She climbed the last hill of pebbles and sand and dropped over the top, carefully tiptoeing her way to the riverbank. The water swirled, black as ink, as it rushed through the Court Below. It was wider than she could see across, rippling and winding through the lifeless hills like a serpent.
The moment her feet hit the shore, she felt them.
All of them.
Thousands. Millions, more likely, slipping by every second on an endless journey out to some sea somewhere, folded between foamy rivulets. Some heavy, some angry, some bitter.
Some all three.
Others were excited about the possibilities of wherever they were going. Her eyes stung with the welling of emotions. She closed them, trying to focus.
She found the space inside of her, that peaceful hot spring brimming with color and life ready to pour into. She channeled the water, letting it flow through her fingertips and pushing the misery and fear and awe into it, giving a void to fill.
She could breathe.
She could concentrate.
She moved forward, edging closer and closer to the muddy waterline, the leather of her boots sliding along the pebbles as they dissolved into sand.
How exactly did one pluck an individual soul from a river of millions?
She reached out her hand, fingers trembling as her skin broke the water’s surface. Much colder than she was ready for, it sent a shock through her arm and down her spine. The souls slipped around her skin, sparkling against her, gripping her hand, begging her to pull them out. They clamored like fish to a lure, shimmery shadows hoping to hitch a ride back to the Living Courts.
She drew her hand back as if she’d been bitten.
The necklace. She shook her head, clearing it of the quiet hissing pleas running under the current.
Save me, pick me, release me.
She reached around her neck and searched for the cold chain, pulling it from the depths of her vest. Even the glint of the moonstones were dull in the Court Below as if no light reflected in their facets at all. For the first time, she felt a true chill of fear run down her arms, the danger of what she was trying to accomplish unsettling her stomach.
“Leona Aurellis,” she called out, holding the necklace above the waters. “Come claim what was taken from you!”
She didn’t know what she expected to happen, but the silence that followed wasn’t it.
“Please?” she asked, feeling as stupid as she sounded.
But then, midway across the babbling waters, she saw it. She saw her.
Rising from the depths, her wild hair fell into shadowy ribbons as she materialized on the beach. Leona’s faded face stared through Astra as she glided along the shoreline.
“Who calls me?”
The voice was not alone. It echoed against all the other tenors beneath her, stringing them into one dissonant chord.
“You don’t recognize your own namesake?”
Something about Leona’s barely-there countenance sank, twisted in on itself.
“Astra,” she murmured, her voice softer, calmer.
“Sorry to bother you,” she managed, dangling the necklace in front of her. Her fingertips wrapped weakly around the gold, trembling.
The shadow slinked closer to Astra, her feet never leaving the surface of the water. “I see you’ve been conspiring with my mother.”
“Would you like it back?”
“No,” she said, bowing her head. “Keep it. Whatever she traded you for must be worth the trip here.”
