Chapter Sixty-Three
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Ariete dragged her down the dungeon steps, past blank-eyed guards and into a grim cell. She landed hard on the hay-strewn stone.
‘Just a few hours, darling, and you’ll be soaring to your new home.’ He grinned as he clanged the bars of her cell gate shut. ‘I’ve mapped out a perfect part of the sky for you, one where no one will find you.’
He cackled as he left her there, promising that he would be back by lightdown. She crumpled to the floor, forcing herself to breathe as the walls sealed her in. Grief clawed at her throat, a dull pain drumming in her skull. Her thoughts were too overwhelming, too much. The reality so inconceivable that it was all she could do not to unravel.
Sobs racked her body, her breath becoming shallow. Memories assaulted her. Enzo by the fountain, Enzo kissing her goodnight, Enzo dancing her through the clouds, gently washing her hair, piecing her back together, making love to her. They seared her one by one, lashes on her heart until she could feel an almost physical ache. Her shadows reared inside her, growing darker and darker. The locked box within her, already rattling, now began to shake, its lid opening inch by inch until the shadows broke it apart. And all those emotions that she had pushed deep, deep, deep into the Dark pulled her into the blackness with them.
The sky was ink, the kind of darkness that appeared the deepest blue. There wasn’t a star in the sky. Not a breeze or an echo. That’s what first struck Elara as strange about the place she found herself. Yet the land that sprawled before her was wide open, and she took a deep, shuddering breath, and began to walk.
The grove grew and shifted around her, filling with ancient trees, their age shown by the gnarls and whorls on their trunk. As she looked up to the leaves, she saw images playing out on them—of memories that she had stifled.
The branches began to distort, to writhe out into spindly claws that grabbed her as she walked. She tore away from them, but more loomed to her other side, snatching at her dress, her hair. She started to run, though each step was like wading through mud. She fought, and ducked, but they were too strong, these trees, these memories. She saw the zealot with the light, saw herself being held against a tree by Enzo, her parents’ deaths, Sofia’s, Lukas’s betrayal, Enzo handing the duskglass to Ariete. She sobbed and sobbed as she stopped fighting, sinking into the centre of the grove, the dress she’d been wearing now in tatters.
But the moment she sank into the soft grass, the trees abated, righting themselves as she curled in on herself. The silence was so complete it almost became a sound itself, until it was disturbed by a faint splash as rain began to fall. Droplets of iridescent silver poured down, falling harder and faster, plastering her ebony locks to her forehead, removing the remnants of her dress, mixing with her tears until she didn’t know which was which.
She lay back and let it in. She took a breath. Felt the pressure rise in her chest, felt a dull ache, and then let it crack her open, a wordless scream tearing from her. In this surreal place between life and death that she had landed in, where her body was in another world, and her soul was scattered here, the rain seemed to enter her. It spoke of grief. Of sorrow. Of unkept promises and lies, of what had made her a coward, what had made her a fool. The pain was sharp, the words tooth and claw, ripping her to ribbons. But it was real. And so, she welcomed it. She saw the fragments of her shadows in the lightless night. The horror, the disgust, the parts of herself that she’d been running from for so long.
Shadows poured from her, dancing around the grove until they convulsed and warped. She watched as they formed a figure. One who drew closer.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ the shadow said, its voice a terrifying rustle that crawled over her skin.
Finally, she was confronted by what she’d been avoiding for so long. Everything that she had locked away. And in its own twisted way, it was glorious. She didn’t have to hide. The surrender became exquisite, and she bared her throat to the cut of her darkest thoughts, of the truths. Finally, she didn’t have an excuse to fall on or a reason to keep running. She could simply be.
The rain continued to fall, pummelling her skin. Her shadow lay down beside her. She reached for its hand and interlaced their fingers.
The rain began to wash away who she was. It peeled back Elara’s skin, the tatters of her soul, the damage in her heart. Gods, did it hurt.
The shadow spoke again. ‘How long have you been running from me?’
She did not reply.
It spoke again. ‘You fed me. Yet, you never once looked at me.’
Elara felt pity, gritting her teeth against the onslaught of the heavy, pellet-like raindrops.
‘How did you think you could wield your shadows against a Star when you cannot even face them yourself?’
Elara was still, letting the words ring in her ears.
‘Where am I?’ she croaked.
‘In your own dreamscape,’ the shadow rasped. ‘Deep within it. Further than anyone should go. You are here to surrender.’
‘Surrender?’ She laughed emptily. ‘I’ve surrendered enough. My heart. My kingdom. What is left of me to give?’
‘Everything, Elara. Every dark, awful part of yourself.’
She did not reply, though she felt the truth of it in her bones.
‘Now you begin to see,’ the shadow rasped. ‘The Dark cannot exist without the Light, nor the Light without the Dark. You contain both, Elara. It is no use running from the darkness within and accepting only the day. It is also no use shunning the Light and caving to shadows. Surrender.’
And with complete clarity, like the dawn breaking through the night, she understood. She was not perfect or imperfect. She was not a villain, nor a hero. Simply herself. A girl who had lost and grieved and made her way the only way she knew how. So she had fallen in love. That did not make her a fool, nor did it make her weak. It made her courageous.
‘You were always told you felt too deeply. That you were too sensitive. But you cannot change who you are, Elara. So instead, all you did was swallow those emotions. And now, here we are.’
‘And now, here we are,’ Elara echoed.
‘What you should have been taught is how brave it is, to be vulnerable in such a cruel world. How it is better to feel every ray and shadow, than to feel nothing at all.’
And so, Elara lay back on the swirling, rolling grass, and let herself feel.
She grieved—for her parents, for Sofia, for who she had believed Enzo to be. She drowned in her fear of what the future may hold for her. And as she did, the rain continued to peel back her old self until chinks of silver shone through, the black tar that coated her soul sloughing away. Her shadow held her hand, murmuring soft words of kindness. And with one last cry, she burst open, brighter than any Star and darker than any shadow, like a storm awakened.