Page 4 of Fallen Stars

Merissa gave her a long look as they both heard the lie. “El, we’re going to get him back,” she said gently as Isra nodded beside her. “But right now, you need to rest.”

Elara’s eyes were hollow as she looked at them both and replied. “Half of my soul is gone. There is no rest for me.”

Chapter Two

Elara padded into her room, the floorboards creaking. She closed the door softly behind her, looking at her shadow stretched across the wall.

“Hello,” she murmured to it.

Elara didn’t feel comfort, but her shadow had been the closest thing to it when her soul had been ripped in two. After the night in her dreamlands, she had felt its presence there, an extension of her, one that had sat with her as she had sobbed until her tears had run out. That had stayed with her on the nights when she had been physically sick with the ache in her heart.

She hadn’t allowed anyone else to see her pain. Not Isra or Merissa or Leo.

When Elara first mentioned that her shadow felt like its own living entity, Merissa had said it must have been Sofia’s gift from above, a guardian to watch over her.

But Elara knew better. Fortune didn’t work in her favour like that, and no benevolent spirit watched over her. She’d walked most of her life alone. Her shadow was merely a part of her, the only thing that would never leave her.

She sank onto the sagging mattress, pulling her black lace gloves off. Moonlight filtered through her window, and she took a second as always to observe it. She was still getting used to the fact that she was now a goddess. To seeing her reflection in the sky, the moon a constant reminder of the presence that should be beside her up there. But that useless silver magick that had only awakened twice was nowhere to be found now. She couldn’t feel even a tremor of it. And so, with a grimace, she pulled the curtains shut.

She lay back, ignoring the smell of mildew and too-sweet flowers as she closed her eyes.

There it was, that endless nothingness.

Grief was no longer a word Elara could use to describe what she felt. This was sheer emptiness. It wasn’t the hot aching pain of losing Sofia or even the desperate panic of losing her parents. This was simply…darkness.

No light. No life.

She hadn’t cried since the night Enzo’s tether had been ripped from him. Instead, she had asked her shadow to take her pain, knowing it would be too much for her to bear. And it had. It had drunk and drunk from her, helping her to push it all down until all that was left was vengeance.

But for now, she was here without a distraction, awake and breathing, and that feeling of being alive, of air passing through her mouth and nose triggered the desperate keening wailing deep, deep within her that she had tried so very hard to bury.

She felt the object that pressed into her thigh from her pocket but tried to ignore it. She tried not to use it, knowing it was sheer torture. She lasted a minute before delving into her pocket with shaking hands and pulling a book of matches from it, swiped from the hypnom den.

Her fingers were cold as she slid the box open, extracting a match. The tears were already threatening to fall, her throat tight with them. The memories were beginning to crowd around her, pecking and screaming. She would not allow those tears to fall; she forbade them. She squeezed her eyes shut as she fumbled with the match, striking it against the box.

Once.

The sound of her scream as Ariete plunged a sword into Enzo’s chest.

Her hand trembled.

Twice.

The blood of her soulmate, staining her hands.

The match wouldn’t strike.

Three times.

Sofia’s throat, cut like a ribbon.

A desperate dry sob escaped her.

Four—a flame flared from the match, lighting the room dimly.

She exhaled in relief, opening her eyes as the flame burned a little brighter. She brought a tentative finger to the match, feeling the warmth radiating from it. Her digit hovered close to the edge of the flame. Then with a sigh, she closed her eyes.

She was in Enzo’s studio, the Light streaming through the large windows.