At once, Astra understood. She was being a queen.
Astra nodded, the fear in her sister’s voice enough to stop her arguing. She shoved the flash of the coronation robes to the back of her mind.
“I promise.”
Lunelle slipped back into Mirquios’s waiting arms, one last embrace before they plunged into whatever faced them at the foot of the dunes.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” he said to Luxuros, clapping him on the shoulder. Mirq gave Astra one more look, one last moment of silence before they turned and stared down the steep slope of the gray dune before them, stretching into oblivion.
He laughed, “You ready to burn it down, Fire Queen?”
Astra lifted an eyebrow and smirked.
“How long have you been waiting to say that?”
The king shook his head and in two long strides, he was over the edge of the dune, his powerful legs carrying him down into the mire. A blur of leather and might, Lunelle’s silver hair was a streak of starlight behind him.
“Well, shit, I guess we’re off then,” Astra muttered to Lux.
“You have the locket?” he asked.
She touched her neck, chains intertwining together. “Yep.”
“Blade?”
“Three,” she smirked. She pointed to the tight spiral of curls at the nape of her neck, held with a golden crescent Moon.
Lux’s eyes swelled with an odd mix of fear and pride as he watched her adjust the pin.
“Just say it, Commander.”
“Say what?”
“That under all that fear and loathing, there’s a small part of you that actually believes we can do this.” A slow grin cracked across his worried face, that silver-speckled rosy hue spreading through his veins.
He held up his fingers, a minuscule slip of space between them.
“A very small part of me.”
“I’ll take it.” She crashed into him, stealing one final kiss before they went their separate ways. “Go get that Shadow, Commander. You’re not as handsome without it.”
“Don’t fuck it up, Fire Queen,” he whispered, his lips twisting into a smile against her. If she stayed a moment longer, she’d never find the courage to leave him.
She pushed her legs forward, stumbling over the crest of the dune and urging her ankles to steady as she skidded down the soft silt to the bottom. She refused to look back over her shoulder, trusting the tension in her gut to be enough of an assurance that he was still safe.
As her feet hit the desolate plane at the base of the dune, she spun to get her bearings. If the map Ameera sketched last night was accurate, the River of Souls was directly to the West of the tangled forest they’d need to pull their Shadows from. She jogged across the cracked ground, her lungs filling with plumes of dust.
Pace herself. That’s what Lux had drilled into her head all night. If she exhausted herself just getting to Leona, she’d never make it out of any altercation that may pop up.
She carved a path through a colorless valley, gray stone rising over her head in two fearful towers, blocking what little light broke through the clouded sky. Everything was silent save for a whistling breeze cutting through the canyon walls, bouncing from side to side, and peeling the strands of hair escaping from her bun off her neck.
It took her an eternity to break through the canyon. The cracks of the dirt ground gave way to a pebble beach, each charcoal shard crunching beneath her leather boots as she skirted behind a line of bleached flora along the shore.
The whisper of hushed waters slipping along the bank tickled her ears long before it came into view. Under the rushing of the water ran a low hum, like walking into a ballroom before the music started, the gossip rising above the heads of the guests.
Voices, she realized.
Souls.
