Page 136 of Heavenly Bodies
Enzo’s face was painted with emotion as he pulled her to him, so she was cradled to his chest, his heart hammering faster than before. ‘I can hardly think of that without erupting into flames,’ he said. ‘When you were taken from me, I—’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘I was ready to set Celestia ablaze.’
Elara believed it, the savage promise his eyes held as he said it. ‘Come now,’ she teased. ‘You wouldn’t have really done that. Think of all the poor innocents who would have been caught in the crossfire.’
Enzo gave a dark laugh. ‘You overestimate my compassion, Elara, and underestimate how deeplymineyou are. I would let the whole world burn if it kept you warm.’
A selfish warmth coursed through her as she nuzzled in closer to him. ‘So you’d set the world on fire for me,’ she mused. ‘Well,Iwould turn the world to darkness for you. If you were taken from me, not a single light would shine untilyou were back home,’ she added quietly, needing him to understand. He held her tightly in response.
The temple bells chimed the eighth hour, and Elara raised her head. ‘We should get back,’ she said, shrugging off the shirt and handing it back to him.
‘I wish you could keep this on,’ he said, taking it from her. ‘I think I prefer you in it than any ballgown I’ve ever seen.’ He stamped a kiss against her neck for emphasis.
‘Territorial animal,’ she laughed, pulling on her discarded dress. ‘Don’t let Merissa catch you saying that.’
Once Enzo had also dressed, and slung his sword around his waist, he took her in his arms and they both looked around the space for one last time. Elara drank in the sculptures, the tools and sheets, the books strewn upon the table. She never wished upon Stars. But she wished to something else then, that she might be able to come back here, with Enzo, after all this.
‘Before we go back, there’s somewhere I want to take you,’ he said, resting his chin on her head.
The air in the Angel’s Graveyard was just as she’d remembered it—thin, dry and hot. She sucked in a deep lungful of it, coughing lightly at the grit she could feel coating the back of her throat, the red sands around her shifting.
‘I remember telling you that this wasn’t a very cheerful place,’ she said, casting her eyes warily around the circular dais they were standing on. ‘I stand by that.’
Enzo chuckled, pacing the circumference of it. ‘It’s so strange to me that the last time we were both here, we couldn’t stand each other.’
‘I blame the sexual tension.’ Elara smirked.
‘I swear you get more arrogant by the day,’ Enzo replied, walking towards her.
‘I have a great teacher.’ She smiled, kissing him deeply as he wrapped his arms around her. ‘So why here?’ she asked, extricating herself from him. She squinted against the Light and the glare of the buttercup-golden skies above.
‘I have this little ritual,’ he began. ‘You’ll probably call it superstitious nonsense. But before a battle, I always come here. I feel this kind of ancient magick, maybe a remnant of those mighty mythas who fought centuries ago.’ Enzo looked up at one of the giant angel statues, its carved gold stone towering above them. Elara followed his gaze, looking out to the roiling sea of sands ahead. The red, shifting desert stretched out for miles, as far as the eye could see, eventually bleeding into what she knew would be the Sinner’s Sands, the domain of the Star Capri.
‘It sounds stupid,’ he broke the silence, ‘but walking where the fabled winged lions of Helios once did, where they fought and conquered…It gives me strength. To face anything set before us.’
Elara squeezed his hand. ‘It doesn’t sound stupid. Why wouldn’t the Lion of Helios want to be around his kin?’ He kissed her brow. ‘Do you believe all the mythas existed? Walked this world before us?’ she asked.
‘I do,’ he replied. ‘And maybe other beings too.’ Enzo sat down on the circular dais, beckoning Elara to join him.
‘See these?’
His hand swept over the disc, pushing aside the red sand that coated it. He ran a finger over the stone, showing up designs and symbols that Elara had noticed before from afar. She squinted at the etchings, wind-weathered and light-faded.
‘These are the Stars,’ he pointed. It was a wheel, each Star’ssymbol spaced along the circumference of it. She saw Ariete’s crossed swords at the top, Torra’s rose, Scorpius’s trident. A few other familiar Stars’ tokens. ‘But these…’ Enzo murmured. ‘I’ve always wondered as to what these were.’ His hand arced outwards, to symbols that hovered above in their own circle, enclosing the Stars. Elara frowned as she looked to them. All the symbols were foreign—circles and rings surrounding them, some crescents, some that looked like light rays shining.
‘My mother would bring me here,’ Enzo said, and Elara rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. His eyes were troubled, held in the past.
‘She said it was so I would remember that I was a lion, as worthy of standing here as any of the winged creatures that fought before me. She was always cryptic—I suppose a curse of an oracle. But she promised me that she had seen my fate, and that I was more powerful than I believed. My father, as you know, was never religious. And nor was my mother. She…she told me that my power came from something greater than the Stars.’
He raised his hands, and light sparked from them. Elara watched as it flooded the dais, spreading out across the sands and up to the angel statues, covering them.
‘But Enzo,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing is more powerful than a Star.’
‘You are.’
She shook her head. ‘I survived death, that’s all.’
‘No, Elara. There is something within you. I can feel it.’ His eyes roamed her face. ‘The same way I feel a tide turning, as though a huge chess game has begun, with players we haven’t even guessed at yet, all shifting their pieces. I felt the same feeling when I first laid eyes on you. That we are part of something bigger.’
The words felt so familiar, sotrue, that Elara almost stopped breathing.