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“Fine.” Selenia did not hesitate. Whatever she asked for, she needed desperately. Luciela lifted a hand, rotating her palm toward the ornate carvings in the ceiling. By the time she stopped moving, a silver dagger rested against her decaying skin.

“It’s a shadow blade. Only one in the realms. I need it back when you’re done,” she said flatly, as if she wasn’t handing over a one-of-a-kind treasure. “He has to do it, though. The Solar God must choose heart over head for once.”

Luciela’s eyes flashed toward a massive sphere floating above an arched column at the back of the room. It seemed to buzz with a steady rhythm.

“You best be on your way, Selenia. The gates will close soon, and without your Shadow, you’ll no longer be welcome in the Court Below. I’ll take the shadow blade back in the Spring if we have a deal?”

Selenia nodded, opening her mouth to reply but a scream bounced off the hall as she crumbled to her knees. Black raced from her veins toward Luciela’s outstretched hand.

“Sorry, I should have warned you. Hurts like a bitch.” Luciela drew the last dregs of the Shadow from her, Selenia’s chest heaving. “Off you go!”

Selenia rose, her face gaunt, a dark ring gleaming in the low light around her. The icy chill she’d come to associate with her rippled through Astra as she left the room.

Astra blinked, returning to the Court Below.

“Why did she do it? Why tear Leona and Solan apart?” Astra asked, stepping back into the Court Below’s forest.

“Oh,” Luciela winced. “I suppose I dropped you too far into the conversation. I’ve had a few cocktails. You understand. That trade was not to sever the Tether from your aunt’s soul, but Selenia’s.”

“Selenia!”

“It’s a tragic story. It always is,” Luciela chuckled, delight floating on the dark notes.

“Your grandmother was not the first-born heir to the throne, a burden I know you’re intimately familiar with.

She had a sister, Athene. They were close as girls, but Selenia was a bit of a rebel at heart.

Runs in the family, I suppose. She knew her Shadow Goddess abilities were off-limits, but curiosity is a damned good high, Astra.

Selenia was working with the shadows along the edge of the Empyrean.

She didn’t know Athene was in the water.

She was just fifteen when she drowned, and Selenia never recovered from the guilt.

“Athene was a bit of a bore. She was hardly here before she Ascended, didn’t come to a single one of my dinner parties.

I suppose the one benefit to dying young is it’s much easier to confront your moral failings when you don’t live very long.

” Luciela twisted as she spoke, pacing before Astra.

“Athene took her place in the Court Above, sitting beside the Solar God, Lucian, on the Lunar Throne above. Well, you can imagine, two powerful, attractive ethereal beings don’t spend that much time ruining everyone’s lives together and avoid falling in love.

“But it wasn’t Fated. No Tether blossomed, though Athene waited decades with a pathetic hope in her heart. And then your dear grandmother made her Descent. Now Selenia loves a good party. It took her ages to embrace her Shadow and I was almost sad to see her go. But don’t tell her that.

“She strode through those gilded gates Above and embraced her long-lost sister. Their reunion was the stuff of poetry, truly. Until Selenia met Lucian, and their chests caved in and souls brushed one another, blah, blah, blah. You did it, you know what it’s all about.

Selenia couldn’t take the guilt. She’d drowned her sister in one life and was well on her way to doing it in the next.

So she came to me and she made a deal, one that I’m sure she regrets to this day. ”

Luciela leaned back, folding her arms and touching her hand to her chin.

“You look like you need a second. Please don’t vomit in the woods, it attracts the worst sorts of creatures.”

Astra was considering vomiting as a way to process all of this. She took a sharp breath, trying to shift the colors within her chest from an overwhelmed bouquet of dying roses to something more neutral, but it was pointless.

“We haven’t even gotten to the most interesting part. There are powers that even the Court Above answers to, Astra. There is a throne that sits vacant and has for millennia because every Ascended Lunar and Solar god and goddess is the same in the end— selfish.

“The Divine Throne can only be claimed by one being who holds both Light and Shadow, Lunar and Solar. You can’t hold both unless you find your missing half and Tether, which plenty of you lovelorn idiots have as of late, but I can assure you that is a new development.

You lot love to murder each other before you can even let the Tether form.

But not one of you has ever been able to give up power in the end for the other.

“The throne would hold power over every court—including the gods and goddesses—but because every single one of you morons thinks you’re better suited for it than your godsdamned soulmate, you fuck it up. Generation after generation. It’s exhausting.

“Leona and Solan were the closest anyone ever came, and Lucian saw that his son was weak. He knew he’d give everything up for Leona.

So he took the only action he could—prevent them from ever uniting again.

He convinced Selenia to trick them, and without her Shadow she didn’t have much of a choice.

All he had to do was smite her and she’d be stuck with me for eternity.

She kept my shadow blade, an artifact I’m still missing, by the way, and they made Leona think it was her fault.

That her selfishness cost thousands of lives. They knew she’d never face it.”

Astra’s stomach whirled. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because you should know that you have a choice. You already saw it, didn’t you? Both thrones, calling your name.”

She shook her head, desperate not to let the contents of her stomach escape. “I don’t want it.”

“Please,” the Nether Queen continued. “You can lie to yourself all you want, but not to me. I know you feckless half-humans. Your selfish hearts always win out in the end.”

Astra shook her head again. “No.”

“I could give it to you right now if you wanted. It wouldn’t take much for me to keep him here, trapped in the Court Below.

All you’d have to do is waltz right into that throne room whenever you shed that mortal coil of yours.

.. you’d rule it all, Astra. You could finally create the exact kind of world you’ve been working toward, with the snap of a finger. ”

Astra held her frigid stare as Luciela spoke, her bones rattling within her, though she hoped Luciela didn’t see it.

“Say the word, Fire Queen, and I’ll throw him into the River of Souls right now. Fuck, from what I’ve heard, he’d throw himself into it willingly. He’d want you to take it.”

Astra glared. “No, Luciela.”

Luciela gagged. “You hate to see a powerful woman give it all up for a man,” she said, holding up her hand. “But I will warn you, Astra, what is for you will always find you, in this life or another.”

“Astra!” Lunelle’s scream ripped her away from Luciela’s torturous game, her stilled heart bursting to life with fear as her head snapped in their direction.

“I’ll see you again, Fire Queen. When you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Astra barely heard her, adrenaline surging at the thought that Lunelle might be hurt. Another sweep of shadows through the trees wrapped around the Nether Queen, transforming her this time into a slinking black cat, long and lean.

Lunelle screamed again and when Astra turned back around, the Nether Queen was gone.