I didn't sleep. Sleep was for people who weren't prisoners in a different dimension, engaged to a cursed shadow-king against their will.
I spent the night pacing the opulent, suffocating chamber. I tried the doors (locked, and humming with a cold energy that prickled my fingers). I looked out the window (a sheer drop onto polished black stone, overlooking a courtyard where shadow-armored guards patrolled). I even tried to summon the 'Sun-Fire' again, holding my hands out in the dark, but I just felt like an idiot. The power was gone, leaving only the familiar, useless static under my skin.
When dawn came, it wasn't a sunrise. It was just a gradual, grey-blue lessening of the darkness. It seemed the sun had no real power here in the Nightshade Court.
A cart of food appeared just inside my door, brought by servants who materialized and vanished so silently, I barely caught them. The food was beautiful—steaming breads, iridescent fruits I didn't recognize, and fragrant tea. I refused to touch it. I wouldn't be their well-fed, compliant prize.
A few hours later, the doors opened again, but this time Kael wasn't there. Instead, three Fae servants in stark grey uniforms entered, their heads bowed. They were followed by a tall, imposing Fae woman who looked like she'd been carved from petrified wood. Her silver hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her eyes, the color of faded lavender, held a professional, cold neutrality.
"I am Mistress Vane, the Royal Tailor," she announced, her voice as starched as her collar. "I am here to take your measures for the wedding gown."
"I'm not wearing one," I said, crossing my arms. I was still in the dusty t-shirt and jeans I'd been wearing at the library. They felt like my last pieces of armor.
Mistress Vane sighed, a small, impatient sound. "My King was clear. You will be wed in three days. You will not do so in… that." She wrinkled her nose at my jeans. "Servants. Prepare her."
Before I could protest, two of the Fae attendants moved with unnatural speed. They were polite, but their grips were firm. They intended to strip me and bathe me.
"Get your hands off me!" I yelled, shoving one of them back.
The static inside me sparked. The silver pitcher on the breakfast cart exploded, spraying purple fruit juice and water across the floor.
The servants froze, terrified.
Mistress Vane, however, merely raised a thin eyebrow. "So, it is true. The power is raw. Uncontrolled." She looked at me with a new, appraising light. "I see. It seems we must do this while you are… armed. Very well, Solar. Stand."
I was rattled by my own outburst, but I stood, stiff and defiant. Mistress Vane began to circle me, her hands hovering but never touching, a length of silver measuring tape weaving through the air between her fingers, manipulated by pure magic.
"She is thin," the tailor muttered to one of her attendants, as if I weren't there. "Mortal-thin. All sharp edges. The King will want her softened. The fabric must be heavy, to give her the required silhouette."
"I don't care what the King wants," I spat.
"That," Mistress Vane said, finally looking me in the eye, "is the one sentiment that will guarantee your misery here, child. Your desires are irrelevant."
She clapped her hands, and the servants brought in bolts of fabric, draping them over the chairs. They were all dark, deep velvets, shadow-weave silks and brocades the color of a starless night.
"A traditional Nightshade gown," the tailor said, pulling one forward. "Woven with threads of obsidian to absorb ambient light, signifying the Queen's bond with the shadow…"
"I'm not wearing black." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Mistress Vane's lavender eyes narrowed. "You will wear what—"
"She is correct."
The voice came from the doorway, a low, resonant bass that stopped my heart cold. King Lorcan stood there, filling the entrance, his shadow-curse seeming to drink the light from the room. The servants and Mistress Vane dropped into deep, reverent bows.
I just stood there, my hands clenched, my body rigid with hatred. He was dressed less formally than before, in a black tunic and trousers that looked simple but moved with the grace of liquid night. His amber eyes, however, were just as intense.
He ignored me, his gaze sweeping over the funereal bolts of fabric.
"This is a union of Light and Shadow, Vane," he said, his voice quiet but carrying utter command. "Not an execution. These are unsuitable."
"My King," the tailor stammered, "a Nightshade bride has always—"
"She is not a Nightshade bride. She is a Solar heir," Lorcan interrupted. He moved into the room, and the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. The static inside me roared, a frantic, defensive hum.
He walked past the tailor, past the dark fabrics, and stopped directly in front of me. I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away. His proximity was overwhelming. I could smell the cold, clean scent of frost and that dark, metallic tang of his power.
He studied my face for a long, agonizing moment, his amber eyes searching mine.
"You are right, little moth," he whispered, so low only I could hear. "You are not a lamb for the slaughter. You are the fire I must contain."
He turned to the tailor, gesturing to a bolt of fabric in the back of the cart, one that had been overlooked. "Bring that one."
A servant scrambled to pull it out. It wasn't black. It was the color of heavy, decadent cream, a silk so thick and pure it seemed to glow with its own internal warmth. It looked like liquid sunlight.
Lorcan took the fabric from the servant, his long, dark fingers stark against the bright silk. He held it up, not to me, but toward the light of the fire.
"She is the Solar Queen," he announced, his voice ringing with authority. "She will not be cloaked in my shadow. She will be the light that burns it."
He turned back to me. Before I could react, he reached out and draped the heavy silk over my shoulder, his hand coming to rest on the bare skin of my collarbone.
The second his skin touched mine, it was agony. And ecstasy.
A jolt of pure, searing heat shot from my skin into his. A simultaneous wave of icy, paralyzing cold shot from his fingers into my veins.
I cried out, stumbling back. He hissed, snatching his hand away as if he'd been burned.
We both stared, panting. I clutched my shoulder, which felt both frozen and scorched. Lorcan looked at his own hand, his dark fingers pale, a wisp of golden, glowing smoke—my smoke—curling from his fingertips before dissolving.
He looked at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock, pain, and a new, terrifying, hungry recognition.
The King of Nightshade had just touched the Sun-Fire. And for the first time, I think he realized he wasn't just binding a key. He was unchaining a star.