eat,” Serafina commented. Her mouth was blackened from the ink of a squid as her teeth popped the skin of the caviar.

Laila suddenly felt self-conscious of her delicate, bite-sized portions. The way they matched the meticulous cuttings on her mother’s plate. Yet she would be dignified, as she was in all things. Her neck muscles would always tense with the phantom weight of a crown.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t mind me, Your Radiance. I’ve just never managed to meet a creature that makes such a pleasant show out of eating the way you solarites do. So delicate. So refined. Flitting around from place to place with your little pretty chirpings. Like birds.”

“Mother,” Darius censured. Even now his tongue shrivelled at the word, at the unspoken entitlement she would always have to his origin. But he couldn’t afford to be resentful, to feel abandoned, or anything less than pragmatic. Emotions like these were toxins in his bloodstream, something to be sterilised at once.

“Not to worry, Darius Rex, we little birds aren’t so immune to receiving compliments,” Laila assured him with a cutting smile directed towards Serafina. “I savour my meals, as I do all the little things that contribute to my overall existence. It gets easy to let things blur after a few decades, to forget the charm of seeing a sunset or letting a raindrop touch your cheek. I try not to forget what a joy it is to simply live, not even forever, but each blessed day.”

She looked into Serafina’s eyes and found them aflame with something indistinct.

“What a charming philosophy,” Serafina said as she took a sip from her glass.

The servers arrived with dessert shortly after—a frothy delight of coconut cream and sand-biscuit pastry with concealed chunks of pineapple and mango. A Malakian delicacy as a brief reprieve from the Mortesian menu.

Laila scooped a gooey layer of cream and pastry with her spoon and took an immaculate bite. As she reached for her drink, her hand nudged against Serafina’s sharp talons, her skin shredding easily against the edge of them.

Laila gasped out, snatching her hand back as a line of ichor rushed to the surface and dried against her skin.

“Oh, do forgive me, Your Radiance!” Serafina cried out in contrition as she retracted her fingers away into a fist. “I was trying to reach for the sushi platter.”

“Of course,” Laila said, still pitifully cradling her hand though the wound had already healed. She saw the faint glimmer of her golden blood encrusted on Serafina’s nails and was faintly disquieted by the sight.

After dessert, the guests dispersed to explore the rest of the rooms and the delights awaiting them there. For many the room of Supremacy beckoned, which cultivated a mood of intimacy with the soft-toned glow of bioluminescence. Each transition of colour unearthed a new note of emotion that planted an implicit urge to generate merriment through a ritual of dance and drink.

The sight of it kindled the memory of the first night Laila had spent here, when Darius had presented the crystal formations in his room. Determined not to linger on it, she transferred to Tenacity, where partygoers gambled their souls and fortunes away at card tables resting upon a transparent floor of shark-infested waters. As cards were a popular activity in Mortesian events, she found most of the occassi had proceeded here, drawn in by the chaotic element of chance that a good gamble provided.

Next was the Cunning room where the occupants sat cosy in their tentacled seats, beguiled by sleights of hand and circus tricks from Mortos’s finest magicians. Laila departed as a member of the audience was cajoled into being used as a target for knife-tossing, and she ended her journey in Ferocity, where many observed the theatrical showmanship of sparring occassi as they clashed swords and sorcery in carefully orchestrated routines.

During all of this, Laila took to the free-flowing nectar carried around by servers like a fish to water. The drink lulled her into a dreamy mood and softened the edges of her mind until the time soon came for her to return to the Austerity room to give another speech to commence the charity auction.

She ascended to a standing ovation as she took to the stage and dismissed the applause with a gesture. “Once again, I would like to thank you all for coming.” Laila’s voice was clear and sweet as a morning bird chirrup, gently coaxing the late-evening lethargy into awakening once more. “And I do hope that you have been having as enchanting a time as I have, seeing and experiencing all the unusual beauty the Citadel has to offer. To round it off for the evening, I would like to auction a series of offerings from the country’s finest artists and artisans. So, ready your purses, folks, as we are about to present our first prize.”

The applause ricocheted like thunder as a servant arrived with the first prize nestled on a tufted velvet pillow with gold tassels.

Then something shifted in the audience. Their faces lengthened to snouts with saliva-slickened teeth and their hollers of excitement rang out as the desperate howls of wolves.

Laila blinked once, then several times, in the hopes that her eyes would swipe away this madness and transport her back to reality. Yet the ravenous, black-furred predators remained where the partygoers had once been, and they were now starting to advance upon her with bloodlust in their glowing gazes…

She slipped out of the hallucination with a sudden jolt to find her body returned to its original state. With a quick cursory glance, she realised she was still onstage before the waiting eyes of an audience. The wolves were gone and in their place were the demons and celestials she was far more accustomed to. She rushed to whisper into the ear of the auctioneer that she would let him take over from this point.

Laila had never liked walking the Citadel halls, even accompanied, so she took care to stay in the path of the sconces and let the candlelight ease the way through the passage emptied of bodies besides the discordant creaks of age. She couldn’t stifle her relief when she reached the staircase towards the Regina Wing and took the first step before a sharp twinge in her back made her gasp out in pain.

She fell to the floor with a cry, the stone cool and unwelcoming to her body. A sensation prickled along every inch of her body, and that was when she saw it. Fur. Soft and light and sprouting like the heads of dandelions. She could feel it tickling against the exposed skin of her neck as her bones twisted and mangled themselves into a rabbit’s legs.

She tried to flee, making use of the small white paws she had no memory of having but that her mind suddenly registered, and got caught in the vice of a mouth enclosing its jaws around her, squeezing until her bones cracked. She opened her mouth to scream, and her vocal cords trembled with an animal screech as deep within the interior of her mind, she heard a voice, low and mocking. Hold still, little rabbit.

Laila released a vulnerable sound as fear and anguish paralysed her limbs. Still, she forced herself to move. She must move. Please, stop. I don’t want this.

The wolf lapped its tongue over her trembling fur and exhaled its hot yearning in her ear. Of course you do… It’s what you long for. To be ravished by me, devoured by me. Why do you deny yourself what you most desire?

Laila whimpered as its fangs sank into the nape of her neck. Her body arched to its hunger, wanting to be consumed. No. We cannot do this. We mustn’t.

Mustn’t. A mocking croon. People only say this when they know what they want but are secretly ashamed to want it. Why are you ashamed of this, Laila?

Because you make me question my own heart. What’s righteous and true. You do so many things I can’t understand and could never condone. And what’s worse, you make it all cease to matter.

Perhaps you know the root of your unease is that despite the disparities in our nature, I am not wholly wicked. I am not the bloodthirsty wolf from the stories menacing you from under your bed.

No, you’re the wolf I invite inside it to comfort me from menace.

The revelation made the sconces gasp their flames out all at once. For a moment, she saw only darkness around her and above her, but it was a living sort of gloom—one that throbbed and pulsated around her body.

Laila thrashed violently, but no matter how hard she flapped the darkness was more persistent, more greedy, expanding with each black pulse until she was engulfed by it. It forced its fingers inside her throat when she attempted to screech and reached deep within her core where her star rested. It pinched around its glowing heat—

There you are.

She forced her way free from the hallucination, shivering on the floor in darkness. By now she had the awareness to recognise illusory magic when it was being used against her. Solarite magic. Her magic. But she couldn’t understand why one of her kinsfolk would want to torment her so.

The sconces lit with a whoosh, but instead of a servant or a kindly stray guest, she saw it was an occassella who stared down upon her with a taut composure. That startled her more than the darkness, being helplessly confronted with the menacing glow of preying eyes and the animal tilt of her head until, through the balmy glow of candlelight, she managed to make out the impression of Serafina’s features.

“My, do you fight hard,” she commended, scooping up the trembling solarite into her arms. “It took more effort to wear you down than I thought. No matter. I’ll have plenty of time to become acquainted with your inner workings.”

She carried her off down the hall.

Darius sighed as he leaned over the balcony, the cool wisp of midnight air a welcome balm to the nape of his neck.

A star shot through the sky above him. He let his hand follow its trajectory, looping his fingers around the white streak of its tail and clenched it like he would a rope until his fingers turned numb. If only he clenched enough he could hold its power in his hands and wish away his troubles.

That’s what stars were for, after all, weren’t they? Didn’t they always say they were for wishing?

Defeated, his hand gripped the alabaster rail until it crunched into dust under his fists. His nerves felt exposed, stripped back like a wire without cover. Anger and loathing coursed through him from the unexpected arrival of his mother.

He felt the urge to cry, but nothing came. The emotion was trapped behind a panel of glass, keeping the rest of him chilled and numb. But all that pressure, it had to go somewhere; one couldn’t just let something build and build and dissipate into nothing.

So he strained for the release of his tears, even mimicking the dry, heaving sobs he wanted to provoke. But it was to no avail. It only left him with a hoarse throat and rattling breath and a growing frustration.

“Your Majesty.”

He shot up at the sound of his address, carnivorous instincts twitching in alertness.

Poking her head through the parting of drapes was Sabina, a cigar perched between her fingers. “Fancy some company?”

Darius huffed a laugh at the sight of her. “Be my guest.”

Sabina rested her back against the banister. “My sincere apologies for your mother. I have no idea how she got in.”

“Well, she has her ways.”

“I could throw her out, if you wanted.”

A corner of Darius’s mouth twitched upwards. “As satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t be worth the fuss.”

“Between you and your star princess.” Sabina took a long drag and exhaled. “Right?”

Darius straightened. “How long have you known? About Laila and me. How long have you known? When did you see it?”

“When you sent me personally to escort her, if that matters. I knew she had to be precious to you for that.” Sabina smiled wryly. “You always send me when it’s something important to you. Though anyone with eyes would be able to see the way you look at her.” She turned to look at him. “Are you in love, Your Majesty?”

“I hardly think these matters are appropriate for us to discuss.”

“Come on, you know all my deepest, darkest secrets.” Sabina gave him a knowing look.

Darius knew she was referring to her first kill. Not a monster, but one of the enforcers who’d tried to muscle his way into her bed during induction. A murder he’d been happy to pardon.

“So?”

Even though Darius did not admit to it, he did not deny it. He couldn’t have even if he tried. To deny the truth of his love for Laila would be akin to refusing his own name.

“Well, if you require counsel,” Sabina said, “here it is: I think she’s very pretty, but you should find someplace far less inconvenient to dip your wick.”

“Whatever I feel for her is irrelevant, as Princess Laila has no intention to return it. She’ll be on her way home to Soleterea soon and all will be as normal.”

“And what’s normal? You brooding after her, continuing to turn down proposals and exasperating my father?” Sabina snorted. “You know he always wanted me to marry you. Part of me thinks it’s because it was as close as he was ever going to get to being by your side. Glad it didn’t work out, after seeing you with her. That would’ve been tragic.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “You deserve far better. You deserve someone who will love you to the point they’d pry their heart in two and use it to shelter yours.”

Sabina chuckled puffs of smoke at the old Mortesian saying. “Always hated that rot.”

“You will until you find the one to whom it applies.” Darius gave her one last smile before retreating back down to the party.

The auction was still deep in progress, but he couldn’t see Laila onstage.

He approached Amira in confusion. “Have you seen the princess?”

“Hm?” Amira glanced at him. “Laila left the stage a while ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

Darius took a quick sweep about the room. “And my m—Serafina Blackwood. Have you seen her?”

“Not since dinner.”

His nape prickled with a distinct sense of wrongness. Though he couldn’t say why. Turning away from Amira, he sought Laila’s scent in the crowd and followed it out into the hallway towards the staircase to the Regina’s Wing. His mother’s lingered alongside it.

Something cold seized his stomach. The food and drink he’d consumed roiled within. He had to find them, now. No matter the cost. He continued pursuing their intermingled scents relentlessly as they led him further and further down familiar territory.

He hadn’t been this low in the Citadel since he’d become rex, since he’d left his old quarters. Where he once was the ill-begotten child of an unwilling mother and pitiless father, destined to know the victory of the firstborn in name only while his younger brother superseded him in the race for all things.

He still thought about that sometimes. How mother had cast him into the snow and how father had stomped his face into it, and yet he’d still picked himself up, twitching and determined, desirous of everything he knew he ought not to be.

Darius tiptoed down the staircase to the level above the servants. His old rooms were dust-clouded and cob-webbed, white sheets thrown over everything he hadn’t yet moved. Darius knew what he’d see there but didn’t want to confront it—the slim thread of candlelight lurking behind a bookcase, leading to his laboratory.

Instinct had him throwing off all caution as he blurred past the rugged staircase and through the tunnels to step into light once more inside that cavernous space.

Serafina was arranging medical utensils, picking up various scalpels and inspecting them for sharpness. Laila was stretched out unconscious on the table in front of her, head slumped, her breathing faint but present.

Sensing her son was near, Serafina put down her scalpel. “Come to join the fun, have you?”

Darius was used to keeping himself tightly wound. His shirts were buttoned right up to the collar, sleeves clasped with antique cufflinks, belts bound into constricting knots. It was through only this that he maintained his calm before his mother as he asked, “What are you doing in my laboratory?”

Serafina gave him a pitiful look. “My dear boy, do you really think your father would’ve gone to all the trouble to make you a secret lab? Oh, don’t flatter yourself. This was mine long before it was yours.” She hummed lightly to herself as she picked up a syringe and pierced it through Laila’s wrist.

The solarite murmured faintly but did not rouse.

“What have you given her?” he asked, surprised at the evenness in his tone.

“Just something to keep her calm.” Serafina cupped Laila’s face, stroking it gently. “I’ve always been fascinated by these little star girls, myself. Did you know they have living stars in the core of them? It’s quite fascinating. Legend has it that if you rip the thing out, you’ll be granted immense power.”

“Really? How intriguing.”

Serafina eyed him sceptically. “Well, come now, don’t play the fool. You know precisely what I’m talking about. Besides, this one is special, you see. Katerina has told me all about your little infatuation with her. I find it rather darling.”

“So what is this, then?” Darius gestured towards her. “You’re taking my toys away in a strop because I haven’t answered your letters, is that it?”

“You know, I was hurt by that. You ignoring me in such a brazen manner. I thought perhaps if I sent Katerina to ask you nicely… but, well, I underestimated how little you’d care about such a thing, didn’t I?” Serafina smoothed her hand through Laila’s hair. “But this… you care about very much, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. It would hurt you to lose her, wouldn’t it?”

He knew this was another test. Serafina had infiltrated his Citadel under the guise of civility to try and hurt him again, to exert dominance. How well-paired his parents were. Shame they never tore each other to pieces before they procreated.

“She’s a valuable trinket, nothing more,” Darius replied. “I could just as easily replace her with another.”

“You’re lying to me, Darius.” Her tone flattened in reproach. “You forget I know how you function. I am your mother, after all. I made you.”

“Believe what you will,” Darius said. “However, I would caution against doing something too reckless. Her impératrice mother is right upstairs. Do you want to start a war?”

Serafina barked in laughter. “Seeing this country fall to ruin? Sometimes I think nothing would please me more. But no. That isn’t quite what I have in mind here. See, I was fascinated by the power she could exert over the mind, and I wondered how far I could take it. I wouldn’t get to kill her, but I could make you all but dead to her.”

Darius suppressed the urge to flinch. His fury simmered.

“I thought perhaps I would simply erase her memories of you. Every touch. Every smile. Every embrace. That would please Katerina immensely. Then I realised that’s not far enough… I should make her hate you. Make it so she can’t even stand in your presence without being filled with a deep-seated loathing. That might be even worse than me killing her, wouldn’t it?”

Darius fought against the embers of rage sparking to life in his chest, scorching a trail up his insides. “What do you want, Mother?”

“Now see, that’s better.” Serafina smiled wide enough to show her dimples. A trait they shared. “A little hospitality from you is all I desired. Now we can negotiate.” She stabbed down her scalpel beside Laila’s head. “I want my former position as the court sorceress restored.”

His expression migrated through a variety of emotions, most of them negative. “Why?”

“I want to be close to you. Advise you. As a dutiful mother should.”

Here, he flinched but disguised his visceral reaction with a chilled laugh. “Is that truly all you wanted? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“I might have if only you’d answered my letters.” Serafina shrugged. “Do we have a deal, then?”

There was nothing he loathed more than this, to be once more strong-armed into a corner. While the urge to refuse wormed onto his tongue a quick glance at Laila was all it took to defuse it. He couldn’t lose her. She was the one thing he couldn’t do without.

“As you wish.” His tongue stroked over the syllables like he would a cat, a tender croon of concession from the monster.

“Hm, perfect!” Serafina started to remove Laila’s bindings. “Now I’ll just untie her, and you are free to whisk her away to wherever—”

The moment she turned away from him, he struck. Seizing her by the back of the head, he rammed her face against the counter. Once, twice, thrice. Then let her slump to the ground in an unconscious heap. He fixed her with a gaze of pure repugnance before turning all his attention to Laila.

He injected her with another syringe to counter the effects of the former, unfastening her binds to take her into his arms. He tilted her head so that it rested easily into the crook of his neck before he carried her away.

Laila awoke on Darius’s divan in his antechamber with her mind still hazy and thick. She touched her fingers to her forehead, groaning sleepily.

“What is happening to me?” she asked, haughty and demanding but frightened still.

“It was my mother,” Darius explained, his voice strained. “She used blood magic on you.”

“Blood magic.” She remembered the scratch of Serafina’s talons as her fingers disappeared inside her fist. “Why?”

“She was trying to access your star. To siphon your aether power.”

Laila shivered as she thought back to the intensity of her pain and the feel of being excavated. “Can I stop her?” Her teeth worried her bottom lip. Having Serafina use her own power against her had been the worst possible invasion. She could not have it happen again.

Darius tinkered about his room with a few mutters under his breath. He rummaged through the numerous cabinets until he eventually found what he sought and lifted a phial of amber liquid with strips of bark floating in the solution.

“What is that?”

“Bark and sap from our sacred white birch tree. It has some religious significance in our mythology—” Darius dismissed the need for the lengthy explanation with a shake of his hand. “A long story. But if I anoint you with this it should nullify the effects of her blood rune.”

She did not protest against his hypothesis as he approached her and wet the tips of his fingers with the tincture. He traced a symbol reverently with his thumb on her forehead, her sternum and the space between her shoulder blades, the touch so light was practically hallucinatory.

“Well?”

The nudging had ceased, as well as the prickling itch behind her back from the burrowing. She breathed a little less frantically as she let herself go limp against the divan.

“I think it’s stopped.” She exhaled in relief and, without thinking, launched herself into his arms in gratitude. “Thank you.”

“It’s all right now, you’re safe,” Darius soothed, though the words were more for his assurance than hers. “You’re safe.”

She leaned her nose against his shoulder and inhaled the sharp, clean musk of his cologne. “I can see now why you didn’t want us to meet.”

His chest rumbled with a wry chuckle. “As it turns out, it was Katerina who was responsible. They’re… close. You could think of her as a protégée to my mother.”

“She loathes me that much?” Laila asked, though she found she couldn’t be surprised. Darius Calantis was not someone one simply overcame. Being the object of his fixation was like sailing a tidal wave of extremes—euphoric, comforting, uplifting, terrifying. It had given her something she’d never before thought possible. The safety of an affection that endured through her faults, rather than in spite of them. Of there being no distance she could throw him that he wouldn’t return from. She’d known him only a fraction of the time Katerina had and still suffered the white-hot flares of nonsensical rage at the mere thought of him being withdrawn.

Perhaps if she’d had him longer she would’ve acted with the same malice.

“Try not to take it too personally, princess. You’re not a politician in Mortos without at least one serious threat to your life.”

“Spare me your wit, Darius.”

He slumped down next to her on the divan. “And how are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” she admitted. “I’ll feel even better when I understand just who your mother is exactly.”

She watched the mirth drain from his face as his expression stiffened. “That’s a story for another time.”

“No, Darius, no,” Laila said. Her nerves were too frazzled, too haywire, to be satisfied by such a vague promise. “You tell me what’s going on, now.”

She stared firmly at him until he sighed in relent.

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. “Laila, my mother… it’s more complicated than you can ever imagine.”

“You think that I would not understand the complexity of the relationship one has with a mother?” She sounded affronted. “I could have already uncovered that with how you all but implied she was dead.”

“I didn’t mean to be dishonest with you, it’s just—” His words faltered and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want her to be anywhere near anything that could be considered good in my life. And now you can see why.”

“But why were you so intent on hiding her from me? If she is truly so dangerous, why did you never think to warn me about her before? Why did you leave me so unprepared?”

He looked away. Then he clenched down so hard on his teeth that his jaw twitched.

“Please just—just talk to me.”

“All right, princess, if you really want to know: I was a bastard child between a king and a blood sorceress. The biggest scandal of our time. My father wanted to marry the problem away, but my mother was unwilling to give up her position. Unfortunately, Vidua Nocte custom states there are no males allowed on their land. So my mother had a few choices. She could leave the faction and forfeit her power or she could—” His voice seized before he continued. “She could get rid of the problem. She chose the latter and decided she would offer me as a ritual sacrifice to her goddess. Only, my father uncovered my existence and threatened her life if she didn’t hand me over. She complied.”

Laila felt something wet on her cheeks and realised she was crying. She wiped the tears away.

Darius averted his eyes from her. “The reason I never told you is that I try to forget every day who I am and where I came from. That I was a mistake. That I was unwanted. I didn’t want you to ever look at me the way you are now. As though I’m some sad, troubled thing worthy of your pity.”

“You think pity is the only thing I feel for you?” she asked as a quiver of lightning flashed outside the window, dancing across the soft glimmer on her skin. She climbed into his lap and took his face in her hands. “Because it isn’t. Far from it.”

Darius closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. “You don’t have to comfort me, Laila. It’s you who’s been through an ordeal.”

“I’m not saying this because I’m trying to comfort you, Darius.” She moistened her lips, the words catching in her throat. “I’m saying this because… because I—” Her heart fluttered in apprehension. “Because I’m in love with you, Darius. And I so tire of trying to deny it or disguise it or make it disappear…”

Outside the storm roared with anguish, and the rain pelted the windows like a volley of arrows. Yet there was no moment more silent than this, with her hand on his cheek and her breath still warm with a declaration she couldn’t bring herself to rescind.

“What did you say?” he asked, his voice a frail whisper.

“I said that I’m in love with you, Darius,” Laila repeated, bolder now. Amazing how much easier it grew each time she said. “Darius, I love you—”

His mouth collided with hers urgently, swallowing the words from her lips. He kissed her with a yearning she didn’t realise he’d been suppressing, and, gods, but she never truly realised before now just what it was she did to him. The taste of the sweet wine from his mouth stained hers before he had his hands in her hair.

“Say that again,” he murmured against her lips.

“I love you,” she whispered back.

He pushed her down onto the divan, pressing their bodies bruisingly close. He released a brief moan into her mouth as she coaxed his lips open to trace the edge of his tongue with hers.

“Again,” he commanded.

“I love you.”

She hooked her legs around him to deepen the kiss to the point where she could feel the graze of his fang against her lip. She pulled back to look into his blackened monster eyes, and she sucked the ichor from the wound left by his fang. Then he had his lips against her neck, her jawline, gliding down further as he murmured her name and followed it with gentle nips with his fangs before yanking down her dress.

They stripped each other with eagerness and clumsy gestures, desperate to meet each other bare, to remove any barrier. Laila ran her hands over the smooth muscled planes of his torso, the broadness in the shoulders, the firmness in the arms. He kept so much of himself tucked away beneath these layers, and she wanted to explore all of it.

He switched their positions and hooked her knees over his shoulders, gliding his tongue along her thigh before he kissed her clit. Her lips parted as he pressed the flat of his tongue against her, and she released a moan that expanded against the walls of the room.

“Try to keep quiet, or I might have to stop,” he warned, sucking her clit into his mouth until she was trembling. Until all conscious thought was supplanted by a series of colours. Her hips ghosted the movement of his tongue as he brought her to a pinnacle of pleasure she didn’t think was possible—and then he stopped.

Laila whined as he moved her down to rest on his hips, brow arched in expectancy.

“Keep going like that and you’ll have the guards think I’m killing you.”

She snorted in response, positioning herself to align her clit to the underside of his cock. Then it was his turn to quiet the throaty sounds from his lips as she ground herself against him.

Darius cursed as his fingers dug bruisingly into her thighs, head thrown back, crying out shakily. “Laila, please!”

She knew what he wanted but she wouldn’t give it. She wanted to show him that she wouldn’t be bested, to elicit the same fervour of driving him over the edge without taking him inside her. She leaned in to kiss him as her hips continued their frenzied gyrations until he was caught up in the erratic tide of her movements, drowning in the waves of ecstasy.

They were so immersed in each other they didn’t hear the door creak to reveal Delanus, standing in gaping awe of the passionate embrace before him. He’d been on the search for Darius after his mysterious disappearance from yet another event. Little did he imagine the compromising position he would find his rex in. With the solarite princess no less. And it was with a slightly gaping mouth that he desisted, having the good grace to excuse himself.

Once they’d both finished, Laila slumped against Darius’s chest before leaning up to kiss him, trailing her finger along his chest. “You know, I’ve never imagined I could ever feel this…”

“What?” he asked.

“Blissful.” She nuzzled against him. “I was so afraid to be with you because I feared it would cause nothing but pain and suffering. But this… this is completely the opposite.”

He kissed the top of her head, whispering words of Mortesian she couldn’t decipher.

“What does that mean?” she asked, glancing up at him in confusion.

“It means you have devoured my heart.” He brushed a twist behind her ear, bringing up her wrist to kiss it.

She breathed a laugh, shaking her head at the morbidity before she allowed herself to lean into his touch.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmured, his hand sinking within the depths of her abundant curls. “I used to think about it all the time, you coming here to Mortos. Choosing to be with me, finally, after so many decades. And I almost ruined it.”

She met his gaze and found it soft with regret. Then she cupped his face in her palm, tracing his stubble with her thumb. “I almost ruined it too.” She sighed with lament. “I didn’t mean to make you wait so long, I was just… afraid. Of how much you wanted me and how much I wanted you and taking a risk on that. Even now, I… I can’t say where we’re even meant to go from here.”

“Wherever we want,” he replied, so unshakably firm. “I want us to start by officially offering you access to my quarters to come and go as you wish. I want you to treat it as your own home. And I hope you come to think of the Citadel that way, eventually.”

She thought of this crumbling edifice and its shadowed hallways, its labyrinthine structures and impenetrable walls of ivy. She didn’t think it would ever be hers, that she would ever belong to it in the same way he did. But she accepted his attempts to share it with her all the same.

“Won’t that cause a fuss with your prefects?”

He chuckled, and it was a light vibration against her cheek. “Let them fuss. If any of them have an issue with it, they can take it up with me… and briskly find themselves cast out.”

“I love you,” she said. The phrase was still an acquired taste on her tongue, but she found she was quickly gaining a predilection for it. “I think part of me always knew, ever since you left after the coup, and all I did was wish for you to come back.”

He kissed the tip of her nose before brushing his own against it. “I think I knew, ever since you tried and failed to break into my room to snoop through my journals, that you were the one for me.” He smiled, warm with humour and undertoned with something she could scarcely find words for. “There’s been no one else since.”

“Do you think something like this could ever last?” Laila struggled to meet his eyes as she asked.

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’ll destroy anyone and anything that gets between us.”

He meant it. She could see it in his eyes. The sheer animal intensity of them pierced her right through the marrow. It stopped her breath how ferocious he could be in his certainty of her. He sealed his promise with a kiss so impassioned it went all the way down to her weakening legs, and it was all she could do to let herself swoon into it as he wrapped his arms around her.