Chapter 15: The Queen’s Deal
747 Words
The summons arrived wrapped in red silk and sealed with gold wax.
Luna didn’t open it for a full hour.
She knew who it came from.
She knew what it meant.
The Queen never extended invitations.
Only traps dressed as diplomacy.
Kael was out rallying reinforcements from the mountain packs—leaving her alone in the valley with the memory of the battle, the mark still raw on her shoulder, and the weight of their bond like gravity in her chest.
When he returned, she would be gone.
The Queen’s messenger arrived at dusk—a boy, no older than fifteen, already missing one eye.
“They said you’d understand,” he whispered, before disappearing into the trees.
What he left behind was worse than any threat:
A black mirror.
Luna knew the stories.
The royal family didn’t use written oaths.
They used reflections.
If you stood before the mirror and spoke, the Queen would see you—anywhere.
And if she summoned you through it?
You went.
Or she came for you.
That night, Luna stood before the mirror, half-dressed, her hand hovering just above the obsidian surface.
“Take me to her,” she said.
The mirror rippled.
And swallowed her whole.
She didn’t arrive in the throne room.
She arrived in bed.
Silk sheets. Lavender mist. A fire burning low in a gold brazier.
She stood. The mirror behind her flickered and vanished.
She was wearing nothing.
No knives. No boots. No mark.
Only skin.
The Queen stepped from the shadows.
Tall. Dressed in black. No crown. No guards.
Only power.
And poison.
“I wondered if you’d come,” she said, her voice soft. “You have his stubbornness.”
Luna didn’t answer.
The Queen smiled. “You’re angry. That’s good. It means you’re still young.”
“Why am I here?”
“Because I want to offer you a gift.”
Luna scoffed. “You don’t give gifts.”
“You’re right,” the Queen said, circling her. “I trade.”
She stopped in front of Luna and pressed two fingers into the hunter’s chest.
“Kael’s life in your absence.”
Luna went still.
“You disappear. He lives. No more war. No more blood. He returns to the mountains, and you go back to wherever broken things like you crawl when they’re alone.”
Luna bared her teeth.
“And if I refuse?”
The Queen’s smile sharpened.
“Then I will show you what he will become.”
She clapped once.
And the brazier’s flame turned silver.
Smoke rose.
Images began to form.
Kael, chained to a throne.
Kael, his eyes black.
Kael, biting into an innocent.
Kael, forgetting her name.
Luna shook.
“None of that is real.”
“No,” the Queen said. “But all of it is possible.”
The bed behind them shifted.
Kael lay there.
Naked. Golden eyes half-lidded. Hair damp. Mouth soft.
He reached for her.
“Luna,” he murmured, dream-drunk. “Come back to bed.”
Luna turned to the Queen.
“This isn’t real.”
“No,” the Queen said. “But he feels like it is.”
She walked to the bed, dragged her nails down Kael’s chest.
He moaned.
Luna’s pulse pounded.
The Queen turned, slow and wicked.
“Would you like to feel it too?”
The room twisted.
Suddenly, Luna was standing beside the bed.
Heat curling through her.
Her body aching.
Kael looked at her again—lust-drunk. Bond-drenched.
She couldn’t breathe.
The Queen stepped behind her and whispered, “You think he only burns for you? Then take him. Prove it.”
Luna’s body moved without consent.
Her fingers touched Kael’s chest.
His hand caught her wrist.
“Please,” he begged. “Don’t leave.”
She collapsed onto the sheets.
And then she woke up.
Sweating. Shaking.
Alone.
Back in the den.
The mirror lay shattered on the floor.
Her mark still burned.
And Kael was still gone.
When he returned hours later, she didn’t tell him.
Not all of it.
Only part.
He saw the fear in her eyes.
Held her until her breath evened.
“Whatever she showed you,” he whispered, “it’s not stronger than us.”
“I know.”
But she didn’t sleep that night.
Because in the mirror world, she had tasted what it would feel like to choose herself over him.
And she didn’t like how much she wanted to.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD