“You told Luxuros?” Lunelle sat back in her chair, crossing her arms.
“I had no choice,” Astra admitted. “I was trapped in the Rift within. I’m lucky he found me when he did. He pulled me back.”
“Astra!” Ameera groaned.
She held her hands up in surrender. “Again, I’ve had the lecture. Selenia told Solan and Leona they could sever the Tether, but it ended up killing Leona. Solan wasn’t trying to hurt her, he was devastated. The Flare was a response to his grief—not an attack. I know it was a dangerous endeavor, but this information changes everything, does it not?”
“It certainly does,” Lunelle breathed. “These Tethers are troublesome.” She half-laughed, unsure how else to process this revelation.
“We need to understand why she did it. Whatever she was after, she had to trade her Shadow for the power to do it.”
“Was it purely political?” Ameera asked, sinking into the seat beside Lunelle. “The Solar and Lunar Courts have been enemies for millennia, but if Leona and Solan were Tethered… the gods wanted something from them. But what?”
Astra nodded. “That’s what we need to find out. And soon.”
Lux watched Astra pinch the stems of a handful of wildflowers from the edge of the meadow.
“Where are we, anyway?” she asked, soaking in the fragrant floral. Though dulled on the astral plane, the perfume was still sweet enough to catch.
“Not far from your father’s home village, actually,” the commander said, propping himself up on his elbow as he let the Earthen Sun warm his face. “The Mercurian outpost is just a few minutes that way.” He pointed into the forest, dense with lush greens and peeling browns. “I used to come here for some peace.”
“It’s lovely,” Astra said, returning to the picnic blanket he’d summoned her to moments after her head hit her pillow. “I can see why my father misses it so terribly.”
“I spoke to him this afternoon,” Luxuros said, picking at a blade of grass. “On my way back to Mercury I caught him in the gardens. He said he can only keep our secret for so long, that the truth always has a way of revealing itself.”
“He is, unfortunately, always right.” Astra let her head fall back, enjoying the sensation of the Sun her mind conjured from the memory of the Mercurian streets. He reached for her bouquet, wrapping a long blade of ryegrass around it and tying it off. “We’ll sort us out after we sort out Lunelle and Mirquios and, well, the war, and, I suppose Selenia.”
Luxuros frowned. “Quite the to-do list.”
Astra’s lips parted with a snarky comment, but something at the edge of the meadow caught her eye—a glimmer along the rippling seams of the dream.
“Did you see that?” she asked. Lux followed her line of sight but the shimmer vanished.
“What?”
“There was something strange.” She pushed herself up from the blanket and edged toward the ripple, waiting for it again.
Come on, Fire Queen, we’ve got somewhere to be, a voice whispered quietly. Her eyes snapped to the commander, who didn’t seem to hear the voice. He was still watching the spot in the woods, now on his feet behind her.
Astra hesitated—a push in her spine begged her to move forward.
If you won’t come to me, I’ll have to come to you, the voice said again.
“Who are you?” she asked aloud, drawing a confused stare from Luxuros.
If you don’t come play, you’ll never find out. She stepped forward and then rocked back on her heels, arguing with the strange impulse in her bones to keep moving.
She turned to the commander. “I have to go.”
Luxuros darted forward and reached for her hand, but she was already disappearing into the thicket, compelled by a force she did not understand.
An olive hand reached for hers through the trees, glinting against the Sun, wrapped in a pristine black cuff. She shuddered against the warmth of his touch, so different from the commander’s.
His fingers closed around her wrist and the training she’d spent months on with Lux kicked in. She dropped back on her hip as she felt the commander’s arms wrap around her waist, pulling her from the stranger’s touch.
“Ah, ah, ah, Fire Queen,” the voice said. “We’ll have none of that now.”
He reached out and touched Astra’s forehead, and she was gone.
