Chapter Eleven #2
‘It isn’t self-sabotage. It’s the wisdom of foresight.
You know, when I was younger and just turned a woman, I was the object of many men’s desire.
But the moment a kiss or more ensued, the moment I allowed myself to even hope that the trysts would turn into something more, that I could be loved…
it all just crumbled away. Leo deserves better.
And I will not be the reason for his downfall.
’ She sighed. ‘I accepted my fate a long time ago,’ she finished quietly.
Elara did not push, instead thinking of her own fate. Already, she felt the ties bind and confine her, trying to force her down a path that she was forever fighting against.
‘You shouldn’t,’ Elara said. ‘Fate is a fickle thing. Some believe it’s tied to Piscea, but that goddess is buried and slumbering.
I will never allow the Stars to dictate my destiny, and I swear to the skies, Merissa, I will fight it at every turn.
’ She didn’t know if she was saying it for Merissa’s sake or her own, as though if she spoke the words out loud, they would become true. ‘You shouldn’t either.’
A look must have passed over her face because Merissa reached out for her hand. Elara flinched away.
‘I’m sorry,’ Merissa said hoarsely. ‘I know you’re finding it difficult to trust me.’
‘It’s not that,’ Elara responded. And she meant it.
She wasn’t sure of the exact moment, but she had forgiven Merissa for keeping so much from her, for being the one to kill her.
Perhaps it was seeing her retrieve the snakestone, or the way she had stayed with her every night since Enzo had been taken. ‘I—’
Her tongue seemed to fossilize in her mouth, unable to move.
But she pushed past it. She could not keep the burden to herself.
She was certain Eli knew, though he had not broached the subject with her.
But she had to speak the truth of what she’d done, to be rid of it.
She’d learned that she could no longer lock up her emotions in a box and expect them not to harm her.
And she longed to speak the actions aloud, so that Merissa could see what a monster she was becoming.
Perhaps, ironically, that was an effort of self-sabotage—to shun someone good, someone trying to reach out her hand.
‘I did something in the fighting pits. Something terrible.’ She fought past the glue welding her mouth shut, past the fluttering tremor in her throat.
‘It’s my shadows,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’m losing control.
One moment I was using them to save Adrian as the crowd overran the pits. And the next, I blacked out.’
Merissa remained silent, and Elara was thankful for it.
‘When I came to, it was to a sea of corpses. I killed them all, Merissa. Oh gods, I killed them all.’ Her voice broke then as the reality of it slammed into her.
She hadn’t felt guilt when killing Gem or the priest. Both, to her, had been deserved deaths.
But the people in the pits—there had been so many of them.
With families. To have snuffed the life out of them all so easily, so mightily…
Finally, after what seemed like an age within the silent dark, Merissa gripped Elara’s hand. Elara tried to pull away, but she held firm.
‘Don’t touch me, Mer,’ she wept. ‘I’ll stain you. I’ll stain you with my darkness.’
‘Stain me, then. I will go into the darkness with you, and we will break out into the light.’ She moved closer to Elara, embracing her and hushing her softly, stroking her hair as Elara cried. They lay like that for a while before Merissa let go, gently slipping out of the bed.
She drew the curtain open, revealing a black sky filled with stars, the moon now a crescent in the midst of them.
‘I want to show you something. See that space there? Right between your moon and Piscea’s constellation?’
Elara squinted through puffy eyes, making out the pinpricks of light that, when strung together, showed the shape of a coffin that Elara and Sofia had looked upon, wished upon, countless times as children. Then she saw the black stretch between them and the moon, at odds with the rest of the sky.
‘That’s where my star lies. Right below my mother’s and brother’s.’
Sure enough, as Elara’s eyes trailed above the blank space, Torra’s bull and Lias’s scales sat on either side.
‘I don’t have a constellation because I’m not a full Star. Nor does my star shine, because my soul isn’t gone.’
Elara nodded. The tales she had been told as a child were that the other stars in the sky—those that did not belong to the gods they worshipped—were the light of souls who had passed into the Hallowlands.
‘But I know where it is,’ Merissa continued, ‘even if no one else does. And it’s right next to you. Exactly where I’ll always be.’
Fresh tears spilled down Elara’s cheeks as she joined Merissa by the window and held her, the two of them gazing at the sky.
‘I’ve been so angry, so distracted, that I haven’t even stopped to look for Sofia’s,’ Elara croaked. ‘Do you think she’s up there too?’
Merissa nodded, resting her head on Elara’s shoulder.
‘I think she’s right there next to the moon.
’ She pointed. Elara wasn’t sure if it was the corner of Piscea’s coffin that Merissa was pointing at, but she entertained the notion that Sofia was close to her, watching over her.
‘One of those beautiful, bright, twinkling stars.’
‘I fear that I’m succumbing to shadow madness,’ Elara whispered as she looked at them. ‘Lukas suffered the same, and look at his fate.’
‘If that is what ails you, then we will find a cure. And when Enzo wakes—because he will, Elara—he will help. He will know just what to do.’