And then he was gone, swallowed by the shadowed hall. The door thudded shut behind him.
The trees thinned, and suddenly the forest opened into light.
Collin stepped into the clearing, heart quickening. The bonfires were already roaring—great towers of flame that lit up the night and sent curls of smoke drifting into the star-swept sky. Music threaded through the warm air, bright and insistent, layered with the sounds of laughter, clinking cups, and feet pounding out rhythms in the dirt.
The whole place hummed with life. People from villages all across the range moved through the firelight—dancing, shouting greetings, collapsing in the grass with their arms around old friends. The smell of charred wood and roasted meat tugged at his hunger, but it was something else that tightened in his chest. A restless, hopeful flutter.
Somewhere out there in the golden blur of bodies and sparks—Dragonfly.
He scanned the clearing without meaning to, already searching.
As Collin and Aries wove their way through the gathering crowd toward the central bonfire, they passed a semicircle of young women clustered near the edge of the clearing. Their voices lifted in delicate laughter, hands fluttering like silk fans. These were not ordinary village girls. Clad in embroidered shawls and finely stitched sashes, they were members of the Daughters of Venus—a prestigious dance collective whose exclusivity was whispered about with both admiration and envy. Daughters of stewards, head captains, and councilmen, these girls were polished by private tutors and etiquette instructors. Their poise was practiced. Their smiles, rehearsed.
Amongst them stood a few more familiar faces—girls Collin barely knew but recognized by name and lineage. Their elegance seemed effortless, but it came from lives steeped in refinement and resources that he could never dream of.
As the boys passed, the entire group bloomed with sudden attention. Laughter brightened. Eyes lingered. Several girls batted thick lashes or tucked stray strands of hair with choreographed coyness. Aries, ever the showman, returned the attention with a grin and a nod to each, playing the part with ease and delight. His charm flared brighter under an audience.
Collin barely glanced their way. His mind was elsewhere—on a girl who didn’t wear social masks or rehearse her laughter. The kind who would never surround herself with powdered approval or flirt just to be seen.
Aries jabbed him painfully in the ribs, and growled under his breath, "You’re being rude.”
Collin grimaced. One of the Daughters of Venus caught his eye, and he quickly turned away after offering her a brief smile.
"I think the one with the long red hair likes you," Aries said when they were no longer within earshot of the dancers.
Collin mumbled a noncommittal response, his mind elsewhere. Aries opened his mouth to press the matter, but Collin spotted movement through the firelight—familiar, cocky, unmistakable—and cut him off mid-sentence.
“Nic!” he called.
There he was, arm draped casually around the tightly corseted waist of a Daughter of Venus, one of the more striking ones at that. She cradled a large, fluffy black-and-white seadog pup in her arms, cooing over it with complete absorption. She didn’t seem to notice—or care—where Nic was guiding her.
But Nic noticed everything. He looked up at Collin’s voice, and a grin spread across his face—flawless, devil-may-care, the kind of smile that had earned him his nickname all across the region.
Naughty Nic of Stargazer Creek.
He gave a quick thumbs-up and a sly, knowing wink behind the girl’s back—one part greeting, one part mischief.
Collin shook his head, half in amusement, half in envy. Nic made it all look so effortless. Always had.
“Tell me again how Nic isstillwith Helen?”
“Lekyi would know. He introduced them,” Aries said. “But at least he’s aiming high, unlike the rest of us.”
“I admire the ambition. If Nic marries Helen, he’ll be the first of us to own silverwareandpronounce ‘hors d'oeuvres’ without panicking.”
Aries snorted. “You think he knows what hors d'oeuvres are?”
“Only that they are small and delicate like Helen. That’s why he likes them both.”
Dragonfly and Hadria stood near the bonfire, firelight flickering across their faces. Before Collin could say anything, Ariesslipped an arm around Hadria’s waist and pulled her close. In the next breath, they were kissing—deeply, shamelessly, as if no one else existed.
Collin looked away, but not before catching the way Hadria curled into him, utterly at ease.
Aries, who’d been falling in and out of love since he was six, had never fallen this hard—not until Hadria. Collin still remembered the first time they met her in person. It had been almost a year ago now.
As Lord Montigo’s only child, Hadria had been educated with the other highborn girls, kept mostly out of sight. Until that day, she’d been more myth than girl—whispers of her beauty, her defiance, her impossible freedom. Most villagers had never seen her up close. Fewer still had heard her voice.
Collin had. And once was enough to understand why Aries had never looked at anyone else the same way again.
