Was this it?
Was her body finally succumbing to every injury, every horror, inflicted upon her? She wondered what death must be like. She hoped it was as peaceful as her time with the stardust, warm and soft and playful nothingness for eternity.
"Stardust?" Luella heard his silken tenor question.
Her head fell to the side, cheek against the thick fabric of his white cape. His shadowed eyes peered down at her, in all her incoherence. She realized she’d been babbling aloud.
"Yes, you said all of that out loud," he asserted lowly. "What stardust?"
She realized what he’d said—before.Enora. He’d relented. Luella had won.
"You wonnothing. What stardust do you speak of?"
She wouldn’t tell him. Whispers tickled against her ears, growing louder. Far above, nestled between two mountain peaks, she saw the distant shape of spires, reaching high, white stone that cut through the jagged grey of the rocks.
The Lunar Temples. They were close.
And her freedom was slipping between her fingers like sand, like snow, like air, like the moonlight.
Though she was resolved not to tell him, her thoughts were all out of order. As if vowing not to speak of something, made her think of it. Her thoughts drifted to the warm stardust. She wished she had tears left, for she might cry one or two at the mere memory of its playful protectiveness. Singing against her skin. Gifting her a vision of her Vincire in their youth, dreams ofEnora and Caliban, so she might be equipped with some sort of knowledge to get under his skin.
She heard him gasp, felt his chest expand from how close she was pressed against him.
"That is not stardust you speak of."
One word, said just as a strange rippling motion, soft like feathers traced over her flesh, making the top of her scalp prickle, and the tips of her cold, blistered toes scrunch.
"Stella."
Luella’s whole body shuddered against him. "Stella," she echoed, voice a faint mumble.
From ahead, an Umbra’s sure tone rang out. "We’ve passed through the wards!"
After calling out a firm acknowledgment to the Umbra, the Tenebrae placed his lips back to Luella’s ear. "Stella is my sister’s offspring, a piece of her. You say stardust granted you dreams ofEnora," he grated, "so that means my sister has been meddling with things that do not concern her. I will have to meddle back."
He released her throat, and she took a greedy gulp of air, not realizing he’d been slightly cutting it off for some time. Her head was light as the horse began to ascend in earnest, rocks slipping and tumbling down a sharp incline. She leaned precariously over, wanting to?—
"Do not try to kill yourself. I will not let you die—you will get nothing of it save broken bones and agony. If you wish for pain, you need only ask me."
Her lips were chapped, cracked, and the skin split easily beneath her searching teeth. Iron coated her tongue. She thought of Bastian, and as if the mere thought brought him to her, she saw his form high above, crouched at a mountain peak.
She blinked, and he disappeared.
I’m mad,Luella thought.
"Aren’t we all. Befitting, you should be my bride, then," the Tenebrae said, so close to her ear that she shivered.
Even behind her closed lids, she saw the faintest impression ofthem. It was always only them: Bastian, Graves, and Az.
Never Tharen or Vale.Why? Was it because she’d found comfort in the touch from her three softer Vincire? Was it because she envisioned Vale and thought of fire and the pressing need to make him proud? Was it because she envisioned Tharen and thought of all the ways she could be better, all of her shortcomings?
"Did you—do you see them too?" Luella whispered.
And when the Tenebrae stayed silent, she untangled her slippery grip from the pommel, the thick fabric of her cape rustling as her good hand reached out, trembling. Her finger outstretched, pointing straight at the mountaintops.
But Bastian was long gone. Maybe he had moved to the moon. Her hand rose, pointing at the full, brilliant face shining in the sky. He wasn’t there either.
She began to feel undone, searching. "He was just here. Where did he go?" she asked herself, forgetting about the god behind her.
