Chapter 176: Whispers Beneath the Moonlight
She shouldn't have wandered. Not here. Not tonight. But the moonlight had tugged at her like a whispered dare, and her aching heart had obeyed.
The halls behind her buzzed with polished masks and tight smiles, but out here — on the balcony wrapped in ivy and sea-salted wind — everything felt too still. Too sharp. Like the night had teeth.
The girl in the gown stood alone at first, glowing faintly in the pale gold silk that clung to her like a promise. She leaned against the railing, chest rising slowly, as if she could exhale her way into peace. She didn't look like a threat. She looked like poetry trapped in flesh.
But someone was watching.
Not from the ballroom. Not from the hallway. From much closer.
A quiet scrape. Barely a sound. But the girl turned like she felt it.
And there — emerging from the shadows — came another.
She didn't apologize for the intrusion. She didn't need to.
She was taller, older, but not old. Her presence was commanding without trying to be. Silvery - gold eyes flicked down the girl's figure, then back up, curious, calculating — like she was solving something in real time. Her dress matched the moonlight. Her voice was velvet.
"Didn't mean to eavesdrop," she said smoothly, stepping forward. "But someone was being heartbreakingly sweet over the phone. Hard not to notice."
The girl blushed, immediately defensive. "I wasn't sweet."
"You were," the older one smirked. "Sweet, and real, and a little too honest for a place like this."
Their eyes met and held. Not the kind of glance traded across gala rooms or polished introductions. Something older. Stranger.
Something that might unmake a future before it begins.
Words followed — light, teasing things. Small truths offered like olive branches. Names, too many of them. Histories stitched tight with legacy and expectation. But none of it changed the growing pressure between them, that hum in the air like the first flicker of static before a storm breaks open.
They weren't supposed to find each other.
And yet, the girl in the moonlight said something — quiet, deliberate — that cracked the atmosphere in two:
"If Artemis were a real girl… she'd probably be like you."
For just a second, the air held its breath.
The older girl didn't reply right away. She didn't need to. Her eyes said everything — recognition, disbelief, a flicker of something far more dangerous.
They stood together as the wind stirred the hem of their gowns and pulled stories through the trees. The ballroom behind them faded into a dream. The stars above them blinked quietly, as if uncertain what to make of what they'd just witnessed.
And neither girl noticed the shadow watching from the corridor, cloaked in silk and secrets — fingers clenched around the edge of the doorframe, unseen eyes burning.
Something had shifted.
And now, it couldn't be undone.