Chapter 39 #2
Her father showed her blueprints and projects he wanted the two of them to work on together—cycling through glowing drawings and journal entries, going on about how their powers would compliment each other.
Her mother had suggested various healing demonstrations she could do—making casts or bandages that empowered the wounded, filling orbs with light to speed the restoration process.
Rambling about the profits she could make in the long run.
After all, tomorrow was supposed to be her trial. A public display of her ability to control the most revered substance in Nachthelliae.
‘The things you could achieve!’ they said. “The changes you could make!”
She took all of it in—and still had no idea what she would do.
Cordelia’s visit had only made it worse.
She’d arrived in all of her crotchety glory and requested a word. They’d sat in the front room with tea and cake, and Lunara had confessed her every concern regarding the Council. A risk, since she was one of them, but the aged Elder was her mother’s best friend, and Lunara had always loved her.
Cordelia had taken a couple beats at the end of Lunara’s impassioned speech before throwing her head back and laughing to the rafters.
“Sweet, naive child,” she’d said, hiccuping as she tried to suppress her mirth. “You think you have a choice? No.”
Lunara had asked her to clarify, and Cordelia’s response had utterly bewildered her.
“They’ve already been cataloguing the possibilities for how your power could be used to their advantage.
They’ll tell you it’s for the Evesong. In some ways, I suppose it is, but they’re not going to let you go on your merry way because you’re having a moral dilemma.
I tried to tell your parents to be discreet, but their pride knows no bounds.
I’m sorry, but your fate has already been decided for you, Lunara the Moonweaver. ”
“How so?” she’d asked.
Cordelia had gotten a far away look. “They’ll persuade you. You’ll be joining the Elder Council tomorrow, one way or another.”
And then she’d walked out, leaving only more confusion in her wake.
“Where are you wandering?” her mother asked, the bump of her shoulder knocking Lunara from her reverie.
“Just ruminating,” she answered. “I’m not happy with my choices.”
The moonstone towers of the Upper Block shot up around them like shards of rainbow glass.
Beautiful, the way they reached for the cosmos twinkling above.
The temptation to give in just to have one of her own was staggering.
It would give her independence. The freedom to entertain outside of her parents’ friends.
To sleep with someone overnight, instead of sneaking around at parties and having passionate encounters in darkened alcoves like she was still an adolescent.
Her father wrapped an arm around Lunara as her mother broke away to sniff at a glowing vine of night-blooming jasmine. “I understand,” he said. “We both do. It’ll all work out after your trial. You’ll see.”
“And if I refuse the trial?”
His eyes tightened, highlighting the beginnings of wrinkles in their corners. “I hope you won’t, but the choice is—”
“Stellan.”
It was amazing how viscerally a body could react to a single word. How instantly Lunara’s limbs iced over upon hearing the breathy choke of her mother’s voice, like they knew moving would be the start of something wretched.
“I would have your gift, Almaura.”
Lunara’s father shoved her behind him and whipped around, his fangs glistening as he snarled.
It sounded like Malachyr, but wrong. Chest heaving, she peered around her father’s torso. Sure enough, it was he who stood behind Almura with one hand gripping her jaw, the other dipping lewdly between her breasts.
“Would you deny your Keeper?”
Her mother whimpered, frozen and blinking as both of his hands tightened around her.
“Would you touch another’s mate thus?” Her father was seething, the cords of his neck bulging.
Lunara had never seen him like that, with the promise of violence in every line of his body. Hadn’t realized he was capable of it.
Malachyr raised indigo eyes to her father. “You should be honored, Stellan, that I would deem her worthy after what you’ve both done.”
“It is you who is no longer worthy, Mal. Let her go, or die.”
Illamiata pulsed in the space where Malachyr’s collar bones met—a single, crystal teardrop set against the ghostly blue shimmer of his skin. Phantom, her parents had said. She understood it better as he moved, there one second and gone the next.
He leapt between the ether’s spaces in a blur. Without waiting to see where he would land, Stellan reached back and shoved Lunara as hard as he could into a border hedge. She sank like she’d leapt into water, the leaves and branches devouring her beneath their surface.
She fought to escape as the din of battle rose. Power thrumming. Growls and grunts. Fists meeting flesh. One of the hovering platforms clipped the bush as it flew by and the crack of bones echoed.
It was her father’s pained bellow, though, and the silence after that stopped her heart.
She freed her head just in time to see Malachyr where he’d started, bleeding from several places, one eye swollen shut.
Claws embedded in her mother’s throat.
Almaura’s wide eyes landed on Lunara, and blood trickled from her lips as she mouthed run.
But Lunara couldn’t run. She couldn’t even move. It was like the shrub had planted itself into her body and rooted her to the ground, paralyzing her.
Her father was on his knees gasping, reaching. One of his hands was… missing.
Bile rose, hot and searing at the sight of that mangled stump. If Lunara could just convince her limbs to work, she might be able to help.
“It isn’t me who will be dying today, Stellan.” His grin was demented. “You should’ve let me have her. Better yet, you should’ve remembered your place.”
Blood sprayed as Malachyr’s hand wrenched to the side, the slap of something wet hitting the street a second later.
Lunara’s mind broke, rending itself in two and refusing to comprehend what it was seeing.
No. No, no, no. Not real.
Surely that wasn’t her mother crumpling lifeless to the ground, missing half of her neck and face.
It was happening to someone else. Someone else.
Not real. Not real. You aren’t even here. It’s not real.
Her father threw out his arms with an ear-splitting roar, and the buildings around them rumbled.
Boulder-sized chunks broke away from the tower bases.
They vibrated as they spun, until each one fractured into millions of tiny shards.
Even Lunara wasn’t safe from their razored edges, the bits pelting her arms, her chest, her face as they shot out.
“I’m going to fucking slaughter you,” Stellan rasped, and swept them into a frenzy.
Malachyr only smirked before he misted through the moonstone fragments. Some hit their mark, but it wasn’t enough.
That was the moment she knew. Knew what came next. Knew she’d never speak to her parents again. Feel their arms and warm laughter wrapping around her. Witness their love, and wish for a bond even half as strong for herself.
Knew she’d never be the same.
Lunara watched from outside of herself, utterly numb as Malachyr the Mistwarden, Keeper of Illamiata buried a fist in her father’s chest, withdrawing his still-beating heart with a laugh before crushing it in his hand.
With his cackles still echoing like a flock of mad birds, Malachyr tossed the ruined scrap of flesh and unleashed the Tear Stone. Power exploded from the center of him, beams blasting outwards into the buildings and along the walkways. Upwards into the dark sky.
She didn’t know how or why, but it must have been her power that saved her when their quarter of the Upper Block was reduced to a pile of rubble and twisted bodies. When the screams started.
None of them were her own as she drifted in and out of consciousness, inches from her father’s unseeing stare. It wasn’t until Cordelia’s face appeared in front of hers hours later that she joined the chorus of agony.
“How?” she sobbed out. “How did he know we were here? Why would he do this?”
Cordelia knew exactly who she meant. Lunara could see it in her eyes even through the haze of misery as the aged Elder used her magic to dig. “Your parents called a vote earlier. Theirs were the only two cast against him.”
The only two.
“How could you?” Lunara whispered. Her repeat was a shriek. “How could you!”
“I had my reasons.” Cordelia didn’t look at her as she said it, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Lunara would have spit on her if she’d been able to move.
Then, it hit her. “They knew we would be here. Every… everyday the same walk after supper.” Something inside of her disintegrated—a blind, happy trust she’d taken for granted. “They—you—let this happen. Wanted it. You wanted this to happen!”
Cordelia’s flinch may as well have been a lengthy confession. Still, she refused to acknowledge it out loud, instead saying, “We’ll get you somewhere safe. You can stay with me or one of the others until you—”
“No. Please, Cordelia,” she begged through gritted teeth, hating she had to ask the snake for anything. “Please. Don’t make me go to them. Not after this.”
“Death is the only way to escape them, Moonweaver. That is their method of persuasion. Our method.”
“Then I am dead!” Her voice shredded itself apart as she gripped Cordelia’s collar. “I am dead, and no one need know otherwise.”
Cordelia looked away, eyes shining. “You have a responsibility.”
A single tear dropped from her chin and Lunara wanted to strangle her for daring to shed it.
“So did they.” She couldn’t help it. Her hand was flying before she knew it was happening, her palm landing with a stinging smack against Cordelia’s cheek. “So did you!”
That was the end of it.