Page 5 of Fallen Stars

“Here,” a voice murmured behind her, and she immediately melted into it, the pain dissipating from her body. “I brought you your favourite.”

Elara turned, smiling, as Enzo handed her a cup of mint tea. “Thank you,” she sighed, sinking into his arms. He stroked her hair, singing their lullaby as she sipped.

“I love you,” he said onto her neck.

She turned, beaming as she pulled his face to hers. “I love you more,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his. Fire burned from his touch, warming her, her lips singeing as heat and light poured off him. But the flame—it was becoming too hot, too hot and…

Elara’s eyes flew open, the match centimetres from her lips, extinguished.

She was ice cold. The only heat was a slight hurt on her lip from the flame’s proximity.

She pushed the heel of her hand to her cheek, wiping phantom tears away, then focusing, she lit another match.

“You are my home,” Enzo whispered against Elara’s lips as he pushed himself into her, their two bodies melding like magick. “Home, home, home,” his voice echoed.

“You are half of my soul,” she replied, kissing him deeply. His magick shone around them as he moved inside her, and the light was so beautiful, so bright that it consumed her, brighter and brighter and too bright…too bright, too bright.

She gasped, eyes flying open again as another match extinguished, pinching the edges of her fingers with the burn.

Again and again, she reached for the matches, a woman incensed as she scraped each one, felt the match flare and closed her eyes.

Because she had to pretend his warmth was near her, his light. She couldn’t be left alone in this darkness. And this was where he had left her. In the cold night.

She hated Ariete, hated him with every bone in her being, because he had taken the darkness she had loved so much and turned it into hell.

No longer did she find comfort in it. All it reminded her of was the absence of light in her life—the absence of Enzo.

She flew through the matches, hands shaking as her breath came quicker and quicker.

“Don’t leave me yet,” she whispered to the flame. “Stay a little longer.”

Her mouth began to feel dry as the hours passed, her body ridding itself of hypnom and desperate for more. Her blood begged for it, eyes aching.

She had tried to sleep by her own will, the first night after Enzo had been taken from her. She had hoped and wished that she would be able to meet him in her dreams if she did.

But sleep had evaded her. Because closing her eyes, in that darkness… All it had done was bring back the flashes of his death, of Sofia’s, of her parents’.

And it had remained hidden from her the next night, when she had been forced to leave Enzo sleeping, with Leo keeping his body guarded, as she had travelled through Helios to an in-between that would take her to Castor.

And the night after that, until she was a ghost, the weight peeling off her, the colour leaching from her skin, hollows growing as night after night she had stayed awake. Phantoms would flash out of the corner of her eye, spectres and hallucinations appearing before her from lack of sleep.

Until a blessed night in Castor last week, when she had stumbled into a hypnom den, and finally, finally been able to rest. To finally, finally, see her soulmate.

So during the day, the young queen had her hypnom, and in the evening she had her matchsticks. The world may have looked upon her as weak; her friends may have looked upon her with pity, but for now…for Elara, that would have to do. It would simply have to do.

Chapter Three

Elara knew when it wasmorning instinctually. Of course, the sky was pitch black, had been since she had tarnished it with shadows for taking Enzo from her. But she knew it was supposed to be time to rise. She had sat with her matches all night until the lamper had lit the streetlamps below her window, and the day had begun.

She rose soundlessly, shrugging on a discarded black gown that hung too loosely on her frame. She left her room, sparing a glance to Merissa and Isra’s, their door firmly shut, and a pang of guilt flashed through her. She had been a terrible friend to them; she knew it. Lost in her own grief, neglecting them. But it was too difficult to let them touch her, to let themloveher. Not without Enzo. She couldn’t.

She padded down the steps, exhausted, casting a look into one of the small mirrors that hung in the ramshackle inn.

A spectre. That’s what she looked like. Skin wan, face hollow. Purple shadows like bruises stretched around her eyes—a side effect of the hypnom, and she sighed. Never mind. Enzo wouldn’t see her like that.

A thrumming began in her blood as she traversed the streets of Castor. Cobbled lanes greeted her, and a smog heavy in the air, even in the pitch darkness. The kingdom was a maelstrom of activity and noise, carriages thundering, street hawkers shouting.

Two weeks Elara, Isra, and Merissa had been in Castor now. It had been their best bet to find a way to save Enzo. A kingdom of ingenuity, the greatest minds on the continent, all living and breathing and inventing here. But just like the twins who were the patron Stars of the place—one of whom Elara had killed—it was a double-edged sword. Just as much a breeding ground for thieves and tricksters, cutthroat thugs on every corner, as it was a paradise, aristocracy reclining in their twisting metallic spires of blown glass that reached into the clouds.