Which are you choosing?” he asked.
“Today?” I said. “Beside you, I think. Maybe a step in front of the elders if they get too smug.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“I’d have paid gold to see Maera’s face,” he murmured.
“She called me an anchor or an anvil,” I said. “I wasn't sure which.”
He snorted.
“She would,” he said. “What did you tell her?”
“That I’m your Luna,” I said simply.
Silence stretched between us for a long, charged beat.
He exhaled slowly.
“You are,” he said. “More than I deserve.”
The map in my dress crackled faintly as I shifted, the reminder of my secret plan a small, sharp sting.
Deserve had nothing to do with any of this.
We were long past deserved outcomes.
I dragged my focus back to the reason I’d come here.
“Last night,” I said, pulling the extra ch
