Chapter Nineteen
Red light burst through Elara as she gasped awake.
‘Run,’ she screamed, already staggering forwards before she had even taken a second to register her surroundings.
‘Elara?’ Merissa asked shrilly, leaping off Ariete’s lap.
‘I said run,’ Elara snarled. Eli! she bellowed in her mind, throwing the thought out with vitriol as she pounded on the door.
It swung open immediately, and Elara pushed Merissa back out. ‘Set off. I’ll follow in a moment.’
‘El, you have to come with me now,’ Merissa replied hysterically as Ariete began to stir.
‘Go!’ Elara shouted as a blinding rage overtook her.
Ariete had bested her again. She had played right into his hands again.
Enzo’s tether was around her neck, its presence carrying through into the waking world.
Perhaps it was that which fuelled her; perhaps it was Ariete’s charm in her veins or her own unending wrath.
But she shoved Merissa out of the door, slamming it closed.
Ariete stirred again, and Elara bared her teeth.
She couldn’t kill him. But she could make him suffer.
She heard pounding on the door, heard Eli roaring in her mind.
What the fuck are you doing? Get out of there now.
Go ahead without me. I’ll catch up.
She heard Eli curse but ignored it all, pulling her dagger from her thigh. With gritted teeth, she straddled Ariete, the god’s throat exposed as he remained in the land of dreams a moment longer, features strangely soft in sleep.
She raised the tip of her blade to the base of his throat, pushing it into his skin.
‘This is for my father,’ she growled as she began to drag it across the tender flesh. With surprise, she felt a burning pain in her own throat. She shook it off as she continued the line.
‘This is for my mother.’
She cried out in pain as she felt liquid seep down her front. She brought a shaking hand up and felt blood, realizing in shock that what she was doing to Ariete, she was also doing to herself. It must have been the bargain, their blood-tie. A failsafe.
But regardless of the pain she felt, her fury was greater, and the god before her deserved to be marked.
She clenched her jaw, biting her cheek to stop herself from screaming as the mark she continued to carve into Ariete’s flesh was gouged into her own.
The god jerked beneath her, his whole body twitching in agony, but the hypnom still flooded his system, the drug a sweet, small death as Elara continued.
‘This is for Sofia,’ she rasped as she curved the blade in an arc. ‘And this is for Enzo.’ She joined the points together, finished, panting heavily. She could feel her own blood slick down her neck.
A crescent moon stood in bloody relief across the base of Ariete’s throat, right between his collarbones—a moon that she knew would scar. She didn’t care that she had a brand to match. She’d felt worse pain before—the Star beneath her had caused it.
But for a prideful god like Ariete, one always so sure that he could not be beaten…He would never look in the mirror without seeing Elara now. It would be agony.
She kept her dagger in her hand as she leaped off him.
Eli! she called out again, and the door swung open once more as she rushed out into the packed club.
‘Head down. With me. Now,’ the god murmured, jaw clenched as he paced through the space, the crowd parting before him. His eyes flicked down, and they widened imperceptibly.
‘What the fuck happened to your throat?’ he hissed.
Elara covered the bleeding wound with her hand, feeling Enzo’s tether laced around it. It seemed to warm and buzz as though it could sense it was no longer trapped with Ariete.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It doesn’t even hurt.’
Eli frowned but said nothing more as he made people veer out of their way left and right with his charm.
Elara figured they had ten seconds before Ariete woke. They were halfway across the room.
Eight seconds. Eli’s eyes turned black; his head pointed in Leo’s direction.
Six seconds. Leo was by the door, thank the gods, Merissa waiting there for them.
Four seconds. She could feel the breeze from the open door beckoning. Freedom. She’d done it.
Two seconds.
Then came the roar of the Star of vengeance and the sound of a wooden door splintering.
Shit, Eli said into her mind. You’re going to have to go on without me. Take my carriage to the manor.
Elara nodded, launching into a sprint, dragging Merissa by her wrist.
‘Elara!’ Ariete roared, and members of the club began to turn, frowning at where the voice was carrying.
Elara burst out of the club and scanned the street for Eli’s carriage. Seeing a glimpse of his horses around the corner, she flew towards them before screeching to a halt.
There, crumpled on the floor and weeping, lay Markus. She took quick stock of his state and jerked her head back to Leo as she saw the bloodied stumps where Markus’s hands had been.
Merissa let out a gasp, clamping her own hands to her mouth.
‘If he wanted hands, then he shouldn’t have used them to touch someone against their will,’ Leo said calmly before wrenching the door of the carriage open.
Elara and Merissa hurried in and Leo slammed it shut, gaze poisonous as he regarded the doorman on the cobblestones.
The horses set off, careening down the streets to get away from the clamour.
Elara whirled back, only to see a flash of red starlight illuminate the club before they veered out of sight.
‘Thank the gods,’ Merissa wept as Elara finally sat back in her seat. ‘Thank the gods you’re okay.’
‘Do you have the tether?’ Leo murmured.
Elara nodded wordlessly, lifting it from her neck enough for the two to see.
‘Your throat,’ Leo exclaimed.
‘It’s nothing,’ Elara said.
‘Like fuck it’s nothing,’ Leo growled. ‘Let me see.’
Elara tried to fight him, but the general pushed the tether aside, seeing the bleeding moon carved into her neck.
‘Did he do this?’ he demanded.
‘No, I did,’ Elara snapped. Gods, she understood Enzo’s fury now, the never-settled flames that writhed within him.
The carriage continued to hurtle down the streets until it reached the outskirts of the city, then raised itself just like it had done previously to traverse the bog.
Merissa kept staring at Elara’s neck in confusion as they sat in exhausted silence, until something seemed to dawn in her eyes. ‘You didn’t.’
Elara clenched her jaw, looking out of the window as the carriage pulled up outside the manor.
‘Didn’t what?’ Leo demanded. ‘Why did you do this to yourself?’
But Elara had already launched herself out of the carriage and was running across the gravel drive and through Eli’s front door.
She marched straight into his study and waited, Enzo’s tether still warm around her neck. Leo and Merissa followed, and their voices washed over her, but she ignored them, eyes fixed upon the door until finally it opened. Eli stood there.
He went to Elara and, to her utter surprise, wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug.
‘You did it,’ he whispered to her, his cool charm washing over her like rain. ‘Thank the skies, you made it out alive.’
‘Eli.’ Elara trembled. ‘We need to talk. Something happened in there—’
Eli looked around at the others. ‘Give us some privacy, please. I need to make sure Ariete hasn’t done anything to her mind.’
‘We’re not leaving her,’ Merissa said quietly.
Eli rolled his eyes. ‘If I wanted Elara dead, I wouldn’t have helped her. I’d have allowed her to walk into Ariete’s dreams blindly and remain trapped there. I…’ He glanced at Elara before sighing. ‘I would never harm her.’
Leo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘but be quick. We’re running out of time.’
Eli waited until they’d left before turning around.
‘Show me what happened, Elara, and what Ariete said to you. How did you get out with the tether, and what happened to your neck?’
Elara shook her head. She couldn’t talk about it right now, couldn’t utter words, so fearful of the reality of her bargain.
‘We don’t have time, Eli. Enzo first, then we can take care of me.’
‘Fine,’ he conceded. ‘And you know how to wake Enzo?’
Elara nodded. ‘It’s simple. I need to dreamwalk to his soul and give him his tether back. I’ll use the snakestone. He’ll be able to find the way back to his body then.’
Eli stood in front of her, raising his fingers to her temple as his eyes fluttered shut.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m making sure you’re of sound mind before you give Enzo his tether.’
Eli’s cool magick enveloped her, but the mist from it seemed to curl around something in her mind—something blood-soaked and promise-filled. It snagged, and Elara opened her eyes.
‘What did you do, Elara?’ he growled. ‘What did you give him?’
Elara tensed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You think me a fool?’
‘You think me a failure?’ Elara snapped back. ‘I overcame his obstacles and snatched the tether from his hands.’
The half-truth tasted bitter on her tongue, but she couldn’t yet admit what she’d sacrificed.
‘I’m in your damned head,’ Eli hissed. ‘You don’t think I can recognize a blood oath? You don’t think you reek of his magick?’
‘Eli—’
‘You stupid girl,’ he said, pushing away from her. ‘Of all the Stars in all of Celestia, you gave your blood to him?’
‘I had no choice,’ Elara finally snarled. ‘You think I would do it willingly? That if there had been any other way, I would have chosen this?’
Eli made a disgusted sound, and Elara’s temper flared. ‘Don’t you dare judge me,’ she spat. ‘Your quarrel with me can wait until later. I have a soulmate trapped in the dream realm on the brink of death. I need to dreamwalk to him now.’
Eli raked a hand through his hair, hissing through his teeth as he began to calm. ‘Fine. What do you need?’
It would have been easy for Elara to say, ‘Nothing.’ To turn him away like she was so used to doing. But instead, she swallowed. ‘Can you just…stay with me? In case anything happens or—’
‘Of course,’ Eli replied solemnly.
Elara gingerly sat on the chaise longue, the fire comforting her as it crackled, and Eli sat on the floor beside her.
‘I’m right here,’ he said softly.
Elara nodded, swallowing as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to finally sink into her own dreams.