Chapter 1

I had come to find Cassian to go over the final bonding arrangements, but before I could even step inside, Lyra’s voice drifted through the door.

“Cassian, did you really order that moonsilver Luna crown for me? I heard the high-tier smiths only make those for future Lunas, and you have to book months in advance.”

Cassian did not hesitate.

“I did. I had it sent from the north. It’ll be here next week.”

“Won’t it be too expensive?”

“It’s only seventy thousand. If you like it, that’s enough.”

Lyra fell quiet for a second, and when she spoke again, her voice turned even softer.

“You’re so good to me. Then on the bonding day, I’ll wear it just for you.”

Cassian gave a low laugh.

“Good. I’ll be waiting.”

The call ended.

For a moment, the room went strangely quiet.

Then Derek frowned. “Cassian, changing the bonding grounds is one thing. Maybe Serena will swallow that. But the Luna crown? That’s different. For a woman, that crown means everything.”

Another friend clicked his tongue. “Exactly. The coastside grounds can still be explained away. But letting Lyra wear the Luna crown meant for Serena? That’s too much.”

“You’d better not do that,” Derek said. “Serena may put up with a lot, but that doesn’t mean she feels nothing.”

Cassian only leaned back in his chair, calm and certain.

“It’s just a crown. Serena won’t care.”

“She loves me. When has she ever refused me anything? She’s not going to throw a tantrum over something this small.”

The others exchanged glances, then laughed.

“All right. We get it. Serena would never leave you.”

Standing outside, I felt my throat tighten.

My own Luna crown had been made at a local workshop.

On the day I tried it on, I had shown Cassian three design sketches and asked which one he liked. He barely looked at them.

“They’re all the same. Pick whichever.”

“Don’t make such a fuss over it. I’m in a hurry.”

In the end, he chose the plainest one. The receipt was twenty-eight thousand.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to be thoughtful. He simply never was with me.

On the way home, I bit down so hard on my lip it hurt, but the tears still rose anyway.

Five whole years.

And I had still believed, all this time, that at the very least he understood me.

Back when I said I wanted the bonding held on the snowfield, he had smiled and ruffled my hair and said yes.

I had been moved by that.

I thought he remembered that it was where we first met, where I threw myself in front of him during the avalanche, where I held onto him in the freezing dark and kept telling him not to be afraid.

But he did not remember.

Or perhaps he had never cared enough to remember.

When I got home, Cassian called me. The noise behind him sounded like a tavern.

“Serena, Derek and the others are throwing me a bonding eve gathering. I’m not coming back.”

I paused for two seconds.

“All right.”

They had already been holding this so-called bonding eve gathering for three days.

At one in the morning, I still could not sleep, so I scrolled through updates.

Derek had posted a nine-photo grid with the caption: One Last Night Before the Bond.

In the center photo, Lyra’s cheeks were flushed. She was leaning bonelessly against Cassian, and his hand rested lightly at her waist.