Jax straightens, glances down the hall. “You should return to your chamber now,” he says, dismissing me. “Don’t attract more scorn.” He turns, boots fading into the dark.
I’m left alone in the corridor, counting down to steady my breath.
???
My feet carry me mindlessly into Kade’s study.
I should be sleeping. I shouldn’t be here. The night has stretched too long. It’s almost dawn.
I stay.
The room smells of leather, metal, and smoke, just as I remember. Books and scrolls line the shelves, maps detailing parts of the continent scatter the desk, highlighting our allies and enemies.
We’d sit here, talking about politics, strategies… and our lives. He’d kiss me, sometimes pull me against the edge of that desk, and make love to me. The memories flash now, bringing bitter tears to my eyes, making me almost choke on them. But I swallow the pain, the anger, the betrayal.
My eyes scan the room. And there—against the far wall—I spot an iron safe that I know wasn’t there before.
‘It is yours. Claim it,’ Nyx’s faint voice echoes in my mind.
I stare at the safe too hard, confused but annoyed, and then by some force I don’t understand, its door opens. I gasp, my eyes widening due to what they’ve just witnessed. But the shock subsides when I see inside—glinting in the lamplight, lies my diadem. The silver crown I once wore as Luna.
I hold my breath and step closer. The jewels shimmer, deep blue sapphires against cold metal.
Kade’s voice cuts through the air. “Looking for something?”
I spin on my heels, gasping. He leans in the doorway, arms folded. His beautiful eyes track me like a hunter.
Then they move past me and widen. “How did you open the safe?”
I don’t answer his question because I don’t understand it myself. “That belongs to me,” I say instead, stubbornly, closing my hands into fists.
“Correction,” he answers, calm returning to his voice, edged with cruelty. “It belonged to you. Now it stays where I decide.”
My jaw clenches. “You lock it away, but it doesn’t change what I am.”
“What youwere,” he emphasises.
Those words cut me deep, making my heart bleed. I can’t believe this was the man who once loved me so much he’d fight any war, no matter how bloody, if it meant I’d smile.
I face the safe again. I can still see my crown, trapped behind iron. Like me.
Nyx whispers, ‘Thirty days.’
I close my eyes as I walk away from the study, brushing past Kade. “I’ll count faster.”
A KINGDOM OF EXILES
Freya
The next day, the morning sun streams through tall windows, gilding the long oak dining table in gold. The scent of roasted meat mixes with buttered bread. Although the air is warm, I still feel cold as ice on the inside.
My chair is at the farthest end of the table. I pause when I see it. Yesterday, my seat was beside Kade’s. Today, it is nearly ten places down.
Izel sits where I once belonged, her pale blue dress brushing against his arm. She laughs lightly as she fills Finn’s cup with juice, then cuts Ivy’s bread into tiny pieces. She does it smoothly, as if she has always been the one doing that.
A servant gestures to my chair. “Here, Luna Freya,” she says, but the title comes to her lips with hesitation.
I cross the room, feet stomping, the eyes of every servant and guard following me, and sit at the end.
