Tauram's hand tightened around Esmera's, warm in the coolness of the night, burning out the shivers running through her. She had only seen King Ruagu twice, but she would recognise his shadow anywhere, with the sharp edges of his face, the flimsy lines of the robe he had been wearing when he left Princess Kerani's room, with the way even the heavens stilled in fear of him.

When the bronze rings on his fingers glimmered in the starlight as he raised his hand to run it through his hair, she knew she was right. Tauram's sharp intake of breath confirmed it.

"Don't move," the prince breathed.

Like the stars, Esmera froze in position. The crunch of her footsteps on the uneven ground would only draw the usurper's viper's slitted eyes to her and Tauram's invisible forms. Even the slightest motion might startle the enormous moth on the woman's shoulder, betraying their presence.

King Ruagu drew the woman beside him to him. Her body was stiff against him even when he ran a bronze-ringed hand down her arm.

Queen Ghallia was more goddess than mortal under the stars, her blue sari falling regally from her frame, the fabric glimmering like gold ore within the darkness. Esmera had almost forgotten the extent of her beauty, but she wouldn't allow herself to admire her for a moment longer, not when she knew what Ghallia had done to the Morghis princesses, what she had allowed to be done to them.

She turned, smiling faintly up at her husband and giving Esmera her first glimpse of the infant in her arms and the yellow-spotted dragonfly on his shoulder. The child cooed and reached his arms out to King Ruagu.

Could he not see what Esmera could, that the hands that reached for him were stained with blood, that the eyes smiling down at him had watched people die by his hand?

Princess Kerani had mentioned that King Ruagu was good to their daughter. Esmera would've never imagined a thief, a liar, a villain to be a kind father.

Maybe King Ruagu wasn't evil right down to the core as she had thought. It almost made her feel bad to destroy him, knowing that she'd leave his children without a father as she had been, but he'd shown no pity when he ripped Tauram's family apart. He didn't deserve any mercy, only retribution.

Queen Ghallia's shoulders were still stiff even as she gazed up at King Ruagu and her son. Whether it was the proper posture of a queen or a wife stifling her anger at her husband, Esmera couldn't tell. The moonlight turned the soft curves of Queen Ghallia's face harsh, or maybe it wasn't the celestial light distorting her at all but the tightness in her expression.

"Another beautiful night in Milatanur." Still cradling his son in one arm, King Ruagu kissed Queen Ghallia's neck.

Esmera shuddered. To think that those lips had been kissing another woman just earlier that night, had likely murmured the same venomous seductions masked with romantic gentleness.

Tauram must be as repulsed because he stiffened beside Esmera. His fingers went taut around hers to the point that she let out an involuntary gasp of pain.

"Sorry," he murmured, loosening his hand on hers.

Queen Ghallia turned away from King Ruagu, flicking her hair over her silk-clad shoulder as she gazed up at the stars. "I've seen better."

Esmera started at the unexpected sharpness in her voice.

Queen Ghallia snuck a glance back at her husband's shadowy face before looking back at the sky. "There was this time when Tauram and I picnicked on the peak of Sūryōdaya Mountain. You know, the one where you can get your first glimpse of the sunrise over Milatanur."

"I know." King Ruagu's voice only betrayed mild curiosity as he regarded his queen.

"We lay in each other's arms, watching the stars disappear as they drowned in daylight." Queen Ghallia's gaze turned dreamy as though it was that night she was conjuring to replace this one.

It broke Esmera's heart anew because it reminded her of the love she'd had to give up just to survive. Like the Morghis princesses, she had known loss. They had lost their oldest brother, and she had lost her betrothed.

Maybe that was what had made her bitter and hard as the years had passed, more inclined to torture her husband's mistresses than help them escape the same cage she was also trapped within.

There was a smirk in King Ruagu's voice when he leaned down to touch his mouth to Queen Ghallia's ear. Even as he whispered, his words were unmistakable. "Is that why you knocked on my door the very same morning? Is it because you had such a wonderful time with Tauram? Is it because you were so sure he was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?"

Queen Ghallia pulled away from him, snapping her head to him. King Ruagu grabbed her by her arm, his fingers pressing into her so hard that they blanched.

Esmera might've been able to read the look in the queen's eyes if she knew her better, if she had seen her more than once before, but for now, there was no meaning to her expression.

"You may have fooled him and everyone else back then, Ghallia, but you never fooled me. Not then, and not now."

Queen Ghallia's eyes held King Ruagu's, wide and unblinking, almost petrified even as his were calm, curious. Then she was pulling him to her by the collar of his robe, swallowing the night between them as she brought her mouth to his.

Esmera looked away. She had already seen too many things she wasn't supposed to see tonight. As for Tauram, he swallowed hard but stayed still and silent.

It was King Ruagu who pulled away first, turning back to the night sky while Queen Ghallia gazed up at him, searching his face for something. Not seeming to find it, she followed his eyes as they reached into the heavens.

"I think of him sometimes, you know," said King Ruagu as he looked over the mountains. All they were at this time of the night was jagged shadows on the horizon. "I wonder where Tauram is now, if he's alive, if he's still pining for you." His eyes flickered to his wife, teasing but with a sharp edge that traced over Esmera's skin, sending goosebumps over her arms. "If he knows you still sometimes use him to try to make me jealous."

Queen Ghallia spat her harsh laugh into the night, her soft, scorned wife air dissipated, her lovelorn young woman persona discarded in favour of her true self. "I never think of him. To do so would be to imply that I cared for him."

Esmera's eyes went wide. Tauram went completely still beside her. Not even a soft breath escaped his lips.

This was wrong. She had this all wrong.

Queen Ghallia wasn't the young woman wrenched away from the man she loved and forced to marry the one who had destroyed him. She wasn't even a wife indignant at the time her husband gave to a woman who wasn't her. She was someone else, someone worse, someone cunning and twisted beyond Esmera's imagination.

She stood beside Tauram, numb with a heartbreak that wasn't her own as King Ruagu tilted his head.

"I did care for Tauram as friends did," he said, gazing ahead with languorous eyes. "And I think he cared for me in the same way, but he adored you. He gave up all of this" —King Ruagu gestured at the palace behind the pavilion and the kingdom spread at his feet like a carpet smelling of bloodstains that had long been washed out— "because he thought your life was in danger."

"And the fool wouldn't have cared to save me if he didn't believe that I loved him back. That's why I did it, you know. All those pretences, all the promises I made to him knowing I would never keep them. I did it all for you." Queen Ghallia leaned into King Ruagu while Tauram quivered beside Esmera, not knowing that she was tearing someone's world apart.

The only love Stephen had known was violent, but it was still better than this distaste that could inspire a woman to feign love for her own ends, knowing she would destroy someone who adored and trusted her.

Esmera squeezed Tauram's hand, not daring to speak in case King Ruagu, Queen Ghallia, their magically gifted baby, or any of their familiars overheard her.

She ground her teeth. She'd tear Queen Ghallia apart herself if King Ruagu wasn't so near. She deserved nothing less after she had torn apart Tauram's family, ruined the lives of some of the kindest people Esmera had met in years.

But King Ruagu was near, and reacting now would only earn her the usurper's death touch and Milatanur certain destruction.

Esmera took a breath, swallowing the bile rising in her throat at her disgust at the depths of King Ruagu's wickedness and the truth of Queen Ghallia's hand in it. 

"I did it all for you," Queen Ghallia said, sounding forlorn, a little more like the character she had tried to portray herself as during the meeting with Jilhari that had started this whole adventure.

"I know, and I thank the gods for you every day, my love." King Ruagu pressed a kiss against his wife's forehead. His eyes were distant, preoccupied, and Esmera wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Yet you still sneak off to the princess's bedroom, thinking I don't notice." Queen Ghallia's dark eyes flashed with anger as she rested them on the king. "I always notice, Ruagu."

Any other man might've started at the accusation in her words, but King Ruagu wasn't another man. He only gave her a smooth, lazy smile, knowing it was all he needed to win Queen Ghallia over again. "The poor thing is so lonely. I know Tauram would want me to take care of her."

Beside Esmera, Tauram trembled in suppressed fury while King Ruagu continued, unaware of his words on his unseen audience.

"So, I let her have my body and my company for a little while, but my heart will always belong to you and our children, Ghallia." King Ruagu drew the queen to him.

She melted into his arms as he kissed her, tracing his finger along the edge of her jaw.

It was heartbreaking because Esmera knew what it was like to love someone who didn't love her in the same way, irrespective of his intentions.

The king and queen stood in each other's arms for a few quiet minutes, standing sentinel over their kingdom in the company of the heavenly bodies above. King Ruagu rocked his son, and when the child rested against him, fast asleep with his dragonfly familiar nestled under the collar of his tunic, he jerked his head at Queen Ghallia.

She gave him a preoccupied smile. "You can go to bed if you want. I'll join you in a moment."

Panic surged through Esmera. What if Queen Ghallia somehow knew she and Tauram were there, eavesdropping on a conversation playing out in the last place they should be? If she did, who's to say she wouldn't reveal them to the man who wanted to kill them most in the kingdom? There was no knowing where her loyalties lay after what they had found out about her, even despite what she had claimed in the meeting with Jilhari.

King Ruagu studied Queen Ghallia's face for a moment, and the pit in Esmera's stomach only deepened. What if he had figured out they were there too?

The king said nothing, merely gave his queen a quick kiss and, soft-footed, stepped down from the pavilion and towards the palace he and his wife had stolen together.

Only when the glass double doors had closed behind him with the starlight glinting off its still panes did Queen Ghallia whisper, "I know you're there, Tauram. I can smell your anger, your heartbreak, and...I'm sorry. I never meant for you to find out..."

Esmera clenched her free fist. Queen Ghallia was only sorry that Tauram had discovered the truth, not that she had betrayed him, not that she had hurt him, not that she was a liar.

Tauram's strangled voice whispered, "Let's go, Lundas."

"Tauram, wait!" Queen Ghallia begged, her eyes going wide, desperate. She reached out as if hoping to grab hold of Tauram, but she grasped only at air, being unable to see where he stood beyond her arm's reach. Her moth familiar fluttered in the air above her, its massive winged blocking out the moonlight. "I hope we can still be allies—"

The invisible clouded leopard gave a low purr at Esmera and Tauram's feet. She couldn't see the prince's feline familiar work his magic, but the air spiralled at her ankles as he ran around them, delivering them from this cruel palace to somewhere that would offer some semblance of kindness.

It was just as well that Lundas did that before Esmera rewarded Queen Ghallia's audacity with all the profanities contained behind her pursed lips.