Page 216 of Fallen Stars
“Sofia was a conniving bitch,” he finally spat. “You were just too lonely to see it.”
Enzo gave a warning hum as they stepped over the threshold, the light at the end of his hand flaring as Lukas shied away.
“Filthy liar,” Elara hissed. “Even now, in death, you can’t see your own bitterness. What difference do your words make now that you’re a corpse?”
Lukas looked at her only once, his grey eyes clear for the first time in years. The eyes that she remembered as her friend’s all that time ago.
“It doesn’t make a difference,” he whispered. “Not a bit of difference at all.”
They followed Lukas through The Graveyard. The place was washed in shades of grey, no colour or life. She couldn’t fathom that once upon a time she’d held dominion over this realm. Such sadness. Such despair echoed through the place.
It was quiet, mist curling above gravestones that stood like rows of crooked teeth. The place reminded Elara of a monster’s maw—one that threatened to swallow her whole.
She clutched onto Enzo tighter as a phantom drifted past, too quickly for her to make out if it was mist or a soul.
“She rests here,” Lukas said quietly as they slowed to a halt before a large black building.
He pointed, Elara craning her neck to take in a large temple made of obsidian, its sheen reflecting the sconces that lit the walls. She had spotted the mass from the shore, but assumed it was a sort of church, not a dedicated resting ground to Piscea.
Curled around the door was a script etched into the obsidian, silver and pulsing. Her motto: ‘The Slumbering Goddess.’
“I can’t go any further,” Lukas said hoarsely, pulling a sconce from the wall and handing it to Elara. Their hands brushed, and she shuddered as she felt his death move through her.
“Thank you for helping us, Lukas,” she said reluctantly. He may have been the same bitter and twisted man she had known in life, but he had allowed them through.
Sadness filled his gaze. “Be safe, Lara. Lorenzo.”
Enzo clenched his jaw, not deigning to look at the ghost. Elara nodded, turning as Lukas began to pace back and forth.
Elara took a deep breath in and out, holding onto Enzo’s hand for dear life before they stepped inside.
Chapter Seventy-Four
It was cool inside thetemple, frankincense hanging in the air, camphor smouldering.
“What do we do now?” Elara asked as she glanced over the obsidian surfaces that reflected their stricken expressions.
“Her coffin,” Enzo murmured, pulling her along. “We just feed our light into her coffin. Seal it, coat it with our magick. That’s what Ophelia said.”
Elara nodded, wetting her lips. She avoided the carved, snarling wolf heads that protruded from the walls and the black candles that flickered off every surface, sticking to the centre of the tomb.
Up ahead rose the altar, offerings splayed upon it—wine, crow’s feathers, dark violets too.
And lying in the center of the temple, right before it, was the coffin. So infamous that it had become the symbol for Piscea.
Elara could almost feel the energy emanating from it, wicked and otherworldly as she approached, Enzo’s hand clutched tightly in her own.
Her eyes scanned the inlaid details carved onto the coffin, black roses carved into the midnight wood, a sparkling red powder coating the surface.
“Ariete’s stardust,” Elara breathed. It was hard to comprehend that the last person to have entered this space was Ariete with the instructions she had so willingly given him. Her finger touched a speck of it tentatively.
The moment her skin came into contact with the surface of the coffin, she buckled, the power radiating from it abhorrent. Her magick repelled against it, moonlight lurching away to try to hide from it.
Enzo lunged forward, splaying a hand filled with light upon it. Yet he seemed to be having an even worse reaction, breaking into a sweat as he took short, desperate gasps once his own skin came into contact with it.
She winced, trying to wrangle control of her powers as she expected the coffin to swing open or a shadow to attach to her, but…nothing.
She pulled her hands away, and the nausea abated. She let out a loud whoosh of breath.