The Luna Choosing Game

As Nicholas asked out Lilliana, I stood in the back of the crowd of watching girls, my heart down on the

floor.

I had no right to be upset. I knew that. I had given up the right to be upset a long time ago.

Yet I couldn’t deny the feeling.

First, Nicholas had returned the handmade gift I made him, and now he was asking another girl on a solo

date.

According to the rules of the competition, solo dates were only supposed to be awarded after a girl performed well in one of the events.

Of course, from what I’d heard, the rules also stated that a prince could ask any girl out at any time, sol supposed such a thing wasn’t unheard of.

But for it to be Nicholas who asked for the first solo date felt like the hardest pill to swallow.

I understood that the candidates were invited here to the palace to date the princes. Soon, Nicholas would pick someone to marry.

already made it abundantly clear that he

him to be. We’d both moved on since then. It wasn’t my business who he dated, or who

standing there in the entryway to the dining room, holding Lilliana’s hand with only the barest touch, he didn’t

the more he seemed like a shell of the man I once knew. It hurt me to see. I couldn’t stand

minute, I turned away from the spectacle and headed into the gardens

western tree line. The sky was painted in a palette of

moment, I simply enjoyed the view. I wondered if Elva was looking out the window to see it. We had never gotten much time to appreciate

she

a male voice

and turned to face the

hair out of place or a speck of

fringe than the other

he was the head of the royal guards.

but I had

pointed him out.

stared at me with a severe expression. I felt much like an

more,” he said, voice gruff. “Are you lost? The banquet is