Page 74 of Fallen Stars
Tents appeared in lines, a clear path between them as she saw the back of his red and black striped head disappear into one of the tents. She launched into the same tent herself when she reached it, gasping at the stitch forming in her side. Heat assaulted her, sweat and perfume too. She barely had time to notice the details of the tent, but she recognised she was in a kind of dressing room with rails and rails of costumes. Ahead were seats with mirrors and floating lamps lighting each one. A crowd of people within barred the way to Ariete, and she pushed through them.
“Excuse me,” she said, pushing a strongman with a curling moustache out of the way. “Move,” she snarled to a woman with scales contorting herself next to him. Hands grabbed her, and she pushed them away as a cold sponge pounced upon her face, the smell of paint greeting her. Chaos ensued as she was pushed between people, a mass of colourful bodies her only view as they chattered and squealed in excitement. She was passed around, people touching her face, her clothes. Finally, she launched her shadows out once more, clearing the space, and heard a clap of thunder again, the room shaking. The performers stilled, growing silent as the room tremored.
Whatwasthat? She had no time to think on it as she ran through the now parted and still crowd of circus performers to the stage door beyond. The red tails of Ariete’s coat fluttered as the door closed, and she lunged at the handle, flinging it open.
The fairground’s music drifted away from her as she walked into a hall of mirrors. The corridor was dark, peaceful. She caught her reflection in the first mirror and jumped.
The performers had painted her into a sad clown. Her mouth drooped dramatically, her eyebrows furrowed, a black diamond over each eye, and a red teardrop on her cheek. She caught a glimmer of movement up ahead and hurried past the reflection as she saw Ariete strolling up ahead. Her reflection followed her, and she couldn’t help but look in each mirror that she passed.
In the second mirror, she recognised a younger version of herself, around four, toddling along. In the next she was older, around ten, a book under her arm, her expression bleaker. The next showed her in adolescence as she began to grow into a beauty; another reflected back a gown made of starlight—the one she’d worn to the Stars’ Masquerade gracing her now woman’s body.
She hurried on, seeing herself as she looked now, wan and thin, shadows sinking beneath her eyes and all in black. In the next, she saw herself drag a sword—the same that had been following her through dreams—rage painting her features. Another showed her covered in blood, the sword red with it as the figure matched Elara’s pace. And finally, as she got to the last mirror and realised Ariete had simply vanished, no door or escape to speak of around her, she saw a woman with white gleaming hair and skin look back at her.
She reached a hand up to the mirror, and the Moon did the same. A crown still rested atop her head, her silver eyes cold as Elara moved her head this way and that, and the Moon copied. Finally, Elara touched the mirror, though rather than feeling cool glass, she felt water as her entire hand pushed through.
She marvelled at how her arm had fully disappeared, readying herself to push the rest of her body through, when she felt a hand clamp over her own.
She screamed, trying to pull her arm back, but the hand wouldn’t let go. A second one reach out of the mirror, a ram tattooed on it, and gripped her by the throat, yanking her through the glass.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You have to kill me,” theshadow repeated to Enzo. “Elara isn’t safe.”
Enzo slammed a hand against a tree trunk, a harsh curse leaving him. “Where is she right now?”
“She’s already within Ariete’s dreams.”
“What!?” he hissed. “I’ve lostdaysin here!?”
“Time works differently in dreams. Even more so in death. What feels like a couple of minutes can be weeks in these realms.”
Enzo raked a hand through his hair as he paced. “There must be another way to help her.”
The shadow shook her head. “There isn’t. We have to be quick, Enzo. Already I feel the Dark closer.”
“And when she’s faced with Ariete, and her shadows simply cease to exist, then what?” Enzo’s head was pounding. His tie to Elara was working overtime, so incensed that his soulmate was in a dreamland with Ariete that he could not reach.
“Enzo!” the shadow snarled, and she sounded so much like Elara that he stilled. “Ariete isnothingcompared to this power I feel awakening. I thought I was imagining it when I first felt it or that perhaps it was just Elara’s powers taking on a new shape. But this darkness, it’s hateful. Angry. And it has nearly caught up to her.”
Elara’s shadow suddenly pulsed, darkness throbbing around her as she cried, falling to the floor. A clap of thunder resounded through the woods, the trees trembling.
“Elara!?” Enzo cried, leaping towards her.
“She used her shadows. She’s blaring a beacon to the Dark.”
There was another rumble, and Enzo cursed as the shadow cried out, shadows curling off her and drifting through the woods. “Now, Enzo. You have to kill me now. If Elara uses her shadows one more time, she’s as good as dead. We all are.”
“I can’t,” he whispered, sinking to his knees.
“What do you mean you can’t. Enzo, Elara will die.”
“You are the thing I love most about her,” Enzo whispered. “Elara’s shadows,you, are what made me fall in love with her so deeply. It’s Elara’s darkness that I love. It was her shadows that drowned out my flames, that brought me peace for the first time in my life.”
How could he take away the thing Elara loved most about herself? Elara adored her shadows.
“Then you will be met with a corpse the next time you see us,” the shadow gritted out. “What is better? A living Elara or one with shadows but dead?”
“But…” He tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “I can’t be the one to take yet another thing from her,” he whispered.