Heavenly Bodies

Chapter Sixty

CHAPTER SIXTY

‘I wish we could stay here forever,’ Elara sighed as she lay on the light-warmed sheets. Enzo’s head lay on her stomach, his body between her legs as she played with his curls, absent-mindedly twisting them with her fingers. They’d drifted in and out of sleep, but the light streamed in brighter now as the day began.

‘Me too,’ he whispered.

He didn’t need to say more, the unspoken weight between them. It would not be long before they would have to face Ariete.

Elara watched as Enzo traced the back of his knuckle over her stretch marks, silver and rippled on her hips.

‘I love these,’ he murmured. ‘They remind me of ocean waves.’

Elara preened under his gaze, capturing the softness of him, the stillness, while she could.

‘And these,’ he moaned, sinking his hands into the soft curves of her hips, padded out over the last months. ‘I could just sink my teeth into them.’

‘Enzo,’ she laughed, batting his head away as he grinned.

‘I like these, too,’ he murmured, stretching up and pushing the shirt she’d shrugged on earlier aside to kiss her full breasts. ‘Yes, I love these.’ She rolled her eyes, her cheeks turning pink.

‘What else do I love?’ he pondered, his hand skittering down between her legs.

‘ Enzo ,’ she said again, turning on to her stomach. ‘You know what I love?’ She kissed the freckle under his left eye. ‘This.’ She ran her finger over his coal black lashes, long against his cheek. ‘These,’ she said. Her thumb rubbed the silk of his ear, brushing over the golden ring there. ‘This.’ She smiled as he stroked her hair. ‘You know, when I was locked in that room with Gem,’ she said quietly, playing with a stray thread on the sheet as she felt him stiffen, ‘those were the details that anchored me. I kept them in a locked box in my mind when Gem tried to tear it apart. Silly, I know.’

Enzo’s face was painted with emotion as he pulled her to him, so she was cradled to his chest, his heart hammering faster than before. ‘I can hardly think of that without erupting into flames,’ he said. ‘When you were taken from me, I—’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘I was ready to set Celestia ablaze.’

Elara believed it, the savage promise his eyes held as he said it. ‘Come now,’ she teased. ‘You wouldn’t have really done that. Think of all the poor innocents who would have been caught in the crossfire.’

Enzo gave a dark laugh. ‘You overestimate my compassion, Elara, and underestimate how deeply mine you are. I would let the whole world burn if it kept you warm.’

A selfish warmth coursed through her as she nuzzled in closer to him. ‘So you’d set the world on fire for me,’ she mused. ‘Well, I would turn the world to darkness for you. If you were taken from me, not a single light would shine until you were back home,’ she added quietly, needing him to understand. He held her tightly in response.

The temple bells chimed the eighth hour, and Elara raised her head. ‘We should get back,’ she said, shrugging off the shirt and handing it back to him.

‘I wish you could keep this on,’ he said, taking it from her. ‘I think I prefer you in it than any ballgown I’ve ever seen.’ He stamped a kiss against her neck for emphasis.

‘Territorial animal,’ she laughed, pulling on her discarded dress. ‘Don’t let Merissa catch you saying that.’

Once Enzo had also dressed, and slung his sword around his waist, he took her in his arms and they both looked around the space for one last time. Elara drank in the sculptures, the tools and sheets, the books strewn upon the table. She never wished upon Stars. But she wished to something else then, that she might be able to come back here, with Enzo, after all this.

‘Before we go back, there’s somewhere I want to take you,’ he said, resting his chin on her head.

The air in the Angel’s Graveyard was just as she’d remembered it—thin, dry and hot. She sucked in a deep lungful of it, coughing lightly at the grit she could feel coating the back of her throat, the red sands around her shifting.

‘I remember telling you that this wasn’t a very cheerful place,’ she said, casting her eyes warily around the circular dais they were standing on. ‘I stand by that.’

Enzo chuckled, pacing the circumference of it. ‘It’s so strange to me that the last time we were both here, we couldn’t stand each other.’

‘I blame the sexual tension.’ Elara smirked.

‘I swear you get more arrogant by the day,’ Enzo replied, walking towards her.

‘I have a great teacher.’ She smiled, kissing him deeply as he wrapped his arms around her. ‘So why here?’ she asked, extricating herself from him. She squinted against the Light and the glare of the buttercup-golden skies above.

‘I have this little ritual,’ he began. ‘You’ll probably call it superstitious nonsense. But before a battle, I always come here. I feel this kind of ancient magick, maybe a remnant of those mighty mythas who fought centuries ago.’ Enzo looked up at one of the giant angel statues, its carved gold stone towering above them. Elara followed his gaze, looking out to the roiling sea of sands ahead. The red, shifting desert stretched out for miles, as far as the eye could see, eventually bleeding into what she knew would be the Sinner’s Sands, the domain of the Star Capri.

‘It sounds stupid,’ he broke the silence, ‘but walking where the fabled winged lions of Helios once did, where they fought and conquered…It gives me strength. To face anything set before us.’

Elara squeezed his hand. ‘It doesn’t sound stupid. Why wouldn’t the Lion of Helios want to be around his kin?’ He kissed her brow. ‘Do you believe all the mythas existed? Walked this world before us?’ she asked.

‘I do,’ he replied. ‘And maybe other beings too.’ Enzo sat down on the circular dais, beckoning Elara to join him.

‘See these?’

His hand swept over the disc, pushing aside the red sand that coated it. He ran a finger over the stone, showing up designs and symbols that Elara had noticed before from afar. She squinted at the etchings, wind-weathered and light-faded.

‘These are the Stars,’ he pointed. It was a wheel, each Star’s symbol spaced along the circumference of it. She saw Ariete’s crossed swords at the top, Torra’s rose, Scorpius’s trident. A few other familiar Stars’ tokens. ‘But these…’ Enzo murmured. ‘I’ve always wondered as to what these were.’ His hand arced outwards, to symbols that hovered above in their own circle, enclosing the Stars. Elara frowned as she looked to them. All the symbols were foreign—circles and rings surrounding them, some crescents, some that looked like light rays shining.

‘My mother would bring me here,’ Enzo said, and Elara rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. His eyes were troubled, held in the past.

‘She said it was so I would remember that I was a lion, as worthy of standing here as any of the winged creatures that fought before me. She was always cryptic—I suppose a curse of an oracle. But she promised me that she had seen my fate, and that I was more powerful than I believed. My father, as you know, was never religious. And nor was my mother. She…she told me that my power came from something greater than the Stars.’

He raised his hands, and light sparked from them. Elara watched as it flooded the dais, spreading out across the sands and up to the angel statues, covering them.

‘But Enzo,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing is more powerful than a Star.’

‘You are.’

She shook her head. ‘I survived death, that’s all.’

‘No, Elara. There is something within you. I can feel it.’ His eyes roamed her face. ‘The same way I feel a tide turning, as though a huge chess game has begun, with players we haven’t even guessed at yet, all shifting their pieces. I felt the same feeling when I first laid eyes on you. That we are part of something bigger.’

The words felt so familiar, so true , that Elara almost stopped breathing.

‘You said, that day when we flew on a shadow lion, that you wondered if there was something out there greater than the Stars,’ Elara said. ‘What if it’s every mortal that stands against them? What if the only thing keeping them in power is our belief in them?’

‘ Finally .’ A thundering boom resounded around them.

‘Fucking skies!’ Elara exclaimed at the top of her voice, scrambling to her feet as she spun around for the source of it. Enzo was in front of her in seconds, his fire already blazing in one hand, a knife in the other.

‘You have a filthy mouth for royalty,’ the voice boomed again, and Elara’s eyes widened in shock. She stumbled two steps back as Enzo craned his neck upwards, his skin paling.

‘Holy gods,’ he breathed.

There was a ground-shaking shudder as one of the gigantic angel statues, still enshrouded in Enzo’s light, moved , taking its hands from its eyes.

‘I’m dreaming,’ Elara said, her voice shaking. ‘This isn’t real.’

The angel laughed, and the sound flew out across the sands. ‘Oh, but it is. And we have been waiting a long time for you both.’

‘We?’

A roar cleaved the air in two, and the very sound set Elara trembling. A wall of air hit them, and they both stumbled back. The roar came again, closer this time. And as Elara peered out across the sands from beneath the angel’s shadow, she saw why.

She kept her eyes fixed on the shape prowling forwards, her heart hammering as the mammoth frame came properly into view. A winged lion. Another gust of wind hit them as the beast beat his wings. Elara’s eyes fell on feathers as white as snow, a glorious mane to match. His golden coat gleamed in the afternoon Light as Elara saw wickedly long teeth behind a mouth that curved into a snarl.

‘Mythas,’ she whispered, transfixed.

Enzo was stock-still beside her, his eyes filled with disbelief and awe. ‘So they aren’t just legend,’ he whispered back.

‘Clearly,’ she said drily.

The lion approached until it was only a few metres away, his eyes fixed on Elara as the prince raised his hand, ready to protect her if he needed to.

‘Wait,’ she commanded, holding her hand out to Enzo. He obeyed, his flame vanishing instantly.

The lion continued to stare at her, and she felt wisdom in his gaze. Then, before their disbelieving eyes, the lion bowed, his wings folding together as his huge mane rippled in the breeze.

‘What is this?’ she breathed.

‘It’s what you’d call a blessing,’ a voice rumbled once more.

‘Bleeding Stars ,’ Enzo exclaimed, jumping as he turned back to the angel.

‘Manners, young man,’ the statue snapped.

‘How is this real?’ Elara breathed, her eyes flicking between the lion and the angel.

‘There is magick in this world, is there not?’ the angel replied.

Elara nodded.

‘There is much magick that has been forgotten or extinguished.’ The angel’s smile turned into a snarl.

‘Who are you?’ There was a distant part of her laughing hysterically at the fact that she was addressing a stone angel. Who was talking to her.

‘My angel name is much too glorious for your human tongue to butcher. But you may call me Celine.’

‘Wait, the Celine?’ Enzo interjected. ‘Who took the last stand against the lion Nemeus?’

The angel seemed to smirk. ‘The very same. Who do you think he is?’ She pointed to the winged lion, laying regally as he observed them.

‘Dear heavens and all that is holy,’ Enzo said faintly.

‘But you’re stone,’ Elara blurted out.

‘When the statue was erected in my honour after Nemeus killed me, my soul found its way in here. Mythas never truly die.’

Nemeus seemed to rumble in agreement, a deep purr resounding in his throat.

‘Wait a minute,’ Elara said. ‘Nemeus killed you. So aren’t the two of you mortal enemies?’

The angel looked to the lion, smiling. ‘We have a common enemy now.’ The lion growled in agreement. ‘The Stars.’

‘Is that why the mythas became a legend? Because of the Stars?’

‘We hid. Waiting for someone with the power to overthrow them.’ Celine looked between Enzo and Elara. ‘Waiting for you.’

‘No pressure, then,’ Enzo muttered.

‘Why not speak to us earlier?’ asked Elara. ‘We’ve been here before.’

‘Ha!’ Celine exclaimed. ‘You think you both would have been ready to hear all this then? You were both so wounded, so angry at the world. Our words would have fallen upon deaf ears.’

‘What is it you came to tell us?’ Elara’s voice grew hard, her patience with the angel wearing thin.

‘What do you know of the world before the Stars?’

‘What do you mean, “before the Stars”?’ Elara asked. ‘They created us. Each mortal is gifted with a drop of magick from their patron Star.’

‘The Stars are liars,’ Celine said sternly. ‘They would have you believe that they are to thank for your powers. But have you ever noticed that not one of them can wield the kind of magick you mortals can?’

A dull roar began in Elara’s ears as she thought to Leyon’s temple. How he hadn’t conjured a single ray of Light on the day that celebrated it.

‘The Stars’ main two powers are their charm and their starlight. With the two, they can influence masses, can control how a person feels. Can commit divinitas. But they never gifted you a thing.’

‘Then who did?’ Enzo asked.

‘The Celestes.’

Elara hadn’t heard a whisper of the word before.

‘They were greater than the Stars, more powerful too. It is they who your world was named after.’

The roar in Elara’s ears grew.

‘It is they who your powers derive from. They, who have been eradicated from every history book, every story. They who once ruled.’

‘If they’re so powerful, how did the Stars come to rule?’ Elara demanded.

‘The Stars are powerful through their trickery. They used deception, rather than force, to kill the Celestes.’

‘But how do we defeat a god , if the almighty Celestes couldn’t?’ Enzo said.

‘You unite,’ Celine replied. ‘Too long, the Stars have kept your kingdoms divided, encouraging the blending of magick only with a betrothed from the same kingdom. But the two of you disobeyed that rule, didn’t you?’

Elara felt the duskglass blade strapped against her leg.

‘Combined, you are a weapon. Wield it.’

Enzo nodded. ‘We’d better leave now,’ he said, pulling Elara up. Nemeus rose, stretching out his glorious, feathered wings.

She made her way gingerly to the lion, who was shaking out his mane.

‘Your Highness,’ she said, bowing gracefully. She turned to see Enzo’s lips quirking. ‘What?’ she muttered. ‘He’s definitely royalty.’

Nemeus inclined his head as though he understood her perfectly. His golden eyes fixed on Enzo’s, a deep rumble erupted from the mythas’s throat. Then he spread his wings and took flight, a spew of fire jolting through the sky as he opened his maw.

A horn resounded through the arid space, coming from far below, and Elara stilled.

It came again, and Enzo turned, looking back in the direction of the palace.

She knew that sound. It was the sound of war.

‘Ariete is here,’ she said hoarsely.

Celine’s head turned, her wings bristling. ‘May the Celestes be with you both.’

Enzo began to turn away, as Celine called, ‘One last thing, Elara Bellereve.’

Elara looked back to the colossal stone figure.

‘I would speak with you alone,’ the statue said.

She gave a reassuring nod to Enzo to wait, before pacing back to Celine.

‘I gift you with a piece of advice, one that may save your life.’ The statue’s voice was quieter now, gentle.

‘Yes?’ she whispered.

‘Keep the Starkiller blade close to you. Whatever you do, do not give it to the prince.’

Elara frowned up at Celine, her tone a little cold as she replied, ‘Why? I trust him with my life.’

‘Do not ask me questions I cannot answer. Even now fate binds me from speaking further. Just trust the word of the mythas.’

Elara’s eyes narrowed. ‘The day that someone in this realm speaks plainly will be the day that I die.’

‘Let us hope that day is far in your future.’ Celine’s hands shifted as they were brought back to her face. ‘I pray we meet again,’ she said.

The statue became still once again, Celine’s hands now fully covering her eyes as Elara hurried back to Enzo. She brushed off his questioning look, a fluttering of intuition deep in her gut telling her the exchange was best left private. And so she followed Enzo into battle.