Chapter Twelve
That night, Elara slept deeply, and dreamwalked with purpose. This was the last test before she would enter Ariete’s dreams.
After making sure her tether was secured, she drifted between dreamscapes—Merissa’s sweet pink dreamcloud was right beside her. But she was looking for one that was altogether different.
The feeling was as familiar as breathing now, thanks to the shackles that had been broken from around her powers.
She rose higher until she saw Eli’s storm-filled dreamcloud, one that writhed and flickered as lightning rippled through it.
With her senses heightened in this state, she could smell its metallic tang as she drifted forwards.
She braced herself for the overwhelming power that was bound to hit her, and, with a deep breath, she plunged into it.
Rain hammered down on her, soaking her in seconds.
‘A little predictable, Eli!’ she shouted, looking around wildly as she got her bearings.
Ahead of her stood Eli’s mansion—a twin to the one that her body currently resided within.
The slats of the roof were slick and dark, and the gargoyles and weeping women carved into the building seemed to watch her as she approached.
In one of the gigantic bay windows, dark and flickering, she could have sworn she saw a shadow.
‘Eli?!’ she called out, her neck craning up as hair was plastered to her forehead.
Eli strolled from the shadows, and she clutched her chest. He snickered and leaned against the manor’s wall, one foot crossed behind the other. Bone dry. Of course he was.
‘You’re a walking cliché, you know that?’
Eli’s lips twitched, his usually near-black eyes shining a little lighter in the dream. ‘I’m impressed you’ve made it this far already,’ he said, peering through the windows.
‘I’m not an amateur,’ she retorted. ‘What do I do now?’
‘Perform a test of sorts.’ Eli’s smile was small. ‘I’ve hidden something—something of great importance—inside the house. If you can locate the prize, and don’t forget to use the snakestone, well…it won’t be nearly as hard for you to enter Ariete’s dreams as we thought.’
She looked at the house, then went to reply to Eli, but he had disappeared into thin air. When she walked towards the door, to her surprise, it was already ajar.
She pushed it warily. It swung open with a groan and her eyes roved over her surroundings.
The interior of this manor was identical to the real one, from the bottle-green furnishings to the tasteful paintings hanging upon the walls.
Even the scent was the same: honey and tobacco.
She remembered her snakestone, and delved a hand into her pocket, happy to see that the magickal item could traverse the plains of both waking and sleep.
She held the object to her eye, trying not to think about what had been sacrificed to retrieve it. As she did, the colours of the room shifted, the rich, deep hues draining of colour, until only a set of footprints remained—bright gold, leading up a grand, carpeted staircase.
Elara marvelled at the magick of it, following the trail and paying little mind to the surroundings shifting around her. This was her first mistake.
Something flitted past and she let out a surprised shout, scrambling back.
She whipped the snakestone from her eye, looking wildly around.
She could see nothing, and, after another few furtive moments, continued to the base of the stairs, bringing the stone back to her eye.
Suddenly a scaly, clawed hand reached out to her, and she screamed, shadows flaring from her hands in an effort to defend herself.
To her horror, the hand seemed to drink the shadows in, growing larger, looming, reaching closer.
At the top of the staircase, the footprints veered right towards a door at the end of the landing.
Desperately trying to get away from whatever thing chased her, she lunged after them, though to her dismay, as she ran towards the door, her surroundings shifted again, and she careened to a halt right before a ledge, the landing disappearing into nothing.
Snakestone still to her eye, she whirled around, in time to see the shadow scrabble up the staircase behind her on hands and feet, nails scratching upon the wood.
She panted and turned back to the abyss. Thank the gods, a corridor of doors had appeared.
This is just a dream, she reminded herself, trying to calm the fear and panic. The doors hovered in the black air on either side of her, rippling into the endless dark ahead.
She had never seen a dreamscape like it, as though every dream, every thought, was intentional, organized to mould her journey through it.
Suddenly, a stepping stone, slate grey, appeared a foot in front of her.
She stepped desperately on to it as the monster approached, still veiled in shadow.
Another stone appeared and she leaped on to it, holding her hands out for balance.
On and on they were conjured as she assessed the doors within reaching distance on either side.
She didn’t dare look back at the nightmare as she yanked at the one closest and leaped into it before slamming the door behind her, pressing her back against it.
She took a moment to regain her breath while she took in her surroundings and noticed she was encircled by stars. They twinkled, the sky a deep blue, and she realized the room she was in had a glass ceiling that stretched upwards into a magnificent dome, so the night cloaked her.
Frescoes of mythas painted in foiled silver glowed along the walls—some she recognized, some of which she had never seen before.
As she turned, a mammoth statue of a woman towered up to the ceiling.
No, a goddess. The goddess was hewn out of silverstone, though it shone with a blue glow that Elara had never seen in the crystal before.
In one hand, palm upturned, she held a crescent moon, and in the other she held a skull.
Elara craned her neck, squinting up at the face of the woman, and took three staggering steps back as she realized it was her own.
‘He made that for you, you know,’ Eli said behind her, and she nearly leaped out of her skin.
‘Who did?’ she breathed.
Eli scoffed. ‘Who?’ he mocked. ‘You know who. Your Sun. Carved it with his Light as a gift to you.’
She turned back to the sculpture, holding back tears as she gazed upon its beauty.
‘Where is this place?’
‘High in the heavens. Surely you can guess where we are right now?’
Elara looked upwards again, marvelling at the starred sky above, then gasped as a shadow flew across the glass panes of the ceiling, a roar shaking the place as webbed wings stretched out, a snaking tail flicking among the stars.
‘Yes, that would be a dragun,’ he chuckled, admiring it as it flew across the ceiling before disappearing into the night. ‘That particular one was called Dreamdancer. She’d pull your chariot across the skies while you sprinkled dreamdust on to the world below, helping people sleep.’
‘Dreamdust,’ Elara repeated, the word foreign yet lovely on her tongue.
Eli smiled, arms spread wide. ‘Welcome to the Moon Kingdom.’
‘I can’t believe that this was all mine,’ she whispered. ‘What happened to it all? To Dreamdancer? And the other draguns from The Mythas of Celestia?’
Eli’s gaze darkened. ‘A story for another time.’
Before Elara could push further, she heard voices and turned in bewilderment. Ahead, on the other side of the room, were two figures.
‘Who’s here?’ she whispered.
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ A ghost of a smile traced Eli’s lips as he began walking down the length of the room. ‘But don’t stay too long here, Elara. Some dreams are more tempting to revel in than others, but all will encourage your soul to become lost in them.’
Elara followed, the sound of voices growing louder as she approached them, one figure kneeling, the other seated on a throne.
Eli stopped a few paces away from the scene, and as Elara finally made them out in the moonlight that flooded the room, she stilled.
She saw herself sitting regally upon a silver throne. Her eyes were the same—silver—yet glowing with an aether that Elara didn’t possess. Her skin was alabaster white, lips just as full, jaw as sharp. But her hair was snow white, not black, though it flowed all the same to her waist.
And a stunning crown lay upon it, one cast in the same silver as the throne she sat on, a sapphire in the shape of a crescent moon dangling upon her forehead.
Elara knew, gazing upon this goddess, that it was herself in her most pure and godly form. That this was the Moon before she had been locked into a human body.
‘How did you not recognize me in mortal form?’ Elara whispered to Eli as she took in the scene before her. ‘We look exactly alike.’
‘Your illusions, of course,’ he replied. ‘Merissa told you, didn’t she? That as a last gift before Ariete bound you fully, you cloaked the other Celestes and yourself in an illusion so you could never be recognized and hunted as a human. Now hush and watch.’
Elara watched as Eli went right over to the figure now being motioned by the Moon to rise and simply melted into him. The Eli in the memory slipped a letter into the Moon’s hands, and, as she opened it, Elara felt the sigh that the Moon exhaled in her bones.
‘My darling Moon,’ she began, reading out the letter, ‘another day goes by as I watch you across the skies. Must this torture never end: to be so close to you, yet so far—to see you upon your throne, unable ever to touch you myself? Until I can, know that every streak of light that I paint across the sky is for you. Every ray, every drop of me, is yours.’
The Moon trailed off, setting her mouth firmly as she glanced up at Eli. ‘He knows how much this pains me too,’ she said quietly. ‘Only a sky away, yet so much between us.’
‘I’ve reminded him as much,’ Eli replied. ‘Perhaps a day will come when the Dark rests, and you will finally be able to meet in the heavens.’