Chapter 39
Brand dragged another strawberry up the center of Lunara’s body before pressing it to her lips.
“If I eat another bite, I’m going to explode,” she said around the mouthful.
The feast had already been there when she’d awoken in the wee hours, everything she could imagine laid out on the low table by the fireplace—including the massive bowl of cut berries he was cradling between them.
He leaned over her and trailed his tongue up from naval to sternum, licking the juice away. “Strange. I’m still starving.”
Lunara giggled as giddiness tingled over her skin. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so light. The last time a laugh had lodged itself in her throat, dying to burst free, because she was so stars-damned happy.
“I can’t wait for the Occurrence.” His finger followed the line of her collarbone, up and over her shoulder. “To see your markings.”
He’d explained that—for those who weren’t Demon, but mated to them—the physical evidence of their bond would only show up for that single day, when Solyrian rose between the peaks of the Sacred Sisters and funneled power into the Montrealm.
“I can’t help but be disappointed. What if I only get to see them once, in all my life?”
A low rumble reverberated in his chest. “You will be living far longer than that.”
Will you, though? Fifty years is a long time, and there’s no hiding from the Council anymore.
Right. The only mar on an otherwise flawless night was their looming conversation and finding out whether Brand had meant all the beautiful things he’d said.
No going back. May as well get it over with so you can move on.
Brand kissed up the side of her neck and nuzzled at her ear. “What lies are you feeding yourself now, mate? Tell me, so I may disprove them.”
Lunara chewed her lip. “None, this time.”
She felt his skepticism through the new fibers connecting them. What had come and gone before was a solid presence now, constantly humming below the surface. The only difference was that there was no more mistaking which feelings were her own, and which were his.
It comforted her.
As for those moments after healing Fern, she was still baffled by what had happened. Why her other half had warped within her mind, into something else entirely. Something that didn’t feel like her at all. Something… darker.
All Lunara could think was that she’d been so wrung out, so raw after being in such close proximity with him, that she hadn’t been able to tame the worst of her worries. Perhaps a defense mechanism, of sorts, but it left her uneasy.
That he could suddenly hear it might be the most terrifying part of the whole mess.
Ohhh, what if he hears the other one, too?
Shitting stars, she hadn’t thought of that.
Brand gripped her chin and tilted her face to his. “From bliss to worry as it piped up again, but no lies.” His eyes bored into her. “What, then?”
“The truth. I just… don’t know where to start.”
“Hmm.” He pushed up straighter and leaned back against the pillows piled against the wooden headboard. “You don’t have to do this. Not for me.”
“I think I do, as much for myself as anything.” She sat up and crossed her legs, wrapping the ivory sheet around herself.
“And because you deserve to know. If for no other reason than, now that we’re…
that we’ve…” Her cheeks puffed out with a heavy sigh.
“You’re an Imperial Son. As your mate, I’ll be seen, and I don’t want you to be blindsided by it. I’d rather you hear it from me.”
No, please. Be more dramatic. I’m sure it will help.
“I suppose a good place to start might be proper introductions. Forgive me, Your Highness, but I lied to you before.”
His brows shot up when she thrust out her hand. Meanwhile, a roaring had started in her ears, the throbbing beat of her rushing blood filling the room. Once she told him her name, that was it—the end of her running and hiding.
“I am… Lunara the Moonweaver. It’s wonderful to finally make your acquaintance.”
His eyes danced, his fingers engulfing hers. “Hello, Lunara the Moonweaver.” He tugged her arm and planted a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “You’re an Elder.”
“You don’t seem surprised by the prospect.”
He chuckled, letting their hands fall. “Not in the slightest. I had a feeling it was along those lines.”
“Yes, well…” Her head fell back on her shoulders and she stared at the ceiling—easier than looking him in the eye. “They think I’m dead. And, for clarity’s sake, I’m not technically an Elder. I never completed my trial.”
“I see.”
It didn’t sound at all like he did.
“It’s strange, the lens you find yourself under when you’re the child of not one, but two Elder Tier Sorcerit and Council members. I imagine you can relate, being an Imperial.”
“Oh yes.” His nod was slow, introspective. “Very well, indeed.”
“My power bloomed late—almost too late. The first nineteen years of my life were spent with countless eyes on me, waiting to see whether I’d live up to the legacy. I was never not aware of the fact that I might be a freak anomaly.”
Her mind reached for the heavy curtains beside the bed, seizing their particles and drawing them open to invite the waning moonlight inside. It didn’t beam down like it should have—not when she had it in her grasp and was pulling it towards herself.
“My magic was weak. Hardly good for anything. I could do little tasks without trouble, but nothing meaningful. Certainly not healing. Except, my energy never dwindled, while everyone around me would get so tired.”
A prismatic glow encompassed her as the well within gulped the moons’ magic down, the level rising and rising.
“Most Sorcerit can go a day, maybe a few, before needing to bask in the cosmos. Hence their love for the Evesong, where there’s a constant source of sustenance.”
Twisting her wrist ‘round and ‘round, she spun the light into threads, threads into yarn. Tugging the newly-formed length towards herself, she disconnected it from its source and laid the coiled scrap of material into Brand’s palm.
“Their love…” He skimmed his fingers over it, then her. “What about you?”
“A few months shy of my twentieth birthday, I felt the moons for the first time—playful caresses, poking at me, looking for attention—and I realized what was inside me.”
She gestured towards the tiny bundle of yarn.
“My gift is the ability to manipulate the very life-source of all Nachthellians. I can bend it, shape it, weave it. But, most importantly, I can store it. As much as I want. I’ve never tested how deep the well is, out of fear, but I can go for months without seeing the night and still use my magic. ”
Lunara let go of the light, letting it snap back to wherever it naturally wanted to fall, her glow gradually fading.
“Turned out, I’d been unwittingly filling the well without knowing how to use or direct it my whole life. Once I understood…” She shrugged. “Quite the prize for the Elder Council. My parents were ecstatic.”
“And you?”
“Oh, ecstatic doesn’t even begin. I was beside myself. Told everyone I knew, made little presents. I’d been an oddity for so long, and then powerful people were suddenly inviting me to parties, clamoring to speak with me… They were the happiest months of my life.”
He wrapped his hand around her foot, giving a little squeeze. “What happened?”
“Malachyr the Mistwarden.”
Brand cringed. There probably wasn’t a creature alive who didn’t know his name. Not after the horrific blow he’d single-handedly dealt to the Evesong.
He searched the bedsheets, and she felt his calculations. Watched in real time as it dawned on his face. “The calamity on the Upper Block… Fuck. They were there?”
Lunara’s laugh was a twisted, bitter thing. “Oh, they weren’t just there. They were the reason it happened.”
His eyes went wide as he recoiled.
“I didn’t know my life was ending the first night I heard his name spoken in anxious whispers, instead of the reverence I’d always thought he deserved.”
Leaving out that she traveled her memories in dreams, looking for messages, Lunara told him of the night she’d revisited most recently.
“I no longer wanted to be part of the Elder Tier, or the Council, or any of it. And I’d already lived almost my entire existence thinking it wouldn’t happen, so what would it matter if it actually didn’t?”
Brand drew in a sharp, deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “I’ve always thought they were a bunch of bloody cold bastards, but Araxis has never mentioned a word of it.”
“Why would he? He’s one of them.”
She hadn’t meant it in a cruel way, merely a statement of fact, but Brand bristled. “No, he would never. He isn’t like that.”
“No?” Her heart ached for him, for herself. “Then, tell me—if he isn’t one of them, why did he vote against culling Malachyr that last time, when they all knew what he was doing?”
“What are you talking about?”
She dug deep—so deep she worried it might kill her to finally find the bottom. Pushing beyond the loneliness of the last fifty-two years to the center of her pain, Lunara sifted through a drudgery of memories best left forgotten to find that night.
Brand’s gasp was instant when she called it up in full, the mating bond roiling between them. “Weeping Sisters,” he breathed, tears springing to his eyes as he clutched his chest. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“The day before my trial and twentieth birthday, a vote was cast. That’s when everything changed.”
Fifty-two years ago…
Lunara was lost.
She and her parents were taking their usual walk after supper. Music floated gently on the air, the swelling strings a perfect accompaniment to the glittering city of Starkeep—and completely at odds with her mind.
The truths her parents had shared haunted her. She didn’t know how to act, how to be. So much building hope, so much excitement, and it was just gone.
Everyone had tried to convince her to release her concerns and accept her place, making light of every argument or question she posed. It was like being a child again, and they were not taking a word she said seriously.