Page 15 of Heavenly Bodies

‘Yes, Father.’

She heard footsteps, and hastily walked back over to the bottom of the stairs. Merissa gave her a reassuring look, before disappearing down a corridor. Elara nervously patted the braid Merissa had tied in her hair, strewn with little carnelian gems to match her linens.

When Enzo appeared, he didn’t even look at her. ‘Comealong,’ he said tightly, hitching a brown rucksack upon his shoulder.

This time there were no forest paths. Instead, they took a right past the palace gates, and around the back of the eastern side of the massive building. A small, dusty side path wound them away from the palace, up a steep incline. She found herself needing to drink in deep lungfuls of the clean air the higher they climbed.

‘Can you seriously not find anywhere flat to train?’ she asked him, his tall figure storming paces ahead.

‘How about you save that breath for climbing? You’re going to need it,’ he retorted.

She raised her hands in exasperation as she continued in the blistering heat.

As they finally reached even ground, her mouth fell open in astonishment. All worries and hatred from the day before vanished in a moment. Because there, stretched before them, was a plain of sands, deep red and shifting as though a tide was pulling it. But what had really caught her attention were the two statues stretching over fifty feet high. Two winged figures, their hands shielding their eyes, gilded and shimmering. A cooling breeze tickled her hair as it rolled in from the sea of sand.

‘Welcome to the Angel’s Graveyard,’ Enzo said to her over his shoulder.

‘Cheerful place,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘Legend says,’ he said as he walked up the steps hewn into warmed brown stone, on to a stone dais, ‘that the angels of Sveta died here in a mighty battle against the winged lions ofHelios. Their leader Celine took the last stand against the mighty Nemeus and was vanquished.’

‘They were burned to ash, their blood mingling with the earth, creating the Sea of Sands,’ she finished. Enzo finally looked at her, frowning.

‘That’s from—’

‘The Mythas of Celestia.Shocking, I know, that Asterians are taught how to read,’ she said sardonically.

Enzo scoffed.

‘I thought you refused to train me,’ she said.

He paced the circle, across stone that Elara now noticed was etched with small, indistinct symbols. ‘I do as my father commands. He implored I continue. Apparently he sees something in you that I don’t.’

‘He has my deepest gratitude,’ she replied drily.

Enzo sighed, grudgingly turning to look at her. ‘I suppose we had better start. You need to tell me about your magick, so I can gauge what you need to be taught. It’s not just a king we are planning to attack, it’s a god.’

She slumped on to the hot stone dais, rooting through the pack Enzo had laid down until she found a canteen. She took a drink of water before answering. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well, I know that you possess the Three, and that you can’t be killed by a Star.’

She fiddled with the lid of the canteen as she tried not to think about the day that Ariete had tried and failed to kill her.

‘So, what are your Three?’ he continued. ‘I know that one is illusioning. And what was that other one—from yesterday?’ Was that real fear his eyes were betraying?

‘That’s part of illusioning,’ she said. ‘It’s not real. But I’ve found a way to tap into someone’s fears. For my illusion tobecome their nightmare. I can never see what it is though,’ she added, when his jaw set.

‘It’s not real? But…’ He paused. ‘Yesterday, I felt it. The moment it came into contact with my light, it was as though it became real.’ He glanced down to the bandage wrapped around his arm.

‘I don’t know what that was,’ she said, not meeting his eyes. ‘That’s never happened before.’

He searched her face, as though trying to find the lie with those seer powers of his. A moment later, his professional formality returned. ‘We’ll revisit it later,’ he said, ‘and see if it’s something that can be honed.’

She fidgeted with her braid. ‘The next gift I have is dreamwalking. I can visit dreams and nightmares. I can speak to people within them. I can help them, or damn them.’

He stiffened. ‘And that’s a common Asterian gift?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s the rarest. Most Asterians are shadowmancers, the rest illusionists. There aren’t many dreamwalkers in my kingdom.’

---