Chapter Twenty-One
Oestera held her breath as her daughter entered their shared study.
“Good morning,”
she said over her tea, watching as Lunelle sank across from her and leaned into the arm of the sofa. She’d snuck back into her bedroom early that morning and had a hushed argument with Lura, but she’d hoped her mother had not been able to make out the panicked notes of the conversation.
Lunelle’s shoulders slumped. A far cry from the posture she normally adopted.
“Lunelle?”
“Good morning,”
Lunelle finally muttered.
Gods, she sounded pathetic.
“Darling,”
Oestera said softly, a tone she rarely heard from her mother.
“Are you feeling well?”
“Fine,”
she whispered, choking on the words.
“Is it the prince?”
“It’s a myriad of things, Mother. I am tired. I am homesick. I miss my sister.”
I fell in love with her fiancé, I let myself think I could love a monster, I’ve implicated them both, I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up.
At the mention of Astra, Oestera sat up straighter, falling back into her role of disappointed mother.
“Your sister does not seem to miss any one of us,”
Oestera sighed.
“She has not responded to a single note to her king in weeks.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Lunelle asked, her shoulders perking up.
“Tula keeps her eyes on the mail drops,”
Oestera explained.
“You’ve seemed rather… unfocused these last few days.”
Lunelle’s eyes widened, a blush creeping over her pale freckles.
“How do you mean?”
Oestera shrugged.
“I mean no offense, but we can’t afford to be anything other than fixed on our goals here, Lunelle. The news from the Outer Courts only gets more dire.”
It landed exactly as she needed it to, right between Lunelle’s ribs. She knew she’d been anything but the levelheaded leader she’d meant to be. Unfocused was generous, frankly.
“Mother…”
Oestera leaned forward, setting her teacup on the table between them.
Lunelle exhaled slowly, swallowing something painful.
“I’ve been meaning to make a request of you,”
Oestera said, her starlight gaze roiling with an unusual fire.
“After your trial, when you’re to come back through the Lunar Gate, I need you to wait for my signal. Just to be sure all is well.”
Lunelle’s eyes bounced from the table to Lura, who looked equally as perplexed.
“What wouldn’t be well, Mother?”
“Nothing in particular! I just remember from coronations past that sometimes the crowds get a bit raucous waiting for the Lunar champion to emerge, and I want to be sure everyone is prepared.”
Lunelle did not buy it, but she didn’t have any notion of what Oestera could possibly be on about. And she had more pressing matters to address.
“On the subject of champions…”
Lunelle sighed, the pain within her flaring as she formed the harsh threats from Arcas into an easy lie.
“I think it’s time we formalize my engagement to Arcas.”
It was not what Lunelle had wanted to say. It wasn’t at all what she thought she’d be saying that morning. But it was what she needed to say.
“Are you sure?—”
“Yes. At tomorrow’s Equinox celebration. Please,”
she added, avoiding eye contact.
“Is there… a reason for your rush?”
Oestera’s nose scrunched, her thoughts nearly audible from across the room.
Lunelle glared.
“No, Mother. None of that.”
Plenty of that, Lunelle thought. But that wasn’t her concern.
“Well, if that’s what you’d like, I can meet with the prince today. But Lunelle?—”
“Thank you,”
she said, cutting her mother off. She rose and disappeared back into her room, leaving Oestera completely baffled.
Gods, it was painful—horrifyingly painful to say it out loud.
Lunelle could hardly force it from her tongue, but she’d spent all night trying to think of ways around it.
Short of committing murder, her hands were tied—and it had taken Lura a considerable length of time to talk her out of that one. She was losing herself, her mind falling into shambles by the second. She’d been reckless, she’d been foolish, and now everyone would pay the price.
Or, she could suffer, and protect them all.
“Lura!”
The maiden came rushing from the next room over, her lips drawn into a tight line after hearing Lunelle’s declaration to the queen.
“I need another pomegranate.”
“What?”
Lura asked.
Lunelle pulled her long waves into a tight knot at the back of her neck and slipped into a pair of pants, discarding her morning dress.
“I need a pomegranate—I need to have a word with a goddess.”
“Lunelle—”
“I know what I’m doing,”
Lunelle hissed, a tone that Lura had come to anticipate more and more over the last few weeks. Lunelle could practically hear the strings snapping within her ribs.
Lura darted out of the room as Lunelle stuffed the smallest piece of stibnite in her pocket, just for good measure. The energy sparked to life within it, giving her the courage to move. Lura returned with a plump pomegranate and Lunelle’s cloak, watching her carefully as she tucked the fruit under her arm.
“I will be back by dinner,”
Lunelle said as she brushed past Lura and into the hallway, moving swiftly through the courtiers meandering in the garden.
Her chest lurched as she dove into the next hall and around the corner, passing the Mercurians. She knew he felt her rush by, too.
She broke into a jog at the bottom of the endless stairs into the catacombs, avoiding eye contact with anyone who wandered through the underground halls. She pulled her hood lower, making quick work of the tunnels and pathway through the city.
She never once stopped to reassess her plan, if one could call it that.
For the first time in her entire life, she was letting her heart drive her forward, letting it push her up the cracked steps into the glowing Plutonian Sun setting now over the horizon. The cliffs were sparsely populated, a few Plutonians with their fair blue complexions walking along the edges, wondering just how far the fall was.
She paid them no mind as she strolled along the edge closest to the sandy steps, holding her pomegranate in one hand and her crystal in another. She wasn’t sure exactly how she spiraled to Proserpina the first time, but Lunelle tried to hold her in her mind—the flowing rose curls, her tan fingers.
Her eyes fell over the cliff’s edge, watching the black waters beneath churn inward.
When she’d come before, she carried a curiosity within her. A little glimmer of hope that maybe, maybe she’d see something reflected back in those angry waves that might soothe her.
This evening, though, she carried a bitter heart steeped in the rage of a thousand eldest daughters. Proserpina had not helped her before, and perhaps it was because she had not been clear enough, but now she was desperate, and desperation could breed either clarity or chaos.
She prayed for the former.
Perhaps it would be a relief, she thought to herself, edging closer to the crumbling rock bordering the wild sea. Perhaps it would be a better fate to fall into the watery grave and never resurface.
Lunelle leaned out over the cliff, her heart dropping into her stomach at the thought of it. She sat, folding her legs beneath her as she let the lullaby of the sea crashing against the rocks below hypnotize her.
Perhaps, she thought again, it was my fear of jumping that prevented Proserpina from granting my wish in the first place.
She considered it as she closed her eyes, the sweet relief death might be. Did Tethers follow you into the Court Below? Would the ache ever release?
Would she be damning him to a lifetime of sunken ribs and stilted breaths—never able to breathe through the crushing surf of her?
Ah, there, it was at that thought the dragging began. That tug on the back of her Soul collapsed her inward. She gave herself over to it, letting it sever her from this world and push her into the next.
Her Soul tumbled, falling for much longer than she’d expected, the air around her chilling as she crashed through the surface of another realm. Her lungs filled with frigid smoke—no—water.
She was drowning.
The waves crushed her from overhead, burying her beneath them, sending her spiraling even faster as she fought for breath. The pressure built, a pain searing against her chest, and for a moment, she worried she might have leaned forward and fallen over the cliff before Proserpina could find her.
Just as she thought she might lose herself entirely, her knees clashed into gray sand, sending a shockwave through her bones and water sputtering from her throat.
“Oh,”
a deep voice sighed.
“They never hold their breath.”
Lunelle’s head snapped forward, the figure before her not Proserpina at all, but a towering frame of smoke and shadow, surrounded by fathomless black seas.
His eyes sparkled in sapphire, his complexion was that same cerulean hue she’d learned to admire. The same as the man who’d betrayed her.
She stood quickly, flicking water from her hands.
“A Lunar princess… fascinating.”
His sharp jaw set as he paced around her in a circle, revealing an iron throne behind him, lit by blue flickering flames.
“Pluto,”
Lunelle whispered, feeling the God of Death’s name bubble to her lips.
“Were you seeking someone else?”
He stopped before her, two heads taller than her own lithe frame, and rested his finger on his chin.
“Because I certainly heard you calling my name,” he said.
“I do not know what I seek anymore,”
Lunelle confessed, a chill running through her spine. She had surely made a wrong turn through the cosmos, veering into a territory that would only end in more tragedy.
“Oh, come now, Princess. We both know that’s untrue. You know exactly what you want.”
Lunelle chewed on her lip. The gods were powerful, but were they all-knowing?
“I can smell it on you. The desperation. Only Fate and her wicked ways create so much strife in so young a rose.”
Lunelle swallowed. Perhaps she had called to him. Perhaps she and Proserpina were not so different after all.
Perhaps he could help her.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Ah,”
Pluto said, strolling back to his throne. He folded himself into the cold seat, the black silk draped across his chest catching what little light lived there.
“Not knowing what you want and not knowing how to get it aren’t quite the same thing, are they?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know what my love’s greatest sin was, Princess?”
Lunelle watched as his long, skeletal fingers drew lines over the smooth arm of the throne.
He continued, “She believed her desires were selfish, and not a gift of Fate in and of themselves.”
“What—”
“Where do you think your yearnings come from? Gods may be self-centered, but we are not monsters. Fate weaves those threads into your heart, your muscles, your blood—your destiny lives in a million Tethers inside you long before that pesky one in your chest bursts forth.”
Lunelle felt both lighter and ready to vomit.
“It’s horrifying, isn’t it? What we want is already ours, if only we’re strong enough to take it.”
Pluto rested his chin in his hand, his eyes falling over Lunelle and into the ether around them. A soft smile unfolded as a warm light shone and twinkled across the bobbing waves beyond them.
“I’m afraid to hurt everyone.”
“Hmm,”
Pluto leaned back, crossing his leg as he gestured to her chest, the pulsing against the Tether flaring in response.
“I wonder which will hurt your king more? Suffering with you, or without?”
He curled two fingers, motioning someone forward.
Proserpina’s warmth clung to Lunelle’s back as she moved into their space, throwing glittering stars against the shadows. She crossed between them, perching on the arm of the throne. Pluto’s hand fell to her hip in a motion so well-practiced it seemed odd that he might ever be anywhere but there.
The goddess leaned forward, holding out her palm. Lunelle offered her the pomegranate.
“Even in eternity, I regret the time I wasted fighting,”
Proserpina said, looking at Pluto. Between them was a sorrow laced with love and lust, a depth to their feelings that Lunelle worried she understood perfectly.
“You can only outrun Fate so long, Lunelle. What is for you will find you, in every plane, in every lifetime. Even if you hide from it.”
Lunelle sighed, the sinking feeling within her sparkling with something silver—something like hope.
“Hold your breath this time,”
Pluto said softly, waving his hand and sending a black wave over her head.
She swept up and over herself with the midnight current.
There was no breath left in her lungs to hold.