The room fell into silence. For a moment, Roa braced herself for dissent. For the room to erupt in outrage.
Instead, the silence turned to whispers. The whispers to murmurs. The murmurs to quiet conversation. No one shouted. No one accused her of trying to sabotage Firgaard or the king or the throne.
The elderly councillor nodded. “Then it’s done.”
Roa loosened, falling back against her own marble chair as the council members turned to each other, speaking quietly together as they wrote the declaration down and signed it. Beyond them, the audience rose and began to leave. The room hummed with conversation.
When Roa noticed the snoring beside her had ceased, she turned to find Dax sitting upright, watching her.
“You are incorrigible,” she said.
He smiled that charming smile of his.
Roa felt herself weaken, falling prey to him. She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He leaned over her chair, propping his elbow on herarmrest. “You mean, like this?” His gaze softened, hooking into hers.
“Yes,” she murmured, leaning into his warmth.
“I’m merely admiring my queen.” He kissed her brow, where a gold circlet rested. “Truly, she has no equal.”
That night, just before snuffing the lights, Roa walked out onto the balcony. Her nightdress brushed her knees and her bare feet padded on the cool tiles. It had rained all evening and though a fog had turned everything silver, Roa could just make out the balcony directly across the garden.
Though it was her room, she hadn’t slept there since the night she saved her sister. Now, when the ache of loneliness threatened to swallow her whole, she pressed her back to Dax’s and fell asleep to the beat of his heart. When she dreamed of Essie only to wake and find her gone, Dax held her while she wept.
He held her every time.
The sudden smell of peppermint engulfed Roa, bringing her out of her thoughts. She turned her head and listened.
Silence.
Roa waited, a smile creeping across her lips.
More silence.
When she could feel the warmth of him against her back, she said, “I know you’re there.”
The air rushed out of him in an exasperated sigh. “How do you alwaysknow?”
His warm arms came around her waist. Roa leaned back against him.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he whispered into her neck. “My star.”
Roa was about to tell him he’d have to try a lot harder, but those words stopped her.
My star.
“Why do you call me that?” She leaned back against him, touching her cheek to his stubbled one.
His arms tightened around her.
“Before the revolt, I knew what I wanted: to protect my sister, and Safire, and our people. I knew what it would take: that I would have to pit myself against my father. But every time I thought of what I must do, I doubted myself. I convinced myself I would never be strong enough or smart enough or brave enough to steal the throne from one of the most powerful dragon kings in history.”
He turned his face into hers, brushing his forehead against her temple.
“It was in those times—when I felt the most lost, when I felt like giving up and letting the dream of a better world die—that I thought of you, all the way across the sand sea. I would imagine us sitting down at a gods and monsters board, and as we played, I would ask whatyouwould do—and what you would want me to do—and whenever I did that, I wasn’t lost anymore. I could see the path clearly.” He nuzzled the spot just behind her ear, then looked to the sky again. “Like a sailor who needs the heavens to find his way home, you were my own star, burning in the night. Helping me find my way.”
Roa went very still. No one had ever told her anything as beautiful as that.
