“Screaming won’t help. I know, I’ve tried.”
Lunara felt its sigh as if it were her own and that maybe unsettled her more than anything.
“Please. I’m begging you to go away.”
When minutes passed with no breathy laughter or lilting mockery, no haunting, nonsensical drivel, Lunara relaxed back into her chair and searched for a distraction—anything to erase the lingering echoes of that cursed intruder.
But, just as she’d pulled the long hook from her hair and thought to draw some of the moonlight outside to herself, a crushing thunderclap reverberated through her skull with such might that Lunara was sure she’d die beneath the weight of it.
It was like there were hundreds of the Voice inside her when it spoke again, a bludgeoning chorus of hammers andruin.“This is the moment they planned for. It’s time. But still, there’s a split—a moth-shaped divide. Tell me, Sorcerit, will your answer be right? Or will you consign us to doom-colored night?”
It’s too much. Too much!
Lunara bit back a scream, black spots crowding her vision. Blinded by pain, the last thing she knew was her face hitting the table, no such thing as talking herself out of the slip into unconsciousness.
The deep crackof a throat being cleared startled Lunara awake. She blinked to focus, rubbing the crease in her cheek and trying to remember where she was. Her back ached something fierce, popping as she straightened and?—
It was the sight of Thaddeus’s shite-eating grin that snapped her back to reality. Nyri’s wasn’t much better.
Stars and arses, you bleeding eejit.
She caught a flash of white, spiraling horns out of the corner of her eye. Just enough to wish the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
Lunara hadn’t beheld the moving likenesses of the Imperial Family since she was a child in Starkeep, when the Sons were hardly more than children themselves. As an adult, she didn’t bother with the public squares of the Evesong’s cursed capital.
Nachthelliae didn’t honor the other Realm Rulers the same way they did the Imperials, but she’d seen other depictions of them throughout her life.
She’d just been caught sleeping on the Demon King’s dining table by the male himself.
Since the flagstones chose to be unhelpful, leaving her at the mercy of her own awkwardness, Lunara decided to pretend she was invisible.
Hold still. If you don’t move or make eye contact, maybe they’ll forget all about seeing you like this.
“This is Lunara,” Thaddeus said, his voice dripping with mischief.
So much for that. Menace.
Wait… Introductions. To royalty.
Shite. Stand up, you bumbling ninny!
Lunara scrambled to free herself, wincing when the chair legs screamed across the floor, her hook clattering down and rolling away. A wave of her hand brought it back to her pocket, but she was tempted to snap the traitorous thing in half later.
She smoothed a hand over her hair, clutched her skirts, and bobbed a swift curtsy. Pretending there was nothing odd about her, she somehow found her voice.
“Um, hello?”
Oh, good one. Really making waves out in the big, wide world.
The biggest among them stepped forward and clasped one of her hands—a male without horns who bore a striking, nauseating resemblance to both Thaddeus and Caius, which meant there was only one person he could be.
Of course. Why embarrass yourself in front of one very important person when you could do it for two!
“Hello, fair Lunara. I’m Magnus.” He bent and placed a feather-light kiss on her knuckles, his golden eyes sparkling. “Our Thad has been extolling your many virtues for days.”
Magnus aht Bordoroth, Blessed of Thodelebor, Ambassador Apparent and Third Imperial Son of Alwyn and Fionerys—theonly Son with hair that shade of blond and obviously a Wolflord with those tattoos and piercings.
He stepped away, utterly charming and chuckling as though he knew it.
