“Don’t I?” He takes another step closer. “You’re a contender now. We’re supposed to be competing against each other. I should be treating you like a threat.”
I stay silent for a moment, holding his gaze.
“…Then why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t retreat either. We’re too close now, close enough that I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his breathing has gone shallow.
“Even if I could … forgive you,” he says quietly, “I can’t align Mars with the Sun King’s heir overnight. My people would see it as a betrayal.”
The words cut deeper than his anger did. Because they’re true. Because there’s no easy path forward, even if we wanted one.
“I don’t trust you,” he says finally.
“I know.”
“This doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know that too.”
He’s still moving closer. I can feel the heat radiating off him, see the conflict written across his face.
I stay frozen as his hand finds my face, fingers sliding into my hair. His touch is gentler than his voice, and that contradiction undoes something in me.
When his mouth meets mine, the world narrows to this single point of contact.
It’s not tentative. It’s not careful. It’s desperate and consuming and nothing like I imagined a first kiss could be. I grab the front of his shirtto keep myself steady, or maybe to pull him closer – I can’t tell the difference. The healing euphoria from the arena is still singing in my veins, mixing with this new sensation until I can’t separate magic from want.
His other hand finds my waist, and I make a sound I’ve never made before. That seems to break something in him, too. The kiss deepens, becomes almost frantic, like we’re both trying to make sense of this feeling that defies understanding.
When we finally break apart, we’re both shaking. His forehead rests against mine, and I can feel his breath against my lips.
“This is a mistake,” he whispers.
My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure he can feel it. “Zevran, I?—”
A sharp knock suddenly interrupts us. We jerk apart, and I stumble back against the bed frame.
“Lady Cyra.” Ren’s voice carries through the door. “We need to discuss security protocols before the evening meal.”
Zevran is already moving toward the door. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say anything. Just brushes past Ren and disappears down the corridor.
I’m left staring at the empty doorway, my lips still burning from his kiss, my mind spinning with questions he didn’t answer.
I look down at my chest. In the dim light, I can almost see both sigils glowing faintly beneath my skin – sun and moon, pain and healing, all the contradictions I carry in my blood.
The door opens, and Ren steps inside, her expression carefully neutral.
“The Cardinals will publicly announce your status as a contender tomorrow,” she says. “Which gives us one night to prepare you for what comes next.”
Ren keeps me moving – no lingering in corridors or near windows.
She steers me into a service gallery with grated catwalks and a view down into the arena’s maintenance bays. Heat shimmers through the metal lattice as a generator kicks and the wall symbols stutter. My whole body wants to stop, to breathe, to think. Ren doesn’t let me.
“Today, you’ll be officially announced as a contender in the Conclave,” she says. “Before that happens, we should?—”
We’re halfway across the catwalk when a maintenance drone detaches from its rail and zips toward us. Ren’s hand is already at my shoulder, pushing me into the guardshadow of a pillar.
“Stay behind me.”
