Page 85 of Fallen Stars
Eli raked a hand through his hair, hissing through his teeth as he visibly began to calm. “Fine. What do you need?”
Elara winced. “Hypnom.”
Though she was angry with him, she could have gone to her knees when Eli didn’t betray even a flicker of judgement. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll fetch a pipe from the den nearest me now. But this conversation is far from over.”
“I know,” she sighed, suddenly bone-tired.
“We will wake him, Elara,” Eli said as he opened the study door. “Within a few hours, your Sun will be awake.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Enzo didn’t know how longhe remained on his knees, how long the earth gave beneath him, softening as though it understood his pain. Time didn’t pass; the light didn’t shift.
Enzo told himself that if he was still enough, quiet enough, then none of the events that had just taken place would be real. It was all just a nightmare, he told himself. If he stayed in these woods, in these deadlands, trapped in this moment of time with no other witnesses, then it couldn’t be true that he had killed Elara’s shadow.
He’d lost track of days or hours and only rose when he saw a glimmer of gold, floating before him.
“I suppose I’ve really lost my mind now,” he said to himself, finally raising his head.
He was tired, down to his very bones, every step a struggle as he heaved himself up and looked back once more to the clearing where he had changed both his and Elara’s fates irrevocably.
He turned back to the wisps of gold, gently floating in the twilight, and began to follow them.
Those days in the woods—or was it hours?—had taken something from him. Elara’s shadow had warned him to not stay too long, that these lands were for the dead. Yet he could feel his soul and sense slowly pulling away from each other, his mind detaching. If he looked down, Enzo was half convinced he would see parts of himself just…disintegrating.
So he didn’t allow himself to as he followed the gold out of the forest.
Enzo was no fool. He knew what was happening. Elara had been trying as best she could to save him, to find his tether, but without it…
He had studied Asterian gifts intimately, had to with his father, to understandthe enemy. And so, he understood a little of dreamwalking, knew the stories of dreamwalkers who had become trapped in the dreamlands when they couldn’t find their way back to their tether after too long. Even the soul couldn’t survive in here by itself.
The golden light was becoming stronger now as he followed it out, the way becoming lighter, the undergrowth sparser. The whispers he’d heard on his way in no longer taunted him, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
As he reached the entrance to the forest, he squinted into the distance, seeing the gold drift like fragmented Light all the way down to the river just beyond the lilac hills.
He stepped over the forest’s threshold, and an immense pain struck through his chest. He cried out, staggering as he clutched his heart. The pain was acute, building in power the further he followed the Light, but he couldn’t stop now.
A few steps further he stumbled again, falling to his hands and knees. He didn’t feel the sting of rocks cutting into his palms, the dreams coddling and caressing, and yet within him, there was that incessant ache. If he couldn’t walk, he’d crawl, a song in his soul beckoning him towards that light and that river.
The panic seizing him, causing this pain—he realised—wasn’t for himself. He had already made peace with his fate, had already known that the chances of Elara being able to retrieve his tether were slim to none. In a twisted way, he had expected this end, for his soul to simply dissipate into Elara’s dreams. But this panic was for Elara.
She obviously hadn’t been able to retrieve his tether, but she must have escaped. Shemusthave. Enzo forced himself to believe it, because he would know. If she was trapped, if gods-forbid something had happened, the tie that connected their souls would know. He wouldn’t allow any other alternative.
The sound of the river drifted to him, a lullaby of its own. The grip over his heart eased for a moment as he saw the silver memories flow before him.
If he was going to die, truly die, it would be here. In a place surrounded by memories of his great love.
He tried to remember the last words he had said to Elara, and that dread clutched him again as he realised he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember the last words he had whispered to his soulmate.
He finally dared raise a hand and saw what he feared. His form was less corporeal, golden light breaking beneath skin, as though his body’s casing was made of gauze.
But the river was beckoning, murmuring to him how nice it would feel, how safe, if he only dipped a toe.
His mind emptied out, already half gone as he waded into the water, allowing its caress to pull him gently under. There was a memory, one buried deeply, of the first time Elara had touched him. It had been in the Angel’s Graveyard when they had been training. Elara had had him on his back, working her illusions, and her hair had grazed his bare stomach. He remembered the fire that had coursed through him, and a slumbering beast had opened one eye, lurching to attention at her touch.
He took another step, sighing.
Elara was laughing at something he had said. And in that moment, he knew that no symphony in the world could compare, none of the great musicians of Helios, nor Leone, patron of the Arts, himself would ever produce such a beautiful sound.