Chapter 49: Smile Like You Mean It, Your Majesty

Naya stood on the small platform in her chambers while Mira adjusted the final fold of fabric along her shoulder, the gown heavier and more elaborate than anything she’d worn since the wedding itself.

"I don’t understand why it needs this many layers," Naya said.

"Tradition," Mira said simply, already reaching for a pin.

Kael’s voice carried through the half-open door from the hallway. "I still think the silver would’ve been better."

"Nobody asked you," Naya called back.

"I offer opinions freely. It’s a gift."

Naya turned toward the mirror once Mira stepped back to survey her work, and for a moment she simply stood there, studying the reflection staring back at her. It wasn’t vanity that held her attention. It was the strangeness of recognizing herself at all. The woman in the mirror carried herself with a steadiness the girl forced into Elara’s wedding dress months ago never could have managed.

She was no longer the frightened replacement bride who’d walked down that aisle expecting to be discarded the moment the ceremony ended.

The door opened fully, and Ronan stepped inside to escort her. He stopped just past the threshold, his eyes moving over her, and something in his expression shifted.

"Something wrong?" Naya asked, teasing.

"No," he said.

A beat passed before he added, "You look beautiful."

The compliment landed differently than it would have from anyone else, mostly because Ronan didn’t offer them casually or as habit. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, so she simply let herself accept it.

He crossed the room and reached for the small clasp at her collar, adjusting it with careful fingers even though it hadn’t needed fixing. The gesture felt more intimate than the words that came before it, and Naya let him finish without saying anything at all.

"I’m nervous," she admitted once they reached the corridor leading toward the gathering.

"You don’t need to impress everyone in that room," Ronan said.

"That’s easy for you to say."

He considered her for a moment. "Smile like you mean it."

"Why?"

"Because they’re waiting for you to look afraid."

The words settled over her, sharper than she expected, the first time he’d said so plainly that people were watching her specifically for signs of weakness. She straightened her shoulders and let the fear settle somewhere quieter, somewhere she could manage.

The room fell silent the moment they entered together, every head turning at once. Some nobles bowed immediately. Others hesitated, clearly still uncertain how seriously to take her standing. Naya recognized a handful of faces from Kael’s lessons, filing each one away automatically.

Rather than press close to Ronan’s side the way she once might have, she walked beside him, matching his pace exactly.

"My Queen," Ronan said, introducing her to the assembled court, and the title carried a weight she felt settle over the entire room.

He hadn’t called her his wife. He’d placed her beside him, not behind him, and Naya understood exactly what that distinction meant to everyone watching.

An older Alpha approached shortly after, his tone polite but carrying an edge she recognized immediately.

"Forgive my bluntness," he said, "but given the brevity of Your Majesty’s experience in these matters, one wonders how prepared you truly are for the responsibilities ahead."

Naya remembered Kael’s lesson immediately. Don’t react before understanding the intention. She let the comment settle before answering.

"Experience is earned through time," she said calmly. "I imagine you weren’t born understanding these responsibilities either."

The Alpha tried again, shifting his angle. "Certainly not. Though I had the benefit of a proper education in court matters from birth."

"Then you understand," Naya said, "that education continues well past birth. I’d hope a man of your experience wouldn’t underestimate anyone still learning."

A few nearby nobles exchanged impressed glances, and the Alpha, finding no further angle worth pursuing, offered a stiff nod and excused himself. Ronan remained silent throughout the entire exchange, letting her handle it completely on her own.

Kael appeared moments later, grinning broadly. "Congratulations," he announced, loud enough for several people nearby to hear. "You survived your first official assassination attempt."

"That’s not what that was," Naya said, laughing despite herself.

Ronan shot his brother a warning look.

"I told you you’d be good at this," Kael said, entirely unbothered.

"You told her she might accidentally start a war," Ronan said.

"And she hasn’t," Kael said. "Yet."

Naya shook her head, though the tension of the exchange with the Alpha had already faded into something warmer, surrounded by the two of them bickering like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later, once the crowd had thinned slightly, Naya pulled Ronan aside.

"Why didn’t you intervene when he challenged me?" she asked.

"Because you didn’t need me to," Ronan said.

"What if I’d failed?"

"Then I would have stepped in."

She let that settle, understanding something shifting quietly beneath his answer. His protection had changed shape entirely from what it once was. In the beginning, he’d guarded her because he believed she was vulnerable, fragile, something that needed managing. Now he protected her because he trusted her to stand on her own first, stepping in only if the ground genuinely gave way beneath her.

They found a quiet corner away from the crowd, the noise of the gathering fading into a low hum behind them.

"I’m beginning to understand why being Queen is exhausting," Naya said.

"You haven’t even reached the difficult part," Ronan said.

She groaned, and he smiled at the sound.

"You smiled," she said.

"No."

"You did."

"I didn’t."

She stepped closer, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him, close enough that neither of them needed to say anything further. He leaned in, and the kiss that followed was brief but certain, nothing rushed about it despite the crowded room only steps away.

A voice called for the King and Queen somewhere nearby, and Naya pulled back first, a reluctant smile tugging at her mouth.

"Duty calls," she said.

"Unfortunately," Ronan said.

They turned back toward the gathering together, and Naya found, walking beside him into the noise and light of the Moon Court, that the fear she’d carried into the room earlier had quietly settled into something else entirely.

Something closer to belonging.