A Court of Three Stars

6: Ghosts

70 years ago, Five Roses, Lunathion

Leur

Tamlin was even more amazed by this world than I had been.

Maybe it was just more of a stark shift for him, to see all of it so soon after I had told him about it. Maybe it was a bad idea, risking even more than I already was, risking the one good thing left in my home world.

For the past few years we had been... together? Was that the word for it? All I knew was that we both lived our respective lives on other sides of the world, and then came home to each other. It was easy, simple, known. I told myself it was to stave off the loneliness, to combat the wide hole that had been gaping in my soul where a mating bond used to live- and maybe, in part, it was.

But I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't more than that, if it wasn't the culmination of centuries spent... feeling whatever I felt for him.

He'd gone half out of his mind when I had disappeared for months on end, when he thought I had truly been dead. He had been an absolute, inconsolable wreck when I came home telling fantastical stories about another world. And then it had taken me almost a year to convince him to come see what I had found, if only so someone could look at me and tell me that Ruhn was real, that I hadn't actually lost my mind somewhere in the fires and hallucinated all of this.

It was both a relief and a stress to realize that it all was real, that Tamlin saw all of it, that Ruhn really did look exactly like my brother.

We'd both already decided that we needed Lucien to confirm too, lest we had both just lost our minds together.

And while Ruhn and I were technically related by insanely distant ancestors, there was no way to explain just how identical he looked to Rhys.

To me.

"It looks like this all the time?" Tamlin and I were sitting on a bench by the river, staring up at the massive, glowing city in front of us, the crescent moon shining bright amongst the neon lights. A bottle of liquor shared between us, still in the paper bag we had bought it in.

All I could come up with was a measly, "Yes."

"Cauldron boil me." He swore under his breath, taking a swig from the bottle.

I found myself laughing, leaning against his shoulder. We were different people here, and I would have been lying if I said I didn't love it. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was the most peace I'd had since my death all those years ago.

He wasn't a Spring Prince- or High Lord now, and I wasn't a lost Princess of Night. He didn't have a court full of responsibilities he had never wanted. I didn't have a war-torn territory to look after and lead to its death all at once. Our bloodstained past, all of the loss we had both experienced, the shadow that loomed over both of us- none of it existed here. We were too far away for the ghosts to haunt us.

We were just two people on a bench, in the middle of a massive city.

His arm was around my shoulders, a kiss pressed into my temple, "You know, I like your hair like this."

"I don't think I have ever had short hair, my entire life." I laughed, feeling the wind brush the whisps against my neck. I still couldn't pull all of it up with how short it was, only pin the front pieces away from my face.

"You haven't, but it looks good on you." His fingers mindlessly played with a curl as he spoke, "It makes you look younger."

I blinked at him, "Are you saying that I look old?"

He furrowed his brows, "We're the exact same age, Leur."

"Okay, but are you saying I look old?" I leaned back, only mildly offended.