Chapter Twenty-Seven
ELARA
‘I hate ships,’ Enzo stated, looking up from the dock to where the black flags of the Starred Siren unfurled. Elara and Leo had gone to fetch both him and Merissa.
Now, beside Enzo, she was trying to ignore the pain that seemed to settle in her bones whenever he was near, and gave him a reassuring smile.
There was something behind his eyes when he studied her that she didn’t like but couldn’t place.
It held a darkness, a haunting—the same expression she swore she’d seen on his face when she’d caught a glimpse of him while falling through dreams at Eli’s mansion.
She thought it best not to explain to him exactly how she had procured their passage, if the snippets of Adrian’s history with him were anything to go by.
As she approached the gangplank once more, she noticed that more members of Adrian’s crew had come to watch their new guests board their ship, eyeing them warily. Enzo only hunched his shoulders and clenched his jaw as he stared back.
Leo stalked on first, adopting the same demeanour as Enzo, nodding politely to the crew but nothing more. Then came Merissa, who was smiling pleasantly while the men stared, muttering to one another.
Elara hung back with Enzo, her mouth working as she searched for something to say.
He was back with her in the waking world, but it felt like there was an entire realm still between them.
‘Soon we’re going to get all the time in the world to ourselves,’ she murmured to him.
‘And we can navigate whatever…this is. As long as we’re together, we’ll find an answer. ’
Enzo nodded, swallowing. ‘Whose ship is this exactly?’ he said as he planted two feet upon it.
‘Why, it belongs to the most handsome man ever to sail the Celestian seas,’ a familiar voice resounded.
Enzo turned slowly, disbelief plastered upon his face as he laid eyes on Pirate Lord Adrian Mereille.
‘This has to be a joke,’ he growled.
Adrian’s shit-eating grin only grew. ‘Hasn’t your beloved filled you in? We’ve been spending a lot of time together.’
‘Adrian,’ Elara snapped.
‘Elara,’ Adrian sang back.
Enzo clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘Don’t punch him, don’t punch him,’ he whispered over and over. ‘He’s our key to freedom. Don’t punch him.’
Elara fought back a laugh.
‘Your Grace,’ Adrian said, flourishing a hand to the deck before him. ‘I’ve come to save the day.’
‘You can call him Enzo,’ Elara said.
‘No, the fuck he can’t,’ Enzo hissed. ‘Your Grace will do just fine.’
‘Enzo, be reasonable.’
‘I am. I haven’t set him alight yet. Elara, what were you thinking? Why are we on this leech’s ship?’
‘Just what is your issue?’ the captain drawled as he sauntered forwards.
Members of his ragtag crew followed, forming a circle around him.
An imposing if handsome Altalunian hung back but was watching Enzo like a hawk.
To her amusement, Elara saw Enzo wink at him, which only made the Altalunian’s scowl deepen.
‘My issue, Adrian, is that I’ve never liked you.
I didn’t like you when I met you as a teenager and you swaggered around green as grass, thinking you could do anything more with that sword than impale yourself on it.
And I don’t like you now, knowing those stealing, filthy pirate hands were all over Elara only a few months ago. ’
‘Many a woman has begged for me to put my filthy pirate hands all over her. And, as I recall, I impaled your cousin on my sword. Tell me, how is Stefania these days? I swear she had the sweetest cu—’
Light lanced around Adrian’s throat as Enzo pinned him to the mast of his ship.
Elara’s eyes watered to look at it. It was sharper, brighter, than it had been before he’d woken—she was sure of it.
She could feel the power that emanated from it, and as waves of that magick extended to her, she felt something within her hiss and shrink.
She was caught by such surprise at the feeling—when Enzo’s light had become such a comfort to her before—that she backed away towards Merissa.
There was a shout as the Altalunian tried to intervene, along with other members of the crew.
Some brandished knives, others swords. Leo tutted as he drew his own, and Merissa sighed, muttering, ‘Men,’ under her breath.
‘Put your weapons down,’ Adrian said in a strangled voice. His crew obeyed immediately. ‘Even you, Santi.’
Santi, the Altalunian, clenched his jaw before lowering a wickedly curved sword.
‘Enzo,’ Elara sighed. ‘Let Adrian go.’
Enzo narrowed his eyes for another second.
‘Enzo,’ Elara said again, and he loosened his grip.
‘I take it you two know each other?’ Merissa asked.
Enzo scoffed. ‘I met him during my princely duties when we were visiting Neptuna years ago. He was just as arrogant then as he is now.’
‘I’m sure there’s a saying about this,’ Elara mused. ‘Something to do with a pot and a kettle.’
Leo snorted, earning a warning look from Enzo.
‘And all of that would hardly matter, except he’s been trying to undress my soulmate with his eyes since she set foot on his ship.’
‘Soulmate?’ Adrian spluttered.
Santi nodded. ‘I’ve heard stories about them awakening across Celestia, captain.’
‘Poppycock,’ Adrian mumbled.
‘Don’t fret,’ Enzo replied. ‘I’m sure you’ll find yours. Perhaps it’ll be a whelk? You share the same personality.’
Adrian stepped forwards, but Elara came between them, careful all the while not to touch Enzo.
‘Enough,’ she hissed. ‘Enzo, you should know better.’
Enzo rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.
‘And Adrian? Taunting Enzo? Do you have a death wish?’
Adrian looked sheepishly at the ground, though Enzo was still staring stubbornly ahead instead of acknowledging the pirate.
‘Now, we’re going to be in close quarters for a while. And we all need to work together. So please try to get along.’
Adrian sighed, extending his hand. Enzo looked at it in disdain, but Elara cast him a look and he took it.
‘One hint of mutiny, one whiff of you using your fucking powers against me again,’ Adrian said, pulling Enzo sharply forwards, ‘and I will throw you all overboard.’
Enzo’s responding smile was all teeth. ‘I’ll be the best guest you’ve ever had.’
Enzo, in fact, was not being the best guest that Adrian had ever had. As the boat began to traverse open water, Adrian was giving them a tour of the upper deck when Enzo began to turn a faint shade of green.
‘These sails I got from a Castorian merchant. They chart the stars as we sail, adjusting our course against them and showing our way. All you need to do is tell them your next destination.’
Elara tried to distract herself by scrutinizing the constellation-filled sails that moved and shifted as the ship did. She chanced another glance at Enzo, noticing he looked even more unwell.
‘This here’—Adrian pointed to the very floor they stood on—‘is the Everchanging Deck. It can transform into a ballroom when needed.’ He stamped twice on the deck and, to her disbelief, the wood changed to gleaming tiles, the deck expanding and expanding impossibly until a dance floor lay before them.
Enzo breathed in through his nose beside her.
‘Or a glade.’ One stomp transformed the tiles to grass, running across the whole deck, as flowers began to sprout.
‘The deck was built with wood from your lot. Asterians. Best illusioners in the land. And here, one of my favourite features.’ He pointed to a bell above the ship’s wheel.
‘Chap I bought it from in the Sinner’s Sands swears he trapped a banshee’s wail inside it.
Believe what you will, but when it’s rung it seems to scare off any beasties lurking in the water.
’ They then followed him to the bow of the ship.
‘And finally, we’ve got my beauty here.’ He leaned over the side, pointing to the figurehead which looked proudly out to the cerulean sea.
‘Fashioned after Cancia she may be, but she’s also enchanted.
If she sees danger—whether that’s a storm or another pirate ship—she’ll call out to us. ’
Elara watched the waves roil below and, to her dismay, Enzo bent over the side of the ship, heaving. She reached out to give him a reassuring touch before stopping herself, fighting against her body’s urges.
‘You know, you’d think becoming a god or titan or whatever the fuck we are would make us impervious to seasickness,’ he hissed. Another roll of the ship had his head hanging over the edge again.
‘My mighty Lion,’ Elara said. ‘Water is not your friend. Surely you always knew that. Water and fire don’t mix.’
Adrian had begun to laugh as he walked away, Leo giving him a wide berth, though she wasn’t sure where Merissa had gone. She searched the deck for her before Enzo answered, drawing her attention back to him.
‘Is that why I want to throttle that pirate lord every time he’s nearby?’
Elara followed his gaze to where Adrian was now telling his crew about Enzo, all of them turning and laughing as they passed their captain a bottle of shellrum.
Elara scoffed. ‘No. I’d say that’s more the symptoms of an inflated ego with a dash of jealousy.’
Enzo rubbed his head with a hand.
Merissa emerged from below deck hurriedly with a cup of something in her hands. The crew began to wolf-whistle until Leo stalked out behind her, glaring at them. They soon shut up, each suddenly having jobs to do.
The demi-Star brought the drink to Enzo, the cup steaming. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘The cook has some mallow root and willow bark. I made you tea to ease your sickness.’
Enzo took it, giving an appreciative smile. ‘Thank you, Merissa.’
She squeezed his arm, and Elara tried not to feel jealousy at the simple gesture—how another woman could touch her soulmate, but she could not. Merissa turned and walked to Leo, pulling him further down the ship, giving Elara and Enzo some privacy as the two of them leaned against the rail.
‘So,’ Elara said, ‘now that we’re on the open seas, I suppose we had better talk about what happened in the throne room.’
Enzo glanced at her, his face unreadable.
‘I’m sorry for trying to kill you?’ she tried lightly.
He made an amused sound. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now. The first time was with a dagger, was it not?’
‘No,’ she corrected. ‘The first time was with that silver monster in the forest.’
‘Ah.’ Enzo nodded. ‘How could I forget? Has that made an appearance again, by the way?’
Elara shook her head. ‘I thought it might have after I awoke as the Moon. But my magick…’ She shook her head. ‘What did you see, Enzo? Inside me?’
Enzo looked at her for a long time. ‘All I saw was darkness,’ he said quietly.
She tried to stop the tears that began to fall, but it was no use. She’d heard it from him now, the person she trusted most in the world. She was corrupted. It wouldn’t be long before the shadows completely overcame her.
‘Please don’t, Elara,’ he hissed. Though it wasn’t as though he was angry with her. He seemed angry with himself. ‘Please don’t cry when I can’t hold you. When I can’t comfort you.’
She saw it then: his fists balled at his sides. ‘Gods, Elara. I would let you kill me if it took away your pain. But I know it would only cause you more of it.’
‘How can you—how can you be so selfless?’ she said, wiping her tears and trying furiously to stop more falling.
‘That’s what love does,’ he replied gently. He lifted one of his hands and rested it upon the salted wooden rail, close to her. She tentatively raised her own and placed it on the railing too, so they were barely a centimetre apart.
She felt the longing for him as a physical thing between them—the magick palpable, vibrating. ‘Do you feel it?’ she whispered.
Enzo nodded. ‘I feel it in my entire being. The need of you.’
‘We can’t.’ Though she so desperately wanted to. But she thought back to the look of horror in his eyes as her shadows had attacked, and snatched her hand away.
‘No, we can’t. But we will. And I promise, Elara, when we have found a cure, an answer to what is affecting your shadows, I want you locked in a bedroom with me for a week straight.’
Elara’s gaze shot back to his, and she tried to stop the moan that softly gasped from her lips. Enzo’s eyes were so molten they looked like liquid ore, the fire she’d missed so atrociously burning and burning, casting out some of that despair she’d noticed.
‘I’d better see to our quarters,’ he managed to force out. He turned, then paused, moving back to her.
She gasped as he enclosed the space around her, arms caging her in, though he held a sliver of space between them.
His chest heaved, lips wet, as his eyes glanced down to her mouth.
She could feel his breath upon it, and had to lock every muscle rigid, though the beast within screamed at her to close the gap.
‘I love you, Elara Bellereve. Shadows and all.’