Chapter 3 Celeste
Celeste
The green room hums with a living, breathing energy that crawls under my skin and refuses to settle.
The air smells like sweat, leather, and the faint sting of ozone from the fog machines bleeding through the vents.
The low thrum of bass from the opening bands rolls beneath my feet, vibrating through the floor, seeping into my bones.
It should be exhilarating.
It used to be exhilarating.
This is the opening night of Umbra’s world tour.
We’ve been on the road before playing in smaller venues and doing state tours, which have taught us how to survive on tour, but this is different.
We’re on tour for an entire year, playing in stadiums, this time with international dates, playing in forty cities.
It’s the kind of scale that makes everything we did before look like rehearsal.
Tonight is the culmination of years I spent grinding through bars, sleepless nights on the road, and a chance encounter with Rowan.
The roar from the crowd rolls down the service corridors like a wave, making the lights tremble and my thoughts dissolve this far backstage. The sound should set my pulse racing. Every seat in the stadium is full, and we sold out the entire tour within the first few days of public sale.
This feels like the start of an era, not only for how we fought and bled to get here, but because Jamie’s daughter is finally earthside. The idea that our accomplishments and victories now have a new generation, and that makes the celebration feel doubled.
She made it to the hospital just in time.
I still can’t believe how close she cut it.
One minute I was throwing bras and toiletries at her, the next she was on a plane, and somehow, less than thirty minutes after getting to the hospital, she was holding a whole new life in her arms. I’m so happy for her I could scream.
And selfishly, I already miss her like hell.
I keep catching myself looking over my shoulder, waiting for her to do one of her signature throat clears or give me the “wrap it up” finger when I start running behind.
But she’s not here, and she won’t be for a while.
She deserves every second with her family, but that doesn’t mean it won’t sting without her standing guard backstage tonight.
But Jamie being gone isn’t the only thing rattling me.
There’s a storm raging inside me, and it has nothing to do with the tens of thousands of screaming fans waiting for us to go on stage.
I can’t shake him.
The big, brooding bastard I gave my heart to, only for him to throw it back in my face.
In the beginning, we both thought our relationship was only physical, but over time, it felt like things were changing.
I thought maybe we could work things out, between his job and mine.
We were opening up to each other in a way I’ve never experienced with another person.
I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms, and I try to anchor myself to this moment. I listen to the hum of the crowd, the feeling of the cold of the mic I’ll soon have in my hand, the flicker of stage lights through the doorway, but the past keeps bleeding in, color and sound and hurt.
He didn’t even give me a choice. He decided for us and told me I was better off without him. As if I hadn’t already made up my mind the moment I saw him lying in that hospital bed, pale and in pain.
I had been ready to stay as long as I could.
I would have fought for him. We had made the decision to turn our fling into a relationship and I was ready to tell him about Ara, I even thought about taking him on the road with me.
I would have rearranged things to fit him in my life while on tour.
I would have found ways to make him comfortable, to sit with him through the long, boring hours, to call nurses and coordinate care between cities.
I would have been there in the ways I could be without collapsing everything.
But I could not quit the tour. I could not put forty cities with sold-out stadiums on hold.
That was the line I could not cross, not because I wanted to choose the stage over him, but because the life I had built in Umbra was also the thing that kept other people fed and dreams moving.
He shut me out without listening to what I had to say.
He locked the door and threw away the key.
He had me blacklisted from the hospital and later from the rehab facility.
The woman staring back at me from the mirror doesn’t look like someone about to walk out in front of almost seventy thousand people. She looks raw, like her heart was just bruised and she barely had time to stitch it together.
Celeste Smith. Blonde. Beautiful. A little ditzy when it suits her. Once people see my smile, the preppy matching outfit sets, and easy laugh, they stop looking there, not even bothering to see what’s underneath.
But Celeste doesn’t go on stage.
Ara does.
And Ara feels nothing.
I grab the paint stick and drag it across my collarbone, streaking it down my arms in long, deliberate strokes. Slowly painting Celeste away, watching her disappear with every swipe of the stick, with every pat of the black setting powder.
The woman who loved too much. The woman who would’ve given everything for a man who decided she wasn’t worth fighting for.
I smear the paint across my hands, up my wrists, erasing the softness, the vulnerability. He wouldn’t recognize me. He had just started to get to know the real me. Would he have let me stay if I had been more honest with him?
The thought tears at something deep in my chest. I shove it away almost as quickly as it appears.
Across the room, Korbyn—Shade now—lounges on the green chaise like a cat in combat boots, drumming a stick against her thigh.
Her copper hair glows against her dark stage outfit, braids swinging when she tilts her head toward me.
“You’re quiet tonight,” she says, her tone easy but her gaze razor-sharp.
She’s always the first to catch a crack.
Shiloh—Dusk—leans her new electric bass against her knee and snorts. “Quiet? You mean moody. She’s brooding.” Her voice softens the words, teasing but warm. “It’s the Ursa thing again.”
Shade grins, wicked and knowing. “Definitely a Ursa thing.”
Their eyes cut toward our guitarist, Linkin—Twilight—who sits cross-legged on the floor, tuning his instrument like it’s a meditation. “Obviously,” he chimes in, his voice dry. The single word carries more amusement than judgment.
I roll my eyes and drag the paint along my jaw, up my cheekbones, turning myself to stone. “I’m not thinking about him.”
“Liar,” Shade sing-songs. “It’s opening night of our sold-out world tour, and you’re brooding. That’s a Ursa problem.”
Ursa.
The secret relationship I had with my brother’s best friend, Special Agent Lucian Sterling.
With the band hiding our identity from the press and our fans, we always take special care to never use anyone’s actual name.
When Lucian and I first started sneaking around, they noticed a change in me and wore me down until I confessed.
After I showed them a picture of him, they declared then and there he’d be Ursa, whether he became a big or small part of my life; the name worked.
He is a bear of a man—one you didn’t dare poke unless you were prepared to deal with the consequences.
One I loved to poke anyway, I think bitterly. And now he’s gone.
Twilight catches my reflection in the mirror, fingers stilled on the strings. “You good?”
I nod once, sharp, automatic. “Fine.”
But I’m not. Because today, something reminded me of him, and now his absence is a bruise I can’t stop pressing, a wound that never bled but never closed, and doesn’t heal because it never got the chance to.
I grab the oil-slick wig from its stand, securing it over my natural hair, careful of the intricate braids woven through the top half.
The iridescent strands shimmer under the light, shifting from deep purples to greens and blues, as untouchable as I force myself to be.
I stab the hair sword through the braids, exhaling slowly.
I’m almost there—almost Ara.
I step into my dress, the fabric sliding against my skin, cold like the rest of me.
Tiny gemstones form constellations across the bodice, catching the light as I adjust the straps.
The slits along my thighs let me move easily, dance freely, and command the stage without restriction.
I roll my shoulders, slipping into the thigh-highs before fastening my boots.
The energy in the room changes. Everyone feels it.
Dusk smirks. “Nothing gets past the veil.”
My fingers brush over the final piece—the gold chain veil that will cover the lower half of my face.
Each delicate link glints with tiny gemstones, meant to dazzle under the stage lights and distract from the human underneath.
Tens of thousands of faceless fans will cheer for me tonight, believing in the illusion I give them.
They’ll see Ara.
Twilight strikes a dramatic chord, heightening the emotion in the room. “Now say it once again with feeling.”
A slow exhale pushes past my lips. I sit up straighter, rolling my shoulders back. “Nothing gets past the veil.”
I hook the veil behind my ears and let it fall into place.
Celeste is gone.
Shade grins and twirls a drumstick. “There she is.”
The energy in the room shifts, excitement thickening the air.
“I still can’t get over these new costumes,” Dusk says, plucking at one of the gemstone constellations on her sleeve. “The way the stage lights are gonna hit? We’re about to look ethereal as fuck.”
Shade leans forward, grinning. “I’m just glad I get to look badass and still breathe. I swear the leather bodysuit I wore during rehearsals could be classified as a war crime.”
“Better than those heels I had to wear,” Twilight mutters, making a face. “My knees have never been the same.”
I laugh at his dramatics. “Dude, yours were barely two inches tall, and they were platforms. The rest of us were rocking four-inch heels the entire two hours. The things we suffer for art.”
Dusk nudges my knee. “You looking forward to playing anywhere specific?”
I hesitate. The answer should be yes—everywhere. We’re playing all over the world and getting to experience so many cultures this time, making history as an anonymous band.
But my mind snags on one city. One man.
The last place I saw him.
I push the thought away.
“All of it,” I say instead. “But probably Tokyo. It’ll be our first stop abroad, and I have a feeling it’s gonna be insane.”
Twilight hums. “Hell yeah, it is.”
A knock at the door cuts through the moment. The venue manager peeks in. “Five minutes.”
Showtime.
A thrumming undercurrent of anticipation ripples through us. We rise as one, falling into a loose formation, our steps synchronized.
The hallway is dim, the roar of the crowd distant but growing. My pulse keeps pace with it, beating harder, faster.
Twilight bumps my shoulder. “See you on the other side, Ara.”
I nod once. No turning back.
Beneath the stage, the air is electric. The opening chords of our first song vibrate through the platform. The stagehands move with precision, final checks, and countdowns murmured into earpieces.
I close my eyes. The noise is deafening, but inside—silence.
This is what I live for.
The platform slowly rises.
The first glimpse of the stadium steals my breath—thousands upon thousands of fans, their arms raised, a sea of lights blinking like stars. The sound hits me full force, a tidal wave of energy.
My heart pounds in time with the music.
I lift the mic to my lips, inhale deep—
And then I’m gone.
Ara takes over.
And Celeste?
She’s nothing but a ghost in the wings.