The manor doors swung open on a breath of sea salt and candle wax — Starveil reborn, all marble polish and new blood trying to look like they belonged. The staff had been tripping over each other since dusk; no one wanted to be the first to disappoint their brand-new Duchess.

I followed two paces behind Their Majesties — close enough to shield, far enough to breathe. Guarding a duchess who glows like sunrise and a consort who makes the sunrise jealous was never in the handbook.

They crossed the foyer in perfect rhythm, shoes clicking soft against the veined stone. Mira’s laugh came unguarded for the first time all day, low and molten, the sound of a woman finally out from under the Solar’s gaze. Cassie’s hand stayed at the small of her back, steadying and claiming in the same motion.

The scent hit next — heat and citrus and something sharper, wild. Fae noses are a curse. The air between them shimmered with it, the kind of chemical truth that no amount of etiquette could disguise. Anyone with a pulse would know exactly where this night was headed.

I catalogued doors, hall angles, sight lines — the usual sweep — and pretended not to notice the way the hallway lamps flared whenever Mira brushed against her consort. Wards responding to her heartbeat again. Gods help us when she starts dreaming.

“Home sweet home,” Cassie murmured, her voice all velvet after battle.

Mira tilted her head back, hair catching the light like a living flame. “Finally.”

I made a note to double the perimeter watch. Not because of assassins — though there were always assassins — but because if one more servant wandered in on whatever came next, I’d never keep staff again.

They didn’t hurry, but they didn’t linger either. The kind of stride you get when you’ve been holding yourself together for hours and are five heartbeats from breaking the seal.

I cleared my throat. “Your Majesties,” I started, tone clipped, soldier-neutral. “If I might have a moment regarding tomorrow’s security rotation—”

Mira’s glance over her shoulder was pure mischief, all starlight and sin. “In a moment, Captain.”

Cassie added, not bothering to hide her grin, “After we… debrief.”

I sighed through my teeth. “Of course, Your Highness.”

They vanished up the staircase, hand in hand, the scent of fire and lemon trailing after them like a challenge.

It was going to be a long night.

Halfway up the grand stair, the first interruption struck.

A steward stepped out from behind a column like a man ambushing destiny, scrolls in both hands and panic in his eyes.

“Your Majesties—tomorrow’s schedule. The Sunspire delegation confirmed, and—”

Cassie didn’t even slow down. “Lovely. File it under later.”

She smiled as she passed him, and the poor bastard nearly dropped his quills.

Before I could wave him off, a florist appeared next—arms full of lilies, already apologizing. “The courtyard arrangements, Your Grace! Did you prefer the moon-lace or—”

“Burn them,” Mira said absently, eyes never leaving Cassie’s. “All of them. I’m allergic to indecision.”

The florist went pale. I gestured toward the corridor. “You heard her. Off you go.”

We made it three more steps before a kitchen apprentice stumbled into view, face red, holding a tray of polished silver.

“Chef Gorgon said to ask which set for—”

“Dinner,” I finished for him. “We’ll eat in the east hall. Go.”

He bolted like he’d been pardoned from execution.

The duchess didn’t even notice. She and Cassie were already trading whispers low enough to make the wards pulse. Their fingers brushed on the banister; Veillight climbed the railing like ivy, golden and slow.

I pretended not to see it, because what was I supposed to do? Arrest them for foreplay?

Every soldier knew this look—the aftermath of surviving. That fierce, reckless edge that demanded proof of life. Theirs just came with better lighting.

By the time we reached the landing, Mira’s laughter had turned molten again. Cassie leaned close, said something I didn’t catch, and the air changed—thicker, sweeter.

I cleared my throat. “Your Majesties. Dinner first. You’ve both been running on glamour and adrenaline for hours. Chef Ramsey has a meal waiting—balanced macros, I made sure of it.”

Cassie glanced back, lips curving. “Captain, are you ordering us to eat?”

“Yes, Princess,” I said flatly. “Under royal protection law, malnutrition counts as negligence, and I’d rather not be executed for dereliction of duty.”

Mira arched a brow. “A brave man.”

“Hungry man,” I corrected. “And you’ll both follow.”

They exchanged a glance, silent laughter rippling between them. Then, mercifully—or cruelly—they obeyed, turning down the hall toward the dining wing.

The staff scattered like birds. I exhaled through my nose and followed, praying the gods of patience had night shifts.

The smell hit before we even reached the dining hall—

smoke, citrus, butter, and something that might’ve been divinity rendered in garlic.

The doors swung open and there he was: Chef Gorgon Ramsey, half-demon of the pan, mid-eruption.

The demi-fae’s gold eyes flared brighter than the stovetop as he loomed over a trembling sous-chef.

“You bruised the basil!” he thundered, voice like a forge giving birth to a sword. “Do you bruise your mother when she hugs you? Do you slap the gods when they hand you perfection? No? Then don’t bruise my basil!”

The apprentice tried to answer, failed, and looked one breath away from spontaneous combustion.

Ramsey spun on his heel before the poor boy could die of shame, seized a copper pan, and hurled it onto the flame.

Butter hissed. Wine flared. The air thickened with the smell of caramel and sin.

“Your Majesties,” he said without looking up, “you’re late. Sit before the sauce turns on me.”

Mira blinked, half amused, half intrigued. “You talk to queens that way often?”

“Only the hungry ones,” he said, plating something that glowed faintly around the edges. “Eat before it evolves opposable thumbs.”

Cassie was already laughing—the sound bright and low, the kind that melts armor. She slid into her seat with lazy grace, elbow brushing Mira’s.

The duchess followed, eyes warm, the tension of the Solar melting from her shoulders. I took my post at the table’s end—close enough to intercept knives, far enough to avoid the blast radius of whatever came next.

The first dish arrived, and silence fell like reverence.

Flame-kissed shellfish.

Citrus glaze caramelized to amber glass.

A hint of something sharp and sweet—ginger, maybe, or temptation.

The scent coiled around the table, the Veillight catching on the steam until it looked like gold smoke rising from an altar.

Mira took the first bite. Her lips parted; eyes fluttered half-closed. Cassie watched her with open adoration and reached under the table, fingers brushing her thigh like a promise.

I stared very hard at my plate and tried to remember every breathing exercise Tharion ever drilled into me.

Ramsey noticed, of course. “Don’t worry, Captain,” he rumbled without turning around. “I feed them. You clean up the aftermath.”

“I’d rather face another Shroud priest,” I muttered.

He grinned, all teeth and flame, and returned to his pans.

The meal unfolded course by course like a campaign fought in slow motion—every flavor a new offensive.

Seared greens drizzled in honey-smoke.

Bread still sighing from the oven, butter that tasted faintly of sunlight.

Wine bright enough to leave warmth blooming down my spine.

Their laughter wove through it—low, intimate, unhurried. Cassie leaning forward to steal a bite from Mira’s fork; Mira retaliating with a slow, deliberate taste from Cassie’s plate. Every motion synchronized, every touch an unspoken line of poetry I had no business overhearing.

They weren’t flirting. They were sparring—with sweetness and smolder and something far older than mortal patience.

Ramsey’s kitchen crew had gone utterly silent, hovering at the doorframes as though witnessing a myth. Even the flames seemed to listen.

I cleared my throat, stacking my notes like a shield. “When you’re both finished worshipping the meal, we need to review tomorrow’s guard rotations.”

Mira hummed without looking up, spoon tracing circles through her sauce. “Mmm. Discuss away.”

“Your assigned patrols will rotate every four hours,” I said, soldier-precise. “Kael will oversee the night watch—”

Cassie’s hand drifted higher up Mira’s thigh. The duchess shivered, eyes flicking toward her with the kind of focus that made my professionalism die a quiet, efficient death.

“—and, ah, additional background checks on new hires will be complete by dawn.” I coughed once. “Assuming anyone survives Chef Ramsey’s standards.”

Cassie smiled like she knew exactly how much pain I was in. “Good work, Captain.”

“Thank you, Princess. About the—”

Mira leaned forward then, stealing a bite from Cassie’s plate in a way that was absolutely, categorically, not diplomatic.

My jaw locked. “Never mind.”

Even Ramsey paused mid-stir, spatula in hand, and muttered, “Gods help the linens.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Not my jurisdiction.”

By dessert, I’d stopped pretending this was a normal meal.

The final course arrived in a silver bowl—a molten confection that shimmered between gold and crimson, pulsing faintly like it was alive. Mira fed Cassie the first bite. Cassie closed her eyes and laughed, the sound so pure that every candle in the hall bent toward her.

Ramsey wiped his hands on a towel, muttering, “My work here’s done,” and vanished toward the kitchen with a prayer for plausible deniability.

I gathered my notes again, useless now, and exhaled.

If this was what peace looked like, it was no wonder wars kept breaking out.

The manor had gone half-quiet by the time we left the dining hall.

Candles guttered in their sconces, throwing slow waves of gold across the marble. The new staff had scattered at the first chance—either terrified of Chef Ramsey or wise enough to flee before the next domestic apocalypse.

I trailed two paces behind the duchess and her consort, clipboard tucked under my arm, pretending that every step wasn’t a personal trial of discipline.

Their laughter drifted up the stairwell, low and warm, curling around the bannisters like perfume. I’d faced assassins with steadier hands.

Cassie’s fingers brushed the small of Mira’s back as they climbed, the contact light as a spark.

The air around them shimmered faintly—the kind of charged stillness that precedes lightning or very bad decisions.

I cleared my throat, trying one last time. “About the perimeter wards—”

Mira turned, and any remaining professionalism I had promptly immolated.

Her eyes were dark, starlit—flecks catching like wildfire, the kind of look that could topple kingdoms or at least my blood pressure.

“Roran,” she said sweetly, the syllables smoke-soft and dangerous, “you know we adore you. But unless you’re coming in to watch or to join, this can wait until morning.”

Cassie leaned against the doorframe, smile slow and merciless. “Security will still be here at dawn. We might not be.”

For half a heartbeat, I considered reminding them that I was technically their commanding officer in all matters of defense.

Then Mira’s hand slid around the door handle, Cassie’s breath hitched, and my brain courteously resigned from duty.

I blinked once. Twice. “Understood, Your Majesties.”

The door closed.

The wards thrummed to life with a shimmer that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

I stood there a long moment, listening to silence that wasn’t quite silent, then sighed and adjusted the clipboard under my arm.

“And people wonder why the guard drinks,” I muttered, heading back down the corridor as the manor’s lights dimmed behind me.

The corridor outside their suite had gone quiet except for the wards’ soft pulse, steady as a heartbeat.

I’d barely started jotting the first line of my security notes when bootsteps came down the hall — light, precise, familiar.

Kael.

She looked about as tired as I felt: braid slipping loose, shoulders drawn tight under her crimson coat. The glow from the Veil-lantern caught in her eyes, turning them honey-gold.

“They finally turned in?” she asked, tilting her head toward the sealed door.

“If by ‘turned in’ you mean initiating small-scale seismic activity, then yes.”

I rubbed at my temples. “The wards are still holding. Barely.”

Kael’s mouth curved. “You could order them to behave.”

“I could also order the sun to set slower.”

That earned me a quiet laugh, quick and soft. Saints, that sound helped.

She leaned against the opposite wall, crossing her arms. “You look wrecked, Captain.”

“I feel wrecked.”

I gestured vaguely toward the suite. “Yesterday I was commanding a strike team. Today I’m babysitting royalty who think ‘low profile’ means wearing heels instead of crowns. Tomorrow I’m expected to keep them alive in a mortal high school.”

I blew out a breath. “None of that was on my twenty-five-year-old bingo card.”

Kael’s grin was sympathetic. “Welcome to Starveil.”

I flipped my ledger open again. “All right. School security. We need a plan.”

“You have me,” she said, practical. “I can keep my glamour stable all day. I already blend as a student.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But I don’t trust anyone else to cover them yet, and I can’t exactly stand outside the school gates in full armor.”

Her brow lifted. “So what, you’re going to glamour yourself too?”

“Looks that way.” I sighed. “A high-school girl named… Rora, probably. Transfer from the Dawn Isles. Good at fencing, bad at algebra.”

Kael actually laughed — a real one this time. “You’d have to wear a skirt.”

“Combat skirt,” I corrected. “Hidden knives.”

“Sure.” Her eyes were bright now. “And pigtails?”

“Keep talking and I’ll assign you detention.”

She smirked. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe. But until I trust a few more female guards, you and I are it for school coverage. One of us on-site, the other managing the manor rotation. Once I vet replacements, we can alternate shifts.”

Her teasing faded to approval. “Smart. Exhausting, but smart.”

“Exhausting’s fine,” I said. “Failure isn’t.”

The words came out quieter than I meant.

Kael studied me a long moment. “You really carry it, don’t you? All of it.”

“Somebody has to.” I glanced down the hall. “They trust me. Cassie’s smart enough to see through anyone’s lie. Mira… she’d never forgive me if I slipped.”

I hesitated, searching for a word that didn’t exist. “She’s—”

“Family,” Kael offered.

“Something like that.” I gave a rough laugh. “Half the time I want to strangle her; the other half I’d set myself on fire if it kept her warm.”

Kael’s expression softened. “Sounds about right.”

We stood there for a while, shoulder to shoulder in the golden quiet. The Veil-lantern threw two shadows that almost touched.

“Get some rest, Captain,” she said finally. “Tomorrow we start pretending to be teenagers.”

I groaned. “Can’t wait.”

Kael smiled — small, tired, genuine — and turned down the hall.

When she was gone, I leaned back against the wall, letting the stillness settle.

I flipped open the day’s report one last time. At the bottom margin, a single rune shimmered faintly.

Cinderborn.

I looked toward the sealed door, toward the muted laughter behind it.

“Burn bright, little queens,” I murmured. “Just don’t burn out.”

The lantern dimmed to emberlight.