Chapter Sixty-Seven
ADRIAN
Adrian sat trying to swallow the food that Elara and Merissa had made.
It was delicious, but it felt like cement as it slid down his throat.
The ache that had begun to grow—from the centre of his chest to the pit of his stomach—seemed to be eating up any joy and pleasure within him.
He couldn’t even bring himself to smile as Enzo and Leo told their next story, tears of laughter streaming from their eyes.
‘Leo thought he was taking us to a normal pub. And poor Isra had only just turned eighteen. She was green as grass.’
‘I was not,’ Isra replied scornfully, beginning to shuffle a pack of cards on the table. Elara was laughing as she cleared the plates, Eli standing to help her.
‘I’ll never forget the look on her face,’ Leo said between gasping breaths, ‘when we realized it was an orgy. And tell them, what did you say to that one particular man?’
‘I asked if cocks were supposed to look like that.’
Everyone else at the table erupted in laughter. Leo jostled Adrian and he tried to move his mouth into a smile.
‘Yes, yes, laugh at poor Isra,’ she said, grinning. ‘All it did was affirm why I like women.’
Leo passed around a bottle of rum, topping up everyone’s glasses when Elara and Eli re-emerged. Elara settled on Enzo’s lap, and Adrian felt a shot of jealousy. He wondered what it would feel like to find one’s soulmate, one’s perfect counterpart.
He watched as Enzo smoothed Elara’s hair, as she kissed his hand. He hadn’t realized quite how lonely he’d felt. He may have had a girl at every port, but there was something about the softness of their love that he found himself craving.
The feeling of Oceanne’s lips brushing his flashed through his mind, as did the whisper of the last words she’d said to him.
He knocked back another gulp of rum.
‘Right, then,’ Isra said. ‘Who’s first?’
She splayed out three cards from her Stella deck, face down. ‘Bed, betroth or betray.’
‘You sure this is a good idea?’ Elara asked. ‘We don’t want to accidentally summon a Star. No offence,’ she said to Eli.
He raised his glass in response before drinking.
‘I’ll go first,’ Merissa said to everyone’s surprise. ‘What? Get it out of the way?’ she said defensively at Elara’s raised brow.
She settled opposite Isra, and the others catcalled and clapped. ‘Just make sure my mother’s and brother’s cards are removed from the deck, please?’
Isra obliged, laughing, before shuffling the cards once more and placing three down.
Merissa pulled a face as the first card was turned over. ‘Aquaria.’ The wicked goddess pointed a finger out of the card, purple starlight swirling around her. Horseshoes and black cats and torn clovers all swam around her in a maelstrom.
There were boos around the table, though Adrian watched on quietly as the next card was flipped.
Cancia rested in stark relief, seashells strewn throughout her hair, holding a little crab as her eyes—one blue, one green—stared up at them.
A magickal lake lay behind her, shimmering, the large mermaid statues he had seen in Altalune on either side of her. Then, finally, Eli’s card was pulled.
Merissa blushed as they all mocked and wolf-whistled. Eli smiled as he raised a cigarette to Enzo. ‘You mind?’
Enzo flicked a hand at it, and the end of the cigarette ignited. Eli took a drag as he settled back in his seat, smirking at Merissa.
‘All right, all right,’ she said. ‘I would betray Aquaria, obviously.’
There was light clapping as Isra swiped the card.
‘I would marry Cancia—she doesn’t seem to be the worst of the Stars.’
Eli’s eyes lit up as Merissa’s cheeks began to turn pink.
‘And I’d bed Eli,’ she whispered.
‘What was that?’ he said, cupping a hand to his ear.
‘I said I would bed you,’ she said hotly.
‘Oh, sweetheart. There’s a cosy room upstairs if you want to follow me.’
Adrian flicked his gaze to Leo, who was gripping his mug so tightly it looked ready to shatter, his eyes pinned on the god.
Merissa pushed away from the table, abashed but laughing as the others howled, Eli grinning like the cat who got the cream. The noise grated on Adrian. He could barely stand it—the joy and cheer. He scraped his chair back.
‘Okay, my turn,’ Eli said, and Adrian paused. ‘Time for a real show.’
The others did a drum roll on the table as he took Merissa’s place.
Verra flipped out, half of her card rotting, the other in full bloom, then Lias, his angel wings spread across the card as he held a set of scales. When the third card was flipped, Eli jumped from the chair.
‘How did you do that?’ he demanded.
But Isra didn’t reply, her eyes white as snow.
‘Iz?!’ Leo said, running to her. Adrian looked at the card, dread immediately crawling up his throat.
Elara snatched the card, examining it. She was the one in the group most familiar with Piscea’s coffin; after all, the Star was the patron of Asteria. Adrian saw how pale she had become.
Upon the slumbering goddess’s card was usually a sealed coffin with darkroses growing upon it, two silver fish twining around each other in its centre, and a spinning wheel in the background. But now…
She dropped the card, staggering back.
‘No,’ she whispered, turning to Eli.
‘Isra!’ Merissa was pleading, but Isra had begun to convulse.
‘It starts with the wolves,’ she rasped in a voice that was not hers.
‘You knew,’ Elara said.
Adrian looked between the two of them. ‘Knew what?’ he demanded at the same time as Enzo.
Eli was pale, staring at the card from a distance.
‘You knew, and you didn’t tell us?!’ Elara shouted.
The others had gathered around her protectively.
‘Tell us what?!’ Adrian demanded, now standing.
Elara pointed to the card, to the coffin’s lid, open. To the shadow tendrils that emerged from it. To the wolf prowling the foreground, its eyes staring straight at her.
‘They’ve been the same person this entire time.’
‘Piscea,’ Eli rasped. ‘Piscea is the Dark. The slumbering goddess, known to you as the last Star.’
Before anyone could respond, Isra’s palm slammed on top of the card, and she began to sing in a terrible, nursery-rhyme cadence.
Beware the Dark, beware your shadow
On the eve of All Hallows’.
Even now she watches and waits.
In the Graveyard, spinning her fate.
Just one knock is all it takes;
Should you let her in, then she’ll wake.
‘Isra,’ Leo pleaded again, stroking her hair, but the seer continued to mumble, the words slurring and merging.
‘How do we stop it?’ Enzo demanded.
Adrian stormed forwards, snatching the card from the table.
The seer screamed in outrage, but Adrian held on to it as he ran.
A flash of images assaulted him, and he gasped.
Blood, bone, and wine poured over a bonfire.
Masks and chants, tombstones jagged and sharp.
And claws, black-shadowed claws, reaching around a door.
He staggered out of the room, running towards the main door and barrelling through it.
Cold sea air hit his face as he made his way to the edge of the lighthouse’s rock and threw the card. It began to dance in the air, fluttering down, down, down to the crashing waves below.
He heaved, that fucking ache expanding. His sister’s murderer, Piscea, trying to get into this world on All Hallows’ Eve? He clutched his chest, gritting his teeth. He would kill her before she even had the chance.
‘WHY DID YOU TAKE HER?’ he screamed to the water, to the wind.
‘She was innocent! She had her whole life ahead of her. A family, a soulmate—’ A quivering sob shook him.
‘Santi was a good man.’ He looked up to the skies.
‘I curse you, Stars!’ he screamed. ‘I curse you, Darkness! I swear to the skies I will bring you all down.’ He was gasping now as the roar of the ocean swelled.
In the blink of an eye, rain began to fall, pitter-pattering, softly at first, before it became a deluge.
The sea was furious, waves gigantic as they smashed and sprayed.
The tide and the rhythm of it only incensed him further, until he swore he heard a whisper on it. ‘Adrian.’
He looked around wildly.
‘Adrian.’
‘Oceanne?’ he demanded.
‘It’s me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Close your eyes,’ came the soft sound. ‘And come to the water.’
Adrian took a shuddering breath in and out as he let his eyes close.
The tears that sprang to them were hot and tasted of salt.
He stumbled forwards, hands out for balance, until he felt the water’s edge and sat down.
The wind was howling so loudly that he didn’t notice the mermaid approach until he smelled oceanflower.
He felt her press between his legs, and he opened them to her as she rose up from the waves.
‘Talk to me,’ she murmured, pressing a palm to his tears. Adrian leaned into it as he wept.
‘Everything I love has been torn from me,’ he said. ‘Santi, Annabel, my mortal fucking life.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘I don’t want this. I don’t want this life or this responsibility. I don’t want this pain, to have to live with this ache every day.’
‘It will pass,’ came the quiet reply.
‘How do you know?’ he scorned. ‘You’re a mythas. You can barely feel at all.’
‘I know much about pain, pirate,’ she replied, calm as a lake, unfazed by his spew of vitriol. Her fingers brushed over his heart. ‘And I know much about loss. And betrayal.’
‘Then tell me,’ he seethed. ‘You know every sad fucking story in my life, and I know nothing about you. So tell me how to make this feeling go away, or leave.’
There was a soft sigh as her hand swept his hair back, and he swallowed, jaw clenched.
‘Have you never heard about how a mermaid becomes a mermaid?’
He shook his head.