Ayda's POV I shouldn't have come here.I had no business getting tangled in the affairs of nobles.I knew that now; I just hoped that the Goddess wouldn't punish me for my naivety."Geh, geh, geh!" For the second time in a little over a week, I was packing all of my belongings away with the thought of never coming back to Castle Lykaia. Gus was already freshly bathed and dressed, and I tucked my breast back into my shirt. "Neh!""I know, dearest," I put on his knit cap, making sure it covered his sensitive ears. He looked like an overstuffed marshmallow in his babe-sized pea coat Maud had gifted him. Like a tiny round professor off to teach at his college seminars. He was beyond adorable! "It's time to say goodbye.""Weh!""Yes, the trip back will be long, but then we'll see Giselle and all the other women at the salon again. And, we've missed them all terribly now, haven't we, my little prince?""Neh!" Gus threw his teddy bear to the floor, cle

Ayda's POV "Lady Narcissa would like a word with you."The coach was late, and the stable hands were too busy attending to the various guests' horses and carriages to offer help there."I don't like the sound of that," Nicolette breathed.The wind was an awful tempest outside, sharp and cold against your skin, leeching any warmth straight to the bones. The sky was an aged bone-white dome that robbed the sun of his exit so that only a dulled pinprick of light descended into the horizon. The whole world felt like it was on the precipice of tragedy, collectively holding its breath before news broke out.It had felt like this when the Uprising was quelled when the Morning Post was struggling to tally all the destruction that was left behind when the dust had settled. My stomach fluttered uneasily as I tried to glean what I could on the maid's face, but she showed me nothing.The wind changed direction abruptly, knocking my felted cartwheel hat off my wave

Ayda's POV The room was watercolor in the rain, objects shifting and melting into each other. The lines that gave them form wiggled before my very eyes. Spinning, spinning, the room was spinning. It hurt to breathe; it hurt to be. A heat, a fire, a breakdown of the atoms, the fabric of my being, being consumed by the energy of the universe. I was being pulled apart, unmade, and hastily rebuilt.In to what I didn't know…"Easy dear, you're okay?" Maud? "Yes, girl, it's me. Don't you worry about your boy; I'll watch over him. You just get some rest. Let the Calling work through you. It'll feel better by tonight."Okay, okay, it was going to be okay.I let the darkness take me.***"I think we lost the plot for a bit."He spun me in a slow waltz, the chaotic jazzy ragtime of the previous band exchanging for the piano and strings heavy sounds of a proper concerto. It was romantic and light, and he was so easy on his feet! I wiggled into his suit, black

Ayda's POV In Emerald Lake, we didn't have ballrooms in the traditional sense.We had open-air amphitheaters for the orchestra that opened into massive, elaborately mosaicked dance floors that glimmer like gems in dazzling garden mazes. All so we could sway with those we loved under the stars. In a sense, I was no stranger to the unimaginable beauty of a dance hall. That said, the ballroom took my breath away.Unlike the main foyer with its fantastic imitation of the night full of the stars, the ballroom had the advantage of owning a splendorous glass ceiling; the center opened to display the moon as she made her trek across the sky. Around the crescent skylight, were fantastic scenes of wolves leaping through clouds and darkened forests. The glass marble, in a way, gave each color a certain depth, a shimmering effect that made the wolves seem almost alive. Obsidian pillars shaped like naked trees with their branches acting as both frame and solder points led the eye

Ayda's POV When I awoke, it was still dark, and so too, were my thoughts.If things had been different…If things had been different, if things had worked like the stories, then I would have been with Sebastian that night in Twilight Tavern and not his brother. It would have been Sebastian I would have given my maidenhood to and not… not to his brother. Sullied. A moment of puddle deep lust and nothing more.If things had been different, perfect, Alex might have still lived to marry Narcissa, leaving Sebastian able to betroth me. No one would have cared so long as the Golden Prince was still alive.Sebastian yawned, head pillowed on his knuckles leaning over me on top of his sheets. Sheets, blood red like the vision that haunted my sleep, and I made a sound like a wounded lamb."I was wondering when you'd wake up." He scooped me up, kissing the crown of my head. "I'm afraid that the halls are still packed with dignitaries. Apparently, there's a scavenger hunt f