Chapter Ten
A tight grip around her wrist yanked Lunelle from a fitful sleep.
She yelped as two sapphire eyes peered back at her, the haze of her dream still brushing against her back as she tried to understand where she was.
“Sorry,”
Yallara chirped, pulling her upright.
“We’re going to be late!”
“Late for what?”
Lunelle asked tiredly, batting Yallara away as if she were a moth lost in the dark.
“You’ll see. Did you bring anything white?”
Yallara released Lunelle’s wrist and dug into the trunk at the foot of her bed, flinging gowns and lace across her room.
“Yallara!”
Lunelle stood, gathering the floating slips of silk, shaking off whatever sleep clung to her head. Yallara popped up from the trunk with a silver-beaded gown in her hands, one of Lunelle’s favorites.
“Oh, this is perfect,”
she chirped, tossing it toward the bewildered princess.
“Yallara, it’s the middle of the night,”
Lunelle moaned as she glanced out her window. She wasn’t sure what was more disturbing—Yallara’s frantic intrusion or that she’d been in Pluto long enough to recognize time by the state of the sky.
“Exactly,”
Yallara said.
“We haven’t got a moment to lose. Put that on!”
Lunelle turned to look at the spritely princess, her obsidian hair piled high on her head in intricate loops, framed by iridescent pearls twisted into the spirals. She was in a gossamer white gown, floating off her slight frame in wisps of thin smoke.
Yallara blinked and waved at her again.
“Put it on!”
Something about the earnestness in her tone, the excitement in her eyes, loosened the knot in Lunelle’s spine. Her mind wandered back to a time in her youth, when Astra was still just a rebellious teenager, shaking her awake hours before the Moon would rise. She’d been wrapped in black leather, tossing a pair of riding pants to Lunelle.
“It’s a full Moon,”
Astra whispered, glancing over her shoulder as if their mother might be outside the door.
“Riverion is already saddled. Come with me!”
“Come with you where?”
Lunelle asked, her eyes wide as Astra’s shoulders fell, hearing the apprehension in Lunelle’s tone.
“Do not ask me where, just come with me! Please. We’ll be back before Mother wakes.”
“I cannot just leave, As! And neither should you.”
She watched Astra’s heart break, heard it between breaths as the wind that brought her into Lunelle’s room quieted. She did not push. She did not insist.
She returned to her bedroom—or perhaps she didn’t.
Lunelle would never know.
“Hand me the white boots,”
Lunelle sighed, gesturing to her trunk.
“They look better with the silver.”
Yallara clapped her hands together and dug into the trunk, squealing as quietly as she could manage as she fished for Lunelle’s pristine white boots, handing them over and bouncing on her heels. The moment Lunelle’s fingers left the laces, she reached for her wrist again, pulling her into the hallway where several other courtiers waited, each dressed in shades of cream, beige, and silver.
“And that makes a dozen of us!”
Yallara reached for something from one of the Venusians and handed it to Lunelle—an intricate mask made of lace curled in delicate florals around shimmering opalescent pearls. Long white feathers burst from the sides of the mask, trailing down her shoulders as she held it to her face for Yallara’s approval. The group fastened their own masks over their eyes, each one a beautiful representation of their home court, Lunelle realized.
She eyed hers again, the phases of the Moon shimmering beneath the flickering sconce painted in some sort of iridescent glitter.
Yallara charged ahead, and Lunelle marveled as no one seemed to question her, even though she herself did not seem to have questions. She led them down the hall and into a dimly lit staircase, plunging beneath the palace for what felt like an eternity, the air pulling tight with a crisp edge.
When the staircase finally spit them out, they piled into the mouth of an underground cavern, sparkling dark crystals climbing the walls. Lunelle leaned closer to a cluster to examine them, the sound of footsteps echoing off the arched walls punctuating the brisk air.
“Are they sapphires?”
a deep voice asked.
“No,”
Lunelle replied without meeting the inquirer's gaze.
“Stibnite.”
She ran her fingers against the cool edge of the nearest crystal, enjoying the pleasant buzz against her fingertips at its energy.
“They connect you to your ancestors, your past lives.”
“Precisely!”
Yallara pointed toward the end of the cavern in the distance, a shuffling sea of white pouring into the next room.
“Tonight is the Feast of Proserpina. Every year, we dress in white and don masks to confuse Pluto, so that he might not realize if we’re living or dead, and give Proserpina the chance to escape. It is the one night a year when we might get a taste of death—we parade through the Plutonion catacombs to the Cliffs of Descent over the sea. If you’re brave enough to face your Descent and leap from the cliffs, they say Proserpina will grant you a blessing.”
“A bit macabre,”
the voice next to her said quietly. She glanced at him, bright jade eyes flickering behind his mask.
“I like it,”
Lunelle said, straightening beside Mirquios.
“I thought you might.”
Yallara winked and grabbed Lunelle’s hand, pulling her into the fray of Plutonians pouring into the catacombs from the streets above. The courtiers fell into line behind them, the rhythmic sound of their steps echoing against the caverns, sending Lunelle’s heart into a stilted rhythm.
Yallara pulled her through a small carved door in the crystal-coated wall, and they stepped into a thrumming sea of white and blue, flowing down an ancient hall made of alabaster skulls encrusted with stibnite crowns. Ribs and spines laddered up toward the domed ceiling. Thousands and thousands of Plutonians passed and watched as they fell into the crowd.
Plutonians danced to dozens of drums, skipping and turning in circles as they rippled along the city’s underbelly. Masks made of lace and leather and linen watched Lunelle as her silver waves twisted and turned under Yallara’s arms.
The drumbeat was hypnotic, so unlike the delicate strings Lunelle was used to waltzing against. The percussive pulse came from somewhere otherworldly, but not unfamiliar. She felt it seep into her muscle and bone, finding spaces to hide she hadn’t noticed before.
As the crowd danced on, she felt herself bloom into the movement, shedding a thick layer of regal posture, taking up behind Yallara and amongst the Venusians and Earthens. The catacombs teemed with life that once was and life that still would be, a thought that simmered against her skin as they passed under the heart of the city and beyond the walls, climbing cobbled steps into the night and onto the rocky shores of the Hydranian Sea.
The drums faded into the sea breeze and crashing waves beneath the cliffs. Hundreds, maybe thousands of festival goers—Lunelle could hardly see the edge of the crowd—danced along the edges. Goblets of wine and fruit lay on tables adorned with white blossoms, releasing sweet perfume into the air, mingling with sweat and sea and starlight. Blue-flamed bonfires freckled the cliffside, sending sparkling sapphire embers into the velvet sky.
Yallara giggled as she led her guests to a table at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the black sea below. Lunelle’s stomach churned, a dark thought rattling around in her lungs. What might it feel like to leave the edge of this world for the next?
She slid into a chair decorated with runes and a garland of white blossoms spilling to the dark dust beneath them. Yallara hardly touched her chair before she was up again, falling into the arms of a masked courtier and spinning with him into the center of the festival, where dozens of couples twirled to a more robust offering of sounds now. Strings, drums, flutes, a harp. They sang together into one hypnotic melody.
Lunelle reached across the table and grabbed a large chunk of stibnite, heavy in her palm. It sparked against her, two forces between them colliding.
“It’s quite something,”
Mirquios said as he sat beside her, waving over the cliff’s edge and to the dancers. She watched the fire inside her crystal dance, wondering if he saw it too, or if it was all in her head.
“The Plutonians in my court do their own version of this, though on a much less grand scale.”
Lunelle twisted toward him, the white of his mask contrasting beautifully against his dark complexion. She’d understood her sister’s initial attraction to the king, but she hadn’t ever really taken a moment to observe the way his eyes lit from somewhere deep within, much like her crystal. She held it up to him.
“Do you see that?”
The king leaned forward, tilting his head.
“The glow?”
She smiled. She was not losing her wits, then. He stretched out his hand and she set it into his palm as his lips parted. The king laughed.
“I was going to ask if you wanted to dance, but I appreciate your willingness to share your trinkets.”
Her nose scrunched, the pale silver spots across the bridge of it contracting and exploding into a constellation across her blushing cheeks.
“Do you have pockets?”
she asked.
“Pardon, Princess?”
“I like this crystal. I don’t want to lose it, but I do want to dance.”
Mirquios nodded, rising and stuffing the iridescent stone into his silver jacket pocket and holding out his hand once more. His touch was warmer than Arcas and Yallara’s, their proximity to death pushing them closer to her own chilled nerves, she suspected.
She wove them through the dense crowd, finding a space near Yallara as the drums picked up. Mirquios waited for her to lead, but her eyes widened as she watched the other dancers.
“I’m afraid I’ve spent my entire life learning every dance known to the courts… but this one does not seem to have rules!”
Mirquios watched Yallara for a moment, recognizing one of the folk dances he’d seen time and again in his Earthen station.
“Follow me,”
he called out over the drums, taking her hand and walking her in a wide circle around him. As she passed before him, he spun her quickly, her silver waves loose around her face instead of bound tightly into a braid. He released her hand and held his palm up between them, his eyes darting quickly to hers. They clasped their hands together as they circled one another before he closed his hand over hers and twirled her again, catching her in his arms.
Mirquios pulled her close—closer than she was prepared for. He leaned forward, dropping her back into a slow fall, her stomach tying itself into a knot. He paused for just a breath before sweeping her up and into a series of rapid spins around the swirling crowd.
“It’s so fast!”
Lunelle giggled as he held one hand over his head and the other to their sides, twisting her so she faced away from him as they hopped toward and away from one another in time with the drums.
“Hold on,”
Mirquios bellowed as he threw her into another series of bouncing spins in the opposite direction. Lunelle’s foot wobbled in the dust as they raced toward the center, a laugh escaping her chest as the king caught her, pulling her by the elbow into his chest.
“Sorry,”
she mumbled, trying to right herself as dancers brushed against them.
“Do not apologize, Princess. I was wondering if you Lunarians had any flaws—it seems you’re half-human after all.”
The king grinned at her, her eyes stuck on his, something foreign in her chest clicking into place and releasing a chill over her lungs.
A chill that soured the moment she registered its implications.
“Lunelle!”
Yallara cut through the dancers, reaching for her hand.
“They’re going to Descend!”
“What?”
she gasped.
“The divers!”
she yelled, pointing toward the cliffs.
Lunelle dropped her hand from the king’s, trailing Yallara to the edge of the crowd where a dozen Plutonians in their festival whites teetered on the edge of the cliffs.
A priestess chanted from the far side, incense floating into the fathomless black below, her voice hardly rising over the surf.
Yallara leaned closer to her, looping her arm through Lunelle’s elbow.
In the way a sister might, she realized.
She closed her eyes as Yallara explained.
“The Cliffs of Descent are a holy ground, where Proserpina tried to liberate herself from Pluto by jumping, only to drown and wake up right back in the underworld with him. Only those who are brave enough to risk the violent sea below get their reward from her spirit. They say it feels just like Descending. One horrifying step into the ether, and then the rest is just falling softly into the Mother’s arms.”
Lunelle bit her lip, twisting her fingers together as she watched the divers shed their masks, revealing themselves to Pluto as they faced his wrath in the hopes of earning Proserpina’s mercy.
The priestess stopped her song, and they tumbled like falling trees off the edge, a collective inhale from the crowd forcing her breath to stick in her throat.
She wondered as she watched their feet leave all they’d ever known behind for just a chance at what they wanted, if they felt terror shredding at their lungs, or if just the act of taking what they so desired was enough to quell it.
To silence the screaming.
She was still wondering as she stumbled back toward her bedchambers, her boots in her hands and mask askew as the Sun threatened to make its return.
“Lunelle!”
The deep bass notes rattled in her chest as she twisted toward the king, that same thing against her ribs catching her off guard.
“Mirquios?”
“You forgot your rock,”
he said, digging into his pocket and producing the shimmering jagged gem.
“It’s not just a rock,”
she sighed, taking it.
He flashed a smile.
“No, it’s stibnite. Connects you with your ancestors and past lives. Glows when certain Lunar demigoddesses touch it.”
She turned her gaze to his as he pulled his mask off.
“Goodnight,”
she said, the crystal whirring to life in her hand.
“Good morning,”
he chuckled, fading down the hall.
Lunelle forced a hard swallow, the lingering chill in her bones sending icy rivulets across her skin as she made her way into her bedroom. She collapsed onto the bed in a heap of silk and sparkle, feeling every bit a petulant child and not the grown leader she’d come to Pluto as.
Her final thoughts before succumbing to the thrill of the night’s activities returned to the divers and their desperation.
Perhaps tumbling over a cliff’s edge was preferable to the quiet betrayal she’d flirted with in the hall.
The Plutonian Palace was even more blue in her dreams.
The walls sparkled as she wandered through them, the silver dress she hadn’t had the energy to strip off clinging to her curves. She ran her fingertips along the ancient stones, following a path she now knew well.
The library was empty, and she was somewhat annoyed at her own disappointment. She sat in the bay of the window, watching the silver pools trickle down the hill.
“Quite the gown,” he said.
Lunelle’s eyes slipped from the flowing silver pools to the library’s door, the pale blues of his face darkened by the late hour.
“You missed out on all the festivities,”
Lunelle said, twisting in the cushioned bay to tuck her knees to her chest.
Arcas leaned against the doorway, crossing one ankle over the other.
“I find it… refreshing that you give my sister so much of your attention,”
he said, brushing his fingertips along the soft gray linen of his shirt.
“No, you don’t,”
Lunelle retorted, smirking as he mirrored her bemusement.
“You’re right. I’m actually mad with envy,”
he murmured.
“Envy that you did not get invited or envy that I split my attention?”
Arcas sighed, stepping into the library, but leaving the door open.
“I do not need to compete for your attention, Lunelle. You’re a grown woman. You should bestow it on whomever you please—even on spoiled princesses and self-righteous kings.”
She swallowed a defensiveness sparking in her chest.
“He isn’t nearly as self-righteous as you are?—”
“Let’s not fight.”
Arcas sat beside her.
“Fair enough. I meant to ask… what flows through the pools?”
Arcas raised his brows.
“Yallara hasn’t bored you to death with the legends? I’m surprised. She loves talking about them.”
Lunelle shook her head.
“She has not.”
Arcas twisted so his long legs fell over the edge and made space for her to move closer. Lunelle kneeled against the glass, looking over the pools as they whispered into a river of starlight.
“They are Souls,”
Arcas whispered, watching her brows as they furrowed.
“How—”
“At least, that’s what people say,”
Arcas amended, grinning as she sighed.
“But the liquid itself is only water. It’s actually the stibnite below, the crystals in the catacombs, that give the metallic effect. The water catches the light, and it bounces off the crystals.”
He stood, offering her a hand.
“You should see them up close.”
Lunelle stared at his fingertips, hovering only inches from her lips.
“They’re even lovelier to touch,”
he said, his hand shifting closer. Lunelle rested her palm in his, and he pulled her gently to her feet, winding her through the library’s dense shelves and to a window toward the back corner. He released her hand to pop the frame of the window out of the wall, the pane coming free with minimal effort on his part.
His eyes bounced between Lunelle and the window, only a few feet off the ground.
“Can you make it in that dress?”
“This feels like a contrived trick to get me out of it,”
Lunelle muttered as she eyed the frame.
Arcas drew nearer to her, his fingertips skimming her hip. He leaned in, his breath warm on her neck.
“Do you really think I’d have to trick you?”
Lunelle swatted his arm, scoffing despite the thrill running through her spine. In an effort not to give into it, she darted forward, hiking her skirt up over her knees and stepping gingerly over the barrier. She ducked her head beneath the top of the frame and swung her second leg up, dropping to the soft ground below.
The grass swished against her bare feet as she ran along the outside of the ivy-coated palace, her fingers brushing the dense leaves as Arcas hit the ground behind her.
Lunelle jogged forward, heading for the stream of liquid starlight running from below the window she’d been seated beneath and into the gardens.
Arcas caught up to her, falling to his knees at the edge of the pools and holding his hand to her once more. As he helped her to the ground, he reached into the water with his other hand, cupping the silver and bringing it to her face.
“See? Clear.”
Lunelle leaned out over the babbling stream, her reflection warped in this astral version of the palace.
“It’s all an illusion, then?”
“Isn’t everything, to an extent?”
Lunelle looked back toward the prince as he leaned into the garden grounds on his elbow, one leg propped up as if at the beach.
He looked godsdamned peaceful, for once.
Lunelle fell back over her feet, swinging her legs out to stretch along his. She leaned close to him, in a way she wouldn’t have done anywhere else, the buzz between them exaggerated in this space.
She wondered for a moment where he really was—if he was in bed, thinking of her, and somehow the cosmos pushed them together. She lay back in the grass, the skies above rippled with rainbow threads and glittering stars.
“Lunelle?”
“Hmm?”
she hummed as she ran her fingertips over the silk of her gown, letting the gentle breeze and whispering of the stream lull her into a second sleep.
“Never mind,”
Arcas whispered, leaning closer to her, his hand just brushing the silk piled between them.
When she woke, she half expected to find him in her bed, but the space remained empty, producing a strange ache in her stomach she did not have time to unravel.