Kai gritted his teeth and tried to yank at the collar fastened around his neck. The seamstress hissed and batted his hands away.

"You'll stretch it out!" She fretted, pinning it shut even tighter. Kai tried to escape the relentless collar's grip by craning his neck, but the seamstress didn't like that either, and she squashed his head down.

Kai had no idea that a clothes fitting could be this painful. He'd been standing for half an hour, growing even more restless and restless as this sloth of a seamstress scribbled down his measurements and pinned the fabrics closer and closer to Kai's windpipe.

Kai tried not to think about the fact that these were his coronation clothes. Every time he thought about the fact that he was replacing his father, his heart took a painful squeeze of defiance. Kai shut his eyes tight and tried to slow his breathing.

Sometimes, Kai still expected his dad to come walking into his office and claim the desk chair. Sometimes, he expected him to step out of the hover at press conferences, laughing and patting him on the back.

Kai felt selfish for wishing that his father could be here just to run the country for him. He felt like a toddler again, clinging onto the leg of a man that wasn't there anymore, just because running a country was hard. Kai closed his eyes and tried to think from his father's shoes, during those times that Torin described. He wouldn't have been able to be so brave. But Kai realised then that his father probably felt this same way when he looked back at what his dad accomplished.

Kai faced one of the greatest challenges yet. Luna impending, and a marriage alliance that could either be the best thing that ever happened to him and his country or, quite possibly, the worst.

Kai drew in a resolute breath, and the seamstress batted at his arm again.

Almost in a daze, the palace was whirring with preparations for the coronation and the peace ball Kai didn't even know had started. Menus were passed under his nose for approval. Guest lists were checked and checked again. Party planners met with him daily, speeding through lists of preparations and decisions. Kai liked to say, That sounds great, and Sounds perfect. Do it. It always put a satisfied smile on the planner's face and got the meeting over with quickly.

Kai's preparatory thoughts were already occupied with the calls he'd received from leaders and distinguished guests of the coronation. They all asked, clarified the same question: will Queen Selene be in attendance? Kai affirmed, they thanked him for his time, and they were disconnected. No one had yet refused to go because of Selene's presence, but Kai guessed it was only a matter of time. She was powerful, and she was unpredictable. Her people's history dictated a cruel line of selfish, scheming rulers. And Selene? Too enigmatic to tell. Too mysterious. Everything she did was analysed by the Earthen press nowadays, and they could never quite figure her intentions.

Kai wondered if his people would ever, maybe, come to think of Lunars as anything other than what history had made them to be. And then he wondered if he could ever completely let go of those same prejudices.

•

Selene stared at her reflection.

The artists had put her in mock makeup and dress, to prepare for the coronation and the ball. Her hair was pinned down in dainty ringlets, tumbling over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, her lashes long and lush. Her skin was shiny and perfect, her lips drawn and painted with a pure ruby. Even her eyebrows had been plucked into place for this occasion. Her dress was a simple thing, a regal satin gown swept down to the floor, the bodice leaving Selene's figure curvy and graceful, something it very rarely was. The thin straps framed her shoulders and the neckline plunged into a deep V. The dress was the colour of a dark twilight, and Selene almost expected stars to twinkle in the folds of the endless fabric. It came with elbow length gloves, convenient to disguise the fact that Selene was a cyborg, as Earthens so lovingly liked to refer to it as.

Selene hated the whole getup. She hated every part of it. When she looked in the mirror, she didn't see herself. She saw her mother.

"You look ravishing, my Queen," drawled Thaumaturge Bement from the corner. Selene almost crushed the glove in her grip. She'd forgotten she had company.

Selene turned around, watching the dress swish out in belated movements. "Thank you, Charlotte."

Bement and Winter sat critically in the corner of Selene's quarters, Bement looking bored for one who'd showered Selene with so much flattery and compliments in the past hour, and Winter examining the dress's handiwork. Finally, she nodded approvingly.

"It suits you, your Majesty," Winter announced, "certainly fit for a queen." Selene's lip curled in a smile, and she turned back to the mirror.

Her reflection was too vain. Her lips too blood red, her skin too smooth. Selene called for a maid hastily, and within minutes her face was clean and her clothes were returned to the day dress she was wearing before and Bement and Winter had left. All that remained was the ringlets in her hair. Selene knotted her hair at the nape of her neck and collapsed into a chair, trying to roll out the tension in her temples.

There was something she hated about that Bement woman. She'd hardly met her before, and now she was second in command after Winter, and Selene didn't like her one bit. Her insolence would have been found appealing to the old Selene. Her apparent endless loyalty would have won her instant favour back on Luna, before any of this had happened. But Selene drew a dark sort of look from Bement's eyes when she looked at Selene. If she didn't know better, she would have thought it was a lust for power lurking behind them.

But that couldn't be. All thaumaturges knew their places. They were all skilled with the gift, loyal to the end, and never questioned anything the king or queen said. They were trusted advisors and the most respected officials.

Maybe it was something wrong with Selene. She couldn't trust any of them anymore. She couldn't even trust Winter, no matter how hard she tried to fix whatever had changed in her. Whatever had made her so far from the person she used to be. She was queen, she was power. So what was she so afraid of?

The coronation was in two days. More alliance plotting, in four. Selene dreaded the inevitable ball and the inevitable marriage. But it was coming, and fast.