The hands lifted in front of my face were small, pale, and covered in rings I recognized well enough to know exactly whose hands they were. That recognition did not help. I turned them over slowly, staring at the polished nails and delicate gold bands resting against fingers that were far too slender to be mine, while some frantic part of my brain tried to decide whether this was an impossible new beta feature, a hallucination, or the opening stages of a neurological event serious enough that I should have been considerably more worried about the absence of an ambulance.
I reached for my headset and found hair instead. There was too much of it, smooth and heavy beneath my fingers, and when I dragged both hands upward through it I struck something hard near the side of my head. Pain snapped through my scalp. I froze, touched the same place again more cautiously, then traced the smooth curve until my fingertips confirmed what my eyes had already started refusing to acknowledge.
“What the fuck?”
The voice was Rae’s, except it was coming out of my throat. Mine now, apparently. I heard it resonate through my chest, softer and more musical than anything I had ever produced without the platform processing it. I tried the words again because apparently one impossible data point was not enough for the scientist in me, and the same feminine voice carried down the palace corridor with exactly the cadence I had always given Radiance during sessions.
I slapped both hands over my mouth and immediately became aware of everything else that was wrong. The fitted ivory bodice rose and fell over a chest I had never possessed, the gown pulled tight around a waist shaped nothing like mine, and when I shifted my weight I felt hips, legs, and a center of balance that made my own body seem like something I had misremembered. There was pressure at the base of my spine too, followed a moment later by movement beneath the gown as something long and muscular jerked behind me.
I spun toward it and nearly tangled myself in the skirts. My right foot caught the hem, one hand swept the gown clear, and the other shot out for balance. Somehow I ended upright, feet planted neatly beneath me instead of sprawled across the polished stone. I stared down at myself, breathing too fast, with no idea how I had managed it.
The thing beneath the skirts moved again, and this time the sensation traveled with it. Muscles tightened low against my back and continued into anatomy that should not have existed, drawing the tail closer to my leg with enough physical awareness to erase any remaining hope that it was a costume piece attached to the dress. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to force the corridor, the gown, the horns, and the entire impossible situation back into whatever part of my brain had invented them.
“Your Highness?”
I opened my eyes and found Renee Merrowyn standing a few feet away. For one stupid second, seeing a familiar face almost calmed me. Then the word familiar landed properly and made everything worse.
I knew her. I knew the soft brown eyes, the silver beginning to thread through her dark hair, and the particular tilt of her head that meant concern was about to turn into questions. The platform had generated portraits of Renee before, but none of them had included the tiny scar across the knuckle of her left hand or the faint line beside her mouth that appeared when she was trying not to frown. I knew she disliked people asking about the scar, even though I had no memory of ever writing that detail.
“Renee?”
Her expression softened immediately. “Yes, darling.”
The endearment hit me with a warmth I had no business feeling. My shoulders loosened, and something deep in my chest responded to her voice with the certainty of a child who had been comforted by it a thousand times. Luke Thompson had never been comforted by Renee Merrowyn. Luke Thompson had never met Renee Merrowyn because Renee Merrowyn was supposed to be a fictional woman I had written into a backstory.
“I am perfectly well.”
Renee’s eyebrows rose. “I did not ask whether you were.”
“No, you merely looked as though you intended to.” My shoulders settled back and my chin lifted as I spoke. By the time I finished, my hands were folded neatly at my waist and the tail beneath my gown had gone still.
I stared at my hands for a moment, unfolded them deliberately, and flexed each finger. They obeyed. I lifted one arm, turned my wrist, touched my thumb to each fingertip, then took a breath that came easier when every movement remained mine.
“All right,” I murmured. “I can move.”
Renee took a cautious step closer. “Radiance?”
The name made my stomach tighten. I knew it was hers because I had written it, but hearing it directed at me produced the intimate jolt of recognition I expected from my own name.
“My name is Luke.”
I knew exactly what I intended to say. What came from my mouth was, “I believe I need a moment.”
I stared at Renee so hard that she stopped moving. I tried again, concentrating on each sound. “Luke Thompson.”
“Radiance Soulflame.”
My blood went cold. The wrong name came out clearly and naturally, and hearing myself say it felt disturbingly right in a way that made my skin crawl.
Renee’s concern deepened. “You are frightening me.”
“I’m frightening me too.” That sentence survived whatever was happening between thought and speech, and the fact that it did gave me something to grab onto. I could still say things I meant to say. The problem seemed to begin when I tried to force Earth-specific pieces of myself through whatever had decided Radiance Soulflame was the only identity that belonged here.
I backed toward the wall, gathering the gown so I would not step on it again. “I was at my computer. I had my headset on. We were starting the session, and then the screen changed and now I’m…” I looked down at the ivory bodice and stopped before the sentence became something I was not prepared to finish.
Renee watched me with the careful expression people used when they were deciding whether someone was confused or genuinely ill. “What computer?”
The question should have been simple, but explaining it suddenly felt absurd. I could picture my desk perfectly. I remembered the old baseball shirt, the curl of the headset cord, Samantha’s text on my phone, and the glow of the monitor while the campaign loaded. None of those memories had vanished, but speaking about them here felt like trying to describe an object that did not exist in the language available to me.
“Never mind.” I pressed both hands against my face and dragged them downward until I felt the unfamiliar shape of my jaw again. “No, not never mind. Absolutely mind. I need to figure out what happened.”
“Then come back to your chambers.”
The suggestion made immediate sense, and not only because I desperately wanted privacy. I turned toward Rae’s chambers without needing to ask which way they were. The servant stair around the main hall was two corridors down, and Renee would probably take me to the smaller sitting room if she wanted to keep everyone else away. I made it one step before the certainty of that stopped me for half a heartbeat, but the formal doors at the far end of the corridor opened before I could examine it any further.
A young chamberlain entered in Calder’s black-and-gold livery. “Your Highness, His Majesty asks whether you intend to join him this morning.”
Tomas Vale. Junior chamberlain. Married the previous spring. Terrified of dogs despite growing up on an estate full of them. The information arrived with the same boring certainty as knowing Samantha hated cooking, even though I had never created Tomas Vale and could not remember learning a single thing about him.
“Tell His Majesty I will attend shortly.”
Tomas bowed, visibly relieved that the famously difficult Crown Princess had chosen not to argue with him, and disappeared through the doors again.
Renee studied me for several long seconds, then lowered her voice. “You are exhausted. Whatever happened during your search for Cassia, you have barely allowed yourself to rest since coming home.”
The name hit harder than I expected. Cassia. Grief opened in my chest so suddenly that I stopped breathing. It was not the disappointment I had felt as a player because the storyline remained unresolved. It hurt. Tenderness, anger, longing, guilt, and the sick uncertainty of not knowing whether someone you loved was alive crashed together hard enough that I pressed a hand against the bodice as though I could hold the feeling away from me.
“I shouldn’t feel that.”
Renee stepped closer. “What shouldn’t you feel?”
I could not answer without sounding insane, and I was no longer sure insanity was the worst possibility available. Cassia had been Radiance’s lover. I had invented their relationship. I had written the first version of the woman Radiance ran away with, and now the thought of her being gone hurt badly enough that my throat tightened.
Somehow, I missed her.
Before I could force myself to explain that, the audience-hall doors opened again. Two members of the royal guard entered this time, and the older one bowed deeply enough that I knew immediately this was no longer a request.
“Your Highness, His Majesty has asked that we escort you.”
Renee looked toward me. “We can return to your rooms immediately afterward.”
I wanted to refuse. I wanted to demand a menu, a logout option, or even a fucking pause button. The idea of walking into a room filled with people who expected Radiance Soulflame while I barely knew whether I was awake made my heartbeat jump again, but the guards were already waiting and I had no explanation I could offer them that would improve the situation.
Renee moved beside me as they turned toward the audience hall. I gathered enough of the gown to clear my feet and followed. The fabric settled easily around my legs as I walked, and by the time the doors opened I had stopped paying attention to it.
Whatever fragile control I had managed to scrape together in the corridor became much harder to maintain when I saw how many people were waiting on the other side. The audience hall looked almost exactly like the version I had seen through the platform, except a monitor had never made me feel small beneath the vaulted ceiling or shown me how morning light spread across polished black marble before catching in the gold thread of House Soulflame banners. Courtiers occupied both sides of the central aisle in enough silk, velvet, embroidery, and jewelry to make Rae’s wardrobe look almost restrained, and every head near the doors turned toward me as I entered.
Faces registered as my attention moved across them. Lord Harrowmont, Minister of Trade. Chancellor Daven, one of Father’s senior advisers. Lady Selvara, head of one of Calder’s older noble houses. Other names came with ranks, families, and official positions, but little else.
Lord Harrowmont bowed as I approached. I inclined my head and kept moving.
Lady Selvara curtsied next. “Your Highness. It is good to see you returned safely to Calder.”
“You are kind to say so, Lady Selvara.”
She smiled, apparently satisfied, and I continued toward the dais. Someone farther back whispered something containing the words returned princess, and I looked toward the sound sharply enough that the guilty courtier immediately discovered an intense interest in the floor.
The amusement that gave me faded as the dais drew closer. Queen Consort Elissa Soulflame sat at Father’s right. Mother. The word arrived without effort, followed by a rush of affection strong enough to make my chest tighten. I knew she was socially brilliant, polished almost beyond belief, and largely responsible for teaching Radiance how to function as a future monarch instead of merely a spoiled royal daughter. I did not remember her teaching me any of it.
Elissa watched my approach with careful attention, and I had no idea what she was thinking.
Father was worse. The reigning King of Calder sat at the center in black and gold, and I knew almost embarrassingly little about him beyond the structure I had written into Rae’s background. He loved his eldest daughter, had indulged her more than was probably wise, expected her to become Queen, and had reached the point where loving her no longer prevented him from forcing her to take her responsibilities seriously. Now he was sitting in front of me as a breathing man with a face the platform had made real enough for me to see the lines around his mouth, and he looked like a father who had spent months being worried, furious, and inconvenienced by his daughter in roughly equal measure.
I stopped before the dais. My feet shifted, one hand gathered the gown, and I lowered myself into a smooth curtsy before rising again.
It took another second for what I had just done to register. I had curtsied. Properly. My gaze flicked toward the aisle behind me as the last several minutes rearranged themselves in my head. I had crossed a royal audience hall in heels and a floor-length gown without once wondering how to walk in either of them. I had acknowledged Lord Harrowmont, answered Lady Selvara, dismissed a whispering courtier with apparently exactly the right amount of disdain, and stopped precisely where I was supposed to stand in front of the throne. None of it had required conscious thought.
Oh, fuck.
Radiance knew how to do this. Apparently, so did I.
“Your Majesties,” I said, and my voice carried through the hall without any effort to make it louder. “You requested my presence.”
Father watched me for several seconds. “I did.”
Something in his tone suggested requested had not been his preferred description, and amusement tugged at my mouth before common sense could intervene.
“How fortunate. I was beginning to fear the guards had misunderstood their instructions.”
A sound moved through the court behind me that bore a suspicious resemblance to someone swallowing a laugh. Father remained completely unimpressed as he corrected me.
“You were summoned.”
“There we are. Much clearer.”
Renee kept her expression carefully neutral beside me while Mother pressed her lips together. I could not tell whether she was suppressing disapproval or amusement, and none of the strange knowledge rattling around inside my head supplied the answer.
Father leaned slightly forward. “Do you intend to make this difficult?”
“That depends entirely upon what this is.”
I wanted privacy, a chair, and perhaps fifteen uninterrupted minutes to determine whether I was having the most elaborate hallucination in medical history. Instead, I stood there trading insults with a king my brain had already started labeling Father.
“You disappeared from Calder for months,” Father said.
“I left Calder.”
“Without my permission.”
“I was unaware that adulthood required an application.”
Mother closed her eyes briefly. Whatever unfamiliar knowledge I possessed about Calderian court etiquette did not help with that expression, but I had enough experience with parents to recognize the broad category of please do not make this worse. Father’s expression tightened.
“You are the Crown Princess.”
“I had noticed.”
“This is not a performance, Radiance.”
Offense flared hot and immediate. I had written Radiance as a performer in every sense that mattered, but hearing Father dismiss it as though that part of me were frivolous landed far more personally than it had any right to.
“No,” I replied sweetly. “If it were, I would have requested better lighting.”
The laughter behind me was unmistakable this time. Mother disguised hers badly with a small cough, prompting Father to look toward her.
“Elissa.”
“I said nothing.”
“You did not need to.”
The affection that moved through me at Mother’s answer was immediate, and my smile widened before I made any serious effort to suppress it. Father noticed and returned his attention to me with considerably less patience than he had possessed when I entered.
“Your absence created difficulties for this kingdom.”
“Calder survived.”
“That is not the standard by which I judge the behavior of its future queen.”
The phrase future queen struck somewhere completely different from the reprimand. I wanted that. The certainty surprised me enough that for a moment I almost forgot Father was still speaking to me. Calder, the crown, the authority, the ceremony, the influence, eventually sitting where he sat now, all of it appealed to me with an immediacy that felt nothing like remembering something I had written on a character sheet. I had created Radiance as a woman who wanted her throne on her own terms, preferably without anyone pointing out how much work existed between banquets, and apparently that particular problem had followed me here too.
“I will be Queen.”
“Then perhaps you should begin behaving like a woman who intends to become one.”
The words hurt. My ribs tightened and my tail curled beneath my skirts, but my chin lifted and my expression settled into wounded dignity before anyone in the room could see how cleanly Father had landed the blow. “Is that why I was escorted into court before breakfast? You wished to critique my preparation for a throne I have been preparing for since I could speak?”
“You were not dragged here.”
“The guards were decorative, then.”
“They would not have been necessary if you answered the first summons.”
“Then we have both learned something valuable this morning.”
Father held my gaze, and I held his. Looking away would have been easy, but something about doing it in front of everyone watching us felt intolerable. Whether that was pride, stubbornness, or another part of Radiance that had become mine along with the horns, I did not particularly care. I simply refused to give him the satisfaction.
Mother intervened before either of us tested how long that could continue. “Radiance, your father is angry because you left without considering what your absence required of everyone who remained behind. He is also relieved that you returned alive, although I suspect he would have preferred I leave that portion unspoken.”
Father gave her an annoyed look. “I am attempting to conduct a serious conversation.”
“And doing beautifully.”
The corner of my mouth moved despite myself, which Father caught immediately.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I have done nothing.”
“You are smiling.”
“I inherited it from Mother,” I said.
Mother’s composure cracked far enough for a genuine smile. “Unfortunately, she did.”
Father exhaled and glanced upward as though patience might be stored somewhere in the architecture. “This family will be the end of me.”
“There are eleven of us. Statistically, one of the others is more likely.”
Laughter spread through the court before anyone could suppress it, and Father gave up pretending that he still had complete control of the room. The ease of the exchange bothered me almost as much as the fact that I was enjoying it. I had no private memories of either of these people beyond what I had written into Radiance’s background, yet arguing with them felt absurdly natural.
Father’s expression changed once the laughter settled. “You left to search for Cassia.”
The name stripped the amusement away. Love and grief tightened through me with the same immediacy they had in the corridor. I had written Radiance’s love for Cassia before the campaign began and spent months playing the consequences of losing her, but none of that should have prepared me for this. I did not remember kissing her, holding her, waking beside her, or leaving Calder with her, yet I wanted her to be alive badly enough that the possibility hurt.
“Yes.”
“You returned without her.”
“I am aware.”
“I did not say it to wound you.”
“You have an interesting method of avoiding it.”
Mother watched quietly while Father continued. “I gave you several days after your return because I did not expect you to set aside what happened merely because you crossed the palace gates.”
“I did not lose the trail. It ended.”
He accepted the distinction with a small nod. “Then it ended.”
“I failed.”
The admission came more quietly than anything else I had said since entering the hall. My hands remained composed at my waist even though I could feel tension running through them, and Father’s anger softened enough that he no longer looked quite so much like a king addressing an irresponsible heir.
“You did not find her. That is not necessarily the same thing.”
Hope surged hard enough to make me resent him for giving it somewhere to go. Following Cassia’s disappearance as a player had meant wanting a storyline resolved. Wanting Cassia herself to be alive was something else entirely, and I had no idea what to do with the fact that the distinction mattered so much to me.
“You cannot know that.”
“No,” Father said. “But I know that you searched until you believed there was nowhere else to look.”
That much required no mysterious knowledge. I had returned Radiance to Calder precisely because the search had exhausted every lead available to her, and Father could understand the same visible fact from his side of the story.
Mother rested one hand against the arm of her throne. “You have had three days to breathe. We did not expect you to repair every obligation you abandoned during those three days.”
Father glanced toward her. “I expected at least one council meeting.”
“You always expect one council meeting too many.”
“I am the King.”
“Yes, darling.”
I fought another smile and this time made no real effort to hide it. Father saw it anyway and gave both of us a long look.
“I begin to understand why none of my children fear me.”
“They fear Mother.”
Mother looked pleased. “As they should.”
Whatever Father muttered afterward was too quiet for me to catch, but enough of the court relaxed that the tension around the dais eased. That was when I finally became properly aware of the people standing off to one side of the hall.
The Valenne delegation was impossible to mistake. Their green and silver distinguished them from the black and gold dominating Calder’s court, and Prince Adrian stood at the front of the small group as though being the only six-foot-six man in the room had not already done enough to make him conspicuous. I knew Valenne was a foreign kingdom and Adrian was its second prince because those were basic pieces of campaign information. I also remembered meeting him at the court ball because I had actually played that scene. What I did not know was why a visiting prince was standing in my father’s audience hall while I received what had so far been a very public lecture about running away from my responsibilities.
I looked at him long enough for Adrian to notice. Seeing him at full scale was considerably more irritating than seeing his character model through a monitor. Six-foot-six had been an amusing statistic while I was sitting in Ohio. From five-foot-one, it became an unreasonable amount of man. His formal coat fit closely across broad shoulders, his light brown hair brushed his collar, and when his dark eyes found mine, the corner of his mouth curved into the same knowing smile he had used at the ball.
My breath caught. Heat slipped through me before I understood why, starting somewhere beneath my ribs and spreading lower as my pulse gave one sudden, unmistakable kick. My eyes dropped to the breadth of his chest before climbing back to his face, lingering on the hard line of his jaw, his mouth, and the dimples that deepened when he realized I was staring. I should have looked away. Instead, I wanted another second, then another, and the simple desire to keep looking was so foreign that it took my brain embarrassingly long to identify what the rest of me had already figured out.
Holy shit, he was hot.
The realization landed harder than the attraction itself. I knew what attraction felt like. I had spent most of my adult life attracted to women, and there was nothing ambiguous about the warmth in my body, the sudden awareness of how closely his coat fit across his shoulders, or the ridiculous little thrill that went through me when his attention stayed fixed on mine. This was attraction. It was simply pointed at a man for the first time in my life.
Adrian’s smile widened slightly, and another twist of warmth answered it before I could stop myself. What the fuck was happening to me? The question barely had time to form before the obvious explanation surfaced. Tall enough to be ridiculous. Broad shoulders. Dark eyes. Strong jaw. Confidence. Dimples. Even the fucking smile. I knew the list because I had written it. I had spent months deciding exactly what kind of man Radiance would find irresistible, and apparently whatever had transformed me had taken those preferences as seriously as it had taken her horns, her tail, and her ability to curtsy.
Knowing why Adrian was hitting every button did absolutely nothing about the fact that they were my buttons now.
Adrian finally bowed. “Your Highness.”
I made myself smile as though I had not just undergone a minor sexual-orientation crisis in the middle of my father’s court. “Prince Adrian. How unexpected.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is it?”
That response irritated me immediately, which was considerably easier to deal with than the fact that my eyes still wanted to drop back to his shoulders. I turned toward Father before Adrian could become any more pleased with himself.
“Why is the Prince of Valenne here?”
Father did not answer quickly enough. Mother was watching me carefully, Adrian had straightened from his bow without making any attempt to join the conversation, and several people in the court had gone still in that particular way people did when they already knew the punchline and were waiting for someone else to catch up.
“I dislike this silence,” I said.
“Radiance,” Mother began.
“I dislike that more.”
Father rose from the throne. Mother’s expression sobered, and the room quieted with him.
“There is another reason Prince Adrian and the Valenne delegation are here.”
That did not improve anything. “And what reason would that be?”
Father descended the first step of the dais. “Before you left Calder, discussions had begun between our court and Valenne concerning a closer relationship between the two kingdoms.”
No forgotten conversation surfaced to explain what kind of relationship he meant, so I worked with what he had actually said. “Trade?”
“No.”
“Military cooperation?”
“Not primarily.”
“Then perhaps you could save both of us time and tell me.”
Mother rose as well, descending to stand beside him. “The discussions concerned the future of both royal houses.”
“Wonderful. I am delighted for both royal houses. What does that have to do with me?”
Father looked toward Adrian, and I followed his gaze. For the first time since entering the hall, the confidence I had somehow managed to maintain faltered. Adrian was watching me without the teasing amusement he had shown a moment earlier, and I could not tell whether he already knew what Father was about to say or whether he was simply much better at standing quietly than I was.
Father turned back to me. “Valenne proposed that the relationship between our kingdoms be secured through a union of our houses.”
I frowned. “A union how?”
Mother drew a quiet breath while Father answered without embellishment. “Marriage.”
For a moment the word meant nothing beyond itself. Royal marriages happened. I knew that much. I still did not understand why Father was looking at me.
“Whose marriage?”
Nobody answered immediately, and my gaze moved from Father to Mother and finally to Adrian. He remained several paces away, enormous and infuriatingly composed, while the shape of the conversation assembled itself in my head.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“Radiance.”
“No. I asked whose marriage, and everyone in this room suddenly forgot how language works. I am giving you the opportunity to choose a less offensive answer.”
Mother stepped closer. “Nothing has been finalized without speaking to you.”
“That is a terrible sentence.”
“It was meant to reassure you.”
“It failed.”
Father’s expression remained firm. “Both crowns have agreed that a marriage between our houses would strengthen Calder and Valenne.”
I stared at him. “A marriage between our houses.”
“You are Calder’s heir.”
“I am very aware of that.”
“And Prince Adrian represents Valenne in these discussions.”
My attention snapped toward Adrian again. His smile was gone, but there was still nothing in his expression that told me whether any of this surprised him. Anger rose hot under my skin. My family had apparently carried the discussions far enough to bring a foreign prince into court before anyone thought to mention that I was the woman being discussed. The phrase my family registered somewhere in the back of my mind, weird enough that under any other circumstances I might have stopped to examine it, but I had much more immediate problems.
“You have been negotiating my marriage while I was gone.”
Father did not retreat from it. “We have been discussing a possible match.”
“With me absent.”
“You were not available to be consulted.”
“I was not dead.”
“No one said you were.”
“You apparently decided that was close enough.”
“Radiance,” Mother said, her voice firmer now. “Your father said possible.”
The angrier I became, the more pleasant my smile got. I had written Radiance to be romantic, theatrical, spoiled, and fiercely protective of her right to decide what happened to her own life, but I did not need to consult a character sheet to understand why this infuriated me. They were discussing my marriage. I was the woman standing here being informed of it after everyone else in the room apparently already knew.
Father turned slightly toward Adrian before addressing me with the formal weight he had clearly been working toward since the conversation began. “Radiance Ember Soulflame, Crown Princess and heir of Calder, Prince Adrian of Valenne has been presented to our house as your prospective husband. Both crowns have agreed to move forward with discussions toward a formal betrothal, provided the match can be made acceptable to those involved.”
The court was silent enough that I could hear the faint crackle of the braziers along the walls. I looked at Father, then Mother, and finally Adrian while my smile settled into something so perfectly gracious that even I could feel the danger in it.
“Have they?”