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Chapter Twenty-Nine

S he was significantly warmer than she’d expected, cocooned against some sort of mystic light, cradled in its soft embrace in her half-awake state. She sighed, her eyes still heavy, caught halfway between reality and a dream.

Astra floated in the Rift again. This time, she slowly bobbed by a gilded gate, the light pouring from it hard to stand. It was so bright.

But she had to touch it.

The light reached back, touching its fingertip to hers, exploding into brilliant stars the moment they met.

She pushed herself even further into it, letting the warmth slip over her.

It embraced her in a gentle song that pulled on something within her, dragging her very soul to the surface of her skin.

She spiraled into the song, desperate for it to touch more of her, the warmth so intoxicating she thought perhaps she’d died last night. Perhaps she’d skipped the Descent altogether and risen straight to the Court Above, embraced by Mother Glory herself .

Her skin came alive, simmering under the heat, craving more as she fell into a sweltering rhythm.

She moved like a leaf on the Autumn breeze, swept into a freefall she never wanted to end.

She needed more of it. She wanted to drink it, to stand in it as it rained down on her in a quiet Spring shower, to let it cleanse her in holy fire.

As , it whispered, caressing her shoulder, blazing against her skin.

Don’t, she begged, don’t go.

Astra , it whispered again, fading quickly from her, the devastation more than she could bear.

Please , she whimpered, I need more .

She chased it, rolling through the mist of the Rift and clutching to the rapidly fading beams. Her fingers grasped madly for a holding point.

Gods, all she wanted was to drown in it for one more moment.

She wrestled against it, wrapping her legs tightly around whatever she could find, the shock in her spine at the electric current lighting up her blood enough to end her.

She’d never felt a rush like this, burning in a pillar of fire from head to toe ? —

“Oh, gods,” she heard her voice whine, her muscles aching in a way she hadn’t felt in ages.

A wave of oak and leather pulled her out of the haze with a sharp start, her arms wrapped around a very warm, very asleep commander. His hands tangled against her hips, his dark curls splayed across her pillow.

She leaned into him, desperate to find the light in his chest.

“Shit!” she hissed, flying out of the bed, unable to breathe in the heat of his blood. Lux’s eyes shot open, startled.

“ Shit ,” he breathed, his head snapping in the other direction as they both realized she wasn’t wearing anything.

She snatched last night’s dress from the floor, holding it around her chest as she shot to the wardrobe in the corner, her heart audibly slamming against her ribs.

“Apologies, Princess.”

“Apologies!” She threw her hands up, pacing as she tried to get her head back down to this plane. Her body cried out for him, despite the litany of reasons it was completely unacceptable. She groaned, “Now we’re back to ‘Princess?’”

“Can you let me wake up before berating me?”

She rifled through the wardrobe’s contents, delighted to find a light silk shift that would at least get her home.

“We should get back,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to glance in his direction as she dressed. Had he been there with her again? Sharing in the dream? Had he been the dream? Had he heard the way she begged—oh misty Mother smite her.

“Right,” Lux agreed, tugging his boots on. She held her shoes in her hands, darting out from the room and into the hallway, hoping that Ehlaria wouldn’t be?—

“Good morrow, Princess.” She leaned against the doorframe across the landing. “Luxuros.” He gave a half-hearted wave. “A bright morning, is it not?” She rolled her eyes, fading back into her room.

A blush threatened to suffocate Astra.

Lux didn’t wait for her to recover, taking the dozens of stairs to the bottom of the tree two at a time, desperate for the fresh air as the Moon rose outside.

She followed him in silence to the edge of the village.

Several elves were still scattered across benches and rugs, not quite making it back into their homes.

They didn’t speak through Ehlaria’s mirage. They didn’t speak as they wound through snapped twigs and gnarled trees. They didn’t speak as they came upon the clearing she’d made home so many times.

She couldn’t take the awkward silence any longer. Her mouth barely opened before Lux called out, “Quick!”

He dipped low, tackling her legs out from under her. Her body twisted over his back, his arms clenched tightly around her legs. The world rolled in a blurred circle. She hung upside down behind him, her head slamming against his back.

“The Nether are you doing?” she yelled, her lungs struggling to inflate properly at the angle.

“What are you doing?” he shot back, breaking into a run. “How are you going to get out of it?”

A fucking drill. After everything last night and this morning. Anything to avoid talking about his godsdamned feelings.

She shook her wild curls, trying to force the image upside right in her mind so she could determine her best chance, but the throbbing headache from the elf-wine hangover was almost as loud as Lux’s playful mocking.

“Congrats, you just got kidnapped by a Solarian,” Lux chuckled, rounding a fallen log and bounding into the meadow. Her squirming had absolutely zero effect on the mighty oak of the commander.

His ribbing was the exact trigger she needed to clear her head. She let her light flow freely, throwing her hand out above them. A twisted branch severed with a thunderous crack from the birch above, stopping Lux in his tracks.

“Shit!” He fell back, stumbling, giving her time to calculate her next move.

Her hand was still blazing hot when she brought it down to touch the back of his leg, causing him to shout and loosen his grip.

She yanked one leg free and used the momentum as it swung down over his shoulder to capture his arm between her thighs and bring him to the ground.

His heavy body fell to the side of her with a thud so loud she’d surely knocked the wind out of him.

She scrambled out from under his weight and hopped to her feet. Just as she was about to shove her boot in his neck, he grabbed her foot with both hands and pushed back, sending her flying onto her ass.

“Fuck you,” she groaned. “I was going to win that one!”

Lux pushed himself up across from her, reaching out his hand to pull her up from the forest floor, both their chests heaving.

“You were doing okay,” he said, gesturing to the broken branch.

“That was quick thinking, but it was sloppy. Could have just as easily landed on us and knocked your ass unconscious, or worse.”

“But it didn’t,” she argued.

“This time,” he pushed.

“Would it kill you to just let me have one win?”

His face flushed red. “It wouldn’t kill me , it would kill you ! You need to be a thousand times more focused than that if you’re going to keep yourself safe.”

“I can focus,” she insisted. “I’ve been working at this for months now. The goal was to get out of my assailant’s grasp, and I did that!”

“That’s not the point.” He shook his head, clutching his chest. “Blindly throwing fire or sunlight or whatever the fuck will not get you far in hand-to-hand combat. It’ll probably just cause you more pain than your attacker.”

Fire rose in her chest, the anger hot on her tongue. The last twelve hours roiled inside her and there was no amount of meditative thinking that would stop the floodgates from opening.

“You’re such a fucking bastard,” she said through clenched teeth. “You know I can hit any mark you give me at this point. Why are you being so impossible about this?”

He didn’t respond, which only fueled her rage. Fine, he wanted to be a prick about it? She could show him just how focused she could be.

She narrowed the flame behind her index finger, envisioning it the size of a sewing needle. She fired the tiniest spark across the space between them, landing right on her target. The leather cord around his neck broke in two and slipped beneath the collar of his shirt, disappearing.

He wanted to be stubborn about it? Fine. She’d force him to show her the feelings driving his mystifying commitment to belittling her.

She smirked, victorious as he reached for the cord. “How’s that for?—”

Whatever she might have said, whatever she wanted to say, was silenced instantly by the look of pure horror on Lux’s face, falling into absolute dread as everything in the meadow stilled.

More shocking than the expression on his pained face was the way she saw the dread, black as night, tightening within him, spiraling into a glittering cloud.

His eyes widened, and she felt that tug in her chest again. The one that had gotten her into nothing but trouble lately, starting deep in her lungs, but it didn’t crash against her ribs and stop like it had when they were training. Like it had last night.

It did not stop at the contracting muscles around her bones.

It did not stop at her skin, flushed with sweat and dirt and goose flesh.

It did not stop until it collided in the space between them, wrapping itself around its invisible twin, tangling into a sacred knot.

“As,” Lux gasped, his hand flew forward to reach for her, but he thought better of it.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had grabbed her and thrown her into the meadow, claiming her as his own right then and there. She wouldn’t have felt it. She was no longer in her body. She was floating somewhere above, watching the consequences of what she’d done unfold in a fever dream.

She was dust on the wind as the early Autumn breeze swept through the meadow, the only sound she processed as the tension between them stretched and pulled against her heaving chest.

The Tether strained, collapsing her entire world into a single gilded thread, the end and beginning of everything she was now woven deep within the commander’s very soul.