Page 186 of Fallen Stars

Elara let it all digest, her mind and body growing wearier and wearier. How many new stories would she have to learn about herself? She felt as though she was being assaulted by truth, and still floundering—always floundering, a stranger within her own body whenever Eli recounted tales of the Moon.

“If it is any consolation, Enzo and Elara, Piscea could never compete with your powers,particularly united. The Dark had tried to keep you apart for eons before you were ever bound to mortal bodies. Coming just when the Moon appeared in the sky so the Sun must disappear. She knows the power you possess together. Look at the duskglass you created. That is just a ridiculous ruse.”

“Ridiculous enough to have killed your twin,” Elara muttered, though she knew what he said was true, she’d figured it out herself moments before they had awakened Adrian.

“What I mean is, the material to kill a god, to leech their power from their veins, it’s not duskglass. That was just an object to fuse your powers into and give you something tangible. The weapon isyou.”

“That’s why you were so desperate for us to awaken?”

“Celestia is falling apart, was before Piscea awoke. To begin with, all I wanted was my king and queen back, to rule the skies as you did before. But now…if the witch speaks true, then we desperately need you to protect us from the Dark.”

Chapter Sixty-Six

Adrian sat by the portholein his room, the space bathed in candlelight. He couldn’t sleep. Not because of Eli’s grand reveal and the news that Piscea, the goddess one told ghost stories about before bed, was awakening. But rather because of a deceitful mermaid and the pearls now gathered in his hands.

He had begun to fashion a necklace for her a few days earlier. Back on his beloved Starred Siren before he’d lost an eye. Before he’d lost his ship. Before he’d lost Oceanne.

The necklace had somehow stayed with him, safe in a pocket through the battle. Idiot that he was, he’d thought that was a sign. What a fool he’d been.

He clenched his jaw as he looked at the necklace. It was a stupid fucking thing. He’d simply taken an old piece of ship’s twine and pushed holes through each pearl that Oceanne had left him so they could be strung along the twine. He looked at it now, how the gleam of them only served to remind him that he had let the consort of his enemy fuck him. How he had let himself feel something for her.

He clenched his hand around the necklace, pushing himself out of the room, and stormed up onto the deck.

Fuck this.

After he helped Elara in Kaos, before their next task, whatever the fuck it was, he’d return to The Sinner’s Sands and find Sera or another girl at port. One who wasn’t a mermaid, who wouldn’t toy with his heart for sport. He’d go back to the way he was, a frozen-hearted bastard with more than one woman to keep his bed warm. He’d go back to being Blueheart.

His chest heaved as he looked to the Altalunian waves below. They were a couple of days from Kaos, having to navigate through the godsforsaken water network of rivers and passes inland. And Altalune was no longer a beautiful place to Adrian as it had been a few days prior. Not with Cancia as its patron Star.

He held his clenched fist over the ship’s railing as the waves danced. He squeezed his eyes shut. The ocean was his. And yet she roamed in it as though it was hers.

The necklace was cool in his palm, and he spat a curse before forcing himself to release his hand.

The necklace fell into the sea below, the ethereal sheen of the pearls flashing before they were lost to the waves.

He stayed, watching the water a moment longer, half hoping, half dreading, that perhaps Oceanne would appear.

Cancia, he hissed to himself.

But nothing. No flick of a blue tail or glimpse of silver hair.

Just as well. He didn’t trust himself not to murder her on sight.

He sighed, the absence of the necklace not gifting the relief he thought it would bring. And without another look, Adrian returned to bed.

The next morning, the deck was quiet, the day early, the sun shining brightly already. Enzo walked out onto the deck and took a moment to soak it in—that heavenly body that gifted him a surge of power. He breathed it in, head tilted to the sun, a smile on his face.

Face the Sun and cast the darkness behind you, he thought to himself. The night before had been heavy to say the least. Eli’s onslaught of news and having to see his Elara crawl further and further into herself had set the Lion into a deep, simmering fury.

How dare this entity, thisprimordial being, try to force them apart? How dare she try to threaten the first moments of peace he and El had ever had in their lives? He wouldn’t allow it. Elara was his light, and there was nothing in this world that he would allow to dim it.

He took a deep breath of salty air as he began to lather the soap before him, wetting it with water from the small bucket beside him. He would treasure the peace, the last two days on the ship before they arrived in Kaos, and allchaoswould break loose.

That peace was quickly disturbed by the pirate swaggering towards him, feet slapping across the deck.

“You done preening?” Adrian asked, smirking as he walked to the edge of the ship, a hand drifting through the air as though he was smoothing the waves. He was more insufferable than usual, as though the nonsense with Cancia had turned the pirate into even more of a prick. Or perhaps becoming a titan had made him more entitled.

“You could use a little more of it,” Enzo drawled back, peering into the small mirror before him.

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