Page 122 of Fallen Stars

Perhaps it was how kind he’d been to her at the Stars’ Masquerade or how guilty she felt that they were basically commanding his ship.

She worried at her lip as she looked at the gently rolling waves that stretched into the Gulf of Tears. The water shimmered, completely clear save for a tinge of aquamarine, shoals of silvered fish flicking through the waves. She propped a hand on her cheek as she watched them dance, wondering what it would be like to live below the depths, to be free.

She was not trapped in towers by parents or dungeons by lunatics, but the shackles of responsibility held her in place. She was a queen, a titaness, bound by her duty to lead and protect, bound in a way by her powers. Her forefinger traced the rail in front of her, crusted salt rough beneath the pad of it. A shimmer of silver trailed in its wake, and she smiled.

She’d been secretly practicing using her powers with Enzo and her pride. When the hour was late, they’d all been gathering in Enzo and Elara’s room, each offering any knowledge or guidance they could as Enzo practiced bringing things to life and she practiced snatching that life away.

Enzo was right, it was as easy as breathing. It wasn’t like it had been with her shadows; she’d had to grapple with them and drag their magick out. The moonlight within her felt infinite. There was no bottoming out of it, no end in sight that she’d met.

And yet the responsibilities that rested on her shoulders and the impending war she could feel brewing were stopping her from enjoying not only her newfound powers, but Enzo too.

It was an awful thought, but she wished for a moment that she was just Elara, who had fallen in love with just a man named Enzo, and that the two could have a simple life, free from war and Stars and expectations and bargains.

‘But that’s what you’re fighting for,’she reminded herself. ‘For a world in which you can exist in peace, one without Stars.’

She set her sights back on the water, the open expanse terrifying as it was beautiful. They hadn’t seen land in over seven days, had only tracked where they were in the world by the changes in the sky. As they had sailed down the coast past the Sinner’s Sands, she had seen Helios’s rich gold pale into a sickly yellow, then down past Castor, it had been the familiar grey, the air chilled. Enzo hadnotenjoyed that, the Sun reminding her of a wet dog as he had stood outside and frowned at the downpour and fog that had descended. They were nearing Shadow’s Bay now, and as Elara saw the familiar lilac and periwinkle sky ahead that heralded home for her, her heart clenched. From there, it would be one long stretch across the Olympian Ocean, and they would finally be in Concordia. And perhaps then, she would shake this sense of dread she had been feeling.

It had started with Enzo. After the night that he had spread her out on the gangplank and forced her to accept her powers with lips and tongue and the ensuing argument with Adrian, they had gone back to their chambers.

That first official night alone, after days of no sleep, Enzo had collapsed instantly, both body and mind needing rest. And Elara, despite her exhaustion, had spent the entire night wide awake for fear that if she closed her eyes, he would disappear back into her dreams again. So she had seen every hour on the gilded clock mounted above their bedframe until he had awoken.

The two hadn’t had many moments alone together since, and yet Elara almost welcomed the distractions that interrupted them.

Enzo had tried, each night that they’d been on the ship, to initiate something with her. And Elara had always found an excuse or pressing emergency to stop before they made love.

Why? Because she knew that the moment distractions no longer stood between her and Enzo, he would see right through the false mask she was wearing for the world and would know that there was something she was hiding from him.

The bargain. It worried Elara more that she hadn’t heard a peep from Ariete than if he’d declared war against her from the skies. Eli had confirmed via their ring that it wasn’t Ariete who had set the bounty on her head, and she couldn’t stop worrying about what the King of Stars’ endgame was.

That bargain was the reason she still hadn’t made love to Enzo. Elara had made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t until she’d told Enzo what she’d done. Although they’d done other…things, to share their bodies like that—to unite…it would be a betrayal to Enzo if she allowed the most intimate kind of act without telling him the truth.

But the truth was becoming harder and harder to speak aloud.

She shuddered, trying to peel the worries off her.

She felt a presence beside her, knowing it wasn’t Enzo’s, and turned.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Adrian asked, leaning on the rail beside her.

Elara nodded to the fish in the crystal waters below. “Just admiring the ocean.”

Adrian smiled, which surprised her. “You know those fish aren’t as friendly as you’d think. I had to fight one once.”

Elara took the benevolent mood that the pirate seemed to be in with both hands. It was the first time that he had spoken to her since he’d discovered her and Enzo on the gangplank. “Have you ever lived under the water?”

A shadow passed across Adrian’s face. “For a while, yes. Neptuna is a sunken kingdom, the early years of my life were spent in its confines.”

Elara raised a brow. “Confines? Now that sounds familiar.”

“You can be a master of water, and it can still find ways to drown you.”

“What’s Neptuna like?” she asked wistfully. She had always been told stories of the kingdom growing up. She remembered Lukas trying to scare her by speaking of merfolk that would pull you into the depths to drown you, of selkies, naiads, sirens, and kraken.

“It’s beautiful,” Adrian murmured, looking to the waves below. His hand drifted idly, and the water beneath them collected, forming into a dolphin that skipped amongst the waves. Elara grinned in delight. “A paradise, secluded from the rest of the world. Well at least it was. Under his rule, Scorpius has slowly ruined it.”

Elara stood alert. “You don’t like your patron Star?”

Adrian gave a bitter laugh. He looked around briefly before lowering his voice. “I know we owe what we have to him, our powers, our kingdom, but…” He paused, pressing his lips together as Elara scanned his face. “Let’s just say, you’re not the only one with secrets.”

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