Bound to the Alpha Twins

The Luna White

The knock came before sunrise. It was soft but loud enough to be heard.

"Come in."

Gertha entered, and behind her two maids carried something between them. They laid it across the bed and proceeded to open the curtains.

It was a cream white gown. The fabric caught the little light rays that slipped in from the windows and gave it back. Silver thread ran through the hem and bodice in patterns that seemed to move when I blinked.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever been this close to.

"Luna white," Gertha said. "For formal presentations before the Council."

I looked at her. "Who sent it? The queen?"

She met my eyes. "It was prepared for you, my lady."

"That is not what I asked."

There was a pause. Something moved across her face. "No," she said. "It is not."

She said nothing further.

I stared at her for a moment. She did not look away, but she did not speak either. Her silence was loud enough and I understood then that she would not tell me.

I let it go. There were more important things to spend my energy on this morning.

"Help me into it."

They dressed me in the grey morning light. Gertha's hands were quick and sure at the fastenings along my back. The two maids worked at the hem and the waist, adjusting, smoothing, stepping back to check their work, then stepping forward again. I stood still and let it happen, my arms spread out, my breathing shallow.

The fabric was heavier than it looked.

When they stepped back, Gertha nodded toward the mirror in the corner.

I walked to it slowly.

The girl in the reflection had my face but she stood differently. She did not fold into herself to appear small.

The cream white made my skin luminous. The silver thread glimmered when I shifted my weight. The bodice sat at my shoulders like it had been made for them specifically and the fabric fell from my waist in clean, flowing lines.

I looked like a ...Luna.

Though inside, I did not feel like one.

"My mother would not recognise me," I said.

Gertha was quiet for a moment. "Would that be a good thing or bad thing?"

"Both." I turned from the mirror. "She would cry. She cries at everything beautiful and then pretends she was not crying, which fools no one."

"She sounds like someone worth knowing."

"She is." The simplicity of it sat in my chest, warm and a little painful. "Although she can be extremely exhausting."

Gertha made a sound that was almost a laugh. She swallowed it quickly, her face smoothing back to careful neutrality. Professional.

She stepped closer. Close enough that the maids could not hear.

"The dress was not the Queen's choice," she murmured.

I frowned. "Whose, then?"

"I cannot say." Her voice a low whisper. "Only that the one who sent it watches from the shadows. She never sits at the table, but she always knows what is said there."

"Gertha."

"That is all I can tell you, my lady." She stepped back. "Come. It is time. It is time you present yourself before the council.

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She led me through hallways I did not recognise. The ceilings were lower here and the walls bare. Fewer portraits lined the walls and more guards stood at corners unmoving.

The white dress dragged across the floors with each step I took. I could feel its weight more now.

I kept my gaze forward and my breathing even, trying not to think about what was waiting at the end of this walk.

Too mucch thinking would not help me.

I had learned in Ashen Ridge that some things were better approached from the corner of your vision.

We passed a tall window. The morning sky was pale, the sun not yet fully up. My reflection floated across the glass, a ghost in cream white.

I looked like someone else.

'Walk like you belong,' I told myself. 'Even if you do not.'

The corridors changed as we went deeper. The ceilings grew higher, the stone walls darker and the guards more frequent. They appeared at intervals, watching me pass, their expressions giving nothing away.

The air had a quality to it that I could only describe as weight.

Gertha slowed her steps.

I saw the doors ahead.

They were vast. Dark old wood banded with iron. The Valerius crest carved into each panel, wolves and moons and ancient symbols I did not understand. The kind of doors that had been built to last till eternity.

Four guards flanked them, standing straight and still. Their eyes moved to me as I approached and settled on the cream white of my gown. Their faces blank.

Gertha stopped a few feet from the doors.

"This is as far as I can take you."

I stopped beside her. My heart was pounding, but my voice was steady. "Thank you."

She hesitated. Then, very quietly, she said, "Whatever is said in that room, you walked into this palace as yourself. Do not let them take that from you."

She held my gaze for a moment, then dipped her head and stepped back.

I breathed in once, the bodice of the gown expanded with it, straightened my spine and let my hands hang loose at my sides.

Fourteen years of being invisible, of making myself small and after it all, here I was.

Swift stirred inside me.

'Do not shrink. Do not falter.' It seemed this was now her mantra.

The guards reached for the handles.

The doors swung open.

Light spilled out from the chamber, warm and golden, and fell across the cream white of my gown. The silver thread at my hem caught it and turned to fire.

With my head high, I proceeded forward, chanting Swift's words in my mind.

I would not shrink, I would not falter.