Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next few weeks weren’t better than her first days in Helios, but they weren’t worse either. Enzo’s cruelty was replaced with brooding silence. In fact, if they weren’t talking about training, they didn’t talk about anything at all. Which suited Elara just fine.
He didn’t bring up the Light again. Nor did he wield it in front of her. Instead, they focused on drills, hand-to-hand combat and honing Elara’s illusions.
Enzo showed her how to seamlessly combine her magick with her weapon-fighting. He encouraged her to be imaginative with her illusions, to make the opponent see a ravine, or a mountain; to make them feel like they were falling, or flying.
Her dreamwalking was advancing too. Most nights, she would do it wherever she could. Usually into the dreams of unsuspecting palace staff, occasionally Leonardo’s, and once, even Merissa’s. The glamourer had been delighted with that one, and they’d fed swans upon a rose-tinted Aphrodean lake before Elara had awoken.
She reluctantly fell into a peaceful routine. Merissa would pass by to glamour her for the day, followed by Leonardo—who now insisted she call him Leo, as Enzo did. The general would deliver her fruit from his mother, and then escort her to her training with Enzo. He had even begun to talk to her more often, telling her about parts of the palace that they passed, or commenting on the art and paintings and what they symbolized. After training with Enzo, she’d soak her pains away in the baths, nibble on sweet treats and catch up on the palace gossip with Merissa in the kitchen, and then head to bed, preparing to dreamwalk through the night once more.
But something inside her knew that this peace couldn’t last.
She was back in her throne room. It was her birthday. Her parents were weeping as she trembled.
‘Everything we did was to protect you, Elara,’ they said.
‘How could you keep this from me?’
Sofia paced nervously behind her as the shadows upon the walls grew darker.
‘We thought if we could keep you here, sheltered from Ariete, then he would never find out.’
The dream morphed, and she was dancing with Lukas, only a few hours later, around and around the ballroom as her prophecy chimed in her head. A bloodied card fluttered to the ground, the skies flashed red, screams rang, and Elara knew who had descended from the Heavens.
The King of Stars, so achingly handsome when he appeared that Elara’s eyes watered to look at him. And that perfect, cold face transformed into rage as he conjured two blades in a flash of starlight, and plunged them through both her parents within a breath.
Elara screamed, kneeling over them as their blood soaked her powder blue birthday dress.
‘I heard your little prophecy,’ Ariete said, his voice as lilting and smooth as honey, yet so cruel. ‘Don’t worry that lovely little head about it. I’ll make sure it never comes to pass.’
Red starlight flared from him, and bodies in the ballroom began to drop. She screamed, eyes searching for Sofia and Lukas, before the light blinded her. But while she saw the bodies of her parents and the other fallen guests disintegrate, the starlight only washed over her.
He stood, eyes flashing. ‘Impossible,’ he breathed.
And then she ran.
Elara woke from the nightmare, pushed herself out of sweat-drenched sheets, blindly staggered to the balcony doors and flung them open.
The mild night air swept over her, and she took in deep gulps of it, hands pressed to the smooth, cool marble of the balcony. The sky above her was a deep red, which, she now knew, meant it was the middle of the night in Helios. As she stood there, the pain of the memories from the nightmare slowly faded, but her palms itched with the desire to get rid of the roiling energy that had built up. With nothing else to do, her mind now wide awake, she practised her illusions.
Between her hands, she began to create a miniature winged lion. To calm her mind she focused on copying exactly the illustration in her book, open from where she’d left off the night before, making sure that its mane was streaked with gold and scarlet, that its wings were plumed with lustrous white feathers. When she was done, she even added the illusion of fire to it, the little lion pacing along the balcony’s edge as it breathed flames.
She looked around. Enzo had been teaching her to throw her illusions the last few days. To be able to reach her magick over great distances. She looked to a balcony across the garden from her, and picked up her illusion.
‘Perfect,’ she murmured.
If she could get her lion to reach all the way to the opposite side of the palace and back, without breaking, she would allow herself to go back to sleep.
With a little lurch, it stretched out its wings and soared across the garden, as straight as an arrow, perching on the balcony across the way. Excitement thrilled through Elara. She was about to guide it back to her when the doors opened, and a figure stalked out on to the balcony she was aiming at, breathing heavily. She stilled, arms out in front of her. The figure braced themselves on the curve of the balcony, one side of their face hidden as they looked up to the sky. She squinted, the distance and darkness making them hard to identify. But then they reached a hand up, pushing their hair back, and she would have known that gesture anywhere.
‘Stars’ sake, why me?’ She cast a poisonous look to the sky. If she remained extremely still, maybe Enzo wouldn’t notice her. He looked preoccupied, his head still tilted up to the stars, his expression bleak. But he was so far away she might have imagined it. Elara took one tentative step back, then another. She could do this.
Then the lion lit up with the flames she’d blessed it with.
It was imaginary, of course—it wasn’t like he would feel the heat—but Enzo wasn’t blind. She forced every muscle in her body to freeze as she cringed. Enzo looked at the creature, frowning. Then he glanced around. His eyes caught her figure, and he stilled.
May as well lean into it , she thought to herself, wincing as she raised a hand in a half-hearted wave. She heard a soft chuckle echoing on the night breeze as he raised a hand back.
He looked at the lion again, pointing to it as if to ask, ‘Was this you?’
Since she couldn’t shout across the garden, she simply raised her hands to move the mini mythas. As it flew back to her, she saw a mocking clap from him and narrowed her eyes.
Her lion disappeared in a shimmer, and she stayed, looking at him across the garden as he looked at her.
Without taking his eyes off her, he crooked a finger out, and Elara gasped as a thin stream of light reached across the pavilion and through the bars of her balcony. It formed letters, projected on to the tiles and Elara read them.
Well done.
She snorted, looking back at him.
His hand swirled again, and the letters changed.
What are you doing out here? Except for gawping at my muscles again.
She looked in abject horror back to him. ‘I am not,’ she hissed, and the night air was quiet enough that her response must have echoed through the night to him. He kissed a bicep, grinning.
Then his hand moved again. I’ve been thinking a lot these few weeks about what Isra said.
Elara’s breath hitched. The letters changed again. I think we should try with your shadows again.
Her eyes flew to Enzo’s.
He put his hands up in supplication, before swirling them through the air once more. The next sentence read: Fear is just a monster, Elara. And monsters can be slain.