“A few years ago, the High Priestess in Ellume heard rumors of Rebels building again. I had to act like the queen I never wanted to be and stamp out their efforts. Lumas and his crew were warned beforehand. I heard a rumor that there were similar rebellions building in the Inner Courts, like Mercury.
“I knew if I could just get Mirquios here… Antares followed a similar plan, raising his son to rebel against him the moment he was gone. The young king couldn’t tell you about the rebels outright, but I hoped he would involve you eventually. This new generation, they’re better about security than we were. Luxuros can confirm, I’m sure, that the price of entry is a similar blood oath. Not only can you never reveal another Rebel to someone outside of the bond, but you can’t even reveal them within the bond. They have to reveal themselves.”
“You tried to tell me,” Astra turned to Lux. “So many times. You tried to tell me that I was wrong about my mother.”
“No easy feat.” He smirked. “I wasn’t certain. We had our suspicions, but the original Nova Rebels members were mere rumors. No proof, and I couldn’t outright accuse your mother because of the oath.”
“So... my entire life has been a lie,” Astra murmured, her mother’s eyes watching her carefully.
“A good deal of it, yes. And I imagine that will be difficult for all of us to navigate, but especially you. I love you. I always have. You are the great hope of our family, and if there had been another way…”
Astra shoved the bubbling violet overwhelm in her gut back down in a desperate attempt to process. She twisted in her seat to Lunelle.
“How much did you know?”
“Very little.”
Oestera chimed in, “We only told her what we could, when we could. I cherished my sister so much, we hoped to keep things between you girls as pure as possible.”
Astra’s nose scrunched. “Why don’t you have the same abilities? Or Lunelle?”
“We Tethered to mere men.” Oestera’s lips pressed into a smile. “The alchemy has to be between a Light and a Shadow God. Otherwise, we all have our little tricks, but nothing quite at the scale of you two.”
“Mother,” Lunelle whispered, leaning over the table. “How long did you know about Mirquios?”
“Please,” Oestera laughed. “I was with you in Pluto for months. It was hard to watch. Though, from what your father tells me, not nearly as hard to watch as you two. How did you manage it, Luxuros?”
“Not well,” he replied. “Ehlaria helped.”
Oestera snapped her attention toward her friend, Astra realized, not just a tolerant ally. She suppressed a giggle.
“I gave him an enchanted moonstone to suppress his light and ground his feelings. I had nothing to do with the Tether in all actuality. They weren’t quite ready for it when he came to me, and I knew that. Tethers aren’t always instant. The Fire Queen needed to come into herself a little more. And you needed to loosen up, Commander.”
Astra shook her head. “Why did it happen when I broke it, then?”
Ehlaria shrugged. “He fell in love with you the second you saw what he considered to be the worst part of himself, what you should have hated about him, and accepted it with no hesitation?—”
“There was a healthy amount of hesitation,” Lux quipped.
“And you fell in love with him the moment he challenged you. Forced you to slow down, stop, and think about what you were doing. You’ve been Tethered in some ways your entire lives, but until you gave up your stubborn denial, it wasn’t able to break through. When you broke the amulet, I think seeing the commander’s inner world was the final wall that needed to come down between you two. The amulet certainly numbs the pain and probably saved it tonight when Selenia attacked you, but you cannot fight Fate, Astra.”
Lux leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to the back of Astra’s hand.
“Perhaps you can fill us in on the rest of the story, then,” Ehlaria gestured toward them. “You figured out the Shadow Bargaining? And took on the Court Below... we need to know what happened down there.”
Astra took a long sip of tea, her head spinning as she tried to reframe thirty years of personal grudges in this new light. She took a deep breath.
“My turn for some confessions, then.”
Chapter
Forty-Eight
“Ameera and I realized that if Luxuros could get into the Lunar Gate, the Rift was no longer warded against Solarians.”
Astra sipped her tea one more time and rounded her shoulders, every eye in the room hanging on her words.
“We started poking around and that led us to Ellume. We broke into Ivonne’s office and learned she was researching Shadow Bargaining—she had that same manual you got from Ehlaria. She knew something wasn’t right with Selenia—with the Rift—but she wouldn’t admit it to me. Her notes all but accused you, Mother, of covering her tracks. We thought perhaps you were in on whatever deal she made with Luciela.”
