Page 42 of Fallen Stars
She cursed, ducking, its fangs only just grazing her. Rolling on the floor, she crouched low, patting her person. Fuck, she had no weapons.
Wait… What was she talking about? She was dreaming. She could haveanything. Wasn’t that what Eli had hinted at?
Chuckling, she imagined her two wicked knives curving from her hands, and right before her eyes, appeared the weapons.
“Holy shit,” she marvelled. She had been able to conjure anything she wished in her own dreamscape, but to be able to in another’s was fascinating. She began to run across the mildewed floorboards as the snake chased her.
Its thick body began to grow, filling the room, making it impossible to not touch its black, gleaming scales. Unfortunately, Elara knew nothing about snakes. Not how to tame one or subdue it.
But she knew how to kill.
With gritted teeth, she drove her swords down, aiming to pierce the snake’s skin. But to her chagrin, they bounced harmlessly off the mammoth snake.
It froze before turning its head. And then it began to wrap around Elara.
She struggled, trying to push away from its body, but it kept constricting and constricting, its hide too huge to escape. On and on it coiled, squeezing her as she struggled, her fists pounding against its skin. And then, with the tip of its tail, it pushed Elara up so she was dangling in the snake’s grip.
“Violent little thing, aren’t you?” it hissed in a voice that sounded exactly like Eli’s.
She blinked in surprise, her body slumping. Of course, this was his dream; he wouldn’t let such harm befall her.
“Only when I’m being asphyxiated—and not in the fun way,” she quipped back.
The snake’s laugh slithered over her. “This is your second challenge,” it hissed. “You got past the gates; I’ll grant you that. But what about the threat within. How will you win? Ariete’s dreams will try to attack your every thought, prey upon your deepest fears. Think on it,” Eli finished before the snake’s eyes blinked, the grey disappearing as she was left with the acidic yellow of the real serpent’s.
“Eli?” she shouted, but there was no reply, only the steady hiss of the snake as it began to wind around her again, even more tightly.
She thought fast, her mind running through options. Violence wasn’t an option here. She looked around wildly, but before she could form a plan, the snake spoke once more, yet this time in a bone-chilling whisper.
“You can’t run now, Elara.”
She froze, shock rendering her mute as a dull pounding began in her head.
“You’re good at running away. You ran from your family, from Sofia…even Lorenzo.”
Elara was paralysed. Not because of the tail constricting her, but the serpent’s words.
“What?” she whispered.
“Instead of being brave or useful, you sneak off to the nearest hypnom dens and smoke yourself into oblivion as your love is left in pain and suffering. Tell me, is that what a noblequeendoes?”
And there it was. Elara’s greatest fear spoken aloud. That she was not worthy.
She wasn’t.
She knew that already. That she hadn’t been worthy of her magick, nor of the love Enzo had given her, and certainly not a queendom. Certainly not a crown.
A tear escaped her.
“And now you cry,” the snake hissed, a mirthless laugh filling the cold space. “What good has crying ever done?”
It sounded so much like what Enzo had told her during their argument that Elara began to shake, fear and helplessness drowning her. The wave she had been avoiding, that one that had loomed on the horizon, it was near—almost engulfing her.
The words nearly took over her. Nearly.
But then she remembered something that Enzo had said long before he had been trapped in her dreams, shortly after Sofia had died.
“Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that feeling too much is a weakness,” he had said as she’d wept in his arms.