Page 80 of Fallen Stars

Ariete tutted. “I don’t barter. Enjoy your everlasting torment.”

He let his grip slip a moment, and Elara screamed. “Fine, fine! My blood for your favour.”

Ariete chuckled softly as he pulled her up again. She winced at the motion, limp and useless as she remained suspended.

“Are you sure you want to make this deal with me, little Moon?” he crooned. “To feel us bound and tethered, to know that I can ask you for one favour—anything, at any moment, and you would have to do as I willed?”

Elara felt bile rise in her throat. She couldn’t agree to that.

“Show me the tether,” she snarled.

Ariete reached beneath the collar of his suit, pulling the golden thread wrapped like a necklace around his throat that she’d spotted earlier.

This close, Elara could feel Enzo’s energy emanating from it, and she let out a cry. It was real; it was here. And she knew that if she struck a bargain with Ariete, afavour, then by the Star’s code, he would have to give it to her.

She waited another second…but she knew. It was worth it. To be tied to Ariete, to be able to grant him one favour, any favour, in exchange for the favour he was offering her—it was all worth it to have her love living and breathing again.

Ariete’s hands flicked, and a card was produced—one from the tarot deck she had been shown earlier. It was The Fool card. Yet instead of the usual jester that was painted on, it depicted Elara, one foot in thin air as she tried not to tumble from a cliff, her black hair streaming behind her. It looked disturbingly similar to the scene before she had first created her shadow dragun with Enzo.

“A bargain for a bargain,” Ariete murmured, twisting the card. “Blood for blood.” He hitched her up another inch. “This is going to hurt.”

And with a small smile, Ariete’s eyes fluttered closed as Elara felt the skin of her palm wrapped in his split open. She gritted her teeth, a deep burning pain writhing under her skin as blood dripped between their clasped hands and the card between them.

Ariete muttered words in a guttural language that Elara did not recognise, and a sound of pain tore from her as she felt her blood move, felt it flowing to him. She felt an invisible rope wrap around them, squeezing and squeezing as his charm invaded her, angry and writhing, and then as fast as it had entered, it left.

With one more wrench, he lifted her from the pit until she staggered onto the sandy floor of the circus tent, scrambling away from the pit.

She wrenched her grip from Ariete, looking in panic at her palm and the red slash across it.

Ariete sighed, sated. “Moonlight tastes so sweet,” he said, more to himself than her.

“The tether,” she hissed.

Ariete laughed as he pulled it from his neck and tossed it to her. She caught it, knees nearly giving out. She had it; she had Enzo.

But the favour was beginning to sink into her bones, Ariete’s magick squeezing around her heart.

She could feel him in her head, in her bones, and wretched, empty heaves made her sink to her knees.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” the Star drawled. “It will pass in a moment.”

Ariete produced a pocket watch, one that had ram horns protruding from it. “I’d hurry if I were you. By my watch, I’d say Enzo has less than a day before his soul is lost completely to the dreamlands.”

Elara picked herself up, looping the tether around her own neck.

“You don’t tell a soul about this. And you don’t tell anyone about the bargain we struck as…the Moon. If what I saw was true.”

Ariete snorted. “I’ve kept the secret safe for centuries. I doubt this lifetime will change that.”

He began strolling out of the circus tent. Elara followed, her body still vibrating and screaming at the wrongness of the bargain now living in her veins.

They passed the turning carousel, the horses skeletal and terrifying as they spun of their own accord.

Ariete chuckled as though he could read the fear on her face. “I’m not the only villain in this story, you know, Elara.” He paused. “Well…not in dreams at least. I can’t say the same for the monster who will wake in my stead. That part of me, that charm… I will try to kill you. It will go against every instinct in me not to. So despite our bargain, I’m going to need you to run, little Moon. And hide.” He winked. “I’ll count to three.”

Elara didn’t take a second to consider it, to even reply as she set off at a sprint through the circus grounds.

She heard Ariete’s lilting voice count, “One,” as she ran, brushing the souls in her wake. She shivered as the cold deadness of them passed through her, running through the carnival. The music continued to shriek, and she shook her head, the tether the only comforting presence around her neck.

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