Chapter 98: Harry Styles - From the Dining Table
"How have you been? Are they treating you right?" he asked, eyes searching her face as though he could read the truth in the lines around her eyes.
"I’m fine," she said. "You?"
Luna turned to him fully now, and her stomach sank at what she saw. He looked thinner, his skin paler, his eyes a little too hollow, as if sleep had abandoned him weeks ago. Even his hair, usually wild and charming, looked tired.
"Surviving," Kyllian said with a shrug that carried the weight of a thousand sleepless nights.
Luna reached out and touched his face gently, her fingers brushing over his cheek. "Kyllian..."
"I’m okay," he said quickly. "I just... miss breathing without feeling like part of me’s gone."
Her heart ached.
"How are my parents?" she asked softly, hoping to focus on anything else.
A shadow crossed Kyllian’s face. He looked away, lips tightening. "I’m sorry, Luna. I haven’t been to the castle since you left. I... I couldn’t."
Luna’s fingers dropped from his cheek, curling into her lap.
"Kyllian... please...You have to check on them. Father may have banished me, but I’m sure he didn’t have a choice. He’s still my father. I know him. I know this must be hurting him more than he lets on. He needs you."
He stared at her, torn between his own pain and the love he still felt for her. How could she ask him to walk back into the castle that helped keep her way from him? To look the King in the eye, knowing he’d chosen the enemy?