Chapter Forty-Seven
ADRIAN
It had been a long time since Adrian had visited Neptuna. Since he’d been practically disowned by his parents for his life choices, he didn’t exactly enjoy visiting. Though he’d missed his sisters terribly.
The sea spat them out into the sanctum pool, situated in the bowels of Adrian’s family mansion, which lay in the elegant district of Amphitrion.
Enzo spluttered up water as he dragged himself to its edge, followed by Santi, and craned his neck to look up at the imposing structure. Pillars and arches stretched upwards, as did a winding staircase that led to the upper levels of Adrian’s home.
Adrian’s father, as an ocean miner, had access to the most beautiful stones and materials in Celestia, and the sanctum—a room where Adrian and his sisters had honed all their powers—was decorated with the finest marbles and crystals, each accent making the mansion resplendent.
By the time Adrian had got out of the pool, Enzo and Santi were already dry, thanks to a lick of Enzo’s magick. The king gave a flick of his hand, and warm flames caressed Adrian. The power the man possessed was astonishing.
‘And what is it exactly we’re to expect up there?’ Enzo asked, eyeing the stairs. Adrian noted he’d pulled something from his pocket—a piece of driftwood, by the looks of it—and his hands kept glowing as he turned it around.
‘I’m not exactly sure,’ Adrian said a little distractedly as he led the two of them to the stairs.
‘My mother and father reported a few of her symptoms. The Blackwater Blight, they’re calling it.
She coughs up black water. She doesn’t speak.
And she’s in a kind of stupor. She won’t move from bed. And she hates the light.’
Santi shifted beside him, and Adrian almost wanted to pat him on the back to reassure him.
Enzo nodded. ‘Well, I’ve already experienced the tail end of that with El,’ he sighed.
Adrian began to climb the stairs.
‘You were remarkably brave,’ Santi said quietly behind him. ‘To do what you did—to someone you love, no less. Adrian told me what happened. You saved her.’
Adrian turned to see Enzo shake his head, a small smile forming on his face that only seemed to appear when he was speaking about Elara. ‘No, she saved me. From the moment she met me.’ He was turning something in his hands that kept glowing and dimming with light.
‘What does it feel like?’ Adrian blurted out.
Enzo gave him a quick look before going back to whatever he was doing.
‘Love? It feels like…a ray of light on the darkest day. Or a shaded alcove in the blazing midday heat. It’s relief.
It’s worship, of something so much greater than yourself, or the Stars, or…
anything else in the world. It feels like meeting yourself in another body, someone who contains everything you lack and just gifts it to you freely. ’
‘It’s cool water on a parched throat. It’s the waves kissing the shore and knowing it’s home,’ Santi added quietly.
Adrian had known Santi for years, since they were boys, and had never once heard him speak of love. He knew, without a doubt, that though Santi had never said the words to him, he was talking about Annabel.
Enzo spoke again. ‘Love is too weak a word for what I feel for Elara, anyway. Whatever is between us was here long before we awoke and will be here long after we die, too.’
Adrian let out a breath. ‘That’s all, eh?’
Enzo chuckled as they all reached the top of the stairs, finally dimming his Light and holding up something between them.
Adrian peered at it, noticing the detailed carved octopus, near identical to the one inked on Adrian’s chest.
‘How did you even do that?’ Santi asked.
Enzo shrugged. ‘My Light. I carve things.’
‘Gods, I forgot you Helions know how to do everything. Let me guess—Leo’s a sculptor too,’ Santi replied.
Enzo’s lip quirked. ‘No, he likes to sketch. Charcoal specifically. I make it for him, with my fire.’
Adrian rolled his eyes. ‘Of course. You have the looks, the muscles, the sensitive artistic side. It’s hardly fair.’
‘Calm down,’ Enzo drawled. ‘I might think you’re interested.’
Adrian snorted. ‘Says the man carving trinkets for me.’
‘It’s for your sister, prick,’ Enzo said.
The smile slid off Adrian’s face. They stood in the foyer, and he knew he was putting off the inevitable—having to see exactly how much Annabel was suffering.
‘I just thought…I don’t know…I wanted to give her something.
’ Enzo swallowed. ‘I know what it’s like to not be in control of your body.
In the Dreamlands, there’s…’ He let out a sigh.
‘Well, there’s a lot that happened. A lot I’ve not explained to Elara, because I don’t want her to worry, or add to her burden or guilt.
And one of the most terrifying things was being stuck there, knowing my body was in another plane with no way to get back, just trapped in an endless cycle.
If that’s what has happened to Annabel, then I will do everything I can to help. ’
He handed the octopus to Adrian, who shook his head, smiling. ‘No, you should give it to her.’
He noticed that Santi was blinking rapidly at the floor.
Enzo offered a small smile back just as a figure skidded into the hallway, yelping in surprise.
It was Lenore, the oldest of Adrian’s sisters. When she saw him, her eyes widened, then softened as they registered Santi, then damn near popped out of her head when she saw Enzo beside him.
‘Len,’ Adrian breathed, hugging her tightly.
She gripped him back, and he inhaled her comforting scent.
Lenore was like the port in a storm, steadfast and sensible, always there.
His anchor. They’d basically grown up together, only a few years apart.
When she pulled away, she wiped her eyes and embraced Santi.
‘And this is Lorenzo.’
‘The Lion of Helios,’ she said in an awed whisper that had Adrian looking to the skies.
Enzo held out a hand to shake hers and she paled before taking it.
‘Ma and Pa are with Ana,’ she said as she led them to the grand staircase.
Nothing had changed in all the years he’d been gone.
There was still the library, filled with maritime adventures, folklore, sailing techniques and encyclopaedias of gems; still the ballroom where he’d learned to dance with his sisters; music rooms; the kitchens and the garden beyond.
The house had always been so lively, so filled with sound and joy.
Now, it was as silent as a graveyard. As dark, too, pillared candles casting a strange blue light upon the walls.
She led him up the stairs, where he heard whispers before his other five sisters all descended upon him. They swarmed Adrian with excitement, and he hugged and kissed every one of them, Santi doing the same.
‘Everyone, this is Enzo. He’s come to help Annabel.’
They all fell quiet.
‘And Enzo, this is…Morella.’ He grinned. His clever and quiet sister, always with her nose in a book, squeezed his hand before nodding politely at Enzo.
‘Ligeia and Madeline.’ Ligeia’s jaw dropped, face reddening, and she whispered something to her twin sister, who giggled. The two of them loved pretty things, which was likely why they were gawping at Enzo. Enzo bit his lip as though trying not to laugh.
‘Berenice.’ Adrian pointed to the tallest of his sisters, who loved to dance and had a mischievous side. She curtsied. ‘And Eleanora.’
Eleanora actually strode right up to Enzo and took his hand, shaking it. She’d always been the most forthright of them all. ‘You aren’t here to burn us alive, are you?’ she asked.
Enzo laughed. ‘No, I save that only for very terrible people.’
Adrian nodded as the others tittered and swooned. ‘Let’s go to Annabel.’
When they reached Annabel’s room, all his sisters quietened their chatter, and Santi, who had been speaking with Eleanora, stilled.
‘She hasn’t moved from the bed since she returned,’ Ligeia said.
‘We’ve all been too scared to go diving again,’ Berenice added. ‘Pa’s business is suffering without any new materials.’
‘The whole kingdom is,’ Madeline replied. ‘Ships disappearing. Fish dying. Old Tom from the Weatherman died last week. He was already ill and had no money for medicine, because he had no fish to sell.’
Adrian rubbed at his eyes. Old Tom had given him his first pint as a boy.
The havoc the Dark was wreaking…He paused his thoughts to breathe.
One thing at a time. He also realized just how much he needed to be there for his sisters, how he had put space between them because of his relationship with his parents.
‘Anyway, I just want to warn you,’ Lenore said calmly. ‘Ana isn’t the same as the last time you saw her. It might be quite a shock.’
‘Well, hopefully she will be right as rain soon enough,’ Enzo said warmly.
Adrian nodded, grateful, to his disbelief, to have Enzo by his side.
He pushed the door open gently and immediately recoiled. There was a scent of damp in the room, of rot. The space was in utter darkness, and even the small strip of light from the open door caused a hiss within the room, and movement.
‘Easy, love,’ came his mother’s calm voice.
His parents both turned, and from the small light in the room, he could see they were both in a desperate state.
‘Adrian,’ his mother breathed, rushing towards him and into his arms. She began to sob, and he held her, stroking her hair as she had done to him so many times and trying to fight back his own tears. Lenore took after his mother; she too was as calm as a still lake, usually.
‘Son,’ said his father. Lord Mereille was an honest, stern man.
Loving with his daughters and tough on his eldest son, he’d expected more from Adrian than he could bear as an arrogant adolescent.
Though now, being a bit more worldly, Adrian regretted not listening to his father’s wisdom.
What a different life he could have had, if he’d stayed.
His father embraced him tightly, and Adrian didn’t want to be the one to let go first. When his father finally did, Adrian introduced Enzo, and he let the king explain quietly just what he was here to help with, recounting the explanation the healers in Altalune had given, and what he had done for Elara, though he left her name out.
His reputation as the consort of a Starkiller hadn’t quite reached their ears, it seemed, thank the Stars.
Finally, Adrian turned to the bed in the corner and the figure lying upon it. As he approached, the smell worsened, and he had to breathe through his mouth as he laid eyes on his youngest sister.
Annabel was near unrecognizable. Her deep-blue hair, the same shade as all his sisters’, was stringy, stuck to her face as though wet, in limp strands.
Her usually tanned skin was pale as wax, and delicate black veins ran under her eyes and down her neck.
She blinked up at him, and he had to fight the recoil in his body.
Her eyes were entirely black, the beautiful clear blue of them completely swallowed.
Santi let out a breath behind him, and his sister’s blank stare fell on him.
‘Annie?’ Santi croaked, falling to his knees. He didn’t seem abashed, even as Adrian’s sisters and parents watched on. He took her hands in his, and Adrian hated to see the way they trembled.
Annabel began to cough, and Adrian watched in horror as black, putrid water gushed from her mouth. His mother made a sympathetic sound, wiping her with a napkin as her body rocked.
‘Help her,’ Santi implored.
Enzo nodded and knelt beside Santi as Adrian watched, feeling utterly nauseous.
A small glow began to emanate from Enzo’s hands, and Adrian’s sisters gasped. But as the Light turned towards Annabel, she shot up.
‘Get him out of here,’ she rasped, throwing a hand towards the door.
‘He’s here to help,’ Adrian said as calmly as he could. Enzo tried with his Light once more, but this time she lunged at him, ragged nails clawing at his face.
He let out a sharp breath of pain.
‘Annabel!’ Adrian’s mother shouted, trying to hold her back. ‘I’m sorry, she’s never done that, I—’
‘It’s fine,’ Enzo reassured her. ‘I believe it’s the disease. It’s trying to attack the threat, which is my Light.’
Adrian and his sisters constrained her, though she kicked and thrashed and bit.
‘Annabel,’ Enzo said, dimming his Light and changing tack. ‘I made this for you.’
He held out the octopus to her, and she blinked blankly at it.
‘I don’t mean you any harm. I swear it. But someone very close to me had a similar ailment, and I helped. It will hurt for only a moment, and then you’ll be better.’
Annabel only blinked again, and to see his sister, once so vibrant and joyful—always running to him with the latest gem she’d found—now such a ghost made Adrian want to weep.
‘I know what it is to feel lost at sea,’ Enzo whispered. ‘Especially in the darkness. But I promise I’ll try to be the lighthouse beckoning you to safer shores.’
Adrian wasn’t sure why, but he leaned forwards and squeezed Enzo’s shoulder. The softer side to the arrogant prince he had once known surprised him, but he was eternally grateful for it.
Annabel breathed in and out, staring at the ceiling as a rattling breath escaped her.
Whether she had heard Enzo’s reassurances or not, Adrian didn’t know.
This time, when Enzo’s Light reached her, she once again writhed and tried to attack. But the people who loved her most held her down, whispering sweet words in her ears, as the prince he’d once hated tried to save her.