Sixty-One
S IXTY - O NE
ESTRELLA
The world plunged into absolute darkness, the likes of which I’d never known. I gripped Caldris tighter, clinging to the one lifeline I had when it felt like I was suspended within nothing. Words rippled across my skin, a voice I couldn’t account for whispering through the breeze that stole through the entryway.
“From chaos, she was born.”
The voice was soft and feminine, gentle and haunting. Gooseflesh rose on my skin, raising the hair on the back of my neck. I wished more than anything that I could see. Wished that I could find the person responsible for the voice, but I somehow knew it wasn’t a tangible person.
“And in chaos, she will reign.”
It was my mate’s turn to shudder, the words so similar to the refrain that we had adopted as ours , as a statement of our love. Never had either of us considered that it might be part of a bigger riddle, a piece to fit into the puzzle of my existence. “ Until chaos reigns ,” he muttered in my head, and I felt the weight of his gaze on my profile. I couldn’t stand to turn to look at him, couldn’t handle the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see him in this darkness, that the black ink of night stole everything from the world and plunged it into a void of nothingness.
Even with his hand in mine, in this place, in this time, I was alone with only his voice inside my head to ground me and keep me floating into the darkness.
“Welcome home, Tempest of Fate. We have waited eons for you.”
A torch lit on the wall beside me, one matching on the opposite wall beside Caldris. The fire pulsed, casting his face with golden light that made him look starkly beautiful. He shimmered like a statue in the sun, his viniculum responding to mine. In a synchronized wave, torches lit on the wall one by one creating a path down the narrow entry. In the distance, the hall opened into an enormous, cavernous room that was filled with light. There was no denying the impulse to make my way there, to follow the guide that had been set out for us. Caldris squeezed my hand reassuringly as we took our first step as one, moving together as a unit. My steps were slow, cautious, and uneasy as we made our way toward the truth waiting for me in that room.
The golden light bathed a statue in the center of the room ahead, the figure of a woman appearing as if she’d been encased in molten gold. It poured over like liquid, burning like the fires of starlight in the night sky. Her gown was a drapery of fabric, falling off her shoulders and cascading down her torso before pooling all the way to her feet. Dark hair had been pulled back into a braid on top of her head, waves tangled into a clip at the back so that they could hang down over her shoulders.
It was the same gown they’d dressed me in for dinner at the Tithe settlement.
The face staring down at me was impassive, carefully neutral as if the weight of so many stares upon her would be judging and looking for weakness. She was a Queen in a sea of faces, the kind you would never forget. Calculating and cold, but a tiny smile played at her lips, hinting at lightness that had no place on her face.
“It’s you, min asteren,” Caldris said, speaking the words out loud as if the temple itself needed the recognition from him. I studied that face intently, hating to admit that the features as a whole were familiar. They looked like me, but didn’t.
Couldn’t, not when I wore my heart on my sleeve so clearly for all to see. Maybe she was a version of me that had lived in the past or one that had yet to come, but this woman, this statue, was not me in the present.
I moved to deny it, shaking my head once as my mouth opened. My voice caught in my throat as the statue moved, shifting to turn her neck to face me with a creak of metal scratching against itself. I froze solid, staring at the statue in horror as she raised a hand. Her palm faced me, her fingers splayed as the shimmer of those golden eyes held my stare.
“Ready yourself tonight, Estrella Barlowe. For tomorrow, you die.”
The voice in my head was the same, the attachment to this woman undeniable. I raised my hand, letting it linger just before hers. They were the same size, down to the very last knuckle. Every detail of our hands lined up and matched so perfectly it was like she’d been carved with me as a model. The words, the meaning of them, echoed the warning the Morrigan had given me when I first arrived in Tartarus. I glanced to Caldris from the corner of my eye, studying his face to see if he’d heard them. I had to know what he knew, had to know if that was something that had played in his head, too, or if he would hear it in mine.
As the panic coursed through me, there was no way he could not know of what was coming.
“ Some secrets are better left in the dark, Little Bird ,” the woman’s voice said, and it felt like time stood still. My father’s words, echoed in the ferryman and then repeated to me in this temple that had existed since the dawn of time. I didn’t know what came first or last, floating in this timeless space where nothing made sense.
I swallowed my fear, drinking down my own apprehension and moved my hand closer to hers, our fingers finally brushing against one another. Her gold melted from her hand, spreading my skin like liquid—viscous and thick. It poured over me, sliding down my fingers and coating my hand, enrobing my wrists and sinking into the marks of my viniculum . I could not tear my hand away, instead trapped within her grasp as those metallic fingers entwined with mine. She trapped me as the liquid covered me, crawling up my arm to encase my shoulder and my neck, eating away at the armor that covered my body. It was warm to the touch, the heat almost melting my flesh as I shoved Caldris to the side with all my strength, forcing him to release me before the gold could touch him.
My heart hammered in my chest as the gold touched the spot where that knot existed within me, my mouth parting on a silent scream as the gold rose up my throat to cover my face. It sank into my mouth, making its way up my nose and into my eyes. When it covered me entirely, I could not move. Caldris’s voice was a quiet murmur in my head, and I wondered what he saw.
Had this all been in my head? An imagination or imagery meant only for me? But it couldn’t explain the way my lungs seized, turning solid as the gold hardened. I couldn’t breathe, but Caldris was calm, reassuring as if it was nothing. I felt the edge of his own fear lingering at the side, a tangible thing he shoved away to try to help me through this prison. I drew in a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand with it. The gold filling them cracked and shattered into dust, and I pulled away with a jerky step back as everything returned to me.
Gold fluttered off me as my eyes opened to see, flakes of it billowing in the wind like leaves in autumn. Beyond them, the statue of the woman was gone, as if she’d poured her very essence onto me. Something inside of me felt hardened, as if I could still feel the presence of that molten gold within me as it cooled, changing me for the future in a way I could not anticipate.
The armor I’d worn was gone, leaving me nude as I stood at the center of the temple with Caldris at my side. At the forefront of the temple, one of the walls shifted. The stone cracked and crumbled in on itself, drawing me forward without care for my own nakedness. Caldris stepped before me, moving into the space that it created as if to defend me. But when he stepped to the side, the twin moons shone in the night sky above a courtyard. A galaxy of stars sparkled next to the moons, shooting through the darkness and surrounding us and lingering so low that they seemed to be in the very air around us. Grass tickled my feet as I stepped out onto it, turning to draw my mate into the starlight with me.
The statues words at the back of my mind, there was only one way I wanted to spend my night if it were to truly be my last.
“My star,” Caldris murmured against my mouth, the words soft and reassuring as I grasped him by the waist of his pants and dragged him into the center of the courtyard. There was a bed and blanket already made up there, a place to sleep beneath the stars as they tore through the night. “We have all the time in the world.”
I didn’t know if the statement was meant for me or for himself, but nothing could have stopped me from pulling him closer, grab bing him around the back of the neck and tugging him down to my height.
“Come fuck me beneath the stars, King of Winter,” I murmured against his mouth, pressing my own to his teasingly. He groaned into me, trying to control himself for me. He knew what this was, even if he didn’t know the true reasons behind my insistence. He may not know why I believed this would be our last night together or that I’d be going into the Temple of the Fates alone the next day, but he knew me well enough to know what drove me.
I needed him, needed to feel him, before I faced the greatest of my fears.
My fate.
“I wouldn’t want to make them jealous,” he said, finally giving in enough to wrap me in his embrace, sliding his hand down my spine and over the curve of my ass. His other hand followed, a slow tease as he lifted me into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist, letting him carry me as he knelt on the edge of the bed and used one of his hands to support me while the other crawled forward, laying me down at the center carefully. He held himself over me, shielding me from the light of the moon and stars above. His hair fell around me, his nose touching mine as that blue-eyed stare became my entire world.
“Why should a star be jealous of me?” I asked, the words a whisper.
“Because as beautiful as they may be when they dance like that, they’ll never be my favorite,” he argued, touching his mouth to mine. It was gentle at first, a teasing caress coaxing me to open for him. When I did, he deepened our kiss quickly, leaving me to untie his tunic laces and tug it over his head, letting him work his pants down his legs in haste.
He wasted little time guiding himself to my center, finding me already wet and wanting. A look from him was all it took, and I’d be ready. He took me more slowly than usual, letting me feel every inch as he worked his way inside me. His tongue tangled with mine, his breath sharing the same air, with every shallow thrust. He glided through me, sinking in to the hilt and moving with the casual ease of a man who wanted to take his time. I clung to him, letting him take and give and everything in between. Our connection was all that mattered to me, feeling him inside my head and inside my body at the same time the most intimate of acts I could share with any person.
He was mine, and I was his, and when he finally buried his face in my neck and drove us both over the edge, I watched the stars dance in the sky above—their movements restless and chaotic.
Knowing the destruction that would follow in their wake.