Page 94 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Reina’s eyes searched my face as if gauging structural damage.

I swallowed hard, the acrid taste of bile rising in my throat. “When?” The hollowness had invaded my voice now, too. It was flat and sounded distant, like a muffled echo.

“Early this morning,” she said, her expression guarded in a way I didn’t see often.

There were few things anyone could’ve said that would’ve distracted me from my obsession with Lunette, but this was one of them. As royalty, that first moment of shock was the only time I would be permitted to grieve. Now, it was my duty to plan for the living. Duty snapped back into place like a manacle, leaving me sick to my stomach but more determined than ever to get this right.

This meant Berian would have to marry quickly. They’d parade one potential bride after another through the castle. I’d happily suffer through endless balls, stuffy feasts, and having scores of nobles crammed shoulder to shoulder for that. If he survived…

If he didn’t… It was almost too much to contemplate.

Every lord in this kingdom would begin plotting my marriage. The Assembly would insist on approving the bride, but only if they decided they couldn’t pull off what they were doing to Gelida. Only if they decided I wasn’t better dead…

And I would need to fight even harder for Lunette than I’d planned.

The chains of duty tugged harder. All I could do was nod.

Reina said they’d cover it for two days, but I was already anticipating less time until someone whispered Theresa’s passing into Assembly ears with one breath and Lunette’s name with the next.

Reina didn’t linger. With a brief, reassuring squeeze of my arm, she was gone, her footsteps fading down the hallway.

For a long moment, I let myself sag against the wall, simply breathing, thinking.

Larethia. My brother. Death. Marriage.

Then the door creaked open again, and the universe, apparently unsatisfied with leaving me grieving, decided to decimate what was left of my wits.

Red hair, hastily tied at her nape. Soft wool dress. A leather belt sagging askew on her hips, as if the rigors of travel and fatigue had stripped away her usual attention to detail. She was thinner. Didn’t like that.

Luna.

Every coherent thought shattered under the sheer, merciless pull of her. My chest ached with a confusing mixture of sorrow and a feral, aching need to run from the alcove just to be closer. There she was. Here. In my home, not twenty feet away.

Mine. Not the Assembly’s. Not Larethia’s. Not anyone else’s to use or contain.

I pressed myself harder into the alcove, nails biting into my palms, hoping the pain would anchor me there. It helped. But willpower did the rest, while I reminded myself again and again that she was here to save something far greater than myself, and it was my job to help and protect her.

The mate bond surged with merciless demands. My magic didn’t care that I was grieving. It swelled against my ribs, desperate and insistent, for her.

It wanted to close the distance. To press her hand flat against my chest, to let her feel the wreckage she’d made of my heart—only so I could offer it to her again. It wanted to drag me out of the shadows and into the scent of warm spices and citrus, to say things I had no right to say to a woman who didn’t even know what she was to me yet.

No.

Berian. Theresa. Larethia.

I clung to those names like a whispered prayer as Lunette walked with Camrick and Reina at her side. Her steps faltered just as she passed the alcove where I was hidden.

She’d felt me. I knew because I felt our magics embrace, even as she walked away. My heart continued to slam against my sternum until something crashed into place right next to the grief I was actively suppressing.

Clarity. Alignment. And purpose.

For the first time since I’d felt the bond stir, it wasn’t simply pulling me toward her—it also rooted me to the spot.

If she was here, it wouldn’t matter how heavy the chains were. It wouldn’t matter that my people feared me.

The Assembly would send their men. The nobles would plot. But I would protect her. But I was feeling better than I had in what felt like forever because hope had arrived wearing a cornflower-blue dress—and with her by my side, I wouldn’t fail.

Chapter 28