Page 43 of Fallen Stars

“You’re right,” she whispered to the snake.

The snake’s tongue flicked out.

“I went through more in a year than most experience in a lifetime. And my emotions, mytears, were one of the only things that got me through this. I may not have been worthy before, but what I do know is I will do everything to prove that I am.”

The anger she felt in her heart was Enzo’s. Her beautiful Lion’s rage still alive within her.

“Startingnow.”

Shadows billowed out of her hands, weaving and forming her dragun. It pounced on the snake, wrapping itself in contorting shapes around the serpent’s length.

The snake hissed, and still her shadows did not relinquish, drowning the hideous creature in darkness until darkness filled the room, until the snake’s cries turned to whimpers, and finally, it loosened its grip.

Elara whipped her shadows to herself with impeccable control, launching from the snake onto the spiralling staircase before her.

She took two at a time, unsure where she was going, only that she had to get away from the room.

She panted, reaching the top step as the snake tried to lunge once more.

This time she did not waver, wrenching another knife from thin air—this was a dream after all. And with a satisfying scream and a well-placed blow, she drove the blade through the serpent’s yellow eye.

Unwilling to stop, she did not turn back as she cleared the last steps, running forward onto what she suspected was a landing.

She screamed, clinging to the banister behind her as she nearly fell into black…nothingness.She staggered, panting as she scrambled back from the ledge, and looked down the corridor in front of her.

This is just a dream,she reminded herself as she looked on in awe. Doors hovered in the black air on either side of her, rippling into endless dark ahead, not an escape in sight.

She had never seen a dreamscape like it, as though every dream, every thought, was categorised, organised and held under lock and key. Suddenly, a stepping stone, slate grey, appeared a foot in front of her. She stepped lightly onto it, holding her hands out for balance. Another appeared, and she jumped to that one, looking at the doors in reaching distance on either side.

So behind one of these must be the prize, she realised. But how on earth was she supposed to know which door?

She took a deep breath, still hovering on the stepping stone as the first door came within reach. She placed a hand gingerly on the knob, turning it. She knew if she were to go fully through the wrong door, she may become lost in the dreamlands, and resolved to only peek.

Behind it was a scene playing out, one she recognised instantly. With a deep foreboding, she saw herself, starved and beaten, bent over as Eli rubbed healing salve onto her back, the cell around them dark and dingy. She closed the door quickly, batting down nausea at the memory. There was nothing in that dream for her. She stepped lightly onto the next stone, carefully opening the next door, on her left this time.

She saw Eli again, but he looked so much younger, so full of life. His hair was the same, slicked back, but his eyes were lighter, a grey almost like hers, and he was reading in a leather armchair. She squinted outside the window, frowning. The sky didn’t look like Castor’s. In fact, it looked like nowhere in Celestia. Just as she went to close the door, this version of Eli slowly raised his head and looked directly at her. He gave her a small smile and a wink as she hurriedly pulled it closed.

There was another, a few doors ahead, that seemed to call out to her, its doorknob glowing faintly. She jumped the few stepping stones towards it, her hand hovering over the knob. A deep thrumming began within her heart, as though it was tied to whatever was behind this door. And with a held breath she opened it.

She hadn’t felt a pull to walk into the other rooms, had only wanted to observe from afar. But this one… Her legs worked of their own accord as they leapt across the threshold and onto a silver marbled floor.

Elara’s heart pounded against her chest as she took in her surroundings. She was encircled by stars. They twinkled, the sky a deep blue, and she realised the room she was in had glass ceilings that stretched in magnificent domes so the night cloaked her.

Frescoes painted in foiled silver glowed along the walls of Mythas—some she recognised, some of which Elara had never seen before. As she turned, a mammoth statue of a woman towered up to the ceiling. No, agoddess. The goddess was hewn out of silverstone, though it shone with a blue glow that Elara had never seen in the crystal before. In one hand, palm upturned, she held a crescent—one that looked an awful lot like the moon. And in the other, she held a skull. Elara craned her neck, squinting up to the face of the woman, and took three staggering steps back as she realised it was her own.

“He made that for you, you know,” Eli said behind her, and she jumped, cursing as she turned around. He looked like himself, in the same suit he’d had on before they’d began dreamwalking.

“Who did?” she breathed.

Eli scoffed. “Who?” he mocked. “You know who. Your Sun. Carved it with his light as a gift to you.”

She turned back to the sculpture, holding back tears as she gazed upon its beauty.

“Where is this place?”

“High in the heavens. Surely you can guess where we are right now?”

Elara looked above her again, marvelling at the starred sky above, then gasped as a shadow flew across the glass panes of the ceiling, a roar shaking the palace as webbed wings stretched out, a snaking tail flicking out amongst the stars. She swore, ducking.