Page 32 of Fallen Stars

Elara narrowed her eyes, Eli’s voice had taken on a different quality as he spoke of this Air. “She was not attached to anyone for long, but still, she worked with the others. The people grew in numbers, forming communities together. And how they adored the Moon. And how they hated the Dark.

So the Sun gifted them the ability to wield fire and light, the first to bestow his gifts on a part of the continent that loved him the most. Then the Water gifted his lands the power to wield water with their bare hands, to control oceans and breathe underwater too. The Earth loved her people so much that she gifted them with the ability to shift between forms, to manipulate the flowers around them and ground beneath them. Air, with her sly ways, granted her people the ability to move the wind, to fly, to control breath.

And finally, the ones who worshipped the Moon looked up to her with hopeful eyes. She readied her moonlight to shine below, but first turned back to the Dark, her first friend.

“They won’t want my gifts,” the Dark muttered, skulking away from the Moon’s light.

“Then send one with me,” the Moon said gently. Moonlight streamed from her to the world, bestowing her people with the ability to walk through dreams, and sleep, cast illusions and create magickal worlds the way she did in all her phases.

“Go on,” she encouraged. The Dark sighed, reaching out a tentative hand and streaming her shadows through the Moon onto the world. And so, shadows and nightmares and the creatures that came from the dark places of the world were born. And with a final reluctant sigh and a glance to the Sun, the Moon also gifted them death. For that was the cycle of life, and the Sun’s magick needed the Moon’s balance. No man could live forever.

The titans thrived, and the Dark watched as the Sun fell in love with the Moon, while she…she retreated into the void from which she had come.

Yet as these titans worked in their flow, in their paradise, the Dark began to observe the mortals that these Titans had worked to keep so safe. She noticed how they had their own traits, their own virtues and vices. And as they grew, and more worlds sprang up, with even more of these curious beings, she realised they had their own will, ones set apart from the titans.

They began to fight, to compete, and it was to the Dark’s delight that she realised they couldn’t help it. It was in their very nature. Some would go to war, and others would fuck and cheat, and more would play mind games with each other or dole out pain or let pride ruin them.

The Darkness took a perverse delight in seeing this side of theperfecthumans the titans had created, enjoyed seeing the distress in which the titans viewed it too. These mortals, whom the titans couldn’t control—the mad, the vengeful, the sinners—she would manage them. So the Dark began to collect lost souls.

She started in the first world, with a demon. A little boy with red eyes whom she watched carefully. One who was spat on and pushed to the streets by his own kind. The Dark became his friend, whispering to him while he slept. And the little demon found solace in her whispering voice, twisted by bitterness and loneliness, that encouragedrevenge, revenge, revenge. Until the day he finally called upon her, and she answered.

On and on she went to other worlds until she had thirteen souls. The Dark decided to call them Stars and gifted them with riches and powers beyond their wildest dreams, as well as eternal life, for one price only.”

“Their hearts,” Elara breathed, glancing at the patch of white skin on Eli’s chest.

He nodded. “Their rotten, withered hearts for immortality. What downtrodden spirit wouldn’t take that bargain?”

Elara had been so enthralled with Eli’s tale that she hadn’t realised he had stopped speaking for a moment. She blinked out of her daze, goosebumps prickling her arms.

“Very poetic,” she remarked, feigning boredom. “Thedarknessbetween the Moon and the Sun, a lovely story. And where exactly is this entity now?”

He shrugged. “As for the primordial herself, she no longer exists. The only remnant of her is within the darkness left behind, the space in between light and stars. Perhaps her legacy lives on in the evil that resides in a person or the nightmares that cling to a haunted soul.”

Eli must have noticed Elara’s paleness, his eyes softening slightly as he leaned in to her.

“Sweet Moon,” he murmured, searching her eyes. “There is so much you have left to learn about your story, about all of ours. This is merely the prologue.”

Chapter Ten

Elara’s heart drummed against herchest as she tried to discern whether Eli was telling the truth with his tale or just trying to throw her off. She still didn’t trust him. But whether it was simply a fairytale or not, Eli had gotten under her skin.

“Well,” she said lightly, clearing her throat, “since you rendered our dealer deaf the moment you started speaking, how exactly do we determine who won?”

Eli flashed teeth as he extended an arm—the one with the snake coiled around it. “Sweetheart, you won the moment you strung up those bodies with my name carved into them and then sauntered in here.”

Elara started. “What?!”

Grey starlight shone from his palm. “My favour, at no cost to you.”

She raised her hand then hesitated, looking around for Isra and Merissa. She found them by the bar, their eyes shining with hope.

“Why?” She didn’t know why she’d asked. She should have just shut her mouth and taken it. But Elara knew the Stars better than that, that there was always a catch.

“Because like I said, there is much you don’t know about your story and much you don’t know about mine.”

His hand remained extended, and Elara took a deep breath, keeping Enzo’s soft, warm eyes in her mind as she clasped it with her own.

“You going to put them out of their misery?” she asked.

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