The herald's cry rang out and the Grand Hall fell silent.
I stood on the dais behind the throne, Tyreal at my shoulder, we were of a height, my brother and I. Below us, Crown Prince Zahir faced the length of the hall in dark steel and worn leather, a real sword at his hip. Making sure the Dragon King understood exactly what kind of man would be taking his daughter.
The great doors opened.
I'd seen them move perhaps six times in as many decades. Tonight, the sound they made seemed to echo in my chest.
The Dragon King of Draci entered as though he had always been there and the rest of us were simply now permitted to see him.
Kharr. I'd met him before, but tonight he looked every inch what he was. Tall enough to make the mortals present seem diminished, his hair cropped close in the Draci way, practical for riders who spent their lives in the wind. He moved with the unhurried grace of something that had never needed to rush.
And on his arm walked the Lost Star.
My mother.
Behind them, Akyreal followed in full ceremonial armor, never more than a few feet from her side. His face was hidden behind his helm, but I could already imagine the expression beneath it.
The murmur that had been building died. Instantly. As though someone had drawn all the air from the room.
She was dressed in midnight blue silk sewn throughout with diamonds that glimmered from within with their own Witchlight, like stars in the night sky. Her dark hair fell unbound over bare shoulders, moving with a wind no one else could feel.
But it was not the gown that made me stop breathing.
Her wings were fully extended.
Beside me, Tyreal went still. We had not seen my mother do this in years outside of her Garden. Even then. she often kept them folded, hidden, a reflex born of a millennia in captivity. Tonight she wore them open, white and gold feathers spanning the corridor behind her, catching every scrap of light as she moved forward.
The room was silent save for the whisper of her wings against the stone floor.
My mother's arm was looped through the Dragon King's, her fingers resting against the inside of his forearm with quiet, deliberate ease. She leaned into him, not much, not enough for the court to call it anything but courtesy, but I knew better.
She moved beside him the way water moves around a stone it has found after a long current. Easy. Unhurried. As though she had simply stopped being afraid.
Something in my chest cracked open. For centuries I'd watched her keep herself small, folded, contained. Tonight she walked the length of the hall with her wings spread wide and her head high, and there was something in the set of her shoulders that looked like freedom.
Or the beginning of it.
They reached the dais.
Kharr did not release her arm. Instead he turned with her, guiding her toward the steps with the same quiet steadiness he'd carried through the hall. His hand found the small of her back as she shifted her weight to the first step, light as a breath, and stayed there until her feet found their footing on the marble.
Then he stopped.
And bowed.
Not the shallow dip Toltaria's lords traded like false coin. This was deep. Real. The kind of bow that acknowledged worth, not rank. His head lowered, one hand pressed to his chest, and he held it long enough for someone in the crowd to gasp.
Long enough for the God King's fingers to still against the throne's armrest.
My mother looked down at him for a moment. Something crossed her face that I could not read, or perhaps did not want to.
Then she turned and ascended the remaining steps alone. Her wings caught the light one last time as she moved to the empty seat at the God King's right hand, and sat into the chair perfectly constructed to accommodate her wings.
The Dragon King straightened.
The God King's fingers drummed once against the throne, the only tell that he'd noticed the bow, noticed what it meant. When he spoke, his voice carried across the hall with perfect warmth.
"King Khyssar. You honor me with with your presence." A pause, precisely measured. "And show such... courtesy to my Lost Star. How kind."
The Dragon King's voice carried the same quiet certainty it always did. Not loud. Simply sure, the way deep water was sure of its own weight. "The honor is shared. As is the joy of this occasion."
A pause. The kind of pause in which diplomacy lived and died.
Then Kharr turned his head, slowly, deliberately, and raised one hand toward the great doors.
"May I present my daughter, Princess Ishtari."
From the corner of my eye, I caught movement. Qasim, seated near the eastern wall, apart from the main court. Close enough to watch. Far enough to claim he wasn't involved if anything went wrong.
His eyes tracked his brother like a man measuring distance for an arrow shot.
My hand tightened against my side.
"Brother," Tyreal murmured, so low only I could hear.
I forced my fingers to relax. Kastiel and Vythros were somewhere in the galleries, in the shadows behind the pillars. I did not need to see them to know they were watching. Between the five of us, nothing in this hall would happen without one of us knowing.
But I did not like the way Qasim was watching. I never did.
Every position he chose was chosen for a reason. And they were usually reasons that ended in blood.
The hall, which had only just begun to breathe again after the Lost Star's entrance, went still once more.
The great doors swung open a second time.
Much of the court was still watching my mother. Still stealing glances at the Lost Star seated at the God King's right hand, at the wings now folded against the back of her chair, at the impossible creature who had just walked through their midst like something out of an old myth made flesh. It was difficult not to stare. Lyr'Aeth commanded attention not through force, but simply by existing.
So when Princess Ishtari of Draci stepped through the doors, not everyone saw her immediately.
Zahir did.
His eyes went to the doors the moment they opened. His gaze locked on her and stopped.
Everything about him went quiet.
I had known Zahir all thirty two years of his life. I had watched him command rooms, navigate his father's court. I had seen every expression his face was capable of wearing.
Not this one.
His shoulders dropped. His jaw eased. The perpetual edge in his eyes went silent. And what replaced it was something so unguarded, so utterly undefended, that for a moment I almost looked away. As though I had seen something I was not meant to witness.
Like her father, Ishtari walked the length of the hall without hurrying. Snow-white hair cut sharp to her jaw revealed the faint sheen of scales trailing down from her jawline, catching Witchlight as they traced over her shoulders and disappeared down the open back of her gown. A reminder that she was something more than mortal.
Her skin carried the warmth of the sun and the deep gold of her gown moved with her like liquid, pooling and shifting with every step.
But it was her face that held the room. Not the sharp, constructed beauty this court traded in, but something wilder. Strong features, jaw set with confidence that suggested she had never been told to lower her eyes. Her dark eyes, almost black, but warmer than her father's, moved across the hall with easy assessment. The way dragons surveyed land from above.
She saw everything. She judged nothing. She simply watched, and in watching, claimed the space she moved through.
Around her, the court was catching up. Heads turning. A woman near the front, one of the Iothalyn delegation, leaned toward her companion. "Half dragon, they say. Look at the scales…"
"Shh." Sharp and fearful. Conversations died mid-word.
Ishtari reached the base of the dais. Her father's hand briefly found her shoulder. The gesture of a man who loved his daughter.
She stopped before the God King.
Before Zahir.
He stepped forward. Took her hand.
I had seen him take hands before. Overlords. Ambassadors. Great lords. Women his father had placed beside him at formal dinners. Each time the gesture had been precise. Correct. The minimum contact protocol demanded, executed with the efficiency of someone who understood exactly what hands meant in a court like this. Currency. Leverage. Ownership.
This was not that.
His fingers closed around hers and held on. Not tightly. Not possessively. With a careful reverence, as though he were holding something extraordinary.
She looked back at him and the faintest curve touched the corner of her mouth. Not a smile. Something quieter than that. An acknowledgment. A door, left open.
I looked away. Not out of respect, but out of necessity. I could not afford to be distracted, not when a man like Qasim was present. I had learned, over eight hundred years of standing in rooms like this, that the moments worth watching were never the ones the court was already looking at.
"He's planning something," Tyreal murmured.
"He's always planning something."