“Must we be remembered, for our lives to have meaning?”
“I think perhaps it is the only way,” he whispered. “The bits and pieces that linger on, in the broken glass of other people’s memories.”
“Then we must be sure to tell each other’s stories, when we are gone.”
Sunder’s face hardened with some kind of decision. He caught my wrist and pulled me down a series of corridors before stopping in front of a door. He unlocked it, rested a hesitant hand on the knob, then swiftly pushed it open.
The room beyond stole my breath and my gaze. It was a room, and yet, an entire impossible world held within four walls. Sky painted an arching ceiling with azure. No—not paint. For the pigment had depth and distance that tore at the horizons of my mind. A perilous shining eye stared from the blue, its light like warmth on my face.
And below—Scion,below.
The floor plummeted away into endless blackness studded with a million glittering lights. Vertigo swept over me, and for a moment I fell—fell like a bright point of light through the glimmering dark. But then I saw her—the moon, sailing full-bellied and pristine through the night, and I found my balance. I gazed at her as she turned, spinning through her phases in an eternal dance.
The room was more fantastic than any of my wildest illusions. Envy and admiration and an infinite, aching longing burned through me in quick succession.
“My father had this room enchanted.” Sunder’s soft voice echoed through time and space. He led me out onto the dizzying floor, and spun me once, gently, so my gown floated around my legs. “There was a story he heard as a child, about the Sun and the Moon, and it stuck with him his whole life. He spent half his life studying the lore of the Midnight Dominion—it was his greatest wish to travel there someday. My mother, of course, had no intention of ever letting him.” He caught me around the waist, and threaded his gloved fingers through mine. His gaze was far away. “This is my only real memory of him. I was so young when he died. But I remember this room. And I remember his voice, telling me his favorite story. I’ve kept it locked away for so long. But perhaps—perhaps it’s finally time to share it.”
With me. I swallowed, and lifted my eyes to his. “Will you tell me the story?”
“I’ll see how well I remember it.” His mouth was by my ear, and somehow we were dancing—a dance without steps or music. “In a time before time, there was a she-wolf, whose belly grew with a litter of pups. She was hungry, but the snow lay deep and she had grown too large to hunt. She began to eye the moon, hanging fat and lazy in the sky.Just a taste, she thought. She took a bite of the moon. But she was still hungry, so she ate a little more. Bite after bite, she tore away slivers, until there was nothing left in the sky but darkness. Soon, her pups were born, but instead of fur and flesh, they were hard and sharp and bright—they were made of moon-stuff. Ashamed, she buried them where no one could see them. She turned herself into a mountain, to watch over them. And the sun—the sun was so furious the she-wolf had eaten the soul of the world, that he sat where he could keep an eye on her for the rest of time.”
I shivered, the eerie story striking a chord of familiarity somewhere in my chest. Sunder’s hands tightened on my waist.
“Are you planning on going back?”
The question rocked me off-balance and drove the story out of my head. “What?”
“To Coeur d’Or. You still want the throne.”
It wasn’t really a question. I answered honestly. “I don’t know.”
“You asked for sanctuary, demoiselle. I would offer you solace as well.” He ran his fingers along the diamond shards embedded in my throat, then cupped my cheek and kissed me. The kiss was fleeting as starlight, the length of time splitting day from night. I knew it was all he dared—as always, it ached when he touched me. It ached more when he drew away. “Would it be so terrible to stay here? With me?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Gavin once joked about me marrying you—”
“Sunder,” I interrupted. “I wouldn’t dwell overlong on any of the things Gavin has said.”
“Trust me, I don’t.” He laughed low. “But it seemed perhaps like you thought it was a joke too.”
I stilled. I remembered that day—I’d laughed at Sunder and finally realized what Gavin’s legacy was. Guilt writhed through me—had Sunder spent all this time thinking I’d been laughing at the idea of us being married?
“Sunder,no.” I gripped his biceps and met his eyes. “That was Gavin’s legacy—a persuasion, aglamour. I could never laugh at you.”
His eyes thawed. “And here I thought I had a rather winning sense of humor.”
Anticipation laid bare all the spaces between us.
“Would you consider it?” He mouthed the words as though he wasn’t sure he was actually saying them out loud. “You would not be an empress, Mirage. But I can promise—whatever else you dream will be yours. If you wish to be the sun, you will rise in glory. If you wish to be the moon, you will set in perfect darkness and stars will shine in your eyes. Because I will always be the man—or the monster—who falls from the sky at the sight of you.”
My breath ratcheted in my chest, and my heart flung jags of hot liquid toward my face. The diamond shards embedded in my arms and throat rippled sharp light toward my fingertips.
“Sunder de Vere.” I lifted myself toward him, even as I fell toward the sheer expanse of everlasting sky. “Are you asking me to be your wife?”
“I’m telling you I love you.” He said it simply. He said it like a secret. “And I’m asking if you could ever feel the same.”
I tasted the words on my tongue—tasted the bright peaks and shadowed valleys of the memories behind them. Moments strung like jewels on a chain—a cold, handsome boy with anguish in his eyes and razors in his mouth—snow on my tongue and the chilly promise of something I hadn’t known I’d wanted—the burn of bright green liquor and pain-racked condemnation.
