Archive of Our Own

The throne room had never felt so large.

Though Phainon supposed he should've expected that. Grief tended to hollow out even the most familiar of places, and the King had only been three weeks in the ground. But he thought, standing at the edge of the dais with the rest of the honor guard, that it was probably something else entirely.

The room felt large because it was waiting. Every banner, every column, every one of the two hundred lords and ladies packed shoulder to shoulder, all waiting for the one who would fill the space the now deceased King had left behind.

Cyrene stood at the center in a white-and-silver dress, an elegant gown of unadorned linen that left her shoulders bare.

Phainon was slightly concerned about whether she was feeling cold, but it wasn't like he'd be able to ask right now.

Although he'd expected her to look smaller up there, she hadn't. If anything, the throne room actually seemed to have shrunk around her instead, the same way it always had, ever since he caught her trying to climb the orchard wall at seven years old.

She had never asked for permission to do it. She probably wasn't even aware of it herself. All she had to do was take a simple step, and to Phainon's eyes, the world would rearrange itself just for her.

Phainon made himself stop this train of thought.

Luckily, the High Priest's voice carrying through every corner of the hall helped with that. "By blood and by moonlight, Cyrene of Selenis is named heir to the throne of her father. Let it be known that she shall journey to the Moonwell, there to undertake the Rite of Ascension, and there to be recognized."

"Recognized not as a princess, but as a woman worthy of the crown she is owed."

Murmurs ran through the assembled court. They weren't surprised ones, since everyone here had known this moment was coming since the funeral of the King, but they held something quieter and hungrier underneath it.

Phainon had learned to recognize that sound over years of living in the castle in close proximity to Cyrene. It was the sound of a hundred people calculating exactly how opportunistic and shameless they could be in taking advantage of the crown before anyone told them to step back.

"As is custom," The Priest continued, "The heir shall name only one companion to accompany her upon the road, so that she may arrive at the Moonwell as she was born, without crown, without court, without title."

Cyrene lifted her chin in response.

Phainon felt the hairs on his skin rise. He had seen her make that exact motion a thousand times before, right before she said something reckless, right before she did something no one expected of her, right before she made a decision and dared the room to argue with it. He knew that motion better than he knew almost anything else about her, and that same foolish part of him still felt his chest tighten in something akin to pride and light amusement at the sight of it.

That's why Phainon already knew what was coming before her lips even started moving.

"Phainon of Dawn-Marches," She confidently said, the mere mention of his name causing everyone to freeze in place.

He felt the shift in the air before dozens of heads turned at once, not toward her, but toward him. And lacking a strong enough backbone, he kept his eyes forward, on the throne, on the King's empty chair still draped in mourning cloth, rather than meeting any of those looks directly, Cyrene's included.

He'd known this was possible, given how well he knew her temperament, but he had still wished she wouldn't go through with it.

Somewhere to his left, a lord murmured something to the one sitting next to him. It was too low to make out the words, but quick enough that Phainon knew he wasn't meant to hear it at all.

A moment later, he got over his hesitation and stepped forward anyway. There was nothing else to do except cross the polished stone floor with his eyes fixed on Cyrene, on the small, deliberate smile she wore. He instantly realized it was practiced, faintly hollow, and put on for the court, but as he got closer, it melted into something far more gentle.

Phainon needed to look away from that enchanting smile, and thankfully, very conveniently, he had to kneel a few feet from her and face the ground.

Her hand was naturally cold when he took it, and he pressed his lips to her knuckles and hoped that no one noticed him holding them there a moment longer than protocol strictly demanded.

"I accept the charge, Your Highness," He said, making himself (and hopefully her) believe it was only duty and nothing else in his voice. "I will see you safely to the Moonwell, and safely home again as the new Queen of Selenis."

"I know you will," Cyrene said, all the solemnity of the ceremony forgotten since it was quiet enough that it was only for him.

He pretended not to hear her as he silently stood back up. The Priest's voice continued, moving on to matters of ritual, departure, and provisions, and the court's attention began to drift elsewhere, finally allowing him mercy.

Either toward wine, toward gossip about who would be granted which favor once she returned crowned, or toward who would be her eventual King. He didn't particularly like it, but at least it was toward anything other than him, who had just been chosen for the single most symbolically weighted post in the kingdom without an ounce of consideration for other candidates from Cyrene.

And speaking of, Cyrene was pulled away almost immediately after by a swarm of people closing around her before Phainon had even finished stepping back into line. It was an entire crowd of people eager to congratulate her and prepare her for the upcoming Rite of Ascension.

He was grateful for them, even though they were annoying, because it meant Cyrene wouldn't hear what came next.

He lingered near the edge of the dais, adjusting the strap of his sword belt for no particular reason at all, and that was long enough for the two lords nearby to forget he was standing close enough to hear them. That, or they didn't care for his ears.

"Of all the men in this court, and she chooses him again," One of them said, low and filled with the kind of amusement that had teeth in it. "One begins to wonder what exactly he's done to earn such devotion from Her Highness."

"One begins to wonder what she lets him do," The other answered suggestively, causing both of them to laugh, soft and ugly, before the two of them moved off toward the wine with the rest of the court.

Phainon stayed planted still on his spot for a long moment.

He had definitely heard worse before from those craven bastards. He told himself that, standing still at the edge of the emptying throne room, it had never mattered before. Because before, she had only ever been his friend, and a friend's honor was easy enough to shrug off insults to, even though they were unreasonable.

But now, she was no longer just his friend. She was about to be his Queen.

And a Queen's honor, he thought as he watched her disappear through the far doors surrounded by people who would smile at her and speak of her exactly as those two lords just had the moment her back was turned. A Queen's honor would not survive being spoken of like that.

But that wouldn't happen. Not if he had anything to do about it. Not if he was the cause of those words to begin with.

So even though he could follow her and help her escape the mob swarming her like a flock of wild animals, he turned and went to see about the horses instead.

The courtyard still smelled of incense long after the priests and lords had left.

Cyrene noticed it more than she noticed anything else happening around her. It was more noticeable than the banners of Selenis snapping in mourning black and moonlit silver, and more noticeable than the last members of court trickling out through the large doors behind her, murmuring to themselves in the way they always did whenever they assumed she wasn't listening.

Cyrene wasn't as big a fool as they seemed to make her out to be in their rotting heads, because she was always listening. That was the first lesson her father had ever taught her about ruling, long before he'd taught her anything about royalty, councils, or the weight of a throne she wasn't even sure she was ready to sit in yet.

Regardless, Cyrene tried not to let the pressure grow as she silently crossed the courtyard, passing the last of the well-wishers and the priests. The stables stood quiet in the pale morning light. And there, checking the girth strap on her mare with the same rigid focus he gave to everything recently, was Phainon, the one she had been looking for since the ceremony ended and she was surrounded by people she had to put up a fake smile for.

However, Phainon hadn't come, and even now, though she knew he had noticed her approaching, he still hadn't looked at her once since he knelt before her.

"You're doing that thing again," Cyrene said as she neared, keeping her tone carefully neutral for now.

"What thing, Your Highness?"

Your Highness?

"You're checking a strap that was already checked before the ceremony was even finished." She stopped beside her beloved mare, close enough that he had to either look at her or make it obvious that he was avoiding eye contact.

He chose neither, and busied himself with the saddlebag instead, making sure it was filled with everything she would need. "You always did that when you didn't want to talk to me. When we were young, I mean. You'd go find some perfectly hydrated crops and decide they needed watering."

"The road is long, and when it comes to you, Your Highness, it's wise to be thorough." Phainon told her, still empty of any shred of emotion as he closed the saddlebag and headed for his own horse, who was gently butting faces with her mare.

That's right. Their horses were passionate mates.

"Sure," She agreed lightly, following right behind him. "But that isn't why you're doing it, is it?"

He didn't answer that, and she hadn't expected him to. He could never really outtalk the Princess of Selenis, obviously.

Cyrene let the silence sit a moment, watching him work, before deciding that wasting precious time like this with her even more precious friend was unacceptable.

She wrapped her arms around his back before he could think to move away, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades. He went rigid at once from the contact, the muscles along his spine drawing tight as a bowstring beneath her cheek as the only indication that he was caught by surprise.

"Call me Cyrene," She murmured, quiet enough that it wouldn't carry. "You never used to address me formally when there was no one around to hear."

For a while, he said nothing at all, and she foolishly hoped that the silence meant she had actually pierced through his stubbornness stemming from seemingly nothing.

"I cannot." His voice was low and even, and hearing him reject her like that hurt more than she expected. "You are Her Highness, and I am merely your appointed knight for the Rite of Ascension."

Cyrene closed her eyes and breathed, something close to indignation welling in her chest.

"That's a new answer," She said, her voice losing a large amount of its earlier softness. "You used to just say 'no.'"

"I believe it's a proper answer."

"No. It's a coward's answer." She bit back instantly, the word coming out sharper than she meant it to. She felt him flinch, just slightly, beneath her arms.

Good, she thought. Let him flinch. He was hurting his friend's feelings, after all.

"You didn't use to need a decree or an order to be my friend, Phainon. Nor was there a law for it. You just were one."

Phainon took a while to respond. "Perhaps we've been doing the wrong thing this whole time," He eventually said, and despite the scandalous lack of space between them, she had never felt more distant from him than now.

The only thing that had kept her patience from snapping and sending him back so she could make this journey on her own was that his hands had gone still on the saddlebag, along with the rest of him. And that was enough for her to be reassured that that coldness had cost him something, even if he refused to admit it to her right now.

Regardless, she decided to let go of him, because there was nothing else to be gained by holding on, and because the part of her that had spent years learning to govern people who didn't always deserve her patience, told her that pushing harder now would only drive the wall up faster than she could tear it down.

Later, she told herself as she moved to her own horse, regrettably parting her from his horse. Four days on the road were more time alone with him than she'd had in recent months. She could be patient.

Phainon was an open book the entire thirteen years she had known him. She was sure she could tear down his walls.

"Four days," She said aloud, abruptly deciding that she could start clawing at them right now. She tested the words, watching for Phainon's reaction as she gathered the reins. "That's a long time to call me 'Your Highness' every hour of the day, don't you think?"

"I've managed longer." Phainon said, his tone giving nothing away, already moving to help her up onto her mare.

"You've managed worse, certainly." She ignored his assistance and swung up into the saddle with the ease of a girl who'd finally been freed from dresses and into fitted traveling gear. "But whether you're capable of managing longer remains to be seen."

He probably thought he could play this foolish act the entire journey, since he was more than capable of holding his professionalism in front of other lords and ministers. But he should've known by now that Cyrene had no plans of making it easy for him.

That threat, at least, earned her something. A corner of Phainon's mouth twitched, disappearing so fast she might have dismissed it if she hadn't spent thirteen years learning every version of his face there was to learn. It was the most interesting thing Selenis had to offer, after all.

Phainon pretended not to notice her almost intense staring and turned his horse toward the gate without offering her a proper reply.

The gates groaned open before them, morning light spilling gold everywhere, and beyond it the long road east toward the Moonwell stretched out ahead of them, quiet and unbroken. It was going to be four days of traveling with nothing but each other and the wide, indifferent kingdom between them.

Phainon nudged his horse forward first, as though putting himself half a length ahead of her could still count as guarding her from something, rather than him just being too much of a coward to stay at her side and talk to her like an actual friend.

Cyrene watched him go for a moment, watched the straight, unyielding line of his back that was far too tense. Along with that, she could almost feel him wanting to glance back at her without actually turning his head.

What a poor attempt to seem cold and unbothered, she thought, and finally let herself smile again.

Four days, she thought, urging her mare after him. She was going to stress test how long he could resist her irresistibility.

The ride had been quiet for the better part of an hour now. Cyrene tried normal, small chatter at first, but she stopped bothering once Phainon refused to properly answer no matter what she brought up. He acted as if he'd found a sudden fascination with the surrounding trees, birds, cattle, and anything else that wasn't her, as though whatever she had to say was far less meaningful.

But Cyrene wasn't deterred. In fact, she'd already thought of a better idea. She let her hands go slack on the reins instead, resting them loosely against her mare's neck, and waited patiently.

It didn't take long for her scheme to succeed. Selene, for all her noble breeding, had never once in her life been stopped from doing whatever she pleased. It was a lack of discipline, admittedly, but neither Phainon nor Cyrene had ever much cared to correct it in their horses.

The mare's ears flicked forward the moment she sensed her master's silent approval, her pace quickening just slightly so she could drift sideways off the center of the road, until her shoulder brushed against the flank of Phainon's gelding, Dusk. With close enough distance, the two horses' necks curved toward each other in easy, practiced familiarity.

Cyrene had picked them out herself, years ago, dragging a very unimpressed stable master through half the royal paddocks until she found a pair that seemed to like each other as much as she and Phainon did. She'd been eleven, and she'd shamelessly used her title to get what she wanted, but she still thought it had been an excellent decision to this day.

"Your Highness," Phainon began carefully, his tone flattened into the particular tone he reserved for moments when he already knew arguing against her wouldn't help. "Your horse is drifting." But he tried anyway.

"Is she?" Cyrene did not pick the reins back up. "How strange." The sarcasm in her voice was shameless, and the twitch of Phainon's brow only made it that much more satisfying.

"You could correct her."

"I could." In direct contradiction to her own words, she let Selene close the last of the distance, until her knee brushed against his. "But I don't see why I should. She only wants to be near her mate. Is that such a terrible thing?"

Phainon's face contorted as if he wanted to glare at her, but every fiber of his being refused to do such a thing. So he fixed his eyes back on the road, on anything that wasn't the several inches of space now separating them instead of the several feet from just moments prior. "It isn't good for our two horses to grow so attached at the hip."

"Oh, stop judging them already," Cyrene drawled, her smile equally sweet and mocking. "At least they aren't afraid to show that they care about each other." She watched a muscle tighten at the corner of his jaw in response.

Like the coward he apparently was when it came to even being her friend, he didn't answer at all.

Cyrene didn't mind, since he'd at least given up trying to widen the distance between them again. So they rode on like that for a while, close enough that she could hear the small, bothered exhale he let out every time Dusk leaned his weight into Selene's shoulder, which also sent their own shoulders bumping in turn.

She watched, with no small amount of satisfaction, the very visible effort it took him to keep his spine straight and his gaze fixed on the road instead of on her.

The fact that he'd held out this long was impressive, honestly, considering her inimitable, eye-catching beauty. But it clearly wouldn't last, and by midday, he finally broke.

"We should stop," He said abruptly, reining Dusk to a halt at the edge of a clearing just off the road. "To eat, and to rest the horses."

"The horses seem quite rested to me," Cyrene retorted easily, raising her brows in a false display of innocent confusion.

"I'm not rested," He finally admitted, with more feeling than he'd shown since he kissed her hand at the ceremony, and swung down off his horse before she could teasingly point out that knights weren't technically permitted to admit such a thing to their royal escort, let alone call a stop for their own sake.

But Cyrene didn't want to risk the very real chance that he actually hadn't gotten proper rest before this trip, so she gave him the small mercy of not commenting on it for now.

She dismounted at her own leisure, watching as Phainon lifted a broad, flat stone from beside the road and set it down for her without being asked. It was always the kind of quiet, thoughtless gesture he'd always make for her without ever once expecting gratitude.

She settled onto it with a chin propped up in one hand, while he busied himself with more force than the task even required, breaking dry branches for a fire that didn't need to be nearly that large for the bread and cheese they carried.

Or perhaps he was planning something more substantial. He always did have a habit of cooking for her like a royal chef, for no reason at all.

"You know," She said eventually, watching him work, "For a man so determined to keep his distance and act cold, you sure go through an awful lot just to give me a comfortable experience."

Phainon's hands stilled over the kindling for exactly one second before resuming.

"If I've given the impression of being cold... I sincerely apologize." He said it softly, almost regretfully, though he still neglected to answer the part about keeping his distance. "But it would reflect poorly on me if Her Highness had an uncomfortable trip, so this is merely mandatory."

Cyrene's lips curved downwards, barely noticeable. He was only doing this because of her status? That stung a lot more than Cyrene wanted to admit, though she tried not to let it show.

"Her Highness," She repeated, tasting the words like something unpleasant on her tongue, even though it was the proper and correct way to address her. "You say it so easily now. Have you been practicing?"

Phainon paused, seemingly considering. "I have," He admitted eventually, sighing softly as he set about preparing their small meal. It seemed they'd keep it simple for now and save anything more substantial for dinner.

That was an honest answer, Cyrene realized, an actual response rather than his usual annoying avoidance. Though none of that meant she had to like the meaning behind it.

It still stung, knowing he was preparing himself, for whoever knows how long, to distance himself from her and from their long-time friendship. Could it be the whisperers, the rumors circling the castle? But he'd never once shown concern over that, not since she'd shut it down herself as a teenage princess.

"Don't do that anymore." She gave up speculating and just pleaded, quieter than before. "Please. Not with me."

The flint struck twice, three times, before the kindling finally caught fire. And in the small orange light of it, she watched his shoulders drop slightly, his head finally lifting to look at her. He'd refused to do so the entire hour she'd spent teasing him, needling him, talking to him, but it seemed the only thing that actually worked was laying her feelings bare.

Phainon's eyes, oceans carrying stars of gold in the middle, stared at her in silence, a thousand complicated feelings rising and falling behind them before he finally stopped himself.

"We should eat," Phainon said in a carefully calculated attempt to change the topic. It wasn't an answer, but it wasn't quite a wall or a rejection either, which meant it was progress. "Before the light goes."

Cyrene let him, since she was satisfied that it seemed like she had at least gotten through to him in that one, fleeting moment.

The bread was plain, the cheese somehow plainer, but it was at least piping hot, and neither of them really minded the taste. They ate worse abominations back before Phainon decided to become a master of the kitchen on top of being an outstanding knight of the royal guard.

Cyrene tore her portion into smaller pieces than necessary, mostly for something to do with her hands, and watched Phainon eat with the same focus he brought to everything, as if even just eating deserved his full, undivided attention like a fight would.

"You've gotten better at this," She started with another attempt at small talk, gesturing at the fire, the neatly prepared bread, and the whole small camp he'd assembled in under a quarter hour. "The last time you tried to build us a fire, you nearly started one that encompassed an entire forest."

"I was nine." Phainon reminded her, sounding almost affronted and exasperated. "Must you always remind me of my lowest points?"

"Of course~! Those are the fond and endearing memories that shaped you into the person you are today." She smiled and spoke around a mouthful of cheese. It was unladylike, unprincess-like, but she found that she didn't care in the slightest. "I still remember everyone's reactions when we came inside, both smelling like smoke. You would've been exiled had I not thrown a royal fit at my father to spare you."

"I already thanked you for that numerous times," Phainon remarked dryly, though something in his voice barely noticeably relaxed, because the words came easier than they had all morning. "Do you want me to do so again?"

"No," Cyrene softly denied, because obviously all she wanted was for Phainon to remember how precious their friendship was. "I was just lamenting how you needed a full thirteen years to get this competent."

Phainon's eyes twitched, getting irritated and successfully taking the bait. "Eleven. We were already nine then." He corrected her.

"Don't correct me." She instantly bit back, pretending to be an offended, snotty princess. "It's unbecoming of a knight."

"My apologies." Phainon wasted no time in apologizing and backing down, but the underlying sarcasm did not pass by her.

And even though she was practically being patronized, Cyrene actually smiled, full and genuine as she watched her friend finally crack through the armor of her knight.

See, wasn't this a nicer dynamic than merely treating her as an indomitable princess who stood worlds above her?

For a while after that, they just ate together in silence, the fire crackling low between them as Selene and Dusk lay together a short distance off. Cyrene let herself enjoy it without pushing further or testing any more of Phainon's walls, content for the moment to sit across a small fire from her oldest friend and watch him look, for the first time since the ceremony, almost like himself.

"Phainon," She said eventually, just when the last of the bread she intentionally ate slowly was gone, and the light of the sun had begun to soften.

He looked up to meet her gaze, and this time he didn't even hesitate.

"Your Highness."

Ah, so that particular wall was still standing.

But before she could frown, she noticed, and filed this away too, that it sounded less like the emotionless, cold calls earlier today, and more like a gentle nickname he called her.

She decided that was good enough for today.

Phainon had killed before he was old enough to grow a proper beard.

The act itself was easy enough for him, despite how people with gentle natures like Cyrene shied away from it like a disease. He had been killing monsters and rogue outlaws since his first year in the royal guard, since the King himself had pulled him aside after a border skirmish and told him, flatly, that if he wanted to keep standing by his daughter's side, then he would need to hone his prodigious skill with a blade to its utmost extremes.

To this day, Phainon still didn't exactly know what the King truly thought of him, especially regarding Cyrene; whether that was a suggestion for him to use a high-ranking position as a knight to make his friendship with Cyrene actually acceptable, or something else entirely. Maybe a compliment. Maybe a warning. Maybe a mix of both.

Whatever the case, it was the King's most important order to him that had resulted in this. Standing over a body that had, moments ago, wanted Cyrene dead, and feeling nothing but the low, steady hum of having done exactly what he was tasked with.

There'd been four of them. Phainon knew that ordinary road bandits didn't wear matching blacks, and they certainly didn't know to strike at the one occasion the Princess of Selenis didn't have a squadron of knights around her. Only two horses, one knight, a seemingly easy target for anyone who'd been counting the days until the crown finally left the castle walls.

He'd taken the first one down by throwing Dawnmaker directly at his head before the man could even finish nocking his arrow. The second had gotten close enough to see the whites of his eyes before the blade Phainon kept hidden against his knee found the gap beneath his ribs.

The third ran, and Phainon had let him, because the fourth had gone for Cyrene directly, and that was the one Phainon didn't remember killing nearly as much as he remembered the moment before it. The singular, half a second of knowing that if he had been even one breath slower, he'd be burying her instead of escorting her.

He wasn't burying her, though. Thankfully, only the corpses of these assassins would be rotting in the green forest tonight.

"Phainon," Cyrene called out, bringing him out of his trance as he breathed heavily, even though he wasn't particularly exhausted from the scuffle.

Her voice sounded strange to him when she spoke. It was too close. And looking down, he realized his hand was still fisted in the front of her cloak. It had been for however long it took his heart to stop trying to climb out of his chest.

And, somewhere in the scramble to put himself between her and the last blade, he'd ended up with his other arm braced against the tree at her back, his whole body caging hers in a way that no knight had any business caging his princess.

It was inappropriate, improper, and would draw the disgusted, judging eyes of every highborn lord in the court. But her breath was still coming in heavy gasps for air, and so was his.

"You're not hurt," Phainon said as his eyes scoured every part of her body for injuries. There were none, but his words came out less like a question and more like a desperate plea to the world.

"I'm not hurt," Cyrene echoed in reassurance, and with both of them still breathless and far too close, her eyes dropped, alarmingly, to his mouth.

He knew what that meant. He'd known what it meant for years now, if he was honest with himself, which he tried very hard not to be.

He should have stepped back the moment the fourth man hit the ground, but he hadn't. He was still here, pinning her close enough to feel her breath against his jaw, close enough that leaning down the last inch would cost him almost nothing at all. And for one long, stupid moment of weakness, he actually let himself imagine it. He imagined what her mouth would taste like after ten years of being curious but never once finding out.

Cyrene seemed to read at least some of that thought from his expression alone (she was always so good at that), and thinking they agreed, she tilted her chin up.

Phainon's sense of reason finally caught up with him, and he wrenched himself backward like he'd been burned by her.

"Do not," He said roughly, denying the opportunity he himself had been longing for with a tone sharper than he meant it, sharper than she deserved after nearly dying. No. Not like this.

He watched something in her face shutter at the tone he used. It hurt to see her in any kind of pain, but he'd rather see this up close than the alternative that would come from his walking through the dangerous gates she'd just opened for him.

Cyrene, however, did not look inclined to let him off that easily.

"Do not what, exactly?" Her voice had gone flat, cold, and ruthless, the voice she only used on greedy, terrible nobles, and rarely ever on him. "Do not react like a woman who was almost murdered? Do not look at you?" She asked it like a challenge, daring him to say outright what had almost happened between them just seconds ago.

Phainon stared down at her, pained, conflicted, but determined. "You know what I mean."

"No. I genuinely don't." She stepped toward him instead of away, her voice colder still, and he had to force himself not to retreat again. As terrifying and wrong as it felt to be under her wrath like this, he didn't want to be even more pathetic than he already was.

"Explain it to me, then." Cyrene pointed a rough finger at his tunic. "Tell me exactly what crime I've committed by nearly kissing the man who just saved my life. Who, unless I've lost my touch, seemed to be looking at me with a longing gaze just now."

"It's impropriety," Phainon said, weakly reaching for the same defense again, ignoring the tightening in his chest at the admission he'd just made without meaning to.

"Impropriety." She repeated the word like it had teeth, and he realized at once that he'd only fed the fire he was trying to put out. "Four men just tried to kill me, Phainon, and you're still worried about proper?" She asked, both exasperated and furious at once.

He didn't have a good answer for that. Well, he had an answer, but it wasn't a good one, and it wasn't one he was willing to give her while she stood over three corpses with her hands still shaking from the near death, however hard she was trying to hide it.

"Someone wanted you dead before the Moonwell," He said instead, turning the argument back toward something he could actually manage. "Before you're officially crowned Queen."

"I'm aware. I was right here," Cyrene remarked, sharp with sarcasm.

"Then you know why this," He gestured, panicked and slightly vague, at the space between them, "Cannot happen! Not now, not with the road still ahead of us, and God knows who else waiting on it."

Cyrene took in his response, her eyes calculating, scanning every part of him in a way that left him feeling stripped bare before her.

"That's not why you pulled away." Her eyes narrowed, sharp and clear despite everything her body had just been through. "You didn't step back because of assassins. You've been finding reasons since the ceremony."

"That isn't true."

"It is true!" Her voice cracked as her composure finally gave out, just slightly, right at the end, and he hated that more than anything the assassins had done to him all day. "You knelt, kissed my hand, and called it duty. You sat by a fire and called your presence mandatory. And now you nearly kissed me, and you're calling it impropriety?"

Phainon looked away because he couldn't argue when he knew he was in the wrong and a coward. That was the second time she'd repeated that word back at him with open disgust. He wanted to retch, wanted to strike himself for saying it in the first place.

Why did he even say that word?

"I'm tired, Phainon." When Cyrene's voice returned, most of the rage had drained out of it, replaced by something that stabbed far deeper. "I am so tired of watching you find a new excuse to build a bigger wall between us."

Once again, he said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn't be a lie or a confession, and he didn't want to lie to her, but he wasn't ready to give her the latter either.

"Fine," She said, and the word landed harder than any blade had all afternoon, for the sheer weight riding under it. "If I've misunderstood everything, and you don't like me, that's fine."

He liked her. No, he loved her. So much so that his own heart felt like it was suffocating just from hearing her speak to him like this.

"If you don't want to be my friend anymore, that's fine too."

No. He loved being her friend more than almost anything in the world. He would trade the entirety of Selenis for it.

"But do not stand there covered in the blood of men who tried to kill me and tell me it's propriety keeping you from me." And with a slow, steadying breath, she finished. "If you truly want to be nothing but a knight, then I will treat you as such, and nothing else."

She didn't wait for a response, because she already knew he had none to give. She turned and walked back toward the horses to check them for injuries, her spine straight, her steps even as she looked every inch the Queen she wasn't even crowned as yet.

Phainon stood alone among the dead longer than he needed to, his hands still faintly trembling from something that had nothing at all to do with the fight.

He didn't follow her right away.

Because he wasn't sure, standing there, if he even had the right to.

Cyrene kept true to her word. She always did. And now it was backfiring horribly on Phainon.

It was their third day on the road, and exactly as she had warned, she stopped trying completely when it came to him. There were no more teasing remarks, no more attempts at small talk, no more scandalously close proximity, and certainly no horses or knees brushing against each other.

It was just pure, tense silence, thick enough that a royal cook could have cut it with a knife.

Deep down, Phainon asked himself if this was truly what he wanted. Was enduring the rest of his life with this dynamic between him and Cyrene really what he wanted?

He told himself again that yes, it was. Because what he wanted, more than anything else, was for Cyrene to flourish. Even if the price for that was his own love for her, and the friendship they had spent thirteen years building.

It was worth it, Phainon reassured himself once more as he and Dusk rode along the paved road by themselves. Cyrene was practically a ghost behind him. He couldn't hear her making a single sound, and if it weren't for Selene's soft hooves stepping in tandem with Dusk, he might have turned to check that she was still even there.

But he couldn't do that. Because as much as the silence wounded his aching heart, it was still better than turning around and seeing what expression she now held in features that used to be so gentle and were now so cold.

Phainon tried to keep his attention fixed on the path ahead, or perhaps on the wildlife around them, just as he had back when Cyrene was still trying to talk to him.

It didn't work nearly as well this time, but it was enough of a reprieve that by the time he began to reach his limit, the sun had started falling from the sky, bleeding a bright orange across the emerging moonlight.

Phainon almost sighed in relief. He was glad, almost excited even, that after grueling hours of silence, he finally had a proper reason to speak to her.

"We should stop and prepare for dinner, Your Highness," Phainon suggested, his shoulders and voice equally stiff as he slowly guided Dusk to a halt, hearing the faint hooves of Selene stopping close behind.

He still refused to look back. And his cowardice, as it turned out, was rewarded in due course.

"As you wish, Sir Phainon."

Phainon flinched hard at the title slapped onto his name, gripping the reins until his knuckles turned white. Her voice, normally so ethereal and soft-spoken, had gone completely emotionless, except for just enough bite that he wouldn't have caught it at all had he not known her long enough to memorize her every pattern of speech.

"I'll also be setting up camp so we can rest early," He added weakly. "After all, we're close to the Moonwell now, aren't we?"

Phainon turned in the saddle to finally look at her, half expecting a nod, or perhaps nothing at all.

He got worse than nothing. He got that same blank, schooled expression she'd worn ever since she'd told him she would treat him as nothing but a knight, an expression so carefully composed it barely looked human.

Cyrene said nothing. She only looked at him, and then, deliberately let her eyes drop to the leather satchel strapped across his own chest. The one holding the map that he'd been carrying since they left the castle gates, and the one she had trusted him alone to read and guide her to.

Right. Of course, he would know if they were close. He was literally the one holding the map.

Phainon felt his ears heat with something close to shame, though for the life of him he couldn't say whether it was shame at the question itself, or at how desperately he'd wanted her to simply talk to him again, the way she had for the first two days.

He swung down off Dusk before the silence could stretch any further, and without thinking (without letting himself think), he crossed to Selene's side to help her down.

He'd never once done that on this entire trip. He'd never really needed to, since Cyrene had been swinging herself off horses well before the proper age to learn. But some foolish, yearning part of him wanted a reason to touch her.

Cyrene was already on the ground by the time his hand reached her stirrup. She hadn't even looked at him while doing it.

Phainon let his hand fall back to his side and made himself say something before the moment could somehow get worse. "I was only coming to tell you about supper," He excused, which was true, though it hadn't been what he'd actually crossed the clearing for, and he found himself defending that half-truth to her silence as though she'd already accused him of it.

"As you wish, Sir Phainon," Cyrene said dryly.

He had begun to hate that phrase more than he'd ever hated a single thing an enemy had said to him on a battlefield.

But he pushed past it, setting about making camp anyway, because there was nothing else useful to do with his hands. And because Cyrene had eaten nothing at midday, not the bread, not the dried fruit, not even the small cheese cakes he'd packed because they were her favorite, Phainon decided, with the particular stubbornness of a man who had run out of ways to be useful to her, that tonight's meal would not be so easily refused.

He built the fire larger than it needed to be, hoping the heat might reach across the distance and warm her too. He unpacked the wine he'd been saving, the last of the dried figs, and the strip of venison he'd taken pains to keep fresh in salt since their second day out.

He seasoned it with the little store of herbs he carried, roasted it slowly over the coals the way his mother had once taught him, drizzled it with honey and the last of the good oil, and arranged it all on the one clean plate they carried between them, as though he were serving her at the high table instead of a clearing full of leaves and trees.

Cyrene sat a short distance off on a fallen log, knees drawn up, watching him work with an expression that, while it carried a hint of something he couldn't discern, still gave him practically nothing to hold onto.

And when he finished, she did not get up to eat.

Phainon bitterly wondered what the point of a knight who couldn't even convince his own future Queen to eat was.

But despite his deteriorating patience, he set the plate down beside her anyway, close enough that the smell alone should have tempted anyone who hadn't eaten a proper meal in over a day. "This should quell your hunger, Your Highness," He said, carefully even and polite, before going back to banking the fire so he wouldn't have to watch her not touch it.

She still did not eat.

Long minutes passed, more than Phainon cared to keep counting, though some helpless part of him kept counting anyway. He found small, useless tasks to occupy his hands, checking the horses that didn't need checking, retying knots that were already sound.

And every time he glanced back, the plate sat exactly where he'd left it, untouched, cooling, and Cyrene sat beside it with her chin propped on her knees, staring into the distance as though he wasn't even there at all.

He told himself this was what he'd chosen. He told himself, again, that this was what he wanted, that a cold and silent Cyrene who was crowned and thriving was worth infinitely more than a warm and loving Cyrene stripped of everything her father had built for her.

But somewhere in that long, wretched stretch of waiting, he realized he was an absolute liar.

No, it wasn't worth it at all. Watching her go hungry rather than accept a single thing from his hands wasn't worth any crown in the world. And deep down, some foolish part of him had known that from the very first moment she'd gone cold. But he had just refused to admit it, because admitting it meant admitting he'd been wrong, and that all of this had only ever been him hurting her for no reason.

But he couldn't take it anymore.

"Cyrene." Her name came out of his mouth before his mind had decided to say it, rough and unfamiliar after three days of forcing himself around it, and it startled her enough that her head finally turned.

"Please..." Phainon saw that he had caught her attention and immediately pleaded, his voice cracking weakly. "Please eat something... I made it for you." He walked closer, hesitant, and knelt in front of the log where she sat.

"I've made everything for you since the day I could first hold a knife. So even though I know you're angry with me, and you have every right to be, please don't starve yourself over it. Punish me instead. I deserve it far more than your stomach does."

Cyrene's pink, star-shaped eyes stayed sharp and unreadable (that same way she always did when she was analyzing whether a plea was genuine or not).

For one desperate moment, he let himself hope his actual, genuine sorrow was enough.

"I'm sorry," He continued, and now that the wall had cracked, he couldn't seem to stop the rest of it from pouring through. "I'm sorry for ignoring you. I'm sorry for calling you 'Your Highness'. I'm sorry for pulling away from you after the assassins, when all you'd done was almost lose your life and reach for someone you loved. I'm sorry for all of it."

"Then stop doing it," Cyrene finally spoke, quiet and aloof, and he finally believed this was all over.

It should have been the whole of it. Her demand was simple enough. All he had to do was nod, admit he'd been wrong, and let three days of misery end there in the firelight.

But because he was a fool who could not stop protecting her even from the one thing that might have finally made her happy, he kept talking.

Phainon exhaled heavily, his brows creasing. "I know what you want, Cyrene." His voice dropped, his chest aching at how easy her name had become now that he'd finally let it out once. "God, do you think I don't want it too? Do you think I haven't wanted it since we were children, long before either of us even knew what it meant to want someone?"

Cyrene went very still at the sudden confession.

"But you aren't just a princess anymore," Phainon continued, and there it was, the whole rotten shape of his fear, finally dragged into the light. "In one more day you'll walk out of that Moonwell a Queen. And a Queen cannot have a stray from the dirt standing at her side without her own kingdom tearing itself apart over it."

He lost the nerve to keep looking at her eyes, so he dropped his gaze to her hands instead, gripped tight around the edge of the log. "If I let myself have you now, if I let myself be everything I want to be to you, sure, we'd be happy... But what happens in a year? When the lords demand a proper King? When the kingdom needs a marriage built on alliance instead of some knight's inconvenient devotion?"

"Phainon-"

"I would rather be your knight forever," He cut her off, because he knew if he stopped now, he'd never manage to finish it, "Than be your dirty secret until the day you're forced to throw me away."

He'd expected something to come of that confession, but the silence that followed was worse than any that had come before it.

Cyrene rose from the log slowly, and Phainon watched, with a growing horror, as every trace of the softness he'd just earned back drained entirely out of her face.

"You decided that..." She said, very quietly. "Not with me. For me." The words carried enough affronted disbelief that Phainon flinched back from them.

"Cyrene, I only meant to protect you-"

"I did not ask you to protect me from my own choices...!" Her voice was shaking now, not with sadness, he realized, but with anger. "You are so determined to save me from some scandal that hasn't even happened yet, that you never once thought to ask what I might be willing to risk for you! You simply decided that you already know what's best for me, and that I'm too foolish, or too fragile, to be trusted with the choice myself."

"That's not-"

"That's exactly what this is!" She cut him off again, stepping past the untouched plate, close enough now that he could see, even in the low light, how badly her hands were trembling. "Do you understand what it feels like, Phainon? To have the one person you love and trust most in this world decide, on your behalf, that you don't even deserve a say in your own heart?"

Phainon shook his head weakly, an answer with nothing behind it.

Cyrene seemed to grow only more furious at his silence. "If this is truly how you mean to treat thirteen years of knowing each other," She said, and her voice closed like a door being locked from the other side, "Then fine. Consider us strangers from here on."

She turned and walked toward her bedroll without waiting to see his reaction.

Phainon stood very still beside a fire he'd built too large and a plate of food gone cold, and thought, with the kind of clarity that only ever seemed to arrive once it was already too late to matter, that he had just made the single biggest mistake of his entire life.

He did not sleep that night.

He spent the dark hours doing what he should have done three days earlier instead of building walls between them. Actually thinking. Turning her words over and over until they'd carved themselves into him deeper than any blade ever had.

You decided that. Not with me. For me.

He thought of every reason he'd given her, propriety, duty, the Moonwell, the crown, and understood, somewhere near dawn, that every single one of them had been a different name for the same fear.

How ironic. He'd never truly been trying to protect her from the court or her kingdom. He'd been trying to protect himself from his own insecurity of watching her outgrow him and choose someone else, and calling his cowardice a sacrifice so it might be easier to swallow.

By the time the sun rose on their fourth day, pale and thin through the treeline, Phainon had come to a single, firm conclusion.

He didn't deserve her forgiveness. But he owed her the truth and his full confession regardless, whatever it cost him.

Because a Queen deserved better than a knight and a best friend who was too afraid to be honest with her, even at the very end.

The ride that final day was somehow quieter than the three before it, though this silence at least had a different shape to it. Cyrene did not speak to him again, and Phainon didn't try to make her. Unlike him, she'd probably slept the prior night and was only now working through her own thoughts.

Besides, she wasn't the one who needed to speak in the first place.

By the time the light began to soften toward evening, the trees finally broke apart to reveal it.

The Moonwell.

It sat in a wide, natural basin of pale stone, open entirely to the sky, a still and silver pool at its center that hadn't yet caught the moon, only the last low gold of a sun already sinking behind them.

They left the horses to graze at the tree line, both of whom immediately leaned into each other after a long trip of being kept apart by their masters' insistence.

Neither Phainon nor Cyrene said a word about it.

Phainon walked with her to the edge of the basin, and there, standing right behind her with nothing left to lose and nothing left to protect her from except his own silence, he finally said everything he should have said the night before.

"Cyrene..." He began, using her name freely for what might be the last time he was ever permitted to. "I was a fool. I doubted the one thing in this life I should never have doubted, which is you, and how completely you've always known your own heart. I was a coward. A coward who made a choice that was yours to make, and told myself it was love, when really, it was only ever fear wearing love's face."

He found the words coming easier and more poetic than he expected as he went on, Cyrene keeping silent the entire while. She only turned her head and watched him, her expression still unreadable in the dimming light.

"I am not asking you to forgive me. I know I haven't earned that, not after everything I've put you through on this trip..." His voice caught. He didn't care. "Whatever you decide after you walk out of that water as the new Queen of Selenis, I will accept it."

"If you want nothing more from me than a knight who guards your door and says nothing else to you ever again, I will be that. If you never want to see me again..." Phainon sighed weakly, "I will leave the castle."

"I only wanted you to know, before you go in there, that everything I said by that fire was nothing but a weak excuse for my own insecurities. I love you. I have loved you more than I've loved almost anything else in this world, and I was too much of a coward to say so until it had already cost me everything."

Cyrene held his gaze in silence for a long moment, saying absolutely nothing in a stretch that felt like slow, agonizing torture.

She turned instead toward the water and began walking down into the Moonwell without a single word to him. Not to accept his apology. Not to tell him to leave. Not even to show a flicker of what she actually felt about any of it.

Phainon stood frozen at the water's edge and watched her go, and thought, with a fresh, specific dread, that her silence might already have been his answer.

By the time she reached the pool's center, the sun had finally slipped behind the ridgeline, and the moon rose to meet her almost exactly as it happened, as though it had simply been waiting its turn for the Child of the Moon.

The light gathered around her like it had spent its whole existence waiting for this. Her hair, that pale shade of pink he'd known since he was seven years old, caught threads of silver he had never once seen in it before. The water rose to her waist, and everywhere it touched her, it seemed to still.

She lifted her arms. She said something to the water, or to the moon, or perhaps to no one at all, words of the rite too quiet for Phainon to catch from the shore, and likely too private for his ears regardless. So he was left with nothing to do but watch.

Phainon had faced four armed men without his pulse rising above its resting count. But he could not, for the entire length of that ritual, remember how to breathe evenly at all.

When it was finally done, when the light settled and the water stilled, Cyrene turned back toward the shore with moonlight still clinging faintly to her skin.

Phainon dropped to his knees in the wet stone before his own mind had caught up with his body.

It was instinct. Thirteen years of instinctual kneeling before the Crown Princess, whether in teasing or in earnest before the watching nobility, kneeling before every version of her he had ever loved.

Cyrene stopped in front of him.

Phainon knelt there stiffly, eyes on the ground, and felt a strange pull of déjà vu, remembering the last time he'd knelt before her like this, at the ceremony that had started all of it. Everything felt like it was closing some long, slow circle.

"Stand up."

Phainon obeyed the instant he registered how her voice had changed, not unkindly, but with a new weight behind it.

"Never kneel to me again," Cyrene ordered, in the familiar cadence of royalty giving a command. "Not for a ceremony. Not for an apology. Not for anything, understand?"

Phainon nodded nervously.

"I have had enough men kneeling before me and meaning nothing by it. I will not have the one man whose knees actually matter spend the rest of his life on the ground."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Phainon instantly responded, before he could think better of it.

"And that," Cyrene said, clicking her tongue in annoyance, "Is the last time you will ever call me that as well."

Phainon opened his mouth, confused, before understanding caught up with him as she continued.

"You will call me Cyrene, and nothing else." She firmly ordered again, each word deliberate and landing as though she'd been saving it for this moment. "You told me you would accept whatever I decided. So here is your sentence, Phainon of Dawn-Marches."

Her calm, stoic face finally cracked, her eyes gaining a teasing edge that instantly lifted a weight off his shoulders. "For the rest of your life, you will speak my name like it belongs to you... As it always has."

Something cracked open in Phainon's chest, and for once, it had nothing at all to do with grief.

"Cyrene..." He slowly uttered, testing the syllables of it on his tongue like a vow.

"Good," She said, and there, at last, was the smile he'd spent days starving for, slowly forming on her face gorgeously. "Now. As my first true command as Queen of Selenis."

She stepped closer, close enough that he could still feel the last of the Moonwell's chill clinging to her skin, and unlike the last time, there was no assassin, no wall, nothing left standing between them at all. "You will finish what you started two days ago."

Phainon barely had time to understand what she meant before she reached up, fisted her hand in the front of his tunic, and closed the last of the distance herself.

He did not need to be ordered twice.