Page 45 of Shadows of Stardust

Perhaps it’s a tactic meant to distract and disarm, to make me believe he truly carries no animosity.

Or perhaps he’s much better at this game than I might have initially given him credit for.

What better way to endear yourself to the audience than to be the handsome—by objective standards, anyway—jilted lover treating the male you were thrown over for with humility and magnanimity?

It’s not a poor strategy, all things considered.

The hovercams are still recording us at an uncomfortably close proximity, and I suppose I should say something. Standing here in surly silence likely isn’t making the best impression on that same intergalactic audience who are supposed to be rooting for my and Roslyn’slove story.

I clear my throat. “Right. Well. If she’s forgiven you, that’s all that matters.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” he says, all good humor. “And it’s wonderful, isn’t it? The way you two have fallen for each other? Never would have expected something like that to happen.”

I choke back a scoff.

Never would have expected it?

Why? If Roslyn could supposedly have fallen for one of the pretentious idiots here, then there’s no reason why—

No, that’s beside the point, and probably not what he’s implying, anyway.

I narrow my eyes, but I still can’t read him. Still can’t find any hint that he’s trying to get the upper hand.

“It, uh. It is. Wonderful, I mean. Roslyn and I.”

Strike me down now and bury me. Right where I stand.

Rhevar flawlessly picks up my pathetic thread of conversation again and gives me one more clap on the shoulder. “I wish the best of luck to you both. And don’t be a stranger, eh? We’re glad to welcome you to the cast.”

He gives a brief gesture to a group of contestants gathered for breakfast and I garner myself a few more nods and hums of agreement before Rhevar takes his leave.

A few of the cameras follow, and though it might just be my over-wrought nerves imagining it, the pressure in the pavilion seems to have lowered a few notches. Conversations resume, and beyond pointed stares from a handful of contestants, I don’t draw any undue notice.

At least until Roslyn reappears a moment later. She’s holding two plates of food and seems to have lost her Volbherran friend.

“Here,” she says, thrusting one of the plates toward me. “Let’s eat.”

“Your friend isn’t joining us?”

Another storm-cloud passes over Roslyn’s expression as I take the plate and she stalks toward the entrance to the pavilion, muttering low enough so only I can hear. “No. Juni thought it would be nice for both of us to have a sweet, romantic breakfast our first day as a couple.”

For both of us… and the cameras, it would seem, as we’re swarmed again.

Another canny player, this Volbherran.

Silently, I follow Roslyn a few meters down the beach to where she plunks down at one of the tables set on the sand and digs into her food.

She doesn’t say a single word to me the entire meal.

Not that I’m much more talkative.

Hopeless, the two of us.

The longer the silence stretches, the fewer cameras stick around to film us. I’d like to say I’m relieved to see them go, but as the last one drifts away a new problem presents itself.

What happens to us when production decides we’re not living up to their expectations?

What happens when better storylines take up their attention, and they decide we’re not worth the price they’re paying us?

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