The ballroom was always full, but during Veilnox it became something else entirely.

  White gossamer veils drifted from the ceiling and spilled down the walls, softening every edge. Some fell straight to the floor, dividing the space into half-hidden chambers—suggestions of privacy rather than the thing itself. You could stand inches from another body and still feel unseen. Or worse: exposed without being known.

  Music floated through layers of silk and perfume. Laughter followed it, light and rehearsed.

  Every kingdom had come. Their envoys wore color like declaration—deep iron blues from the North, sun-burnt golds from the Desert, mirrored jewels and silks from Miralys itself. Each guest an emblem, each emblem a mask.

  It was Veilnox. The Night of Veils. When illusion was not only permitted, but expected.

  Elowen stood among them, wrapped in pale gray satin that breathed when she moved. White embroidery traced the hem in curling patterns that reminded her of wind—never still, never quite contained. Her shoulders were bare, her hands gloved in thin silk. A veil spilled from a circlet at her brow, the diamond at its center catching light like a frozen tear.

  Winter again, she thought dimly.

  A year had passed since she’d arrived in Miralys. She didn’t linger on it. Thinking too long led to questions, and questions led to weight. Aayan called them heavy considerations. He said them like a joke. She had learned to let the joke land.

  “Is Alenya not coming tonight?” she asked.

  Aayan’s hand slid along her bare arm, slow and idle, as if the motion required no thought at all.

  A flicker crossed his eyes—quick enough that she might have missed it if she hadn’t learned to watch for such things. His smile never faltered.

  “She’s… indisposed,” he said lightly. “Packing, I believe. For her return to Aurendal.”

  “Aurendal?” The word felt strange in her mouth. Distant. “She’s leaving?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he took her hand and pulled her from the table.

  She went with him. She always did now. Resisting only made things harder, and Serenya had once told her—kindly, almost—that life in Miralys was easier when one stopped pushing against the current.

  They moved to the center of the ballroom.

  Aayan turned to face her, close enough that the air between them warmed. He leaned in, his voice barely a breath against her ear.

  “Let us fly, darling.”

  She smiled—her Miralys smile—and closed her eyes.

  The music swelled. A breeze stirred the veils overhead, sending them rippling like waves. The air responded to her without resistance, lifting her own veil just enough to bare her face. Aayan’s expression brightened, pleasure quick and unguarded.

  He drew her closer, hands firm at her waist. She lifted her arms around his neck, letting herself be guided, spun, dipped. The room blurred into silk and sound. Wind brushed her skin, familiar as breath.

  For a moment—just a moment—it felt easy.

  The music slowed. Aayan dipped her back, graceful and sure, his face brushing the fragment bound at her chest.

  When he drew her upright once more, she went suddenly still.

  She was staring across the ballroom.

  “What is it?” Aayan asked, already turning. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

  His gaze followed hers.

  “…Alenya,” he murmured.

  He let go of Elowen and moved after her, fast enough that he didn’t notice Elowen following.

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  She was halfway across the room when she collided with someone solid.

  She staggered back, breath knocked loose, and looked up.

  Golden hair. Pale blue eyes.

  Her gloved hand flew to her mouth. Tears came without warning, hot and unstoppable.

  “Lucan,” she gasped.

  She threw her arms around his neck, holding him with a strength that surprised them both. Her body shook. For a moment she could only sob.

  He held her just as tightly.

  “El,” he said hoarsely.

  She pulled back, gripping his arms, staring at him as if afraid he might disappear. She searched his face, then his shoulders, then his height—disoriented, laughing softly through tears.

  “You’re—” She swallowed. “You’re so tall.” She shook her head, still half-smiling. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes dropped to his clothes, unfamiliar, formal. “And what are you wearing?”

  Elowen wiped at her cheeks, breath still unsteady.

  Lucan drew in a breath. “Almost a year ago, Prince Roderic came to see father.”

  Elowen’s fingers tightened.

  “He asked if I could be taken into service. As his esquire.” A flicker of pride crossed Lucan’s face before fading. “Things changed after that. People remembered father’s name. Doors opened. We don’t live where we used to.”

  He hesitated, then went on more quietly. “You wouldn’t recognize him. Or mother.”

  Elowen’s chest tightened.

  “I came to find you,” he said. “Because things aren’t holding, El. The storms—they’re worse. Roofs gone. Roads flooded. People talk like the Wall is… collapsing.”

  She stepped back, almost without realizing it.

  “I can’t fix that,” she said. “I don’t even understand it.”

  “I know,” Lucan said quickly. “I just—” His voice broke. “Everyone keeps saying you’ll come home. I thought… if I found you, you’d want to. I could help you, El. We could do this together.”

  “There is no we, Lucan.” The words came out sharper than she meant. “This isn’t something we carry together.”

  His face fell.

  He looked at her dress, at the veils, at the glittering light beyond them. “You look like you belong here,” he said softly. “I didn’t think you’d look so… happy.”

  Thunder rolled faintly beyond the windows.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.

  ___

  Her skirts brushed stone as she crossed the halls, breath sharp in her chest, the music fading behind her. She might have kept going—might have reached her chambers—if she hadn’t heard his voice.

  Aayan.

  Low. Tense.

  She slowed.

  Another voice answered him. Alenya’s.

  Elowen stopped just short of the studio doors, hidden by a column. She knew she should move on.

  “…she was never meant to stay,” Aayan was saying. “My father asked me to keep her here. Distracted.”

  Elowen’s breath caught.

  “Aurendal is failing,” he went on. “The storms are tearing it apart. But here—” A short, humorless laugh. “Here, everything holds. You’ve noticed the calm, haven’t you? It follows her.”

  Alenya’s voice cut in, sharp. “You used her.”

  “I did what was asked of me,” Aayan said. His voice was tighter now. “You know how this works.”

  “You’re vile,” Alenya said. Her voice was shaking. “This is beneath you.”

  Aayan’s tone shifted. Raw. “You’re the only one who ever sees me clearly,” he said at last. “You’re the only one who ever has.”

  He stepped closer, his voice lowering. “If you were honest with yourself, you’d know that. I don’t know who I am without you.”

  Elowen backed away until the cold stone met her shoulders. Her heart hammered.

  She stared up at the ceiling, at nothing in particular, as if something might explain itself if she looked long enough.

  Her hands were shaking.

  She looked down at her gloves.

  And tore them off.

  The silk ripped beneath her fingers. She didn’t stop until her bare hands burned in the open air.

  She left the palace doors behind her and crossed the courtyard toward her chambers, her steps uneven, her breath still sharp in her chest.

  She barely registered the figures scattered across the stone until someone stepped into her path.

  “Elowen.”

  She stopped.

  She turned toward him, and the tension she had been holding collapsed all at once. Her chest softened. Her shoulders slackened. Heat gathered behind her eyes. The warmth in his gaze was more than she could bear, and for a moment she couldn’t speak at all.

  “What’s wrong?” Roderic asked quietly.

  She looked away at once—at the arches, the torches, the open sky—anywhere but at him. She was searching for something, she realized dimly. Something to anchor herself. Something to interrupt the way her body was already answering his presence.

  That was when she saw it.

  A door stood ajar on the upper floor. Inside, the glass column gleamed faintly in the dim light, the fragment suspended at its center. It hadn’t been there before. It had been moved.

  “Please, Elowen.” Roderic stepped closer, lowering himself to her level when she would not meet his eyes. “Look at me.”

  She closed her eyes instead.

  Unopened letters. A blank page. Lucan. Aayan’s touch.

  “I can’t.”

  The words came out barely above a breath.

  Her eyes snapped open to the column.

  She lifted her hand.

  The glass column shattered.

  The sound cracked through the courtyard, sharp and violent. Glass exploded outward, biting into stone and skin alike. Light surged—blinding—and the shard leapt to her as if it had been waiting.

  “Seize her!” a guard shouted, emerging into the courtyard.

  Roderic drew his sword without hesitation, placing himself between Elowen and the advancing guards.

  Elowen clutched her bleeding hand to her chest. The shard flared in recognition of the fragment at her throat. The air locked tight. The wind tore free.

  She raised her hand.

  The gust tore across the courtyard, flattening banners, bodies, stone—everything in its path.

  A translucent sphere bloomed around her, bright and unsteady, enclosing her as she turned toward the palace gates.

  She did not look back.