Page 83 of Fallen Stars
The three doubled over, panting, as the sheer adrenaline and force of what had just taken place washed over them. Elara staggered against the wall as Merissa and Isra clutched her tightly.
“Thank gods,” Merissa wept. “Thank gods you’re okay.”
“Do you have the tether?” Isra whispered, her voice shaking.
Elara nodded wordlessly, lifting it enough from her neck for the women to see.
“Your neck,” Merissa gasped.
“It’s nothing,” Elara said.
Isra was looking stricken at her as she reached a trembling hand out and touched the tether. Her lip trembled, and then she burst into tears.
If Elara wasn’t still reeling, she would have been in shock at the mere sight of her friend in tears.
“You did it,” Isra sobbed. “I can’t believe you did it.”
She pressed kisses all over Elara’s face ‘Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for bringing my brother back.”
The three women stood, clutching each other tightly before Elara pulled away. “Time is running out,” Elara said. “I can explain everything that happened later, but right now, I need to get to Enzo. The storm hasn’t passed yet.”
Isra nodded, wiping her tears. “How can we help?”
“I need to dreamwalk again. And I’m going to need somewhere safe to do it.”
Elara’s hands flexed automatically, ready to summon her shadow dragun and fly to the one place she knew she’d be untouchable.
But true horror finally dawned on her, one that in the chaos, she had suppressed.
“I don’t—" She stopped, trying to feel for her shadows before she continued. But she was met with that same cavernous void within. The panic seized her again—she had prayed that this power shortage was just something due to Ariete’s dreams, but she was quickly realising that the shadows she held onto, that comforted her and were the very extension of her being weren’t there anymore.
“Oh gods,” she whispered, sinking to the cobbles.
“Elara?” Merissa and Isra exclaimed.
“My shadows,” Elara whispered, voice broken. “They’re gone.”
“They can’t just be…gone,”Merissa replied.
Elara pulled herself up with Isra’s help. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, why I can’t call on them. I can still cast illusions, still dreamwalk, but my shadows…”
“We’ll find out what’s happening and fix this,” Isra said calmly. “One thing at a time.”
Elara nodded. “Enzo first.”
“So where do we go?” Merissa asked, worrying at her lip.
Elara set her jaw, grim determination on her face. “Eli’s.”
Elara paced the quiet street outside Eli’s apartment in the prestigious Pollux Quarter. Isra had come in handy, her seer’s gift able to follow the trail to where the god resided. It was the only place Elara could think of that would protect her from Ariete’s wrath now that the god was awake.
She shivered to think of the god of war, of the story she had seen within the tarot card, the feeling of his bargain snaking around her.
She shrugged them off, feeling yet again for her shadows. They felt like phantom limbs cut from her, and she could not for the life of her understand how her powers had just…vanished. She prayed it was burnout, prayed that it was just some run of bad luck with this change within her—this awakening of a titan.
The group heard footsteps, slow and measured, and Isra and Merissa carefully called their powers to them. Elara nearly began crying all over again, raising a hand with no shadows.
From the gloam appeared Eli, and as he saw the three, he sighed. “Ofcourseyou’re all here.”