Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was the middle of the night, and Elara was on the same cliff that Enzo had nearly careened them off weeks before.
The sky glowed burgundy, bathing the cliff in streaks of red. Enzo had slipped out just one palace horse, much to Elara’s chagrin at having to share with him after last time.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked, clenching and unclenching his fist. Light splayed and dimmed from it, and Elara nodded.
‘I want you to attack me with your light.’
‘And if the shadows don’t come?’
‘I’ve been turning it over in my head. That night, why my shadows became trapped. When my magick truly thought I was going to die, it fought. My shadows tried to protect me from that zealot’s light. After that night, I wasn’t able to summon them, but I’d never been placed in a position where I believed I was going to die. Even with Ariete—my prophecy had just been told. I knew I wouldn’t die, so my shadows never came.’
Enzo raked a hand through his curls as he drew his sword, tossing it between his hands.
‘So I have to try and kill you?’
Elara smirked. ‘It shouldn’t be hard. I’m sure you think about it every day.’
Enzo stuck his tongue in his cheek, a resolve settling over him. ‘Fine. But we need a safe word, if it gets too much, or you change your mind—’
‘No,’ Elara replied. ‘No safe word, no way out. You have to try and kill me. And mean it.’
She raised her own sword easily, and pointed it to the cliff. ‘Even if I beg, even if I plead, drive me to the cliff. Make me think you’re going to throw me over it. You forced me to tell the truth before. Tonight, I want you to force me to use my shadows.’
Enzo cricked his neck, and a veil fell over him. Flames ignited in his eyes, and fear began to pound in her heart.
‘This had better work,’ she muttered to herself, and then Enzo struck.
Light poured from his blade, bathing the entire cliff as it battled the deep scarlet night. Elara grunted as she parried his strike. Enzo had been going easy with her in training. Here, she was no match against the brute force of Prince Lorenzo, all-powerful son of Light. Her arm was wrenched down, no defence as her sword fell. Her survival instincts set in as she threw a swarm of illusory bats at Enzo. She lunged for her sword as Enzo blasted the bats into nothing, advancing again. Elara dropped to the ground, hands splayed as she forced her illusions over it. Enzo staggered as he saw a roiling, shifting sea of grass, just as she had willed it.
But he jumped deftly towards her, and struck her to the ground, making her lose the thread of her illusion.
She flung her sword up to block his blow, but he wrenched her wrist, and she cried out as he forced her to drop it.
The point of his blade pressed against her drumming heart, as Elara heaved. And then light burst from its point.
She screamed as it enveloped her. She shook, muscle memory taking over as it put her right back in the place she’d been eighteen years before. She wailed, but Enzo only gritted his teeth as more light poured through her.
But there was no heat in his light. No pain.
‘Why aren’t you hurting me?’ she shouted.
‘I shouldn’t need to burn you from the fucking inside out,’ Enzo hissed. ‘Why isn’t it working?’
She rolled on to her side as his light dimmed. ‘I suppose I just don’t believe you’re really going to kill me.’
Enzo’s jaw clenched as he paced away.
Elara stood. ‘Stop. Holding. Back.’ She raised her sword again. ‘What? Has the Lion gone soft?’
Enzo gave a warning sound as he raised his weapon. She danced around him, jabbing and feinting as he defended her strikes with ease.
‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ he said, as they got closer and closer to the cliff’s edge. ‘I swear, Elara. If you fall off that cliff, I won’t follow you.’
‘And why would you? I thought you hated Asterians.’ She spat at his feet, and Enzo snarled, the blow against her sword harder this time, the light that burst from it blinding her momentarily.
‘I thought you hated me ,’ she said, and lunged again, as she launched the illusion of a nightwolf at him.
He grunted in frustration, stumbling as she tiptoed backwards towards the cliff’s edge. The fear was well and truly within her now. But she had to face it. She couldn’t carry on being haunted. By her parents. By Lukas. Most of all, by Sofia.
‘My parents killed your mother,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what you claim?’
She laughed coldly, as she reached the edge. Enzo rushed closer in and grabbed her by the back of her neck, his other hand gripping the fabric at her hip, fire rippling off him in waves. It seared through her, and Elara welcomed it.
He heaved, his full lips so close that if she so much as shifted, they’d graze hers.
She swallowed, as she fixed her hate-filled gaze upon Enzo’s, raising her chin. His grip tightened in her hair. She had never seen a hatred like it, what burned within his eyes for her. And she understood. Because she hated herself too for what she was about to say. But she didn’t let it stop her.
‘I’m sure the Light-loving bitch deserved it.’
There was a flash of light so powerful that it knocked Elara back, and suddenly, there was no ground beneath her.
There wasn’t a sound around Elara as she fell. Almost as though time had slowed, she saw Enzo at the precipice, clenching and unclenching his fists, a look of shock mixed with rage upon his beautiful face.
She reached for her shadows, felt them twisting and writhing within her. But they couldn’t push past the memories.
The waves crashed below.
Oh gods. She was going to die. She was really going to die.
She jabbed her hands out, again and again, but the shadows wouldn’t come.
And she finally began to scream.
Time sped up, her hair whipped around her, her skirt tearing in the unforgiving riffs of the howling wind. She jerked her neck, seeing the crash of the waves growing nearer and nearer. Her body would shatter on the rocks, if it didn’t break upon the sea’s impact.
She looked back up, and to her horror, saw Enzo jump.
He flew through the skies, body plummeting towards hers.
‘No,’ she tried to shriek, but the wind stole it from her. Enzo’s body collided with hers, and she sucked in a breath as he clutched her tightly. The two stared at each other, stricken, as they continued to fall, fall, fall, spinning in each other’s arms.
‘This is how I die,’ he shouted over the wind, in a matter-of-fact tone.
No, that just wouldn’t do. Enzo had followed her off a cliff. The man who hated her most in the world. The least she could do was try to save his life.
Elara tried to move her lips, but she was paralysed as they plummeted to their deaths.
‘You told me you were a dragun, Elara,’ Enzo said through clenched teeth, his grip unyielding around her.
Her eyes, flooded with terror, found his. Oh skies, she could see the fury writhing in them. But his warrior’s tone was steady. The ocean drew closer.
‘Spread. Your. Fucking. Wings.’
Elara closed her eyes, flaring her arms wide.
‘Please,’ she begged her shadows. ‘For him, if not for me.’
Light shone around her as Enzo let go of any semblance of control, and when her shadows writhed forth, this time they seemed to careen desperately towards his light—the light that flowers had bloomed from, that hadn’t hurt her even when she’d begged it to.
Something within her shifted, a deep weight on her chest.
It cracked open, that lump of obsidian, shadows spewing from it. Streams of blackness poured in torrents from Elara’s flailing fingers, and suddenly both she and Enzo rocketed back upwards, soaring into the crimson sky.
Elara let out a roar of delight, and Enzo looked around, startled to discover they were both still very much alive, and riding on the back of a creature made of shadow. A lion. A winged lion. Elara could have laughed if she hadn’t left her stomach miles below.
The lion swooped, and they spun and soared through the air as Elara continued to whoop and holler.
‘I did it!’ she shouted above the roar of the wind as Enzo clutched her desperately from behind.
‘I think I left my balls back there,’ he shouted over the clamour to her. Elara simply smiled, arms raised in the air as the wind whipped her hair.
With another cheer, she guided the lion in an arc, marvelling at how solid the shadows felt. Even Lukas hadn’t been able to give this kind of substance to his.
Enzo let out a disbelieving laugh as he looked below to the crashing sea.
‘You’re as insane as Sagitton.’
‘I know!’ Elara turned around to him then, and he stilled, his smile slackening. Her hair billowed around her, and she could almost feel herself glowing.
‘You came for me,’ she said. Enzo shrugged, a lazy smile creeping on to his face. With a burst of power, he fed his fire into the shadow lion’s maw so that it billowed out of its mouth.
‘Show-off.’ She winked at him. Her hair drifted past his face, and she felt his hands digging deeper into her waist as they soared.
With a press of her palms, her shadows dived in a huge drop towards the ocean as she screamed in delight, Enzo shouting in alarm. At the last moment, she pulled the shadow lion up and leaned forwards to skim the lapping cobalt waves.
‘Wow,’ she breathed, looking back again to Enzo.
‘Wow indeed,’ he said raggedly, his breath still lost on the wind. She slowed the shadows so the lion could fly smoothly across the ocean, the sea spray cooling their faces. Elara swung herself round to face Enzo.
‘Now who’s the show-off?’ He smiled. ‘A little bit of power, and you’re a renegade.’
She sighed as she draped her back across the lion’s mane.
‘You have no idea how good it feels,’ she moaned, her arms still trailing the water as they flew. ‘I feel invincible.’
‘Power looks good on you, princess,’ he said, his voice deep.
Elara regarded him. ‘What I said…I’m so sorry. You know I didn’t mean it. I just had to make you—’
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘And I didn’t mean to push you off a cliff.’
Elara made an amused sound as she eased back a little, craning her neck to look at the skies. The deep red had begun to lighten as the morning crept in. Gold mingled with crimson and burnt orange; pure bronze seemed to glitter through the tapestry.
Her lips slightly parted, she looked back to Enzo, who had been looking at the sky with a yearning in his eyes. She willed the lion to climb higher, until they broke through a mist. She stopped it, the lion’s beating shadow wings the only sound.
A floor of fluffy clouds surrounded them, the light enveloping them, completely unfiltered. It bled out in a rainbow, a kaleidoscope containing every colour conceivable. She saw violet rays reach out to the South, to Asteria. The gold washed over them. Rose stretched further north to Aphrodea. She reached a hand out, marvelling at how the Light splashed her skin. There was no tension. No fear, as she let it touch her.
For the first time, she marvelled at it.
‘Do you ever…’ She shook her head. ‘Do you ever wonder how the Stars created this?’
She turned to Enzo. ‘I mean…the sheer vastness of it, the sheer beauty. How can beings so cruel have made it so?’
Enzo shook his head, looking to the Light as it made his every feature shine. ‘Perhaps there is something greater out there,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Perhaps there is something more divine.’