Chapter Thirty-Two
The temple loomed over them as the Moon climbed over the horizon, an eerie silence settling over their shoulders.
Lunelle stood between lavender pillars, her hair woven into an ornate crown around her foggy mind. Three men towered behind her, each more frightened than the next—but one moved with her, the Tether sizzling between them, and another moved against her, the wisps of their strange connection tickling her ribs.
“Good morning,”
Tula said, her silken voice tight as she absorbed the tension between them.
“I hope you’re all well rested.”
Lunelle fought the urge to laugh as two sets of eyes flashed toward her. It was all so preposterous.
“You may enter,”
Tula said, opening her arm toward the temple. Lunelle stepped softly into the crystalline walls, a bubbling spring in the middle whispering sacred prayers as they kneeled on velvet cushions around the azure waters.
“You’ve each chosen… or been chosen, rather,”
Tula corrected herself, “to undertake a sacred ritual, stretching back to the very first of our Lunar demigoddesses, who built this realm with divine intuition and a deep understanding that to be whole requires a balance of our natures. One cannot love the light without respect for the dark, and one cannot survive the dark without the hope of light. They complete one another. When we are crafted by the gods, they pull our Soul and Shadow from Above and Below, stitching us together with gilded threads. It is up to us to honor them both throughout our lives.”
Lunelle’s eyes fell across the spring, fixed on the jade gaze of the king as he buried a smile. Beside her, Arcas leaned ever so slightly in her direction, the spring before them reflecting his pale blues. Tula held a long stick of incense over a black candle, waving it between them as she wove through their kneeling bodies.
“Upon our Descent, the Cleaver untangles us once more, giving us time and space to reflect on how our two halves can be reconciled. It is only upon our Souls embracing our Shadows that we can make our journey to the Court Above.”
Tula completed her circle, resting the incense on a silver tray, the smoke curling and falling to the temple floor. She lifted a bowl from her table, cradling it in her hands as she stepped behind Lunelle.
“Today, you’ll each part with your Shadow temporarily, offering it to the Nether as a symbol of your commitment to maintaining this holy balance throughout your reign.”
Tula glanced across their faces.
“No matter which throne you sit upon.”
Tula bent forward, offering the bowl to Lunelle. She plucked a round white palm stone from the top, the cool surface melting into her skin. The priestess made her way around the spring, offering a stone to each of the champions. She returned the bowl to her table and lifted a gauzy white crystal wand in one hand and a burning bundle of herbs in another.
“These stones will hold your Shadows as they’re delivered to Luciela, the Nether Queen herself. Close your eyes, let the darkest pieces of you slip away.”
Tula’s sweet alto voice rose in delicate notes above their bowed heads. The prayer wrapped around Lunelle’s shoulders and warmed her from within as the stone buzzed in her hands.
It was similar to the way her mind spiraled away from her when she found Proserpina, but the drain did not stop at her chest, falling through the veins of her arms and pouring into the stone in her palm.
Her mind swirled, and she felt the buzzing of the Tether fade as she collapsed into herself, falling faster as she heard a familiar giggle.
“We did not think we’d see you again,”
Proserpina chirped.
Lunelle was not in the midnight seas of Pluto’s throne realm, but back in the dim forest with the goddess. This time, Pluto lounged behind her, tangled in a plush blanket as she fed him grapes. The sight amused the princess.
They seemed so light.
She giggled.
“I find I’m as surprised as you.”
Pluto grinned.
“You’re but a moment away from taking what you really desire, Princess. Everything.”
Lunelle pressed her lips together tightly.
Proserpina tilted her head in response.
“You do not think so?”
Lunelle shrugged, her heart shuddering under the gaze of the goddess.
“I do not wish to have false hope.”
Pluto nodded, tugging gently on the ends of Proserpina’s curls. Something to the edge of them caught his eye, a devilish grin unfurling as he nodded at someone beyond the trees.
“This is the first hope you’ve had that was true,”
Proserpina said.
Lunelle’s eyes lit, a flicker of something new in her chest, nestled between her two ties to this world. She turned as footsteps approached her left.
“You’re late,”
Pluto said as another god joined their picnic, his face twisted in an eye roll as he reached for a handful of pomegranate seeds. His hand rested on Proserpina’s hip as he and Pluto mumbled to one another.
“Go then, Princess,”
Proserpina said.
“We’ll be watching.”
Pluto tossed Lunelle a wink.
“Give my sister my warmest regards,”
he chuckled.
Lunelle’s eyes fluttered open, the spring of the temple gurgling at her knees.
She glanced at the stone in her hands, the white overtaken by a charcoal hue, the center glittering with swirls of gods knew what. She held it to the moonlight above, a glint of sapphire catching her off guard within the silver and emerald tones. She eyed Arcas’s stone beside her, a silvery sheen catching as he leaned over the water.
“You may toss them into the spring,”
Tula said quietly.
“Gods be with you all.”
Lunelle rose, staring into the water below, sparkling with all sorts of blessings and tears. She let her Shadow fall, sinking to the depths of the Nether, as three others followed.
Her eyes rose to her champions.
They did look strangely unburdened in some ways without their Shadows.
Less interesting, she noted.
“Best of luck, gentlemen,”
she whispered, making a quick exit at the back of the temple, a cold sweat clinging to her as she tried to control her breath.
“Lunelle,”
her mother commanded. She hovered at the temple’s blossom-laden gate.
“Mother,”
Lunelle sighed, in no mood to hear more from her after last night. Oestera reached for her hand, pulling her swiftly into the shade of the palace garden as the maidens around them worked to prepare it for the trial.
“What are you?—”
“I need you to listen to me,”
Oestera said, her words sharp. She gripped her daughter’s shoulders, forcing her silver stare to fuse with hers.
“Whatever happens in the Nether, you must not come back through the gate until I tell you to. I know you resisted me back in the Plutonian Court, but it is more important now than ever that you listen.”
Lunelle shook her head, her heart pounding.
“After what you’ve pulled with Arcas, I’ve every reason to do the opposite of what you ask, Mother.”
She backed away from her mother’s grip, but something frenzied in her eyes, something truly desperate in her fingers caught her.
“I am begging you to trust me, Lunelle. Your sister needs to come through the gate first.”
“My sister?”
Lunelle played dumb, though she could tell without her Shadow, she was hardly convincing herself, let alone her mother.
“I will not force you to confess your plans, but I need you to wait. Wait for my signal, and then you bring your king through the gate. Do you understand?”
Lunelle did not, and she would not.
“I am tired of scheming, Mother. It has only dug me further and further into a grave—if you think I would dare subject Astra to this—this madness—I will not force her onto a throne she does not want. She’s already done enough!”
“I was once a younger sister thrust onto a throne by an older sister who made a mistake, Lunelle.”
Oestera drew a breath, shivering at the top as she whispered.
“And I do not resent her for one second. Not once in my life have I been angry at her for the choices she made. For what she thought she was doing. I am honored to bear the weight of her attempt at taking what she wanted…”
she trailed off, her eyes unfocused for a moment.
“I do not understand—what are you saying?”
“Look at me,”
Oestera pleaded. Lunelle forced herself to connect to her eyes, the pain so clearly still on the surface of her heart.
“There are bigger plans at play, Lunelle. Your sister will understand. You will understand. Everyone gets what they want this way!”
Lunelle’s head was dizzy as she tried to make sense of the words her mother said.
“I cannot tell you more,”
Oestera mumbled.
“I wish to, I will one day. I need you to understand. I need you to trust me.”
Lunelle exhaled a long, tortured sigh.
“The only person I trust in this world is my sister,”
she said.
“I only wish to do right by her.”
Oestera nodded, biting her lip.
“You and I are on the same side, Lunelle. I need you to search your Soul and see that I am earnest.”
Lunelle backed away a step, so unsure of what to think.
“I will try.”
It was all she could offer.
“That’s all I ask,”
her mother murmured, dropping her hold on her shoulders.
“That and… and if you find Le—Leona.”
Oestera’s voice caught on her sister’s name. Lunelle had never once heard it on her tongue, not in the decades of dancing around the subject. Moonbeams brushed her face as she watched the maidens string roses across the terrace, lightening the darkness and sorrow cast over Oestera’s expression.
“If you see my sister… tell her I hope she can forgive herself. Because my anger died with her final breath.”
Oestera cleared her throat, leaving Lunelle in the cool darkness of the temple.