Chapter Seventy
ELARA
Elara let herself digest it all, her mind and body growing wearier and wearier.
How many new stories would she have to learn about herself?
She felt as though she was constantly being assaulted by truth and was still floundering—always floundering—a stranger within her own body whenever Eli recounted tales of the Moon.
‘If it’s any consolation, Enzo and Elara, Piscea could never compete with your powers, particularly united.
The Dark had tried to keep you apart for aeons before you were ever bound to mortal bodies, coming just when the Moon appeared in the sky so the Sun was forced to disappear.
She knows the power you possess together.
You can kill Stars with it and would be a worthy opponent to her. ’
‘What does she want?’ Adrian snapped. ‘Why has she wrought so much destruction when she isn’t even fully in this world?’
‘It’s just a taster, pirate,’ Eli replied faintly. ‘And as for her reason, well, I think she wants to corrupt the world the Celestes adore so much. And particularly…’ He glanced at Elara. ‘I think she wants to take revenge on the Moon, who abandoned her for the Sun.’
Elara scraped her chair back and stood before leaving the room.
She hurried up the twisting steps of the lighthouse, breath coming too thick, too fast. As she reached the top, she saw the lantern room—the topmost room in the building.
She dipped into it, allowing the blazing heat of the flames Enzo had lit earlier to calm her and the light to dispel the shadows she felt gathering within her.
It was all too much. And she was at the centre of it all, the catalyst. She was the reason her parents were dead. She was the reason Sofia was dead. She was the reason the Celestes had been bound to mortal bodies. And now? She was the reason that the Dark was intent on destroying their world.
Tears, hot and frantic, began to burst out of her and she heaved and heaved, trying to suck in a breath as the flames scorched her.
She pressed a hand to her chest, but it was no use.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She stumbled around the room until she reached a door and pushed it open, staggering on to a viewing deck that stretched out precariously into the air.
The waves crashed below against jagged black rocks, and she stood, frozen, breathing in and out as her panic arrested her.
‘El?’
She spun, the wind whipping her hair as Enzo stepped out on to the deck.
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.
Elara shook her head and wiped her eyes. ‘Nothing.’
‘El.’
She crossed her arms, pacing, as Enzo approached.
‘Everything.’
She shook her head as he drew her to him.
‘All of this is my fault,’ she said. ‘This entire mess.’
‘What do you mean?’ He frowned.
Elara broke away from him. Oh gods, she couldn’t keep it from him any longer.
‘You’ll hate me.’
‘I could never hate you.’
‘You say that now!’ she cried. ‘But when you know this, know who I am, you’ll turn away. Everyone will. I’m no better than Ariete.’ She stopped. ‘No. In fact, I’m worse.’
Enzo tried to get closer again, but she maintained the distance between them.
‘When I was in Ariete’s dreams, I saw something. I saw me. But I was the Moon.’
Enzo waited silently, patiently.
‘It was my idea to bind us all.’
The wind was the only sound that slipped between them as Enzo blinked.
‘It was me,’ she sobbed. ‘Not Ariete. I requested his help. I asked him to do it; told him he could reign over the skies and leave me to be mortal. All because I wanted a life with you.’
She put her head in her hands as she was racked with sobs, the truth scorching her as it left her throat.
‘Think of everything the Stars have done since they’ve ruled. That’s on my orders.’ She could barely fathom it: the amount of death and destruction she had brought about by appointing Ariete as the new King of the Heavens.
Footsteps approached, but she couldn’t bear to lift her hands and see Enzo’s face.
‘My beautiful El,’ he breathed, clasping those hands and lowering them.
She blinked up at his handsome golden eyes, shining not with rage, she realized.
‘How could I be angry at something you did that brought you to me?’ He stroked her cheeks, her lips, and she whimpered.
‘How could you doubt my love for you? That I would ever turn my back?’
‘I betrayed our friends. I doomed them.’
‘You didn’t. The Moon did.’
‘And that’s just the problem. I am both, no matter how I try to fight it.
’ She surrendered to his hold, speaking into his neck.
‘There are two women within me, Enzo, warring. If I let the moonlight in fully—if I just accept that I’m that goddess, so heartless and callous and cruel that she betrayed her family for love—then what am I?
Worse than the Stars I’m trying to fight. Even they have pacts with one another.’
He stroked up and down her back.
‘And now the Dark wakes. And the vengeance she seeks—the seas turning black, the crops dying, Annabel, the shadowmancers…’ She shook her head. ‘That all comes back to me. I’m cursed, Enzo. I’ve tried to warn you before—you should stay well away.’
Enzo let out a dry laugh. ‘What have I told you already, princess? The brighter the light, the darker the shadows. They flock to you like moths to a flame because of the beacon you are.’ He paused.
‘I’m glad you told me. Though I think we should keep this between us for now.
Adrian, Eli…they wouldn’t feel the same. ’
She nodded. ‘I’m scared, Enzo,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never felt like a stranger in my own body before.’
She closed her eyes, ashamed. Enzo looped his arms around her middle as he tucked his chin on to her shoulder.
‘This moon magick—it whispers to me of death and destruction. It raised the damned dead. Do you have any kind of idea how abhorrent that magick is?’
Enzo stood silently, listening to her speak her fears aloud. What a blessing, she realized, to have a person beside her who really heard her.
‘I don’t accept who I am any more. I thought I was healed by Clari, that I’d found my way back to myself, but I…I fear who I’ve become. What I’m capable of.’
‘Come with me,’ he replied, breaking away, threading his fingers through hers and pulling her towards the edge of the deck.
They passed a small table and empty chairs that a watchman must have used, and a roughly whittled wooden crab, a crude knife beside it.
‘You need to be out of your head for a while.’
Elara frowned as he led her. ‘Enzo, I don’t—’
‘Sit,’ he interrupted.
Elara looked around at where they’d stopped. ‘Er…where?’
He nodded in front of him to the base of the railing where the deck jutted out into the sky.
‘You must be joking.’
Enzo faked a yawn. ‘I thought my queen was a dragun.’ His spirit was back, as was the light in his eyes, thank the skies.
Elara’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am.’
‘Then how about you take a risk and sit by the edge for me?’
Elara didn’t know what Enzo’s plan was, but she trusted him, more than anyone in the world. So, with a roll of her eyes, she did as she was told.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
Enzo raked his curls back, securing them in place with a leather strap.
‘I’m going to show you that I don’t fear you, and that you certainly shouldn’t fear yourself.
Others may, and I revel in it. I love to see the gleam of it in their eyes as they gaze upon you.
’ He knelt in front of her. ‘But me? I will never fear you, never turn my back. There is nothing you can do to me, Elara, that would make me love you less. Nothing you could say that would make me leave. So these worries in your head, about who you are now, are going to stop. You are Elara Bellereve, Queen of Asteria and Helios, Ruler of the Stars and Skies. The Starkiller. A light in the night sky. And soulmate of the most handsome man to walk the earth.’ He winked as Elara let out a watery laugh.
‘I never want to hurt you again,’ she whispered. ‘My shadows did, and my moonlight.’
Enzo shook his head. ‘Fate was torn apart to bring us together, El. Our magick was meant for one another. Your shadows were tainted. And your moonlight only attacked me when I hurt you first. There’s no danger in you accidentally hurting me any more.
I promise, princess, that I can take it.
’ Elara smiled at her nickname. ‘Maybe I’ll even enjoy it. ’ He smirked.
Elara’s heart swelled. How it was possible to love someone so deeply, she didn’t know, but she decided in that moment she would do anything to make this man happy.
‘Move back, and don’t take your eyes off me,’ he murmured, a glint in his eyes.
She raised an eyebrow, shuffling until her back was to the railing.
‘Now undress for me.’
Elara’s eyes widened. ‘What, oh what, are you planning, Lion?’
He tutted. ‘The Lion isn’t taking questions at this time.’
Elara felt a small thrill run through her as she gathered the simple black gown she’d been wearing and tugged it off, only her silk underwear beneath.
Enzo made a rumbling noise of approval. ‘Every thread,’ he growled.
‘Enzo, anyone could walk out here.’
‘And do you think I’d let them leave with their eyes if they saw you naked? You’re safe with me—always. Haven’t you learned that yet?’
She took a deep breath, trying to let her worries and guilt leave her as she peeled off her undergarments and threw them to the side.
Enzo snatched them from the air. He brought them to his face and inhaled deeply, and the act set Elara ablaze.
He groaned into the fabric, his other hand grabbing his crotch.
‘Gods, I love your scent,’ he gritted out.
Then he took a moment to observe her, his eyes raking over her body. She could feel it again, a visceral heat that sparked wherever his eyes rested, until he reached her sex, and she instantly tried to press her thighs together.
‘I wish you could see how you look right now,’ he murmured. ‘You’re breathtaking, El.’