Moonlit

by Jadie Jones

  The sound of moving water draws my ear. A cluster of weeping willows leans toward a pond nestled in the far corner of the garden. In impossibly artistic fashion, the crystal wall behind the pool appears to melt like ice into a steady stream of water that tumbles down the face of a white stone and into the pond. I draw a deep breath, anticipating the cool, lingering scent of wild water to fill me with a sense of freedom, no matter how false.

  Suddenly, just loud enough to be audible over the easy cadence of the little waterfall, comes a sound I’ve never heard before: Spera’s laughter. And then a familiar chuckle. Lucas. I am torn between giving them a moment alone and wanting to be a part of it. In a matter of seconds I’m halfway down the length of the garden, just in time to see Spera throw her head back in a genuine smile, her hand covered by Lucas’s.

  They sit together on the far side of the pond, shielded by a dense grove of lilies and irises. Lucas says something that makes her laugh again. She reaches her other hand to her neck and plays with the silver horseshoe charm as she contentedly watches his happy face.

  He lights up with animation as he enjoys the company of his beloved Spera. The sight of it is bittersweet, because it belongs to them and only them. There have been moments during this journey that I have felt so one with Spera that there was no question we were and are the same being. But in this special moment, I have never felt so separate.

  “I have never seen a more stunning creature,” he marvels as he stares at her face with eyes full of wonder. She blushes under his attention and spreads the white fabric of her dress across her folded legs.

  “Lenya helped me get ready. I wanted to look like myself for our short time together. Not like Asher’s queen,” she whispers, rubbing her bare wrists where her serpent bracelets should be.

  “May I ask you something?” Lucas brings a thumb to her ear and traces the curve of her jaw line.

  “Of course.” She leans into his open palm.

  “Is it true what they say? That you can control the fire in the sky. Make lightning strike at your bidding?” I wait for her to tell him about the horses she defended, my own heart quickening at the memory of her body rising from the canyon floor in a beam of lavender light. But her eyes narrow to angry slits as she springs to her feet.

  “Is that where your interest in me began? Does it tempt you? Are you so much like Asher after all?” she spits. Her devastated accusation hangs between them like a guillotine. It can’t be true. Can it? The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I consider the awful possibility.

  “No, no. Spera. You misunderstood.” Lucas reaches out for her, but she ignores his hand.

  “Then explain yourself. I would be safer if I had even one reason to stop loving you. What I feel for you is truly my gravest threat, the most unbearable torture of all,” she says.

  “I promise I am not interested in exploiting your gift,” he pleads with wide eyes.

  “Gift?” she scoffs. “You think that would be a gift? To be declared possessed by a demon? To have drawn the attention of Asher, and to be cast from my home and family?”

  We stand so close together now that I can feel the slight increase in her temperature as her pulse quickens under her bronze skin. The angry rhythm pounds visibly along her slender neck. I am hypnotized by the rise and fall of it. And all at once I know her deepest, darkest places, for they are mine. Her wounded heart is beating in time to the hot blood coursing through my own veins. Two bodies. One soul.

  “Asher, no. Wait, darling!” Lenya’s tight voice fractures the peace of morning and makes all of us spin toward the top of the garden. “Don’t go out there. I am keeping a surprise for you in the garden. Please don’t ruin it.”

  “He’s here,” Spera whispers, guarding her throat with her hand.

  “We have to find a way out of here.” Lucas moves between Spera and the sounds of Asher and Lenya arguing inside.

  “How? We will have to pass him to get out,” Spera argues, panic rising in her voice.

  “We’ll have a better chance if I can get you out in the open where you can have access to the sky,” Lucas says and takes Spera by the wrist.

  “Asher is wrong. It doesn’t work like he thinks it does.” Her words freeze Lucas in his tracks. His jaw tightens as he tucks Spera behind his broad frame. She wraps a nervous hand around his arm and peers toward the blooming arbor.

  Something too familiar about the way she’s dressed makes me pause for a split second, paralyzed by the sensations of déjà vu. My eyes scan the full length of Spera and then down myself. We are wearing exactly the same thing, each of us standing barefoot in a simple white dress, loose black hair falling wild against our backs. To my horror, I realize there is no difference between us but the horseshoe charm resting above her mark—both of our hands are bare. Spera is not wearing her ring. Lenya couldn’t send early warning. How could Spera have forgotten to put it on?

  “She is here, I know she is. And I could smell Lucas the moment I set foot in your chambers. What are they doing here?” Asher snarls as a loud crash sounds from the entrance to Lenya’s room.

  “They’re helping me with the surprise, that is all,” Lenya pleads. Their voices are too close. He’ll see them for sure. But what would he see, exactly? One of his queens enjoying Lenya’s garden in the required company of her guard? What would be suspicious about that?

  “You are friends with Spera now?” Asher’s voice is saturated with malice.

  “We have had time to speak freely to each other in your absence. We have come to an understanding of one another,” Lenya says in a rush.

  “Is that so?” The three words boom unhindered across the enclosed courtyard as Asher steps through the delicate arbor and storms down the sloped garden. Lenya hangs back, watching his descent from the top of the hill.

  “Asher, I am glad to see that your travels were safe,” Spera calls as she steps from behind Lucas.

  “That would be a first,” Asher growls without slowing down. “What are you doing here?”

  “Lenya wanted to prove to me how superior her garden is to mine. I decided to come see for myself. And I am reluctant to admit that she is right,” Spera says as she creates more physical distance between herself and Lucas.

  Lenya cautiously makes her way toward the tense exchange.

  “This place is beautiful,” Spera adds. “I would be pleased to have one such as this.”

  “This place is worthless,” Asher counters. But his rage has simmered to an angry pout. “I could create something truly spectacular for you, something equivalent to your beauty. This is no match.”

  “You still find her so much more beautiful than me? Even in commoner’s attire?” Lenya interjects and crosses her jeweled arms in front of her chest. Asher’s eyes flit to Lenya, distracted by her presence.

  “I did not know you would be home or I would have made myself presentable,” Spera says, following Lenya’s diversion. “When you are gone there is no one to impress.”

  “You taking a sincere interest in impressing me would also be a first,” Asher muses as he narrows his white eyes.

  “When you are pleased I find you more tolerable,” Spera backtracks. But Asher’s face twists with rage. He moves within a hair’s width of Spera in a single stride, snaps the leather cord from around her neck and squeezes the silver charm in his big pale hand.

  “There’s only one way you came to possess this necklace again,” he says, turning his cruel stare to Lucas. “The necklace that you said broke, you worthless thief. You know the punishment for stealing from me. How could you be so foolish? What would possess you to steal from—”

  Asher stops midsentence, his white eyes moving from Lucas to Spera. Disbelief flashes across his face, followed quickly by the twisting anguish of rage as the back of his hand makes contact with the side of Lucas’s face. “Are you courting my queen?” he spits, barely able to speak.

  Before Lucas can right himself, Asher clamps a pale hand around his neck and lifts him f
rom the ground. Lucas sputters as he claws at Asher’s vice-like grip.

  “Asher, please! Don’t hurt him,” Spera begs and bows in front of Asher.

  Call down the lightning! What are you waiting for?

  “Do not bow before me now, you adulterous girl. It only serves as another lie. And you will not lie to me again,” Asher snarls. Lucas’s eyes roll back into his head.

  “You want the truth, Asher? Are you so sure that you wish to hear it?” Spera asks, deflated and bitter. He snarls an impatient answer, his hand trembling with the force he’s using against Lucas.

  “The life you hold in your hand is the only thing of value to me in this entire world. If you kill him, you kill me, whether you physically end my life or not. But death will not change how I feel about him.” Spera says, her words even and unapologetic.

  “Do not speak of death as if you understand it. As if you control it. Death purifies. It changes everything,” Asher says. “The only thing it saves is the only thing I need. Don’t you see? Death and I are on the same side.”

  “I can’t watch this,” I whisper to myself and start to turn away.

  “You must. This is why you are here,” my guide insists. She takes me by the shoulders and gives me a strong shake. “You must see this through. You are too close now to surrender to fear. We will need you to be brave in the days ahead.”

  I draw in a broken breath and face whatever end is coming.

  “Asher, leave these two alone in their poor judgment,” Lenya says, stepping to his side. “I can be enough for you. I want nothing more than to be the one true queen. If Spera is truly necessary to open the veil then demand that she give you at least that measure of loyalty. Make her swear an oath that if she can open the veil, that she will be your Vessel. It is in her best interest to deliver the gift, is it not? Then we all get what we want.” She runs her hand down Asher’s clenched forearm. Her close proximity to his lethal hands makes my heart race with panic.

  “You do as I say or you will watch me gut him,” Asher says evenly, narrowing his eyes at Spera.

  Is he really considering Lenya’s offer? Will he let Lucas and Spera be together? In my heart I know it’s not true, but I hold on to the possibility like my life depends on it.

  “Anything,” Spera says, closing her eyes as a single tear slips out.

  Asher tosses Lucas’s limp body to the ground and draws a small dagger from his leather belt. He holds the handle of the weapon out for Spera.

  “Make an oath to me, a blood vow that you will spill your blood on the door of the veil and should it open, that you will be my Vessel. Make this vow and I will allow Lucas to live despite the atrocities he has committed against me.”

  “I have your word?”

  “You have my word,” he says without wavering his fiery stare on her face.

  “Then you have mine.” Spera plants her left hand into his open palm and shoves the dagger hard and fast through both of their hands. Her eyes shine with pain and relief as their intermingled blood drips to the mossy ground.

  Lucas begins to stir, moaning as he rolls to his side. My heart leaps when he opens his eyes. But the look on Lucas’s bewildered face turns to agony and shreds my fragile hope that Spera might make it through this after all.

  “Seal your oath with a kiss, a last taste of your lips, and I will consider Lucas’s debt repaid,” Asher wagers.

  Spera closes her eyes and takes a measured breath before leaning into Asher’s waiting face. Watching them kiss is like seeing an explosion. I can hardly stomach it but can’t turn away. I can practically feel Asher’s hot touch on my own skin as his hand moves from her jaw to her collarbone. Spera winces under his palm as he presses it flat against her mark.

  “Don’t!” Lucas rasps as he pushes up to his knees.

  Suddenly, Spera throws her head back as a horrific scream rips from her throat. Asher pulls the knife from their hands and watches her stumble backward, her mark glowing blood red. Before I can ask my guide what he’s done to her, the three circles burst into black flames. Her charred skin peels back, curling against the heat as the exposed flesh smolders beneath.

  “Asher,” she manages to cry out, pain and disbelief making her voice crack.

  “It’s for your own good,” he states, his face emotionless.

  She flings herself face down into the tranquil pond. A scream of pure agony sounds from somewhere behind me as Spera meets the water and the surface erupts with fire. I stop breathing; shock and grief and terror making me too still to draw in air. The luminous walls melting into the stream. The sour smell in the air. Whatever accelerant Asher uses to fuel the flames inside the fortress walls is cycled into the pool of water, and Spera’s burning body just detonated it like a bomb.

  26 Ashes to ashes

  Whatever is left of Spera never resurfaces. Lucas crawls to the fiery edge, and for a second I think he might reach through the flames to try to find her. But a small flash of silver sails past his face and drops to the ground by his outstretched hand. Spera’s necklace. He turns empty eyes toward the last piece of her.

  “What happened to you, Lucas? Betraying me for a mortal girl,” Asher growls.

  Lucas doesn’t acknowledge him, his wet eyes locked on the horseshoe charm. He plucks it from the earth and cradles it in his giant hands.

  “Be grateful for my generosity. At least now you’ll have something to remember her by while you wander this earth alone.”

  Lucas doesn’t seem to hear him, but he slowly rises to his feet and staggers away from Spera’s grave.

  “He won’t try to kill him?” I ask through jagged breaths.

  “No. It is far greater a punishment to let him live without his reason to live.”

  But he does have a reason to live. Me. I rush to his side, determined to let him know that Spera will return to him one day, even if in a different form. If there’s any way that I can give him any peace, I have to try. Just as I reach a hand for his trembling arm, he stands still and lifts his grieving face to the rising sun. Dawn casts a single beam of light through the crystal ceiling and washes Lucas in the pale glow.

  “I swear to you,” he whispers through clenched teeth. “I swear that if you let her return, I will guard her with my life. I will protect her from any threat. He will never possess her again. I ask that you make me her Contego, her Shield. Please. I am begging you. Let me cross so that I may take the oath.” His voice cracks as he pleads with the sky.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and step closer. Every inch of him shimmers. And then he’s gone, his entire being dissolved into the beam of light. Frantically, I scan the ground for Spera’s necklace, but it’s gone too.

  “At last, it is just you and I,” Lenya says with a quivering voice as she wraps an arm around Asher’s bare back and reaches to tilt his face to hers.

  She’s just trying to protect herself. But her affection for him feels deeply wrong, with Spera’s charred remains still smoldering only a few feet from them.

  “I told you I could be enough on my own.” Her words make his face twist and he slings her to the ground in a single motion.

  “You are not enough!” he barks. “Your blood cannot open the veil. You and I both know that. Spera is the only one that I need, the only rightful queen. She is the only piece. Do not fool yourself into believing that you are equal to her. I only let you live because you amuse me.” He glares down at her stunned face before turning away from the burning lake and starting up the hill. Lenya slowly climbs to her feet, the color drained from her porcelain skin.

  “Asher, please! You are wrong!” she screams at his back. But he doesn’t turn around. “And so you shall have neither of us,” she whispers as she backs toward the fire, opens her arms wide, and lets herself fall.

  “No!” I scream, rushing to the edge of the pond. Maybe she’s still alive. Maybe I can help her out somehow. But the bright flames consume the pond and I can’t see through them to the water beneath. “No,” I repeat, barely a whim
per, as I sit back on my heels and stare into the orange glow.

  My burning eyes sweep up the length of the garden and lock onto Asher’s retreating form. “Asher!” I cry out, rage like I’ve never felt flooding through my veins.

  “Tanzy, no,” my guide pleads as she pulls on my elbow, but I shake her off. I spring to my feet and race for my enemy, closing the distance in seconds.

  “Tanzy, you are finished! You have seen your Origin through. We must leave!” My guide’s words barely register as I steel myself for whatever might happen once I touch him.

  “Asher,” I call out as I clamp my hand around Asher’s thick forearm, both horrified and delirious to feel his solid form under my grip.

  Shock passes through his eyes as he spins toward the sensation of my touch. I reach my free hand back, ready to let it fly, when an awful grin spreads across his colorless face.

  “I know you,” he rumbles.

  “He sees you! What have you done?” My guide gasps beside me and grabs my hand. I shove her to the ground, the instinct to fight back coursing unbridled through my body.

  “Temper, temper. You difficult girl,” he says as my guide scrambles away from us.

  “You destroy everything you touch!” I scream at him.

  “No, my dear girl. You destroy everything you touch. I created you to end every ending,” he croons and reaches for my face. “And now I know that you will return to me. And I know exactly what you will look like.” His words force me back like a slap in the face. “Yes, don’t you see? You have given me everything I need to know. Perhaps you and I are on the same side, after all.”

  “That’s not what I meant to do,” I whisper.

  He swaggers toward me. “Yes it is,” he counters, his silvery white eyes rooting me to the ground. His hand whips around my head and his fingers tangle in my hair. With a low growl, he pulls my face to his and presses his lips hard against mine. Heat from his mouth takes over my body like a riptide. Spera’s entire life flashes before my mind’s eye as the current intensifies. I can’t bear another moment. I don’t want it to stop. I let out a frantic gasp as he pulls my head back by my hair.