A Luna without a Husband

Kenna’s POV

The crown came off before I had even left the hall.

“Careful with that,” Jace told the servant, lifting it from my head, not looking at me, only at the metal. 

“It’s not to be damaged before it’s returned to storage.”

Not are you all right. Not even my name. The crown, obviously, mattered more than the woman who’d just worn it into a marriage neither of us wanted.

He caught my arm in the corridor before I could escape to somewhere private. “A word.”

“Of course.” I kept my voice even. I had a lot of practice.

“I want to be clear about what this is.” He still wasn’t looking at me directly, somewhere over my shoulder, like even that much eye contact cost him.

 “Nothing between us has changed. This marriage satisfies the treaty. There will be no mark, no bond.”

“And when Jenna returns?” I asked, because I wanted to hear him say it.

“We’ll discuss what comes next.”

“So I’m being kept. Like a spare key, in case the real one gets lost.”

That got his eyes on me, finally, a flicker of something, gone as fast as it came. “That’s not…”

“Am I allowed to eat in the main hall,” I cut in, “or should I take my meals with the staff, since that’s apparently still what I am to everyone in this house?”

“You’re Luna in the eyes of the treaty. Act like it.” He said it like a correction, like I had been the one behaving badly, and walked off before I could answer.

I found out what “act like it” meant twenty minutes later, in the dining hall, where every conversation stopped the second I sat down.

“Should we curtsy?” a noblewoman asked her companion, loud enough that she clearly wanted me to hear. “I never know the decency for greeting a substitute.”

Nobody corrected her. My father sat two seats away and didn’t so much as glance at me. 

My stepmother did glance, once, dragging her eyes over Jenna’s altered gown on my body.

“It doesn’t fit her the way it fits Jenna,” she said to the table, not to me. “Nothing does.”

“I could have it taken in further,” I said, “if the sight of me is truly this offensive to everyone’s appetite.”

“Watch your tone,” my father muttered, the first words he’d spoken to me all evening, and even those were a warning, not a kindness.

I finished every bite on my plate. I would not give them the satisfaction of an empty one. 

When the meal ended, I excused myself with a smile that felt like it had been nailed to my face, and made it exactly to the end of the corridor before my hands started shaking.

My new chambers didn’t help.

“Will there be anything else, Miss Jenna…” The maid setting down my tray caught herself, eyes going wide. 

“Forgive me, my Luna, I only meant…”

“It’s fine,” I said. It was the fourth time someone had called me that name today. It was getting harder to say it’s fine and mean less of it each time.

“Whose room was this before?” I asked, though I already knew.

“It was prepared for…” She stopped herself again, cheeks going red.

“For Jenna. You can say her name. I’m not going to break.”

“Yes, my Luna. I’m sorry, my Luna.” She fled before I could ask anything else, leaving me alone with a portrait of my sister laughing down from above the mantel, monogrammed pillows stitched with initials that weren’t mine, wedding gifts addressed to a woman who wasn’t sleeping in this bed.

“None of this is mine,” I said out loud, to no one, just to hear it confirmed by a voice other than the one in my head.

 “Not the room. Not the name. Not even the husband.”

Nobody answered, because nobody was there either. That was the whole point, wasn’t it. 

I lay down in sheets that still smelled faintly of someone else’s rosewater and didn’t sleep so much as fall, hard, into something that wasn't at rest at all.

I dreamed of a castle with broken towers and a moon too close, and a voice that came from everywhere at once.

Welcome home, princess.

I woke up gasping, alone, married, nameless in every way that mattered.

And on the inside of my wrist, for half a heartbeat before it vanished, something silver flickered, thin, curved lines, like they’d been traced there on purpose.

I stared at the bare skin left behind, heart slamming. I hadn’t imagined it. I was almost sure I hadn’t imagined it.