Astra’s voice was steady again. But it was a careful kind of steadiness meant to hold something volatile at bay. She wasn’t holding back emotion so much as isolating it, pinning it down where it couldn’t interfere with what needed to be said.

  “It wouldn’t just go away on its own, would it? Whatever’s affecting Natalia.”

  Eydis didn’t respond. Silence, in this case, said more than any denial could.

  Astra studied her. Recognition slowly crept across her features, widening her eyes. “You mean…”

  “Finding Lust isn’t easy.” Eydis said. “So the only option we have now is…”

  “…Tell me.”

  Eydis didn’t answer right away. She sat down beside the unconscious Natalia, who responded to the nearness instinctively.

  Natalia reached out and grasped Eydis’s wrist. The touch was fever-hot. “Eydis… help me…”

  Eydis swallowed, her eyes fixing on Astra’s.

  The room felt physically colder, as if the fire in Astra’s gaze had dulled into something like ice. And Eydis didn’t need to ask to know what those crimson eyes were already seeing.

  Astra understood. Or at the very least, she suspected.

  Eydis looked down at Natalia’s hand, still clutching hers.

  “Lust doesn’t just feed on physical desire, it doesn’t just indulge,” she said at last. Her voice was quieter than before, but there was no way to soften this truth. “It doesn’t push; it starves you. It festers in the unsaid. The touches never made. The want that never becomes action.”

  “As in… unrequited love?”

  Unrequited love, Eydis thought. Natalia, in love with me?

  Even hearing it aloud felt detached from reality. No one was supposed to want her, especially in her realm, in Mythshollow, for they fully understood what she was.

  From the moment she was born, Pride had whispered its claim upon her. She was meant to be its next bearer, its future. It had made her untouchable, desired only by the Sin itself.

  She nodded. “And it thrives not just on carnal desire, but on its ability to break the unbreakable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gluttony, Envy, or Greed amplify what’s already there. But Lust… it doesn’t just amplify. It infiltrates until restraint stops feeling noble and starts feeling unbearable, until desire is the only thing you can feel.”

  She hated the words even before they left her mouth. “The only way to break Lust’s hold is…”

  Astra finished for her. Again. “For her desire to become reality.” She paused. “Whatever that reality may be.”

  The words pressed against Eydis. The only sounds in the room were Natalia’s ragged breathing.

  Astra remained unnervingly still.

  Eydis could see in Astra’s gaze a heaviness that made her chest ache—that wounded look, perhaps something closer to… sadness.

  She wanted to reach for Astra, to cup her face, to finally speak the words that had lived beneath her skin, buried deep, ignored for too long. She wanted to admit that all those fairy tales about princes and princesses had never meant a damn thing—

  That every quiet moment, every shared smile, every lingering touch had only ever been about her.

  About Astra.

  But Natalia’s fingers burned against hers, reminding her that all of this was her fault. Her teasing, her casual, thoughtless touches, and her willful blindness had fed the Sin until it had sunk its teeth into Natalia’s heart.

  Eydis’s jaw clenched.

  A bead of sweat trailed down Natalia’s temple, her body pulsing with fire, magic, desire. And if she let this go on much longer, the inferno within Natalia might devour her completely.

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  Eydis had to act. Her gaze dropped to Natalia’s parted lips. A kiss, how hard could it be? And yet, why couldn’t she bring herself to do it?

  “What are you waiting for, Eydis?” Astra challenged. Clipped and icy.

  Eydis rolled her shoulders back with the forced ease of someone who refused to be cornered, even when she very much was.

  “Well, you see, shockingly, there appears to be a distinct lack of an ancient tome titled ‘The Art of Curse-Breaking Through Questionable Intimacy.’” The smile Eydis offered barely reached her eyes. “Do I begin with candlelight? A poem? Or will a seductive smoulder carry the day?”

  Astra’s brow furrowed. Utterly confused.

  Eydis raked a hand through her hair. “Fine. I admit it. I have no idea what I’m doing.” The confession sounded ridiculous the instant it left her mouth.

  “No idea?” Astra’s eyebrows shot up.

  Eydis immediately regretted it.

  Astra blinked once, then again, slower, surprise softening her lips. For once she looked honestly thrown.

  “You mean to tell me.” Her voice turned weightless, almost teasing despite the fire in her gaze. “that you—the Queen of Shadows who openly takes perverse pleasure in driving people insane—have never even…?”

  Too many words for Astra, yet there they were.

  Eydis arched a brow; amusement finally cracked through. “Fascinating. You really are enjoying this.”

  Astra ignored her, eyes gleaming with something too much like relief. “You really haven’t?”

  Eydis noticed the almost imperceptible tremor in Astra's fingers before she clenched them into fists, as if stopping herself from reaching out.

  From doing something reckless.

  Astra’s next words came softer, hesitant. “But you… you claimed my first—”

  Her voice caught.

  “Kiss.”

  First. Kiss.

  Then it meant—

  First.

  For all her power, for all her otherworldly beauty, Astra had never—

  Eydis’s heartbeat stuttered, then picked up speed. “That wasn’t the… other Eydis.” And right now, she wanted to throw that other version of herself into a pit.

  Colour seeped into Astra’s cheeks. She turned away, trying and failing to bury the flush. It made her painfully human. And somehow, impossibly, all the more beautiful because of it.

  “Not even once?”

  Eydis sighed. “Would you like me to issue a royal decree? Declare my… utter ineptitude in matters of the heart to the entire kingdom? Perhaps get it trending on Tweeter?”

  Astra stared. Then, unexpectedly and disarmingly, she laughed.

  It was soft and unfamiliar. Like laughter remembered from another life. It didn’t belong in a room like this, not between them, not with everything else unravelling.

  And yet it slipped out of Astra like it had been waiting for a chance to exist.

  Something inside Eydis stumbled, tripped over itself, utterly unprepared for the warmth of it. It hit her like a spell cast too close to the heart, and to her horror, she wanted to hear it again.

  Astra shook her head, smiling just enough to be disorientating. “You are… absolutely insufferable, Your Majesty.”

  “And yet, Astra… here you are.” Unable to force down the recklessness, the irresistible urge to push boundaries and test the limits, Eydis added, “Still… drawn to me.”

  Deny this.

  Astra’s breath hitched audibly. Her crimson eyes widened. But…

  Den—

  She didn’t deny it.

  And Eydis, despite her outward confidence, felt a sense of unexpected relief.

  Astra rose from her bed. “So when you mentioned you weren’t a stranger to people undressing you—”

  “My handmaidens, Astra. Dawn. Layers. Pearl buttons. If you find that seductive, I shudder to think what lace gloves do to you.”

  Astra’s lips parted slightly. “Depends on who’s wearing them.” Without giving Eydis space for another quip she added quietly, “I like… lacy things. You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

  Eydis had. Of course, she had.

  Her gaze flicked, involuntary, to the lace choker hugging Astra’s throat.

  A miscalculation.

  A smirk threatened Astra’s lips.

  “I have,” Eydis answered, voice steady, though her fingers tightened in the bedding. The warmth sliding up her spine had nothing to do with fire.

  And everything to do with her.

  Astra hesitated just for a moment, her eyes darting once to Natalia, who was still unconscious, before returning to Eydis.

  “You have to give Natalia what she desires.”

  “And I’d like to keep it to a kiss.”

  Astra took a step forward, then another. “You’d like?”

  Eydis stiffened.

  Astra stopped close enough that Eydis could feel the warmth radiating from her.

  “Lust won’t settle for half-measures.” Astra’s voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the intent woven into every syllable. “Will it?”

  Her gaze gleamed, this time with certainty.

  “Then… what are you suggesting?” Eydis almost stammered.

  Astra moved in one smooth motion, closing the space between them as if she had never once hesitated. Her hands came down on either side of Eydis, bracketing her in an intimate trap. The bed dipped under Astra’s weight, and suddenly, Eydis was drowning in the scent of sandalwood and something distinctly Astra.

  Eydis’s heart faltered—an untrustworthy thing, betraying her at the worst possible moment.

  Astra leaned in slowly. Her fingers ghosted over Eydis’s cheek, and she held her breath.

  “Let me show you, Eydis,” Astra whispered, voice dipping like sin and smoke against her ear, “exactly how to fulfill Natalia’s wish.”

  The tip of her nose traced the curve of Eydis’s ear, so lightly it could have been imagined, but felt it everywhere. A thousand warnings tangled in her mind: rules, lines, consequences.

  But her traitorous gaze dropped to Astra’s lips. Parted. Teasing without effort. Inviting without words.

  And Astra, of course noticed.

  Eydis knew it the moment her lips curved into a gentle smile. The softness, the certainty of it was not thing short of breathtaking, and she realised something with startling clarity.

  There was no escaping this.

  The heat at the base of her spine.

  The way Astra was looking at her.

  The way she was already drowning.

  “You should know… I don’t teach half-measures. And you, Eydis?” Astra leaned in just a little more, cherry-sweet breath ghosting across Eydis’s lips.

  “You need to stop pretending you don’t want to learn.”