The Midnight Star

  “Yes.” The halls of the Fortunata Court had been adorned with paintings of beautiful Laetes falling from the heavens. Teren once recited it to me, when I’d confronted him in the Inquisition Tower and taken Violetta from him. Do you remember the story of Denarius casting Laetes from the heavens, condemning him to walk the world as a man until his death sent him back among the gods? It makes me think of Magiano and his alignment to joy, that Magiano is probably somewhere down in the dungeons right now, where I can’t reach him.

  “The stars and the heavens move at a different pace than we do,” he explains. “Something that happens to the gods will not be felt in our world for generations. Joy’s fall to the mortal world tore the barriers between the immortal and the mortal. It was his fall that caused the ripples of blood fever that swept across the land. That birthed the Elites.” Raffaele sighs. “The ever-shifting silver of your hair. The sapphire strands in mine. My eyes. These are lingering touches of the gods’ hands on us, blessings from them. And it is the poison that is killing us.”

  The ghost of Teren’s words comes back to me so strongly that I feel like I am standing once again in the Inquisition Tower, staring up into his ice-colored eyes. You are an abomination. The only way to cure yourself of this guilt is to atone for it by saving your fellow abominations. We are not supposed to exist, Adelina. We were never meant to be. And suddenly, I know why Raffaele needs my help. I know it before he can say it.

  “You need my help to close the breach between our worlds.”

  “Everything is connected,” Raffaele says, a phrase that Enzo once said to me when he was alive. “We are connected to the point where Laetes fell, where immortality meets mortality. And in order to fix what has gone wrong, we need to seal the place that birthed us, with the alignments that we each bear.”

  We need to give back our powers.

  “We are the children of the gods,” Raffaele finishes, confirming my fear. “Only we can enter the immortal realm as mortals.”

  “And if I refuse?” I reply.

  Raffaele’s quiet nature has always both calmed and unnerved me. He lowers his eyes. “If you don’t,” he replies, “then in a matter of a few years, the poison of the immortal world will kill everything.”

  I look back down at my sister. Violetta’s body, collapsing under the weight of her powers. Lucent’s hollowing bones. Sergio’s eternal thirst and exhaustion. Teren’s never-healing wounds. And me. My worsening illusions, my nightmares within nightmares, the whispers in my head. Even now, they are chittering, chittering, chittering.

  “No,” I say. The voices hiss at my sister’s body. You owe her nothing, they growl, stirring now and climbing out of their caves.

  Raffaele watches me. “You are running out of time,” he says. “She will not last long like this.”

  I glare at him. “And what makes you think I care if she dies?”

  “You still love her. I can sense it in you.”

  “You always think you know everything.”

  “Well? Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  Raffaele narrows his eyes. “Then why come to Tamoura to find her? Why ask for her? Why hunt for her all over the world, as you conquer your new lands?”

  At that, the whispers turn into shouts. Because she doesn’t get to turn her back on me.

  I lash out so suddenly with my illusions that the archers along the walls don’t even have time to react. My powers wash across the others in a wave—knives in your hearts, twisting, barbed, tearing—barely within my control. I can even feel the pain of it myself, as if it had turned its head on me too and sought my own heart. Lucent gasps in agony, stumbling backward with wide eyes, while Raffaele clutches his chest with one hand, turning pale. The crossbows draw back.

  “Quickly!” Raffaele manages to call out.

  Something heavy hits me. Not an arrow, I manage to think before I’m knocked to the floor. All the air rushes out of me. I struggle to breathe, and in this instant, my powers flicker out, scattering from my grasp. Someone has managed to throw a net, I realize dizzily. No, it had dropped from the ceiling—Raffaele had guessed how I might react. Rough hands grab my arms and yank them painfully behind my back. I struggle to gather my power again and strike, but the whispers have grown so loud and disorienting that I cannot focus.

  Leave this place and finish your conquest, the whispers snap. Show him why he will regret what he’s done to you. Violetta stirs restlessly in her bed, oblivious to our presence and lost in some nightmare of her own.

  I hate you. I throw the thought at her, willing her to hear it. I think of how she had cowered in our childhood, unable to protect me, and how she had turned on me before leaving my side, trying to take away something that is mine by right. I try to hold these images in my head as Raffaele orders the Tamouran soldiers to take me away. I have become so good at remembering these moments during the past year, letting them strengthen me—recounting Violetta’s failures in order to push my power to new heights.

  But now, the images that flood my head are of a different sort. I see Violetta and me running through the tall grasses behind our old estate, hiding on summer afternoons in the shade of giant trees. There’s Violetta wrapping her arms around me on a moonlit floor, holding me as I sobbed for Enzo. And Violetta curling up beside me during a thunderstorm, trembling. Her hands in my hair, braiding flowers between the locks.

  I don’t want to see these. Why can I not clear them from my vision?

  If she dies, you lose yourself. This time it is not the voice of my whispers . . . it is my own voice. If you do not go, you will die too.

  As the soldiers force me to my feet, Raffaele takes a step closer. “We were never meant to exist, Adelina,” he says. “And we will never exist again. But we cannot take the entire world with us.” He meets my gaze. “No matter how it has wronged us.”

  Then he nods at the soldiers. I try to lash out again, this time with Raffaele in my sights, but something strikes the back of my head, and the world goes dark.

  Raffaele Laurent Bessette

  When Raffaele checks on Violetta again that evening, she is awake, her fever lowered somewhat. Even though she had been unconscious while Adelina was in the room, it seems as if the presence of her sister had offered Violetta some semblance of comfort, however small. Something that helped her fight back against the deterioration of her body.

  It is the opposite effect that Adelina seems to have on Enzo. Raffaele had left the prince pacing restlessly in his chambers. The dark energy surrounding him had felt elevated by Adelina’s nearness, agitated and ready to strike.

  “She’ll never agree,” Lucent says to Raffaele as they and Michel look over the Tamouran ship at port, still bustling with sailors loading cargo. “And even if she does—how will we travel with the White Wolf? I can hardly stand being around her. Can you?”

  “It’s a shame I ever taught her how to focus her illusions,” Michel says. “You heard what happened in Violetta’s chamber. She attacked the soldiers and all but tried to kill you.” He nods at Raffaele. “You said yourself that she is beyond help. What makes you think a voyage with her will work?”

  “I don’t,” Raffaele concedes. “But we need her. None of us link with fury, and we will not be able to enter the immortal world without each of the gods’ alignments—not if the legends are at all true.”

  “This could just be a waste of time,” Lucent says. “You’re placing your bets on a theory of something that, according to myth, happened hundreds of years ago.”

  “Your life depends on this, Lucent,” Raffaele replies. “As much as any of ours. It is all we can do, and we have very little time to do it.”

  Michel sighs. “Then it depends on whether or not Adelina thinks her life depends on this too.”

  Raffaele shakes his head. “If Adelina refuses, we will have to force her hand. But that is a dangerous game to play.”
/>
  Lucent looks ready to reply—but in that instant, a young guard hurries up to them. Clutched in his hand is a parchment, freshly arrived. “Messenger,” he says, bobbing his head once at Raffaele before handing him the paper. “A new dove. This is from Beldain, from the queen.”

  Queen Maeve. Raffaele exchanges a look with Lucent and Michel, then unfurls the message. Lucent falls silent, and her eyes widen as she peers at the paper with the others.

  Raffaele reads the message. Then he reads it again. His hands tremble. When Lucent says something to him, he doesn’t hear it—instead, it sounds like a muffled, underwater sound, coming from somewhere far away. All he can hear are the words written on the parchment, as clearly as if Maeve were standing with them and telling him herself.

  My brother Tristan is dead.

  Raffaele looks back toward the palace. A jolt of fear rushes through him. No.

  “Enzo,” he whispers.

  And before the others can call him back, he turns toward the palace and runs.

  Lost life by stab wound in sacrificing self for the sake of his child.

  May he rest in the arms of Moritas,

  adrift in the Underworld’s eternal peace.

  —Epitaph on gravestone of Tau Sekibo

  Adelina Amouteru

  I am alone in my dungeon cell. Illusions are useless if I have no one to affect but myself, and so I do nothing but curl up on the ground while soldiers stand on the other side of the wall, beyond my iron door. Out of my reach.

  Unlike the dungeons of Estenzia, my cell is suspended high above the city in a maze of spiraling towers that funnel wind through their passages like maelstroms. A lone window sits high above me. Through it, weak slants of moonlight illuminate parts of the floor where I’m now huddled. I stay very still. The wind outside howls, taking on the tone of the whispers in my head. I try to rock myself to sleep. It has been far too many days since I last took my herbs to calm the whispers, so I can feel the madness creeping forward again, threatening to wrestle control from me.

  I wish desperately that Magiano were with me.

  Something creaks. My prison door. I raise my head to stare at it. The guards, they must be delivering my supper early. A sharp pain tugs on my chest. I frown as the door slowly opens—and then realize, somehow, at the last moment, that on the other side of the door are not the guards at all. It is Teren and his Inquisitors.

  Impossible. He is my prisoner, trapped in Estenzia’s dungeons.

  My heart leaps into my throat. I scramble to my feet, stumble forward and attempt to close the door. But no matter how hard I throw myself against it, Teren edges in bit by bit, until I can see his mad eyes and blood-soaked wrists. When I look away and back at the interior of my dungeon cell, I see my sister’s body lying in one corner, her face pale in death, lips drained of color, eyes staring vacantly at me.

  I jerk awake. Outside, the wind is howling. I tremble against the stones of my prison floor—until I hear my door creak open again. Again, I rush toward it in an attempt to keep the Inquisitors out. Again, they push back. Again, I look away to see Violetta dead on the floor, eyes pointed at me. I jerk awake.

  The nightmare repeats itself over and over.

  Finally, I wake with a terrible gasp. The wind is still howling outside my prison door, but I can feel the cold floor beneath me with a solidity that tells me I must be awake. Even so, I can’t be sure. I sit upright, trembling, as I look around my cell. I am in Tamoura, I remind myself. Violetta is not in here with me. Teren is in Estenzia. My breath fogs in the moonlit air.

  After a while, I gather my knees up to my chin and try to stop shivering. In the corner of my vision, ghosts of clawed, hooved figures move in the shadows. I look out at the night sky through the barred window and try to picture my ships waiting for me out at sea.

  Just agree to Raffaele’s request. Agree to help the Daggers.

  Indignation rises in my chest at the mere thought of caving to Raffaele’s demands. But if I don’t, I will stay helpless in this cell, waiting for Sergio to lead my army to storm the palace. If I simply say I will help them, they will have to agree to a truce and let me free. They’ll free Magiano. The thought turns round and round in my head, gaining momentum.

  Raffaele has betrayed you many times in the past. Why not use this as a chance to betray him? Agree. Just agree. Then you can strike them when they least expect it.

  It seems too easy to be true, but it is my only way out of this prison. I look upward and try to gauge when the next rotation of soldiers will stand at my door.

  The strings tug again, hard. A spike of pain shoots through me. I clutch my chest, frowning—this is what I’d felt in my dream, with the current yanking me down. But my nightmare has already ended. A sudden fear hits me, and I squeeze my eye tightly shut. Perhaps I am still in one.

  The tug again. This time it hurts enough to make my body seize. I glance toward the door. The pull is from Enzo. Now I recognize the fire of his energy, his barbs in my heart as surely as mine are in his. Something is wrong. When the tug comes again, the door creaks . . . and then, it opens.

  The guards are not waiting there. Instead, it is Enzo, swathed in shadows. My breath catches in my throat. His eyes are pools of black, completely devoid of any spark of life. His expression is nonexistent, his features seemingly carved from stone. My gaze darts down to his arms. They are exposed tonight, a mass of destroyed flesh. My heart freezes.

  Did Raffaele send him here? He must have told the guards to step aside and let him in. I stare at him, unsure what to do next.

  “Why are you here?” I whisper.

  He says nothing in return. I can’t even tell if he’s heard me. Instead, he continues to walk forward. His gait seems off, although I can’t quite put my finger on why it looks strange. There is something . . . unrealistic about it, something stiff and uneven, inhuman.

  He is gripping daggers in both hands.

  I must still be in a nightmare. Enzo narrows the black pools of his eyes. I try to push through our tether to read his thoughts, but this time I feel nothing except an all-consuming darkness. It is beyond even hatred or fury—it is not an emotion at all, but the lack of all emotion and life. It is Death herself, extending out through Enzo’s vessel of a body and pulling me forward through the threads of energy that bind us. The touch feels ice cold. I shudder, pressing myself hard against the wall. But the cold claws of Enzo’s changed energy continue to reach for me, drawing closer and closer—until they hook into me and pull tight.

  My energy lurches. The whispers in my head burst free and roar in my ears. I cry out at the overwhelming sensation. The control I have over my energy starts to slip, and the whispers gradually take on Enzo’s voice—and then, a new tone, one from the Underworld.

  “What do you want?” I scramble backward against the floor, dragging my chains with me, until I can go no farther. Enzo approaches me until we are separated by nothing but his armor and my robes. His soulless eyes stare down at me as he sheathes his daggers. His hands clamp down on the chains that encircle my wrists and—in a moment that reminds me of the day he had rescued me from the stake—he heats the chains until they turn white-hot. They clatter to the floor. His lips curl.

  “You have something that is mine,” Enzo murmurs, in a voice not his own. It resonates within my very core, and I immediately recognize it as the voice of Moritas, speaking through the Underworld.

  She has come for Enzo. The tug between us pulls taut again, making me cry out in pain. She will kill me in order to take him back.

  “Why don’t you jump, little wolf?” he whispers.

  And, suddenly, I feel a desire to step out of my cell, walk up the rampart, and fling myself from the tower. No. Panic flutters in my mind as my energy turns on me and Enzo gains control. An illusion wraps around me—I’m no longer on the top of this tower, but clutching the skeletal hands of the goddess o
f Death herself, hanging desperately on as I float in the waters of the Underworld, trying not to drown. Cold hands pull at my ankles.

  “You belong here,” Moritas says, her featureless face leaning down to me. You always have.

  “Don’t let me go,” I beg. The words come out silent to my ears. Magiano! I cry. This must be a nightmare, but I can’t wake up. It can’t possibly be real. Perhaps he will be nearby and save me from my illusion as he always does.

  Magiano, help me! But he isn’t here.

  I blink, and now I am back in the prison tower, walking out of my cell’s ajar door to stand on the wind-whipped steps outside. Enzo follows behind me as I continue forward. The hands of Death grasp my heart through our tether, and the ice of her touch burns me. Fires protected inside colored lanterns illuminate the path with spots of light. I squint in the darkness, then turn my face to where the stairs wind up and around my cell. I take a step forward, one after another. A narrow gap between the cells appears, where a thin rampart overlooks the night landscape and then the ocean beyond. I strain to see any sign of my ships, but it is too dark. The wind numbs my fingers. I approach the rampart and grip the ledge with both hands. The tether pushes me forward, urging me over the wall.

  The whispers shriek over the wind. Why don’t you jump, little wolf?

  “Enzo!”

  A clear voice cuts through my illusion—the Underworld wavers, then vanishes in a whirlwind of smoke. I’m back at the tower, crouched on the edge of the ramparts. Enzo turns around to see Raffaele standing at the stairs behind us, a crossbow in his hands. He is pale, his face drawn with fear, his lips tightened into a determined line. The wind whips his hair into a furious river, and his pale robes stream behind him in waves of silk and velvet. Had he woken, too, at the strangeness of Enzo’s energy? His eyes dart in my direction before returning to the prince.

  Raffaele lifts the crossbow higher. He isn’t aiming it at me.