Another footfall behind me—this time, Zalel. Small in stature, younger even than I in age, he nevertheless stands impossibly tall to face the court and declare, “I am Adria’s personal attendant, and a lead healer. I have been since her coronation in blood. Perhaps more than anyone else, I have seen firsthand that even amidst bloodshed and burials, her war has always been for peace. No one’s longing for healing is greater.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “My sins are mine to carry. My crown is to be earned, not merely insisted upon. I can step down. I can bear a probationary period. It would be the least I could do, to atone for my negligence.”
General Isek stamps his metal foot on the stone. “I am among the greatest of your soldiers, am I not?”
“The greatest of them all.”
“Then heed me when I say—I will never fight for any elder council, set in their old ways, clinging to cobwebs and memories of what once was or ought to be. Not the way I will fight for my queen.” Crossing his arms, Isek lifts his chin high. “If the court asks Adria to step down, to serve as a mere figurehead until some future time that they deem her fit, they will need a new army.”
“And a new healer,” says Zalel, for good measure, despite us having many healers who could replace him in a heartbeat.
Lail’s tail whacks heavily against the ground, the hand on its end curled into a tight fist. “So, too,” she says, “the army of the late General Azarii.” Whom we still need to bury, whom his disbanded rebellion still needs to properly mourn, but here Lail stands, risen in my defense anyway. “For all the preceding bloody conflict … Azarii sacrificed himself in Adria’s defense, in the name ofhervision for the nightfolk’s future.” Her single gray eye stares each court member down in rapid succession.
“Not the vision of a court that hung back in their tower,” says Neo, “watching the proceedings from their safe boxes, taking notes on their dusty old scrolls.”
“Notoneof you,” says General Isek, his voice rising to a tremulous shout, “was seen on the battlefield, when the apocalypse came for Pagomènos proper. It was Adria who fought for us.” He steps forward, laying one hand firmly on Kori’s shoulder. “And so, too, the dayfolk heiress.”
Again, the court’s voices meld and echo all throughout the room. “Kori of the Daylands is an aberration. Nay, an abomination.”
“Who has the planet not corrupted?” Isek bursts out. “Who among us is untouched by what Pagomènos has become? We gather here with wings, with claws, with gifts beyond flesh, some even to the point of manipulating minds,” he says, looking briefly to redheaded, red-faced Neo, “to call someone else an abomination?”
Kori has gone nearly as pale as a nightfolk. On shaky legs, she takes her own step forward to address the Shadow Court.
“Let it be known,” she says, her own voice ricocheting all around the chamber, “that I speak for the Daylands when I say our alliance is with Adria, queen of the Shadowlands. Not an enigmatic court, noting sins from their tower. If we are to truly pursue a greater peace, a further alliance than our peoples have known for generations, it will be with Adria. Or not at all.”
She lets the words hang for a moment before concluding, “We will go back underground. We will end communication. Our records, we’ll keep to ourselves. Our resources, we’ll hoard. Our ever-evolving technology, we’ll continue to escalate without your knowledge.” Her eyes blaze brighter than the blue braziers. “The choice is yours, so-called Shadow Court. But if you depose Adria as queen, the nightfolk will face their future alone.”
Oh, this impossibly obstinate girl—lighting my way forward like a comet through infinite night, even now. I could hug her, but it would probably be hard enough to crush her bones. I could kiss her, but it would rapidly escalate into something entirely inappropriate for a political gathering.
“The Shadowlands have spoken,” the court echoes, and echoes, and echoes. “It is decided, even if against our better judgment. You shall leave this chamber, Adria, as queen of the Shadowlands.” My heart leaps into my throat, pounding out a battle rhythm. The assembly hangs their dozen heads in solemn defeat. “Do not waste the trust that your people, and the people of the light, have seen to fit to bestow.”
I do kiss her.
Outside my chambers, Aspect and Russ can be distantly overheard—chasing each other in circles, one giggling and the other yipping, fur no doubt flying alongside glitter that keeps shaking loose from Aspect’s joints when they move.
But inside my chambers, nothing else exists but Kori’s lips on mine—up against the wall, our breaths tangle hopelessly together, herlegs wrapped around my waist to keep her at my height, her fingers knotted in my overlong curls, my own hands holding her securely aloft.
Briefly, she tries to stop me. She tries to ask if I really know what I want—if I wouldn’t rather have any other girl, perhaps closer to home, perhaps born of flesh instead of metal.
I stop her words with my own mouth. I kiss her until language is obliterated.
I kiss her like she’s oxygen, and I’ve been drowning in dark water for a lifetime. I kiss her like she’s a shooting star, and I have one chance to wish for a brighter tomorrow. I kiss her like I’d do so in a thousand lifetimes, on a thousand planets, as a thousand different versions of ourselves.
I kiss her like a promise that it won’t be the last time—a pact that she will always descend back into the shadows, back to my domain, to recharge her gifted gemfruit as surely as her presence recharges my will to lead.
Eventually, we need to break apart for air. She trembles against me, fragile as a feather, not only from the exertion of balancing between my body and the wall.
“If I could freeze this memory …” She leans her forehead against mine, panting, breathless. “If it were worth a whole treasury, worth a kingdom …”
Her fingers find the curve of my cheek, the arc of my lower lip. Eyes drifting shut, I lean into her touch. Every point of contact is electric between us, an infinite power source, greater than any of this planet’s gifts, greater than I could ever have imagined deserving.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she says.
I taste salt on my tongue. “Kori, Kori, my sunlight, my fallen star …”
I cradle her beautiful face between my hands. I press my lips to her forehead, lingering there, wishing she would never have to withdraw back into the sun. But we are both queens now. Between sun and shadow, between infinite day and ceaseless night, we are tasked with building something new. Something better.
I can hardly wait to see the memories we make.
