A low, appreciative rumble vibrates in Kael’s throat. “You look fucking perfect,” he practically groans, his ocean-lightning eyes drinking her in like a man starved.
His praise still makes her core tighten. The reverence in his voice, the adoration in his eyes.
“Watch your mouth, boy. You’re not in the bathhouse anymore,” Rhaema grouses, though there’s an undeniable fondness in her tone.
But Kael moves to Elyssara despite his great aunt.
His calloused hands grip her hips, trailing up her back. “You will make the most spectacular fucking queen, my love,” he murmurs, his eyes catching on her stained lips.
Rhaema stills for half a heartbeat at the words. Like hearing hope spoken aloud frightens her more than war ever could.
Kael lifts his hands to the silk copper ribbons of her mask. “Allow me,” he breathes, as he drops his mouth to her neck, and lays soft, indulgent kisses across the bare expanse of her shoulder.
Gooseflesh breaks out across her skin, and a moan slips past her lips involuntarily.
“Holy gods, you two,” Rhaema complains, snapping her eyes away in mock disgust.
Kael chuckles. A rich, hearty laugh that makes Elyssara’s stomach clench.
He’s so beautiful when he’s disarmed. So reverent. So playful.
Something she hasn’t seen since the Battle of Kryntar.
Like this, she can almost pretend they are simply two people getting ready for a celebration instead of war. Almost pretend they still have time.
“If you ruin that dress before the ball, girl, you’re walking into the palace naked,” Rhaema quips. She shakes her head like she’s trying to erase the image. “I’ll get the other costume,” she says to no one in particular, stumbling over the bolts of fabric strewn across the floor and workbenches in her haste to leave.
“Try not to burn the realms down before I get back,” she mutters under her breath.
But there’s pride buried beneath the complaint.
Kael uses the moment alone to spin Elyssara so her back presses against the broad expanse of his chest. The heat of him—the strength, the power, the hunger of hands that know so much violence—seems to have its own gravitational pull. Because she leans into him, drops her head back on his shoulder, as he moves forward until his mouth finds her neck again. Their bodies move as one.Like Starbound lovers connected by mind, heart, and form.
He ties the silk in place over her cascading auburn hair that tumbles freely down to her waist.
“You are a divine vision, my queen,” he praises, pushing her hair further over her shoulder and kissing the nape of her neck again with heat and hunger. “You are a queen for the people.”
She’s thought about being queen endlessly since that day in Starlit Grove. Since the day the Obsidian Crown showed her the fallen monarchy. Her mother running for her life as Thalmyr’s family removed the Dawnmere’s from their rule. Thought about the kind of ruler she’d like to be.
Because from everything she’s seen, rulership and leadership are rarely the same thing.
Rulers sit above their people. Leaders stand among them.
A ruler forces loyalty. A leader earns it.
Elyssara has seen what happens when power forgets the people it claims to protect. Hunger in the slums while palaces overflow with silk and wine. Children conscripted in the name of duty, rather than naming it for what it really is: dominion. Truth buried so deeply even memory cannot reach it.
If she is to wear a crown, it will not be as someone distant and untouchable.
It will be as someone who remembers.
It will be as someone who serves the people of her godsforsaken kingdom.
Rhaema stumbles back through the workshop, huffing in agitation at the lack of space.
Not that anyone is stupid enough to tell her that she’s the one who put it there.
“Kael, your costume is ready. Put it on out there, would you? I don’t need to walk back into you two doing it on my godsdamned workbench,” she snaps, pointing to the side room she just emerged from, but her irritation is superficial.
