Chapter Forty-Four
ELARA
Adrian hurriedly explained to Elara as she shakily got out of the pool what he had found out from his own healer—that he needed Enzo.
Especially after seeing how his magick had healed Elara.
She nodded, thrilled for Adrian and for Annabel, though half her mind was elsewhere.
Her body felt ravaged, and the ghost of the pain inside lingered.
She walked straight out of the shop with Leo and the others in tow.
‘Where did Enzo go?’ she asked him quietly.
Leo nodded ahead to where a lone figure sat upon the crystal cliffs.
There was a small, winding path that led up to them.
‘We’ll meet back on the ship?’ she asked Adrian.
He agreed, watching as she took the path up.
Everything became quieter as she walked, save for the chimes of the singing stones.
She noticed the stone shifting—from light green to powder blue to rose pink—until she reached the flattened ground which then made way for healing pools, each running into the next, with small waterfalls between them.
Enzo was sitting on the very edge of the cliff, feet dangling off it.
He stared straight ahead at the waves, and, as she waded through the water, she noticed far, far in the distance that they began to settle, to elongate and slow, until they passed over a line, nearly just a speck on the horizon, where the crashing sea became as glassy as a lake.
Elara blinked, realizing which sea she looked upon—that it was the same that she’d escaped to many a time.
The water reflected the night sky, so it looked like a sea of stars beneath.
Elara climbed the roughly hewn pool steps until she was level with Enzo and sat beside him.
‘The Still Sea,’ Enzo finally said. ‘I remember the first day I ever saw it. My father had ordered his next raid on Asteria, and suggested we approach by sea. I remember setting up camp on one of your shores and realizing for the first time that I didn’t want to do it.
That there had to be more to life than war and death.
Leo was with me, and I finally admitted it to him.
We sat, feet in the water, and it was the first small peace I’d ever been granted in my life. ’
Elara nodded as she gazed upon the surface. ‘They say that looking upon the Still Sea gifts a stillness to your heart. You’re supposed to confess to the waters; then, as you bathe in them, Asterians believe that Cancia grants you absolution. Healing.’
Even if Elara knew now that the Stars were liars, she’d found comfort in the stories as a girl. Though Piscea was their patron Star, many Asterians would go to the Still Sea and pray to Cancia. It was the one stretch of ocean outside Scorpius’s domain.
When Enzo remained quiet, she turned to him. ‘What would you confess?’ she asked.
He let out a long, weary sigh. Whatever magick may have lain in the water seemed to bolster him as he spoke. ‘I would confess that I took away the thing you love most in the world. And that I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for doing it.’
Elara drew in a sharp breath. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘You told me yourself that you didn’t have a choice.’
‘Still, Elara. The screams, the way you looked.’ He shook his head, looking as though he’d been punched by the memory. ‘I shouldn’t ever forgive myself for that.’
She reached for his hand, and he gripped it hard. A desperate sigh left her at finally, finally being able to touch him. She threaded her fingers through his, despite his hold bordering on painful. But he still wouldn’t look at her.
‘I hated you,’ she said, looking back out to the water. ‘As it was happening. I hated you. And your Light.’
There was a pregnant pause.
‘But I’ve hated you before,’ she said, smiling. ‘And look how that turned out.’
She squeezed his hand for emphasis, and he gave a weak laugh.
‘Please just look at me,’ she whispered.
He finally did, and she pressed her palms to either side of his face, once again savouring the softness of his skin, the warmth thrumming beneath her fingertips.
His eyes swam with regret, and his hands travelled down to her hips as though he was trying to anchor himself to her, to reassure himself she was still there.
‘Please forgive me,’ he rasped.
Elara pressed her forehead to his. ‘You saved me,’ she breathed. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
His eyes fluttered closed as she kissed one cheek, and then the other, as though these were the words he’d needed, as though he’d been desperate for her absolution rather than the water’s.
When his hands travelled to her back, encircling her as he held her tight, the gnawing in her chest stopped as she finally let the worry—that she would harm him—subside. She raised her face.
‘I need you, Enzo. Gods, I’ve needed you so much.’
Pure pain lanced through Enzo’s eyes as she pressed her lips to his gently.
His hands moved to cup her face, and he kissed her in return, the gentleness soon replaced with desperation, the brush of his lips the sweetest of tortures after so long being starved of them.
But as his lips moved over hers, as she felt Enzo’s heartbeat drum against her own, she felt the scar at her neck throb.
She pulled away.
‘What’s wrong?’ Enzo asked instantly.
Elara shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Come, El. We’re past lies now.’
Elara hesitated. Now was the time. She had no excuse, nothing to distract her, no reason to hide herself from Enzo. Despite all her trying to avoid it, she had to tell him the truth. The truth of the bargain she had made with Ariete.
Elara stood and began to back away, closer to the waterfalls.
They didn’t roar, but rather hummed a deep, healing, melodious note that resounded through her body.
Her anxieties began to ease away from her, the tension unfurling.
It was no wonder that Altalune was a kingdom of healing with magick like this.
It seemed to be having the same effect on Enzo, whose jaw began to unclench, shoulders dropping as he followed.
‘Enzo,’ she murmured.
He tilted his head. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s something that I need to tell you.’
He sighed. ‘I know.’
Her heart stuttered. ‘What do you mean, you know?’
Enzo laughed, but it lacked its usual warmth. Instead, it sounded tired. ‘El, are you going to try and convince me you’ve been at all yourself these last few days? Even shadows aside.’
‘Was it that obvious?’
‘You insult me, princess. Do you not understand that I see you? Know you? When something is even slightly off kilter within you, I feel it in my soul.’
Elara closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. ‘I know,’ she whispered back. ‘Which is why I can no longer keep this from you. It’s about Ariete. And your tether.’
Enzo stalked forwards, and when she opened her eyes, everything she dreaded was held in his stare. It was burning into her. ‘Go on,’ he said, his voice too calm.
Elara cleared her throat. ‘When I was in his dreams, trying to get to your tether…things didn’t go according to plan. And I found myself in a situation with no positive outcome.’
Enzo’s jaw clenched, and she gulped, barrelling on. ‘Ariete forced me to fall into a trancechasm. And as I was holding on for dear life to the edge, trying not to fall into a pit that would rip away my own tether and give me no hope of saving you, he offered me an out.’
‘No,’ Enzo growled. ‘Elara, no. Don’t you dare utter what you’re about to.’
‘I made a bargain with him,’ she said.
‘What did you give him, hm? What did he take?’ Enzo shouted, flames writhing in his eyes.
‘My blood—as a promise to grant one favour for him, any favour that he wished.’
Enzo cursed. ‘Elara, you’re smarter than that!’ he cried. ‘For me? For my tether? You should have let me die rather than be tied to him!’
‘Let you die?!’ Elara’s voice rose. ‘Enzo, now you insult me. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through to get you back here? The things I’ve had to do? And now you talk as though your life means nothing at all?’
‘Yes, I do have an idea of what you’ve been through,’ Enzo snarled. ‘After all, while you were in the world of the living, I was being tortured daily just for existing, alone, on the brink of death.’
‘So now we’re arguing about who suffered more?!’ Elara cried.
‘No, we’re arguing about the fact that you fucking hid this from me, Elara! And created a blood bargain with a god who can now call upon you for any kind of favour he wishes. What if his wish is for you to give him your power?’
‘I would do it,’ Elara replied.
‘What if his wish is for you to leave with him tomorrow for Perses?’
Elara closed her eyes. ‘I would do it.’
Enzo’s laugh was cold. ‘What if his wish is for you to live in unending pain and torture?’
‘I would do it,’ she screamed. ‘I would do it for you! Don’t you see? I would have died for you. Given my life so that you could live.’
‘And that is exactly the problem,’ Enzo roared.
‘Because I would rather die than see you in any kind of pain. And now I have to hear that the most evil of gods, the god of war and wrath himself, has control over a part of you. He could ask for any sick and twisted favour he wished, and you would have to oblige.’
Enzo’s chest was heaving, his eyes alight. Elara’s jaw was clenched as she tried to hold back tears, her throat thick with the want to sob. Her lip trembled, but she held Enzo’s gaze, magick crackling off them both.
‘It was worth it,’ she finally replied. ‘It was all worth it, to have you with me now.’
Enzo closed his eyes, a shaky breath leaving him. ‘Gods, Elara,’ he gritted out. ‘You just—’
‘What?’ she snapped.
He stepped closer.
‘You make me so…’ The muscles in his neck strained as he clenched his teeth.
‘What?’ she asked again, more softly.
‘You drive me fucking insane,’ he snarled before crushing his mouth to hers.