ততততত

𝐓 𝐎 𝐁 𝐈 𝐍

Imogen's betrothal is to be announced this evening, and I'd be damned if I missed it.

The moment the sun set over the Great Blue ocean, I snuck into Imogen's empty bedroom. I snaked through the secret castle corridors until I was hidden within the walls of the throne room. Through a crack in the stone mortar, I can see the entire ceremony—and Imogen has no idea.

I never told her that I would watch from afar, but I made the decision the moment she revealed that cut on her thigh that will fade into a beautiful scar. Every kiss upon that blemish became a silent promise to her—a promise that Leighton will never dim her moonlight again. So here I am. Protecting my moonlight in the clandestine passages that weave through her castle.

Imogen herself appears like sapphire in her royal navy dress. The thick silk falls behind her in a train, a river of fabric that, for some fucking reason, I want to bathe in. Her golden hair is braided around her head in a crown, decorated with white baby's breath buds. She's illuminating, an almost blinding celestial glow that has Lagulon bowing at her feet.

There's no use lying to myself. I want her. In every way, shape, and form.

If she were some girl I met at the Lagulon shipyards, I'd have stolen her long ago. I'd have brought her back to the homestead by the lake. Everything between us ignites and burns in a squall of heart-pounding heat, and yet, she's the princess. That fucking title changes it all.

If she weren't the princess, I'd be on my knees for her with every passing hour.

I'd beg for her hand in marriage, and she'd shoot me with her goddamn arrow.

I'd give up this whole charade of thieving and just live.

I'd marry her.

Grow with her.

Make babies with her.

Love her in daylight.

Love her at nightfall.

I stagger back from gazing at her, pressing my back against the cool stone. What the fuck is going on with me?

This was never supposed to be about Imogen. I have to think about Aspen.

Aspen. The girl who is chained to the hands of Leighton.

I've wasted weeks with Imogen, telling myself that another night wouldn't send me over the edge, and now my soft heart refuses to let go.

I'm in love with Imogen.

"For fuck's sakes, I love her," I mutter under my breath, taking another glimpse of my moonbeam through the cracked stone. Leighton stands next to her now as her father's voice carries out the wretched truth—she will marry Leighton.

She can't marry Leighton.

My soft heart can't bear to watch her be handed away to a man that will obliterate everything that I adore.

But what the hell can I even do? I can't fix this. I can't swoop in and steal her forever. Imogen and I exist in two different realms, and yet somehow they intersect. When the moon hangs over us, our timelines cross and entwine, and now we're deep into this goddamned mess of kisses and touches and scars...

It's all because of Leighton. All of this. He's the reason I had to run from Adorid and leave Aspen behind. He's the reason Imogen stands before her people, willingly giving herself away to him. He's the reason my father perished. He gave me my scars.

He did all of this.

In an instant, my father's words meet my tongue: "I'm going to kill him." But can I?

"Kill?" a voice laughs, and I swing my attention. There, standing at the end of the corridor with a torch in hand, is Gareth. "You won't get very far if that's your big plan, Tobin."

Gareth. I've been lying my ass off about the passageways to him for days. Each route I gave him never existed, and yet somehow, here he stands within them. He must've found an entrance.

The orange torchlight glow flickers off the features of his face, a sly diabolical smirk etched onto his thin lips. I see him often, but never before has Gareth looked so menacing.

My fingers curl around the hilt of my sword. "How'd you find me?"

"I'm not a complete idiot, you know," he takes a step towards me. "The moment you started lying to me, I knew I had to find out why. I started investigating those trinkets you gave me, and you know what I discovered? Most of them came from the princess."

The flickering torchlight flashes against the blue hues of Gareth's eyes. They're narrowed in, readying to attack with a bitter vile cut.

"So when you left the tavern night after night, delivering lies to me, I followed you. I followed you all the way back to this fucking castle, where I watched you climb up to her bedroom and kiss the motherfucking lights out of her."

My sword unfurls from its sheath in a second, fury waging through me and consuming me until I am an inferno.

He knows.

He knows about everything between Imogen and I.

All those secrets I wanted to be kept at bay are suddenly exposed.

Before Gareth can react, I have him pinned against the wall. My sword waits at the edge of his throat to slice, to bleed, to kill. Gareth drops the torch to our feet, his hands now grasped around my biceps as an attempt to get me to release him.

"Does he know?" I hiss. When Gareth keeps his mouth shut, I ask him louder. "Does Leighton know?"

"Gods, I thought you knew better."

"DOES HE KNOW ABOUT US?"

He gasps, then lifts his head as an attempt to get away from the blade. "No."

I retract my sword from him, then run a hand through my messy brown hair. If Gareth told Leighton about Imogen and I, then I'd suffer the consequences. No, Aspen would suffer the consequences of my stupidity. Or even worse, Imogen would suffer after their marriage. Etiher way, someone would have to pay because I decided to fall in love with the princess.

Gareth retrieves the still-burning torch from the cold ground, holding it between our faces. Long ago, I viewed Gareth as my best friend. In Adorid, we stuck by each other through thick and thin. Now, I don't know the man standing across from me. He's a stranger, a darkness corrupting him that will soon corrode the rest of the lands.

He shakes his head. "It won't ever work between you. Just look at her," he spins around, gazing through the crack in the throne room. "She's remarkable, and you're some runaway from Adorid. Does she even know you're Adoridian?"

"This is none of your concern," I hiss, raising the sword.

When he spins back to face me, he only laughs. "Have you forgotten what's at stake? You're choosing a princess over your goddamn sister!"

I hold my ground. If only my heart could afford to let go of Imogen. Let go, my brain seethes at my heart. LetgoLetgoLetgoLetgoLetgo.

"You can get Aspen back if you just show me the route to that secret room," Gareth urges.

LetgoLetgoLetgoLetgoLetgo. But my heart still clings to the moonbeam that I bask in night after night.

"Everything can go back to the way it was before your father attempted to assassinate Leighton. You and Aspen can return home. She'll be free from being Leighton's handmaiden. You can return to the army as a knight. Isn't that what you want?"

I want normalcy. I want a sweet mundane life. The regular comings and goings of a family.

LetgoLetgoLetgoLetgoLetgo. At once, the voices come in louder, but now it sounds like a six year old Aspen: Come home, Toby.

COME HOME, TOBY.

COME HOME, TOBY.

COME HOME, TOBY.

COME HOME.

"I can't," my voice breaks out. "I can't leave Imogen in his hands. You know what he's like, and I fucking can't—"

"You love her, don't you?" he says, cutting me off.

I do, and it hurts, but I can never say the words aloud in front of Gareth.

"There's nothing you can do," Gareth retorts. "She's going to marry Leighton, and she will become Queen of Adorid. It won't be the last you see of her."

"He's going to destroy her." Heaven forbid he destroy my moonbeam.

"And you're gonna have to let him if you don't want him to destroy Aspen."

It's a cruel choice: Imogen or Aspen. I've avoided this for weeks. Instead, I let myself indulge in the sweet vanilla moonbeam that asks me to stay. I sleep in her bed and kiss away the nightmares. I ride on Neph with her in my arms, her pride swelling as she shoots a sparrow from the sky with her bow. She's everything in this world personified into this celestial creature. She's sweet, yet fiery, and sharp like a sword.

She's stabbed me in the heart time and time again until I've fallen to my knees in utter awe of her.

Yet, there's Aspen, waiting for her big brother to come back and save her. I failed her, and continue to fail her every night that I don't run back to her. I should've disobeyed my father. He told me to flee to Lagulon and to leave her and my mother behind, and now here I am. I should've gone back to them and brought them across Adorid's borders, and then Leighton would have nothing to use against me. Nothing.

Yet, I'm still his pawn, and he knows how to control me through Aspen.

I agreed to come to this forsaken castle because of Aspen. Instead, I came face to face with my greatest obstacle: Imogen.

Gareth sets a hand on his sword. "Leighton's patience is thinning, and you don't want to know what he has planned if you don't hold your end of the bargain."

"I think I fucking know," I mumble. "I've been to hell and back."

I don't think I can return to that barren courtyard again, because if I make it out alive a second time, I doubt I'll be the same. The scars will be more than just a physical memory, they'll be embedded deep inside my psyche that can never be undone.

"The princess will never forgive me for this," I mutter under my breath.

"This isn't about forgiveness. It's about Aspen."

It's about Aspen.

Aspen.

It should've never been about Imogen from the start.

My heart begs at me to stop, but as I straighten my back and return my sword to my belt, I know I'm making the best decision. Aspen needs me, and for the first time in my miserable life, I can answer her call for help. She needs to be wrapped up in the protective arms of her older brother. I can bring her the peace she needed long ago, a hope that can now be restored.

The cost of reuniting with my sister is giving up a great love that can never exist.

I force the bitter truth to repeat inside my brain—Imogen and I can never be.

I have to stop thinking about her bashful, yet beaming smile. I need to forget the way the wind tousles her moonlit hair. Her giggle. The scent of vanilla. Those two grey moons that widen at the sight of me when I climb onto her balcony.

It simply won't ever happen, and yet I've made this woman my entire life. My nights became brighter than my days, only because she illuminated my blackened soul. Now, I've dragged her towards the gates of betrayal, and I'm one step away from abandoning her once and for all.

She'll hate me. Despise me. Seek revenge on me. But in the end, she's the one person who can hunt me down and capture me with one shot.

If she decides to do just that, I'll let her hold me hostage for what I've done.

I'm sorry, Imogen.

"Follow me," my voice drips out, the sound hollow and void of anything, because in that moment, my heart finally lets go.

The moonlight that once filled it disintegrates, and all I'm left with is the shell of a soft-hearted petty predictable thief. With every corner and curve I lead Gareth upon, I let my thoughts of her disappear into oblivion. My purpose is for Aspen now, and in a matter of days, I'll reunite with her again.

Come home, Toby, Aspen's little voice chimes.

Gareth and I step into the bedroom. Ruslan's bedroom. It's empty of most possessions except for his robes folded neatly on his bed and the shimmering golden crown resting upon them. Cobwebs weave themselves in the corners of the space, untouched and unused in so many years. Ruslan is to be kept a secret, a lost memory.

Now, the knowledge of Ruslan will become Adorid's greatest weapon.

Gareth forces out his torch before approaching the crown. Only the moon outside the windows becomes our light. It shadows over the crevasses of Gareth's face, his blue eyes suddenly an ominous glow beneath the shag of his black hair.

He picks up the crown, studying the name etched into the gold. "Ruslan Marius Navarro Mironescu," he says, then looks up at me with a wicked grin. "Who the fuck is this?"

"I can't be sure," I mumble, "but it appears Imogen isn't the true heir to the throne."

Because I'm certain that whoever Ruslan, he is the true heir to Lagulon's throne.

── •✧• ──

I'm sorry for destroying Tobigen, but this is not the end of the story! I don't even know if we're halfway yet. Yes, this is a forewarning that this book will be a BIG BOI.

Make sure to vote, comment, and share (even if you are still recovering from Tobigen being torn apart.)