The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 54: Eternal Summer Festival

The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 54: Eternal Summer Festival

*Cassie*
I stepped into a festival that unfolded like a kingdom lit on fire.
Flame banners rippled in the night breeze, stretched across the archways like sheets of molten silk. Glamour shimmered off them—reds bled into golds, oranges flared into deep-crimson, the whole sky bruised with Veil-bleed fireworks that cracked into impossible constellations. The air tasted of charred fruit and honeywine, sticky with sugar and smoke, undercut by the sharp bite of ozone.
And we walked into it like a procession meant to be devoured.
Seara led, draped in crimson and gold that caught the firelight and made her seem carved from flame itself. Every braid in her molten hair glittered with inlaid emberstones; every jewel was a reminder that her beauty was sharpened into a weapon. Selene matched her mother’s poise in flowing gold-crimson courtwear, hair knotted into a crown of braids threaded with light-catching wire, every inch the perfect heir.
Tharion’s presence was heavier: ceremonial armor polished to a mirror-bright gleam, crimson cloak catching sparks of flame in its folds. Scars stood out against the bronze of his skin, worn like part of his regalia. Kaelen darted around his legs in a child’s version of Firebrand finery—red tunic grass-stained already, gold stitching singed at the hem from who-knew-what. Mischief sparkled in his amber eyes until he broke free entirely, bolting to Mira’s side.
And Mira—
Gods.
She moved like the festival had been invented to worship her. Her gown was molten silk, sun-shot orange and scarlet that shifted with every step, slit high enough to make my breath catch, the bodice bound with a chain of tiny sunburst charms that glittered like ceremonial armor. Her hair burned in waves down her back, copper and fire, caught with flame-cut pins that dripped embers as we walked. I could smell her even over the sugar-thick air—marshmallow warmth, bloom-sweet, clean rain—and beneath it that bright, sharp spark that kept stabbing me in the throat.
Citrus. Want. Her.
And me—gilded, trussed up, fae-touched. I barely recognized myself in the gown the Emberhall seamstresses had insisted upon: ice-white silk cut to show every line of muscle Tharion’s drills had carved into me, silver-threaded panels that clung like frost, my honey-blonde hair woven through with delicate chains that caught the firelight. Every eye that touched me stuck a beat too long. Every scent I pulled in tasted of their hunger, their awe. I hadn’t realized I was commanding stares until Mira stiffened beside me, her mask sliding down as she caught the whispers.
The mortals who had been allowed inside—wealthy politicians, glittering celebrities, the carefully chosen few—crowded close, cameras flashing, perfumes sour against the magic in the air. “Princess of Eversea!” they shouted, the word hitting Mira like a slap. Her jaw tightened, shoulders straightened—mask intact, but her scent spiked sharp, citrus-bright, betraying her.
The lesser fae bowed low, voices reverent: “Your Majesty. Your Majesty, Queen Consort.” Their devotion felt heavier than the fireworks overhead, devotion binding both of us more than any crown.
And then the high fae bowed, colder, clipped: “Your Highness. Lady Consort.” Titles weighted with disdain, precise as a blade.
Roran was a shadow at our backs, heat-shield humming faintly in the air around us, the scent of smoldering iron following each step he took. Tharion’s bronze-hazel eyes never stopped moving, calculating the crowd, the threats. Selene glided at Mira’s shoulder like a sunbeam honed to a blade. Kaelen clung to Mira’s arm now, grinning up at her, and for the first time that night her mask cracked. She softened—just a flicker—but I caught it.
And I caught everything else.
Every whisper, every heart stutter, every scrape of boot against stone. The perfume of three dozen nobles—rose, spice, smoke—layered thick as armor. The sugar of mortal wine, cloying on the tongue even when I wasn’t drinking it. The hiss of glamour wards sparking underfoot. My nerves felt raw, every instinct screaming to shield, to anchor, to do something.
The festival was alive, hungry, watching.
And Mira was burning in the middle of it.
The procession bled away, Seara sweeping toward the high dais with Selene in her wake, Tharion swallowed by soldiers, Kaelen tugged back before he could slip free again. At last, Mira and I broke into the market lanes—Roran trailing like a shadow stitched to our heels.
The press of it slammed into me. Lanterns sagged low overhead, their wax-heavy scent clinging. Stalls jostled shoulder to shoulder: candied petals fizzing into sparks, fabrics that hummed like harps when touched, riddle-boards glowing with answers that unfurled into illusions. Too much—voices stacked on voices, perfumes layered over roasting fruit, heartbeat after heartbeat crashing through my skull until I wanted to claw the air just to make space.
Mira’s hand brushed mine. Just a flicker. Citrus-spark cut through the static.
“Breathe,” she murmured without moving her lips.
Easy for her to say.
Ahead, Naomi and Kess were bent over a riddle-board. Firelight bounced off Naomi’s white hair; Kess leaned in, smirk cocked like she’d already won.
“First it’s a whisper, then it’s a roar,” Kess read aloud, theatrically tapping her chin.
Naomi rolled her eyes. “It’s wind.”
The board burst into a storm of silver swallows, wings scattering starlight across the lane. They laughed in perfect sync, one low and grounded, the other wild. Something tight pulled in my chest at how easy they moved together—like gravity had given up and just let them orbit.
Kess spotted me watching, grin feral. “Don’t stare too hard, Consort, you’ll crack the glass.”
Heat crept up my throat. “Not staring,” I said, adjusting the chain threaded in my hair. Mira’s fingers brushed mine again, deliberate this time, her grin wicked.
Before I could recover, Lucien and Alina stumbled out of the crowd. Lucien’s lips were sugared pink, sparks fizzling against his mouth as he chewed too fast on candied petals.
“What?” he barked when Mira tilted her head, feigning innocence.
“They’re good,” he muttered, ears turning pink.
“Adorable,” Mira said, and Alina’s laugh rang bright. Lucien’s scowl collapsed at the edges when she bumped his shoulder. For once, he wasn’t bracing to be judged. Just a boy with sugared lips and a girl at his side.
Then the air shifted. Heavy. Reverent.
I knew before I saw them: the Small Folk. Their devotion bent the lane toward us.
Liora came first, lantern raised high, its flame steady against the press of bodies. The light brushed across Mira’s gown, molten silk made holy. She bowed low. “Your Majesty.”
Mira stepped forward, mask easing. She touched the flame with her fingertip; it flared and steadied again. “Keep it bright, Liora.”
The crowd murmured—she remembers their names.
Thistle barreled in next, bramble hair as sharp as her tongue. “We told you she’d outshine them,” she declared. A noble hissed half-blood under his breath, and Thistle spun. “Say it again, and I’ll tie your tongue to your belt.”
The man paled and vanished. Mira laughed low. “Still sharper than me, Thistle.”
“Someone has to be.” Grin like a knife.
Briony knelt nearby, petal-cloak spilling blossoms as she pressed a dew vial to a child’s knee. The scrape vanished; she looked up only when Mira crouched beside her, molten silk pooling on the stones.
“Still mending everyone but yourself,” Mira said gently.
Briony flushed. “Majesty.”
Puckern tumbled in last but one, ribbons flashing as he spun illusions—fireflies darting through Kaelen’s hair (wherever he’d slipped from), making him squeal with delight. “A queen needs laughter in her retinue,” he proclaimed, bowing so low he nearly toppled.
“And mischief,” Mira said dryly, catching a false firefly in her hand. It burst into sparks; her smile, unguarded, stabbed through me.
Veyra hovered at the edge, moss cloak drawn tight. Wide eyes locked on Mira, unblinking. Her whisper slid through the lane like thunder. “The Shroud stirs.”
The hush sharpened. Mira’s spine went rigid. “Then we’ll be ready.”
Veyra bowed once, slow, and melted back into shadow.
The others lingered. Liora’s lantern glowed steady. Thistle still glared at shadows. Briony whispered comfort. Puckern winked. And each of them touched Mira’s hand, her gown, her hair as they passed—as if to prove she was real. Their queen.
And mine.
“Your Majesty. Your Majesty, Queen Consort,” they said together, the weight of it pressing heavier than any crown.
For the first time I felt it—not optics, not spectacle. Loyalty. To her. To us.
Mira softened in their glow. Not less powerful—more herself. And me, every nerve raw, every heartbeat mapped, every instinct screaming, knew I was watching her choose them back.
I barely had breath when she nudged me toward a stall of glowing glass. “Your turn.”
Brindle the Glasswright bowed too low, smile syrupy, scent too sweet. “This goblet, woven with Veil-light. Will last a lifetime if handled with care.”
It hit wrong—tone sour, air curled sharp.
“He’s lying,” I said before I could stop. “It won’t hold past midsummer.”
Gasps. Brindle flushed crimson. Mira’s grin spread slow, lethal.
“Looks like you lose,” she said sweetly.
He caved, price crumbling. Mira pressed the goblet into my hand like a prize. Her delight blazed bright enough to burn.
And under it—sharp, fleeting—her scent twisted jealous.
She didn’t like that I could play her game and win.
And gods help me, I liked that she minded.
The longer we lingered in the heart of the market, the more the festival pressed in. Scents layered sharp on sharp until I couldn’t separate them—spice, sweat, flowers, bloodwine, ozone. Every heartbeat thudded in my ears, every brush of fabric screamed across my skin. Mira’s pulse was the loudest, steady as a drum in my chest.
Nobles gathered like crows. Too many smiles, too many questions. Your Highness. Your Majesty. Lady Consort. The words turned sticky, cloying. Even Lucien and Alina were pulled into the circle, wide-eyed, until they stood too close at our backs like hostages. Naomi’s shoulders squared, Kess’s grin sharpened—but it wasn’t enough. The crowd wanted Mira.
And then he came—slipping between courtiers like smoke.
“Half-blood queens.” Lord Corven Duskmire let the words drip from his mouth like poison.
My body moved before thought—half a step in front of Mira, instincts snarling—the ritual-born pull snapping through me before I could stop it. The hush that followed pressed like a blade to my skin.
Mira’s fingers slid to my wrist, cuff-glide steady, grounding. She lifted her chin, eyes molten fire.
“Funny,” she said, voice silked in steel, “how dusk creatures are always the first to wilt when the sun comes out.”
Gasps fluttered. Corven’s smile cracked.
“Careful, girl,” he hissed.
“—your tongue might cut you?” I interrupted, smile sharp. “Don’t worry, Lord Duskmire. I’ve had plenty of practice using mine.”
The crowd rippled—scandalized, delighted. Some nobles leaned forward, hungry for blood; others leaned back as if sparks might catch.
Mira tilted her head toward me, wicked gleam in her eyes. “That sounded like an offer, Consort.”
I arched a brow, refusing to break. “Don’t flatter yourself, Highness. Not everyone wants to burn.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Her smile went predatory. “You just like pretending it’s my fault.”
My pulse lurched. Citrus spiked sharp in her scent, unmissable. Too many courtiers caught the shift; I heard their whispers weaving.
I leaned closer, enough that the crowd had to strain to hear. “Fault? Please. If I wanted fire, I’d order a torch. What I’ve got is a girl who sets the curtains on fire and calls it strategy.”
Mira laughed—low, dangerous, hot enough to curl through my bones. “Better a fire than a block of ice.”
“Ice doesn’t melt,” I said. “It shatters.”
“Oh?” Her eyes slid down to my mouth. “Let’s test that theory.”
Gasps. Murmurs. Scandal flooding the air thick as incense. Are they fighting? Are they—
Corven flinched, cloak twitching, and withdrew like the coward he was. But no one cared about him anymore. Every eye clung to us—the princess and her consort, snapping like rivals, circling like predators, charged like lovers.
I grinned, teeth bared. “Careful, Princess. Keep talking like that and I might ruin your precious optics.”
She leaned in, nose almost brushing mine. “Optics are overrated.”
The silence that followed felt like a match about to drop.
And that was when Selene glided in, poise radiating like sunlight. Her voice rang smooth and commanding: “Lord Corven, perhaps you’d like to remind everyone here of the loyalty oaths your house renewed this spring. I’m sure the Dusk Court’s honor can withstand a little daylight.”
The nobles pounced, suddenly eager to shift attention. Selene guided them with invisible threads, drawing the circle away, her golden braids gleaming like a crown, her composure unbreakable.
Space opened. Breathing room, at last.
Mira turned to me, mask slipping just enough for her grin to blaze, reckless and certain. “Well, Consort. Shall we scandalize them properly?”
I laughed, breathless, and held my arm out. “About time. I was starting to feel like a show pony.”
Her hand slid into mine, not hidden, not restrained. For the first time all night we weren’t walking side by side like pieces to be paraded. We were together. On purpose.
Lucien and Alina slipped close again, Mira mussing his hair until he swore under his breath. Naomi and Kess flanked us, Kess’s grin feral, Naomi steady as anchor. Roran’s shields shimmered faint but sure at our backs.
The whispers followed us, thick as honeywine. Are they rivals? Are they lovers? The truth was in the air, in the citrus and ember heat sparking between us, in the way Mira’s fingers laced through mine and didn’t let go.
For once, we weren’t just being looked at. We were choosing how to be seen.
But not all eyes were whispers. Some burned.
Across the lane, Zyrella stood radiant and venomous, cursed ivy and flame-thorn jewelry glinting against her gown. Her smile was sugar, too sweet, too sharp. She didn’t approach; she didn’t need to. Every time my gaze slid across her, I felt the prickle of thorns against my skin, her stare like hooks catching in fabric. She sipped wine as if she’d already won some game I hadn’t yet learned the rules to.
Mira’s grip on my hand tightened once, then smoothed into calm, as though she’d felt the same scrape of danger and refused to give Zyrella the satisfaction of a reaction. Her eyes flicked past the ivy and jewels toward the same shadow I felt stalking the edges; a small squeeze—a warning—before her mask slipped perfectly back into place.
And Daevan—gods.
I hadn’t seen him at first, only felt the shift in the air, like shadow closing teeth. Then violet eyes glowed from a gap between two flame-lit stalls. Pale skin, black hair shimmering blue under the firelight. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t speak. He only circled, slow, precise, his presence sliding around us like a predator testing the fence. His scent—night-blooming jasmine, crushed violets, shadowed cedar—slipped through the crowd at odd moments, brushing the back of my throat until I wanted to bare my teeth.
Even Roran felt it. His shields shimmered, faint heat glass in the air, and I caught the raw scent of smoldering iron rolling sharper than usual. He never spoke, but the twitch of his stance said he was coiled. Ready.
Naomi caught it too, her pale eyes flicking between Zyrella’s smile and Daevan’s stillness. Kess muttered something sharp under her breath, lips curled in a grin that promised she’d enjoy spilling blood if it came to that. Lucien and Alina huddled closer, confusion written across their faces, but Lucien still set his shoulders like he wanted to prove he could stand his ground.
Mira, though—Mira didn’t falter. She leaned her head toward me, voice pitched for my ears alone. “Let them watch. They can’t touch us here.”
I wasn’t so sure. The festival was fire and spectacle, yes, but it was also battlefield. And every instinct screaming through my bones told me that Zyrella and Daevan weren’t watching to admire.
They were waiting.
The whispers followed us, thick as honeywine. Are they rivals? Are they lovers? The truth was in the air—citrus and ember sparking between us—in the way Mira’s fingers laced through mine and didn’t let go.
For once, we weren’t just being looked at. We were choosing how to be seen.
We slipped off the main artery of stalls into a side lane where the lanterns hung lower and the noise thinned into a manageable thrum. Roran ghosted a half-step behind, heat shimmering faintly around us—his shield tuned low, the scent of smoldering iron steady as breathing. Somewhere not far, a drumline practiced the next cadence; I felt it in my bones before I heard it, small tremors moving up through the stone into my shins.
Sandalwood and black tea cut clean through the sugar-and-smoke haze.
“Dad.” Mira’s voice softened in a way it never did for courts or cameras. Her hand slipped from mine and she was already moving, molten silk catching light as she crossed the space.
Elias didn’t need titles and he didn’t offer them. He just opened his arms and Mira folded in, her crown of flame pins pressing into his shoulder, his palm cupping the back of her head like she was still small enough to tuck under his chin. I heard both their heartbeats—hers steadying, his slowing—until they found the same rhythm. The part of me that had been pacing since the meadow finally sat.
“Hi,” he murmured into her hair, warm as a kitchen in winter. “You look like trouble.”
“I am trouble,” she said, muffled and pleased.
He huffed a laugh, then looked past her to me. “Cassie.”
“Elias.” I stepped in when he reached, and he pulled me into the kind of hug people give when they mean welcome, no performance attached. Up close his scent was deeper—cedar smoke tucked under the tea, years of steady choices and late-night negotiations clinging to the lines around his eyes.
“Thank you for the hand squeeze,” he said softly when he let me go.
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” he said, with the kind of certainty that makes arguments look childish. His eyes went back to Mira. “How’s the noise?”
“Loud,” she said, and for once didn’t pretend otherwise. “But better now.”
I felt her mean it. Her scent smoothed, marshmallow warmth coming forward under the bloom and rain, the citrus spark dialing back to a companionable flicker. My own instincts, which had been standing on a table screaming, climbed down and crossed their legs.
Lucien and Alina arrived on the slipstream of that calm, hands almost touching, not quite. Lucien had candied sugar shining on his mouth again, and when Elias flicked a thumb to wipe it away, Lucien tried to dodge and failed, cheeks going pink.
“Dad,” he muttered, mortified.
“Evidence removal,” Elias said, deadpan. “You’ll thank me when a camera angles left.”
Alina’s laugh bubbled out. She had a way of laughing that made other shoulders drop.
Mira bumped Lucien’s shoulder with hers. “You’re supposed to share.”
“I did,” he said, indignant. “I gave Alina three—”
“Four,” Alina corrected, smiling.
Lucien blinked, recalculating his outrage, then sighed. “Fine. Four.”
“You can have mine,” Mira said, already reaching for a jar at a nearby stall.
The vendor, catching up, nearly bowed himself in half. “Your—Your Majesty—”
“Two,” Mira said smoothly, passing coin before he could insist on gifts, before the bowing became an anchor. She handed one jar to Lucien, and—after a beat that said I’m watching you, don’t choke—the other to me.
The petals dissolved into sparks on my tongue—sweet, electric, a hiss of magic that fizzed up behind my ears. Mira watched me taste it like she’d planned the fireworks. She always did. Even when she pretended she hadn’t.
“Not bad,” I said, licking a sugar-spark off my lower lip. “Ten out of ten for spectacle. Eight for flavor.”
“Rude,” she said primly, but there was relief in the curve of her mouth. Here, with her father, we could pretend we were just—kids at a summer fair. Two of us queens and one of us a consort, and still somehow kids.
Elias glanced toward the main lane where the roar of the crowd swelled and subsided like an ocean. “You ready for the next wave or do you want a pocket of five minutes where your old man is an excuse no one dares interrupt?”
Mira’s eyes went shiny and then bright again so fast I almost missed it. “Five,” she said. “I’ll pay you back in candied petals.”
“Bribery works,” he said, then produced a handkerchief from nowhere and dabbed at a fleck of glitter on her cheek. “You’ve got the galaxy trying to sit on your face.”
Mira swatted at him, scandalized. “Dad.”
“Language,” he said mildly, which made Lucien choke on his petals, which made Alina pat his back, which made Mira look like the sun had just remembered how to rise.
We took those five minutes like thieves. Elias leaned his back against a pillar, arms loosely folded. Mira drifted to stand beside him, shoulder brushing his bicep; I took the other side, a step forward—instinctively still forming that half-shield, even in calm. Lucien and Alina perched on the low lip of a dry fountain, knees touching by accident and then not moving away. Roran held the mouth of the lane with the eerie stillness of someone who could become a wall if asked.
“Is it always like this?” Alina asked, eyes flicking from lanterns to Mira’s gown to the barest shimmer of Roran’s shield and back. “The…everything?”
“No,” Lucien said, but his tone said yes and I hate it and I’m proud anyway. He kicked his heel against the stone. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
“Comforting,” Alina deadpanned, and Elias’s mouth twitched like he’d just adopted another child without paperwork.
Mira tilted her head toward me, voice low. “You did good with Brindle.”
“You knew he was lying,” I said. “You were letting me take the swing.”
“Maybe I wanted to watch you swing,” she said, cheeky, then caught her father’s eyebrow arch and coughed. “Metaphorically.”
“Thank you,” Elias said, dry as tea leaves.
“Anytime,” she said, unrepentant.
I bumped her hip with mine. “We can practice your metaphors later.”
“Not helping,” she stage-whispered.
Lucien made a strangled noise. “Please stop.”
Alina laughed softly, then sobered, gaze skittering to the edge of the lane where the festival’s roar thickened again. “They’re coming back, aren’t they?”
“Like tide,” I said. The air already tasted different—more perfume, more press, the metallic edge of microphones, the greedy pull of eyes. My hearing sharpened whether I wanted it to or not; I could parse the cadence of boots in the broader street, the flutter of a page in a er’s notepad, the excited rise of a producer’s heartbeat finding her mark.
Elias didn’t look. He didn’t need to. “You’ve got this,” he said, directing it at Mira but letting it land on both of us. “You’re not a spectacle unless you agree to be one.”
Mira’s shoulders squared. She reached for my hand again without looking, and our fingers threaded like they’d planned to meet hours ago and had finally made it. “We’re not agreeing,” she said.
“Good,” Elias said. He touched two fingers to her cheek. “Shine as you are, not as they demand.”
She breathed that in like medicine. The citrus in her scent stayed present but tempered—spark, not flare. The ember underneath warmed. She turned her face to press a quick kiss to his palm. Daddy’s girl, crown and all.
“Okay,” Mira said, more to herself than to us. “Okay.”
“Before your tide lands,” Elias added, tipping his chin toward me, “I have one selfish request.”
I blinked. “Name it.”
“Promise me you’ll drag her out of the current if she forgets she can swim.”
“I don’t forget,” Mira muttered.
“Mm,” Elias said, a whole argument in one syllable. His gaze didn’t leave mine. Warm, steel underneath. “Promise?”
“I will,” I said. It felt like swearing on something old. “Every time.”
He nodded once, satisfied. Then he pushed off the pillar and, in the most Elias move imaginable, flagged down a tea vendor with a lift of two fingers. “Five cups, strong,” he said, and the man all but sprinted to oblige.
We drank in a loose circle—paper cups warming our hands, steam cutting through the sugar fog of the night. The tea tasted like sanity. Lucien pretended not to like it and finished his anyway. Alina tucked her chin over the rim of hers and watched the lane with calm, curious eyes. Roran did not drink; I wasn’t sure he remembered how, not while he was working.
“Your Majesty?”
The voice was careful at first. A young woman in an evening dress too formal for the market lane hovered at the lip of our pocket of quiet, flanked by a man with a badge and too bright a smile. More figures clustered just behind—more badges, more careful dresses, more hungry eyes. The tide finding us.
Mira tilted her head—polite, poised, not open. “Good evening.”
“Mayor Holt would be honored to—” the man began, volume already rising.
“Later,” Elias said pleasantly, not looking at him. “The princess is with her family.”
The badge man’s focus snapped to Elias, recalibrating. He opened his mouth—then shut it again when Roran stepped half a pace forward and the air wavered like heat over a road. Not a threat. A boundary.
The woman—smarter than her handler—took a breath and inclined her head. “Of course.” She smiled at Mira, genuine for half a second. “You look…happy.”
“I am,” Mira said, and it rang true enough that the girl smiled wider, then let herself be ushered away before her boss could pick a fight with a wall made of ash and discipline.
“Fifteen seconds,” Lucien said, consulting an invisible watch. “New record.”
“Be nice,” Alina murmured, bumping his shoulder. “They don’t know better.”
“They should,” he muttered, but there wasn’t much bite to it.
The tide didn’t crash so much as creep—one pair, then two, then a small cluster of politely insistent smiles. The five minutes Elias had bought us stretched thin and then snapped.
Mira drained the last of her tea and set the cup on the fountain’s lip. Her hand found mine again. “Ready?”
“Always,” I said.
We stepped forward together as the first questions rose—polite, hungry, inevitable. Elias stayed at our backs, sandalwood and tea steady as a lighthouse behind a storm. Roran adjusted the invisible wall around us, heat-sheen catching a flicker of torchlight. Lucien groaned and stood anyway. Alina rose with him, small hand finding his sleeve.
We were not here to be looked at. We were here, together, to choose how to be seen. And if the tide wanted to pull, it could learn we had an anchor.
The questions rose like a tide—polite, hungry, inevitable—and broke against Roran’s invisible wall. Heat shimmered, torches doubled in the air, microphones faltered a step back as if they’d felt the scorch. We moved anyway, hand in hand, not letting the tide decide our shape. Elias’s sandalwood-and-tea stayed behind us like a lighthouse; Lucien’s groan kept pace with my steps; Alina’s fingers hooked the crook of his elbow and kept him from bolting.
We angled toward the far edge of the grounds where the mystic tents glowed like moons caught in nets. The air changed there. Less sugar-smoke, more resin and salt. Incense of crushed starflower and dreamleaf ran under the sweeter festival scents, clean and sharp as a blade dipped in honey. The ground hummed differently too. I felt it through my sandals—wards stitched deep, a low hive-buzz rising up my bones.
“Your Highness.” Senator Juliana Veynar slid into our path with the grace of someone who’d practiced it in the mirror, dress the color of storm-silver, hair pinned to look effortless and take an hour. She gave Elias a nod sharp enough to count as a salute and then let her gaze settle on me. “Lady Consort.”
A test. Her perfume was all white camellia and ambition.
“Senator,” I said, polite as a knife wrapped in silk.
“Congratulations on your… rapid ascent,” Juliana said, words measured like she could file them later. “Many will ask where you fit into the Court’s long-term strategy. I’d like to hear it from you.”
Mira’s thumb pressed once along my fingers—go on then. Elias said nothing, but I could feel his attention tilt toward me like a shield.
I let myself breathe the tents for a heartbeat—resin, salt, chalk. The world narrowed to a line. “I fit,” I said, “where the Court forgets it has a pulse.” Her brows twitched. I kept going. “My job is to keep the Crown alive long enough to matter. To say no when spectacle pretends to be necessity. To make sure we don’t burn out the queen to keep a room warm.”
Juliana’s mouth quirked. Not a smile—approval disguised as skepticism. “And when politics demands a fire?”
“Then I bring the kindling,” I said. “And the buckets.” I tipped my chin toward Mira. “And I don’t let anyone else hold the match.”
Citrus sparked in Mira’s scent—pride, sharp and clean. Elias’s breath eased out slow, like I’d passed something I hadn’t known I was taking.
“Efficient,” Juliana said. “You may find the Court is less interested in buckets.”
“Then they’ll learn,” I said gently. “Or they’ll get wet.”
Lucien snorted so loudly he pretended to cough. Alina’s eyes danced. Juliana’s gaze slid to Mira, measuring the twitch of her mouth, then back to me. “We will speak again,” she said, which meant you didn’t fail the test.
“Any time,” I said, and meant I’ll be ready. Roran shifted precisely one inch forward; the senator took one back without noticing and peeled away, conversation already loaded for some other target.
“Buckets,” Mira murmured, eyes warm. “You’re going to ruin my reputation.”
“I plan to,” I said, and she bit the inside of her cheek to hide the smile.
The tents grew larger as we walked—pearl canvas dyed in slanting bands of sun-gold and night-blue, guy ropes like braided sunfire thread. Symbols had been brushed along the seams in a pigment that caught the eye only on the second look: glyphs that tugged at my tongue, geometry that made the skin along my arms stiffen, the air along the edges shimmering with that same heat-glass warping I’d learned to feel before seeing. I could smell the chalk line they’d drawn on the ground under each threshold—saltwater and powdered stone—and something older, clean like exposed quartz after rain.
Mira’s hand snugged tighter into mine. “Steady?”
“I’m good,” I said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. My hearing was a net catching too much: the whisper of canvas, the metallic clink of someone setting a brass bowl on a table I couldn’t see yet, the scratch of a scribe’s pen in a neighboring tent. Under it all, Mira’s heartbeat—familiar, steady, the clicktrack to everything else.
“Your Highness!” sang a voice drenched in honeywine and spotlight.
Alaric Dune unfolded out of a pocket of shadow like he’d been waiting for a cue. Platinum hair tousled to look like he’d just rolled off a thousand billboards, jacket cut to the waist and then to reason, a ring on every finger. He reeked of sugar and cedar cologne and the particular ozone of stage fog that didn’t exist here.
“Radiance incarnate,” he declared to Mira, pressing a hand to his chest. “And the Consort who gave ‘dangerous’ a new wardrobe. Please tell me you will allow me to write the anthem for your coronation.”
“We’re not being coronated,” I said mildly.
“Yet,” Mira added, which made him shiver like she’d whispered a hook line.
Before Alaric could launch into a chorus, Seleste Ward drifted in at his elbow like moonlight slinking down a wall. Her gown fell in liquid silver; her smile was warmer than the cameras ever let it be. “You,” she said to me, eyes sparkling. “The thief who stole a princess.”
I tried not to blush. Failed. “Borrowed,” I said. “With intent to keep.”
“Criminal,” she sighed, delighted. “I’ll play you in the film.”
“Please don’t,” Lucien muttered, horrified, which only made Seleste turn her smile on him, gentle and lethal.
“Your eyeliner’s good,” she said. “You could be the brooding brother.”
Lucien opened and shut his mouth like a landed fish. Alina squeezed his arm in a way that said don’t die, and he managed to find a scowl again.
“Yo,” said a third voice, cutting through glamour like a sneaker squeak on a court. Jaxon Price—shoulders broad enough to block a doorway, grin easy enough to make strangers forgive him for it. He wore a suit like it wished it were a jersey. “Lady Consort. Respect on that Duskmire check earlier. You got footwork.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve got volume control.”
He laughed, unoffended. “I’m working on it.” His gaze flicked to Mira’s hand in mine, then back up, and he didn’t look away fast enough to pretend he wasn’t assessing the gap. “We doing games tonight? Throw knives? Tug of war? I’ve been dying to see royal trash talk.”
Mira’s grin sharpened in a way that probably made her mother hear alarms from a mile off. “You think you can take me, Price?”
“In a sprint? No chance,” he said honestly. “In a lift? Maybe. In a stare-down?” He looked at me. “I think she wins those.”
“She does,” Mira said too quickly, then caught herself, chin tipping. “Sometimes.”
Seleste tsked, delighted. “Horrible. You make it impossible to know if you hate each other or if you—”
“Like the banter,” I said, saving her. “Means we don’t get bored.”
Alaric fanned himself with his own hand. “Gods, be less interesting.”
“Can’t,” Mira said.
Alaric’s gaze slipped to the tents behind us, curiosity turning shrewd. “You going in?”
I felt the pull again—like the tents exhaled and my lungs tried to match. The glyphs along the seams stitched light to shadow in ways that made my eyes ache if I stared too long. I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted. An answer? A warning? A dare?
“Eventually,” Mira said. Her fingers flexed against mine, a private pulse. “After we stop being hunted for sport.”
“Zyrella?” Seleste asked softly, and I wondered how much she saw that wasn’t on her movie screens.
“And others,” I said.
“Ugh,” Alaric said eloquently. “You need decoys.” He struck a pose so dramatic his rings clicked together. “I’ll be your scandal.”
“Please don’t,” Lucien said again, faint.
Jaxon thumbed over his shoulder. “There’s an axe-toss two lanes over. I’m just saying—nothing chills a rumor like watching you bury steel dead center without blinking.”
Mira’s smile went slow and wicked. “Tempting.”
“We’ve got time,” I said, which was both true and a lie; time felt loose tonight, like a rope you could pull and get more of if you used the right hands. Elias had hung back far enough to give us space, close enough to be there if a camera lens turned like a knife. He was watching with that faint, private smile that said he saw through the theater and forgave us for needing it.
Alaric leaned in conspiratorially and stage-whispered to me, “If you don’t let me write an anthem, I’ll at least write a diss track for Duskmire.”
“Now that,” Mira said, “I would crown you for.”
“Say less,” he breathed, already humming into his cup.
Seleste touched my forearm—the briefest press—and her voice dropped. “For what it’s worth, some of us got invited here to watch you. The rest came to see if they could shake you.” Her eyes cut to the tents. “Don’t let them decide what you ask for.”
That landed like a stone smoothing water. I nodded once. “Noted.”
Jaxon, oblivious to subtext but tuned to energy like an athlete reading a court, clapped his hands. “Okay. Games later. I’ll keep the crowd loud on command if you need cover.” He shot Mira a conspirator’s wink and then—miracle—dragged Alaric one way while Seleste gracefully drifted the other, their orbit breaking from ours without leaving a wake of gawkers.
We were alone again for three heartbeats. Four. The tents breathed. I breathed with them, and the air pulled back like a tide exposing something luminous and sharp beneath.
“Cass,” Mira said, quiet.
“I feel it,” I said. I didn’t have a better word. The canvas seemed to hold sound, to fold it back into itself. The chalk lines at the thresholds smelled like oceans I’d never seen. Symbols crawled soft at the edge of sight, wanting to be understood with more than eyes.
Lucien rubbed his palms on his pants. “Is it safe?” he asked, which was not him saying I’m scared, but was close enough that my chest tugged.
“As safe as anything here,” Elias said, having arrived close again the way fathers do when thresholds appear. “Which is to say—no. But you’re not alone.”
Mira’s mouth softened. She looked at each of us, cataloging. Elias. Lucien with Alina’s fingers threaded into his sleeve. Roran, the line of his body already adjusting to cover two entrances at once. Me.
“Together,” she said.
Together, we took two steps closer. The glyphs woke like eyes opening. The resin scent deepened. Somewhere inside, a bell of hammered glass rang once and the sound slid under my skin like silk being pulled through a ring.
I felt watched—not by the crowd, not by predators with titles—but by the tents themselves, by whatever breathed inside them. The way a horizon watches sailors. The way a storm does, patient and inevitable.
Whatever waited inside those tents, it already knew we were coming.

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Chapter 54: Eternal Summer Festival