Page 114 of Darkness Births the Stars #1

CHAPTER

THE SUNDERING WARS

Ten years earlier, the day of the Fallen One’s sentencing

Rada

T he stone became my solace.

Its solid reassurance beneath me was the only thing anchoring me to reality as I lay sprawled on the balcony of my chambers in the Temple of Order.

I had stumbled out here after Noctis’s sentencing, the world tilting violently around me.

My control over my powers was so tenuous that the air crackled with sparks, sizzling as they struck the stone floor.

I couldn’t breathe, frantically tearing at the tight bindings of my dress as I fell to the ground.

I felt it when his soul left this world. An endless abyss opened in the hollow where my heart once was, threatening to consume me.

It was the last thing I felt for a very long time.

Time passed. Light gave way to darkness, then returned again. A familiar, gentle touch on my arm. Then a pleading voice. Elodia. I drove her away with a flash of my magic and a snarl.

My husband visited next. He didn’t speak, didn’t chastise me for my loss of control. But I knew he was there, the pressure of his magic against mine stealing my peace .

“Go away,” I rasped through dry, cracked lips. When had I last eaten or drunk anything? I couldn’t recall. It wouldn’t kill me. I was one of the Aurea—a goddess, eternal and aloof. A bitter laugh bubbled up, echoing over the stone. Heavy footsteps faded away.

After the king, they all came, one by one.

Khiraz, with her gentle compassion. Enlial, their fathomless blue eyes brimming with sorrow and hidden knowledge.

Tanez paced beside me for hours, alternating between pleading and chastising my stubbornness.

M’tar growled that my duty awaited. Sha’am was worse, his tone disbelieving as he exclaimed to Zamani that surely I wasn’t grieving.

I didn’t react to his words or to the way she touched my hair in apology.

Ashur’s deep sigh might have surprised me if I could have mustered the energy to care.

The sound of Namtaz’s desolate sobs marked the only time I nearly broke.

I quickly learned that silence served me best. If I stared unseeingly at the sky, reacting to neither sympathy nor scorn, even the most relentless would eventually leave.

After a while, the visits grew less frequent, until finally, I was left alone.

Sometimes it rained, cold drops of water dripping down my face like the tears I could not cry.

At first, I dreaded the nights, haunted by memories, when all I wanted was to forget. But soon, the pain became as familiar as the stone beneath me, a reminder that I was still alive, giving me the strength to keep breathing.

On the darkest nights, when the stars shone brightest, I was certain that I could feel his presence. That the shadows stirred my hair in an unexpectedly gentle way and I heard a tender whisper at my ear. During those nights, I vowed to myself that one day, somehow, I would feel whole again .

My time grieving Noctis came to an end. Of course it did. The king could only tolerate so much weakness, and rumors had surely already spread through the temple and city. Perhaps they called me mad. Perhaps they were right.

I suspected duty brought Aramaz back to my side.

“Enough, Baradaz.” The first words he had spoken to me in a tenday.

I kept my eyes fixed on the blue sky above, tracing the lines of a fluffy cloud that looked like a hare—no, a wolf.

“This has to end. Now.” My husband’s voice brimmed with impatience, his powers stirring the air, a distant growl of thunder.

His hand closed firmly around my arm. “I have been patient for a very long time, but people are asking for you. They need their queen—”

I weakly resisted his pull. “I am not their queen,” I said, my voice barely recognizable, raspy from disuse. “Not anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Aramaz’s blue eyes flashed as he tugged on me again. “There is an audience with the heir to the Elvish throne today, and you will attend.”

“Let go of me.” I fought him in earnest now. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? “Let go!” My scream tore through the air, my magic flaring violently. My fingers turned into claws, raking across his cheek, pearls of red blood shockingly bright on his tan skin.

We stared at each other in tense silence. In all the millennia we had been bound, I had never used my powers against him.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

Aramaz rose without a word, his expression unreadable as he absently touched the bleeding cuts. “Elodia will help you get dressed,” was all he said before leaving.

My handmaiden had her work cut out for her.

Even with her magic, it took hours to untangle my hair.

I caught a glimpse of the knotted mass in a mirror as she led me to the bathroom.

My gaze quickly darted away, the dull resignation in my eyes sickening me.

Was this how it would be for all eternity?

An unending masquerade? Me, nothing more than a mindless puppet to be dressed and paraded around at the will of others.

Thankfully, Elodia was silent as she accomplished the seemingly impossible, transforming me from a madwoman back into a queen.

“Where are my other dresses?” I asked when she had dressed me in a silky robe and we stepped into my wardrobe, only the bright gleam of spotless white greeting us.

The Anima wrung her hands nervously, avoiding my gaze. “The king ordered me to burn them all,” she murmured. “He said they were not fitting for the Queen of the Aurea.”

“All of them?” I thought of dark eyes lighting up with desire as black skirts, sparkling like the night sky, twirled around me.

Was it pity or resentment gleaming in my handmaiden’s eyes as she nodded? Did I even care any longer?

“I see.” With a wave of my hand, I picked a dress without really looking at it. It didn’t matter. I would not be attending any audiences.

Once dressed, I shifted into my spirit form, ignoring Elodia’s shocked outcry as I soared into the sky.

Lyrheim’s white towers faded below me, the dark ruin of Yggdrasil’s remains sending a familiar surge of guilt and sorrow through me as I flew over.

Green hills gave way to dense forests, and still, I pressed on, always west, until the sun finally broke over grayish-green waves.

The sea was wild here, high in the north, relentlessly battling against jagged stone cliffs jutting into the water.

I returned to my corporeal form; the wind tugged at my hair and dress as I wandered to the cliff’s edge.

The air was clean and cold in my nose, smelling of salt and seaweed.

I turned my face into the spray that sizzled on my skin with each crashing wave .

Aramaz arrived much sooner than I had expected, likely alerted by Elodia.

“You loved him more than you ever loved me, didn’t you?” His voice was calm, but the words sliced through me. “You always have.”

I turned to face him, taking in his gleaming white tunic and long golden hair, blowing in the breeze. The flawless Sky Lord. Only the scabbed claw marks on his cheek marred the illusion. He had not healed them. It made me grit my teeth as my gaze returned to the sea.

“Love is like freedom,” I replied, feeling the last warmth in my heart flicker out with the sun sinking toward the horizon in a glowing ball of red flame. “The moment you try to measure it, to put a limit on it, it starts to die.”

“I had no choice,” he said. “You know what he had become. You know he was no longer listening to reason. Would you have spared him, even if meant destroying the world?”

But I had seen it in his eyes when the Council pronounced Noctis’s sentence. There had been a choice. And he had made it without hesitation.

“It was my decision.” Aramaz’s voice hardened when I did not answer, when I refused to look at him, to grant him absolution. “As the leader of our people. As the King of Aron-Lyr.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” I said, my eyes fixed on the restless waves, red like blood in the light of sunset. “What if the Allfather had chosen me to lead us all? Would you have followed my decisions without question then?”

I would have bowed to you, my queen. A faint whisper in my mind. My brother would not.

“But he did not.” Aramaz’s expression was harsh and unyielding when I finally looked at him.

“No,” I answered softly, not surprised by his reaction. “He did not.” My fingers clenched into a fist, the nails piercing the skin. “Did he say anything to you? At the end?”

My gaze remained fixed on my husband’s face. I knew I was tormenting us both, yet I couldn’t stop.

It was Aramaz’s turn to stare out at the sea, the blue of his eyes darkened by pain and regret. “He wanted you to remember him as he was in the beginning. When you both had a fleeting taste of happiness.”

I had braced myself for his answer, yet it nearly brought me to my knees. My power came to life around us, awakened by the force of my grief. “And when did you plan on telling me that?” I demanded, my voice laced with accusation.

“When you felt better.”

Something inside me recoiled at those words, something disbelieving and furious.

“Better?” I echoed, my voice rising with my agitation. “Better?” The laugh that hissed from my lips was so cold and bitter it seemed to freeze the air between us. “You mean when I conveniently forgot what happened? What you did?”

I spun around, my magic crackling in the air, unable to bear his presence any longer.

“Baradaz,” Aramaz called, chasing after me as I stormed along the cliff’s edge. “I know it’s hard,” he said, catching up to me, his voice pleading. “But it might help if you focus on those who need you, who need their queen. Focus on your duty.”

I was right. He wanted me to forget. To act as if nothing was wrong. To be the perfect queen by his side. I could hardly breathe.