“Says who, Os?”
“Everyone! Mother. The priestesses. Father said touching a Solarian is like touching fire and expecting it not to burn.”
Leona twisted and jerked her wrist from her sister’s hands, a lightness to her smile that confused Oestera.
“You know, you could use a little heat, Oestera.” She jostled the bag to make more room. She must have been planning on leaving for a while. “Gaze upon me, sister, and tell me—am I scarred? Is my flesh melted? Because Solan had me pinned up against a wall six hours ago and I can tell you, the burn, indeed, lingers, but it does not kill.”
Oestera’s jaw dropped as Leona swept from the room, her slippers tapping down the hallway. Oestera sank into her bed, squeezing her eyes shut—her mind could not wrap around the possibilities.
The lies.
“Once we knew they could touch with no consequence… well, not no consequences, of course, but not instant death, we had to learn more.” Oestera’s tone shifted as her eyes fell on the Elvish queen beside her. “That’s how Ehlaria and I became friends. I offered her one of the golden trinkets Solan sent Leona and forced her to tell me everything she knew.”
She squeezed Astra’s hands again, transporting them just across the Midwood to Ehlaria’s drawing room forty years prior.
“You do realize that if your mother catches you with these texts, she’ll have both of our heads, yes?”
An eternally ageless Ehlaria plopped onto a sofa across from Oestera’s tired eyes, half-moons worn into her skin, despite her youth.
“Add it to the list of things my mother wants my head for,” Oestera mumbled as she flipped through another worn book. “Is this accurate? The Solar and Lunar Courts were not originally part of the system?”
Ehlaria reached for the book, checking the title inscribed along the spine.
“It’s true. They did not exist until I was well into my five or six-hundredth cycle. It’s hard to remember.” She raised a teacup to her lips, lost in the memories of a lifetime of lore.
“The gods did not interact with the Living Courts for millennia. They pulled their strings like puppeteers, but they were never to take advantage. It was an unspoken rule. But Silas, the first Solar God, fell in love with one of his devotees. She was a Solar Witch, a worshipper of his who used the power of light to practice magic, and their love child inherited both his capabilities and her magic. He could wield both.
“Silas was consumed with the idea of creating an army of these halflings and spent centuries procreating with as many of his Solar Witches as he could. As they started their own families, the powers carried through their bloodlines without his interference.”
Ehlaria rose, searching for another volume in the oak shelves along her drawing room wall. She pulled a black velvet book, one Astra’s hands knew the weight of well.
“Rowena, the first Lunar Goddess, caught on to what he was doing eventually.” Ehlaria set the book on Mother’s stack. “She was jealous, naturally, but did not have the same ability to spread her bloodline, of course. So she made a deal with the Nether Queen.”
“Luciela?” Oestera’s bright eyes scanned through her texts. She held up a thin manual. “The Gods’ Guide to Shadow Bargaining?”
Ehlaria nodded. “She told Luciela that if she gave her the Shadows of Descended Solar demigods, she would raise up an army of Shadow Goddesses to defeat Silas and take both thrones in the Court Above. Once she wielded both powers as the Divine Queen, she’d free Luciela from her bonds to the Nether and elevate her to the Court Above.”
“Why would Luciela give up power over all the Nether?”
“Luciela never wanted to be the Court Below’s mistress. She was sent there for rejecting a Tether with Silas. It’s a long story—one for another time. What matters is that Rowena made a deal with Luciela. But there was a problem. The Shadows of the Solar Gods were given to Rowena’s worshippers hoping they’d inherit the powers left behind.
“And they did. Sort of. The Shadow Goddesses were immensely powerful, but they were only half of a whole. The Shadows cried out for their Souls, searching for them, yearning to be reunited. They’d find each other, form Tethers, and then become twice as powerful as they were intended to be. Rowena was never able to overtake Silas’s armies because they kept falling in love.”
Oestera scoffed. “Sounds tedious.”
Ehlaria eyed her, a smirk forming on her lips. “Your time will come too, Rebel Queen, and it will knock you so far back onto your ass you’ll regret every snide comment you made to your sister.”
Her cheeks reddened. It was then Astra noticed the ring on her finger, a ruby. “The Martian Prince does not seem like the Tethering type,” Oestera said.
“No,” Ehlaria laughed. “He doesn’t, does he?”
“I can’t focus on that today, Ehlaria.”
“The Light and Shadow gods became an issue. They realized they were powerful—and numerous—enough to confront the Court Above and overthrow them. They were sick of their Fates being up to passive leaders who only cared to involve themselves when their power was at stake. Fearing them, the Court Above came up with a plan.
“To make them believe they were getting their fair share, they offered them their own courts. They divided them into the Lunar and Solar Courts Between—not quite Ascended, not quite human. They gave the Solar Court stewardship over all things logic and math, science, and agriculture, as well as time. They gave the Lunar Court the mystique—intuition, emotion, magic, and spirituality. They crowned a Solar King and Lunar Queen and then they got to work.
“The gods sowed hatred and bias between the royal families, ensuring that no new children would Tether to their better halves, hamstringing their powers. For good measure, they cut the courts off from one another, too.
