They both turned to Astra, her face as red as her hair, surely. “Again, bigger things to talk about right now?—”
Lunelle forged ahead. “All that stress, all that heartache, all the worry that my little sister must sacrifice her happiness for me was for nothing?” She turned to Arcas, focusing her anger on him.
Arcas pointed to himself. “Oh, we’re mad at me again?”
“I think we’re just confused.” Astra tried to smooth things over. “It’s been a hard few months and we don’t exactly know who to trust right now.”
Lunelle frowned, her shoulders dropping. “It really has. Gods, Astra. I wish you had told me how dire this was for you, too. I put too much pressure on you!”
“No, no, Lu. You’ve taken the brunt of the responsibility your whole life. I was happy to do this for you! I swear it?—”
“As?” Lux stepped into the space between them.
Astra clicked her tongue, still not done making her point. “Yes, Luxuros, what is it?”
“We’ve got about half an hour before the gate closes. Do you think you and your sister can hash this out when we’re not at risk of getting sealed into the Court Below for three months?”
Lunelle sprang into action. “Mirquios is hurt. We need to get him back, but there’s no way he should walk on that leg.”
“I can help,” Arcas said. “Least I can do, I suppose.”
Astra’s brows furrowed as she watched Arcas’s thin limbs reach for Mirquios. She turned to Lux.
“I got him,” he said, pushing past the Plutonian prince. “You good to get what you came for?”
Astra nodded. “Just get him back safely.”
“Wait for us at the gate,” Lunelle said.
“Lunelle, no. Go with Mirq,” she sighed. “I can do this!”
Lunelle placed a quick kiss on the king’s cheek.
“Not a chance, As. We’re doing this together.”
I’ll see you on the other side, Sol’ah, Lux beamed as he dragged Mirquios away, Arcas doing his best to help.
Astra turned to her sister, her eyes sparkling even in the blunted light of the Court Below.
“Let’s do this.”
Astra fished the locket out of her vest, the chain cool against her hand as they stood in a clearing a few hundred paces away.
It felt like the right place to be, and summoning a Shadow couldn’t be all that different from summoning a Soul, could it?
“Selenia Aurellis,” Astra said, her voice shaking. She held the locket in one hand and Lunelle’s in the other. “We’ve come to return you to your rightful place.”
She closed her eyes, listening for anything in the dead silence. A black flash whipped through sticks and trees, racing across the clearing, sending her a step back as she recoiled.
Lunelle watched it race by, circling the meadow. “Steady, As. Selenia,” Lunelle announced, directing her energy at the shadow that edged back into the forest. “We’ve come to claim you!”
Astra held out the locket again, bracing herself for impact when she ran through again. She felt her Shadow before she saw it this time, the temperature dropping ahead of her arrival, blasting through the treeline. She held the locket high, drawing her in, picturing the Shadow slipping into the silver locket in her mind before she charged again.
Lunelle closed her eyes, too, afraid to watch as Selenia darted toward them. The Shadow hit Astra’s hand full force. Her arm screamed at the pain, but when she opened her eyes, the locket swung mid-air, closed shut, freezing over in icy condensation.
“Did... did we do it?” Lunelle’s jaw clenched in the silence of the forest.
“I think so?” Astra fastened the locket around her neck, the metal like a block of ice against her skin.
