Chapter 9 #2
When Aela remained silent, he spun on his heel and brought her down the center aisle.
With a pair of sentinels at her back, there was no retreat.
Whatever bravado Aela felt during The Games dripped out of her as the last remnants of her adrenaline crashed.
Members of the Asterism flanked the wide pathway, severing the triangular room.
A white glowing crystalline throne waited where it grew up from the dais at the far end of the room.
Aela tuned out the Minori as he led her toward the throne.
He droned on about being in the presence of Tarek, “the Bull,” head of House Taurus and Prime Apparent, and likely many fabricated or overly exaggerated triumphs of his leader.
Her eyes skipped over the ebony-skinned male she had charged earlier.
He was lounging on the crystal conglomerate.
Her gaze trailed upward to where the walls of the throne room ended.
Instead of a ceiling that capped the room, the beautiful streaks of color she saw from the arena were visible in full splendor, casting their magenta and aqua hues over the rosy stone walls of the throne room.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” the Prime Apparent of House Taurus said.
His voice was deep and bounced off the slanted walls of the chamber. Aela still avoided his gaze, letting her eyes take their fill of everything but him and his seat of power until, at last, she deigned to look upon the poor excuse of a Primary Star.
Perhaps my confidence isn’t completely gone.
Aela set her features in an uninterested expression and lifted her chin slightly. A slow smile spread across Tarek’s face as if he knew the disrespect she showed was intentional. He played along with her game.
“The Aurora Sisters,” he continued, referring to the magenta and aqua in the night air, “were blessed by the Gods for their devotion and given a permanent place of honor within Leonta’s sky.”
Aela flicked her eyes back to the striations of light against the black fabric of the realm once more before she regarded the leader of Taurus.
Almost overly muscled, he was a bull of a male, his presence domineering even as he lounged on his throne.
He had close-cropped black hair with a militant edge that his sentinels also favored.
“You requested an audience,” Aela said in a tone she thought best emulated her mother.
Alrescha had a commanding presence and always kept her composure.
That is, until she was behind closed doors, raging or falling apart, where her Adjacent and Aela’s father always steadied her.
He was their rock. A constant presence that could take every stormy emotion both females often wielded.
It seemed Aela’s good graces had run out as Tarek stood with predatory intent. Aela inclined her chin further.
Remember what he subjects his citizens to. What he subjected you to.
“What House do you come from? You are certainly not one of mine.” His eyes were the color of heated earth and scanned along her form with an intensity she could physically feel. Aela remained silent.
“Where did you come from?” he repeated.
Still, Aela said nothing.
“You dare defy me?” Tarek said with lethal quiet.
“I don’t answer to you,” Aela replied in equal measure.
It seemed Tarek and Aela’s standoff had drawn more than the Asterism into the Taureon throne room as a crescendo of murmurs swelled.
“If I may,” a female cut in.
Appearing from the upper ranks of Taureon society, the Asters parted for her like a sea rippling back.
She wore a matching two-piece set of sheer black with golden chevrons.
Her top ended just above her wide-legged pants, showing a slip of dark, cool-toned skin, darker than Tarek’s.
Her ensemble tinkled as she moved; a multitude of tiny golden crystals bedecked her clothing, and a matching cape hissed along the stone floor as it dragged behind her.
She was beautiful in a fierce sort of way as she looked down at Aela with deep amethyst eyes.
Her hair was pin-straight and fell behind her shoulders in a sheet of the deepest purple, nearly black.
A piercing assessment within the female’s eyes stared back at her, and Aela suppressed a shudder.
A glimmer of blue light caught Aela’s eye, set above her brow.
Before she could get a real glance of what it was, the female stroked the gem with a long, dark finger.
“Elnath,” Tarek said with barely restrained annoyance.
Aela’s eyes widened slightly as she beheld the Regent beside her.
“Do you know who I am?” Elnath asked Aela.
Aela nodded and refocused her gaze on Tarek, who was so tense it was a miracle his shoulders hadn’t ripped through the white fabric he wore.
“What do you want, Elnath?” Tarek demanded.
“As Regent, I should be here to welcome a new celestial into our Line, should I not?” Elnath replied in a tone that showed just the proper amount of deference for his station.
Tarek bristled. “Come again?”
“This celestial here,” a dismissive wave in Aela’s direction, “won this cycle’s Games, and per your decree, is now part of the Taureon Line.” The murmur that quieted when Elnath approached erupted behind Aela, as the stars in attendance raged at their leader.
“That’s not possible!”
“He can’t do that!”
“She isn’t one of us!”
The multiple incensed cries bled together, their voices becoming muffled between her ears.
Part of the Taureon Line.
Aela’s eyes glazed over as she stared at the foot of Tarek’s throne.
Part of the Taureon Line.
The past she clung to with every weak fiber of her being felt like it was being snipped away from her to make room for a future she didn’t ask for nor want.
A future that directly impeded her task of getting home and finding her family.
In light of what she had witnessed in what she thought was her death, her need to get home only intensified.
How much time did her House have left before they were pulled into the dark mass’ golden river?
Tarek’s neck was bulging, and a flush tinged his dark skin as he shouted at his Asterism. Aela’s eyes swept from Tarek to Elnath, void of feeling.
Part of the Taureon Line.
Elnath met her gaze, then twirled away and made a show of pacifying the crowd.
But Aela saw her for what she was. Elnath was dangerous.
She had just secured Aela her life. Aela was now indebted to her, and for an inexplicable reason, she felt the walls in her mind that surrounded her past tremble in fear.