Chapter 34 #2
“You do realize that if you don’t help me find the Gods and break the curse, you won’t be going anywhere?”
“It just so happens that I—” Aela clamped her mouth shut.
Eros leaned forward, his eyes lingering on her lips. “Yes, Timora?”
Aela fumbled for something to say, but no other words formed. He had as good as made them vanish by his magnetism that seemed to slink toward her like his tendrils of Darkness.
“We’ll see,” Eros said with a smirk.
They concluded their training session on Solara, The Darkness billowing around them, carrying Zosma and Aela on a dark wind back to the asteroid.
She didn’t want an audience when she attempted her first true solo-flight through the realm.
She was eager to discover if flying came as easily in the waking plane as it did in her dreamscape, if the utter bliss she experienced when soaring would be the same.
The Leo’s presence was a welcome addition, as he assumed residence in the asteroid with Aela.
Eros was there often enough to check on things, but she had yet to discover if he had rooms of his own.
After Zosma arrived, the hollow rock had simply grown; a new curving hall branched off from the main space, accommodating the Leo star with his own quarters.
“What is this?” Eros said by way of greeting as he sauntered into her chambers.
Aela gave him a look that promised violence. Hunched over her workbench, the wooden surface was cluttered with vials, a mortar and pestle, stem clippings, and bits of dried flowers that had been brushed aside to make room for the item she retrieved from a drawer: a solitary crystal band.
“I never had the right time in Avarice to study them,” Aela said for his benefit.
“What makes now the best time?”
“Along with everything else, this is yet another puzzle that needs to be solved.”
A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “A puzzle?”
“Yes. Everything is connected. Like nature. And nature seeks balance.”
Amber and jasmine hugged her senses as Eros drifted closer.
Aela exhaled as she set the crystal band back into the drawer and moved on to her next experiment.
She slid over four crystals, each representing an element.
While celestials of any Line could utilize any crystal, she wanted to test how certain varieties reacted to elemental energy.
“And what do you call all this? Crystal alchemy?”
“That’s a nicer name for it. The Prentans called it witchcraft.”
“This is an ancient practice… Who taught you? Surely not your parents.”
“No, this is all me. On Prente I had to find a way to provide for myself, and since I wasn’t… let’s just say it was better to keep my distance from the Prentans, so what better profession than a crystal miner turned witch?”
Eros cocked his head to the side.
“Do you mind?” Aela extended her hand to him without taking her eyes off her workbench.
Her other magic had manifested a workstation within her cavernous room located off to the side of the sitting area beside the sunken pool.
While the realm’s crystal supply was depleted after the War Before, she wasn’t sure what to make of her Fates blessed power providing her with raw crystals to experiment with.
Eros summoned a flame from his fingertip, floating it onto Aela’s palm. She smiled as she cradled his flame, a rare sight of his Aries magic.
“There was a priesthood there that frowned upon the locals using crystals for their own aims,” Aela explained.
“And you do not approve of priests?”
“Fates, no. I wouldn’t get on my knees for the Gods for all the power and wealth in all the realms and hells.”
“Is that right?”
Aela finally deigned to look up from her task of bathing a crystal in the flame he had provided for her. “What is your point?”
“That you’d look awfully good on your knees for me.”
Unsure of what possessed her to do so, she took her time sweeping her turquoise eyes, brimmed by dark lashes, up and down his warrior’s physique. A slow smile bloomed on her freckled face.
“Good thing you’re not a God then.”
Eros ran his tongue behind his teeth.
“How long has your water element evaded you?”
Aela managed not to gape. His blunt question instantly cooled the heat that had started its descent from her low belly. Zosma had puzzled it out, but he wouldn’t have told Eros. The Leo’s loyalty was to her.
How does he know?
The pool in the asteroid cradled various crystals, the variety shifting depending on what she needed.
Whenever Eros had been away—only Fates knew where doing Fates knew what—she had urged, coaxed, and pleaded her water element to the surface.
She channeled her power into the crystals within the pool, yet not a glimmer of water responded to her call. It was dormant.
“When I frequented your dreams, you wielded it adeptly, like it was part of you…” Eros’ voice faltered, the sensitive nature of his question lingering in the air.
Aela stood from her workbench and placed more distance between herself and the Aries Primary. Accepting him being one and the same as The Darkness was still something that made her mind reel.
“It heeds my call in my dreams, but not when I’m awake.”
“Does it feel more alive when you’re on Solara?”
“I don’t know.”
“The sooner you master your abilities, the sooner you can be free of me.”
Aela scoffed. “I didn’t think I could get free of you? Or are you taking back what you said?”
She dared look over her shoulder at the formidable star, at darkness incarnate. He wasn’t looking at her for once, and his expression was so unsure that Aela turned around and took a step toward him, unconcerned by what drew her closer.
“How do I fit in all of this?” she asked, searching his eyes.
It was something that had plagued her since his words had shifted her off her axis. “Maybe they’re not what you need.” If she didn’t need her family, what else was there?
Eros rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and arrested her with his gaze.
“You’re the key, Aela. As you’ve seen from your nightmares and dreams, you transcend the known realm.
Your Need is like a gradient, dragging across space and time, blurring the line between what is past and present, maybe future.
If you can harness it, you can deliver the Gods to me. ”
“Why do you want them so badly? Isn’t it enough that they’re locked away?”
“They locked me away,” Eros snarled.
Before she knew it, he collapsed the space between them, gripping her upper arms. “They kept me from…” His breath caught in his throat as his golden eyes drank in her features as if he was dying of thirst and she was the only thing to quench it.
“There is no where they could run that I wouldn’t find them and exact my revenge for what they took.”
She wanted to ask why was he so consumed by revenge for the time they took. What was lost? There was so much she didn’t know about her ally.
Aela’s eyes softened as she beheld a glimpse of the hidden torment beneath Eros’ harsh exterior.
“There is something I could try,” she hedged.
“What is it? What do you need?”
“I… I need an anchor.”
“An anchor,” he said flatly.
Aela rolled her eyes, the fleeting moment of vulnerability gone. “When I dream,” the emphasis was clear as Eros nodded, “I’m aware of myself and can bend things to my will, but I haven’t tried summoning other beings to me.”
Aela froze as her words settled in the eerie quiet. “Do you think…”
“No, Timora. I don’t think that could bring them back. Even a power such as yours has limits.”
Aela’s eyes burned. She hated anyone seeing her like this.
On Prente she had carved a careful existence that prevented anyone from getting too close.
She didn’t want to reveal what was precious to her.
Despite the comfort of not bearing her secret alone, it still felt akin to a betrayal that Eros knew of her Need and now what was most important to her.
But that is my price, isn’t it?
Her eyes were vacant as she stared past him. A warm palm settled against her cheek. The touch was so tender yet grounding that her eyes fluttered shut, effectively sealing off the scathing thoughts her mind hurled at her.
“I swear to you that I will help you get the vengeance you seek, Aela.” Her name on his lips sent a shiver down her spine.
Her next words rushed out of her. “I’m afraid if I do as you ask, I will drift through time and space. I won’t know where to bring the Gods back to, if I can even find them. I won’t know the way back—”
“I will be your anchor.” Eros’ voice didn’t waver.
“I need to trust you explicitly, need to be able to find you in any dream, any plane, no matter how far I venture. We need an intimate connection,” she said peering into the molten depths of his eyes.
Eros’ lips quirked to the side. “If you need intimacy, Timora, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Aela hissed, darting away from his hands, which had roamed from her arms to rest in the curve of her waist.
Eros hummed.
She avoided looking at him, giving herself a moment to think.
“If I’m to trust you, I need my own proof that you are not just a scourge who devours stars.
It’s hard to reconcile The Darkness that chased me but also helped me in my dreams with your curse.
Show me there’s more to you. Prove you’re something I can rely on. ”
Aela held up a hand as Eros opened his mouth. “I… believe that you aren’t the one responsible for the downfall of my House. But that doesn’t change what else I’ve heard. What all Stardom believes about The Darkness.”
Eros inclined his chin. “You are referring to the restructuring of my House?”
“Yes.”
“If you had wanted to come to my home, all you needed to do was ask, Timora.”