House of Eclipses by Casey L. Bond

19

I passed Kevi and her girls huddled together along the side of the ship, framed by crates. The wood boxes provided the separation I knew Kevi appreciated. All of them were fast asleep except for their leader. She tipped her chin as I passed. I let my fingers drift in hello. Kevi’s sharp eyes missed nothing, but something about her had shifted. She was more relaxed than I’d seen her since we met.

She’d kept her bargain and I’d kept mine. Twice. I wouldn’t forget it. She’d earned my trust and I had earned hers.

Citali had taken my seat. She was speaking with Saric and Kiran when I returned to the stern, but severed her words when she caught sight of me.

“We’ll be in Lumina in just over an hour at this pace,” I told them.

She watched me, that shadowy fire ablaze just under her skin. She sucked in a breath and then stood abruptly. “What is wrong with you?”

My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Your eyes,” Kiran interceded.

“Do mine glow like that?” she asked the priests, clearly not trusting me to give her the truth.

“No, Atena Citali,” Saric said softly.

“Why are hers glowing?” she demanded, waving an angry hand toward me.

“You have different parentage,” Kiran offered, slowly standing.

Citali clicked her tongue. “Mothers, yes. But that little trick must have come from the Aten.”

“Then perhaps yours glow as well, but aren’t right now,” I offered, trying to diffuse her rising anger.

The ship rocked and she caught my arm to steady herself, jerking her hand away with a hiss. “You’re scorching hot!”

“No hotter than you, Citali.”

“Noor – you are a living flame. I am nowhere near that hot. I can’t even withstand it.”

Something was happening to me. Something I didn’t understand and couldn’t explain. I looked to Saric, who sagely and gently answered, “The Atena is coming of age.”

“Didn’t this happen to you?” I asked Citali. She was older and had already come of age. Surely the same transformation had been forged in her.

A bitter laugh escaped her as she shook her head. “No. It didn’t.” She ground her teeth, then balled her fists and stormed away.

Saric and Kiran watched her stride away, the eldest offering a kind piece of advice: “Don’t let her ire dim the fire that lives within you.”

“I won’t,” I vowed. A promise I would keep.

My self-worth isn’t dependent upon anyone else’s opinion. Least of all hers.

Kiran adjusted his borrowed, much warmer clothes. Trousers peeked from beneath the priests’ kilts and thick tunics covered their torsos. A wool blanket lay over Saric’s legs. His breathing was labored, and I wondered how he’d been so calm and collected earlier. A rattling sound came from his chest.

I knelt in front of him, holding my hands out for his. His thin, dry fingers slid into my palms. “My hands were once supple.” He smiled sweetly. “Though perhaps not as soft as yours.”

“Are you ill?”

He shook his head. “If our lives are like that of a candle, Noor, my wick and wax still burn, but only barely. Soon, there won’t be anything left for the flame of my life to cling to. But do not worry. I eagerly welcome the hereafter. I wish to see the goddess and fuel her flame.”

Saric was dying and he knew it. He was far away from his home, his brothers, and his temple. Everything he loved lay in Helios, miles and miles behind us now. “I’m sorry to have dragged you here.”

He laughed, then coughed. “Dragged me? I volunteered to see you through the beginning. Remember what I said about that?”

I nodded, tears clogging my throat.

He leaned in and whispered, “Choose wisely. And when I’m gone, I’ll watch you from the hereafter.”

“I hope I don’t let you down.”

He shook his head. “You couldn’t if you tried.” He tapped on his chest, over his heart.

I nodded, understanding what he meant by the gesture.

“I will see you through your beginning, Noor, and I would be honored if you would see me through my end.”

I clung to his hands, a silent promise to do exactly that.

Footsteps came from behind us and I swiveled my head to find Caelum approaching. He stopped. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all, Lumin,” Saric insisted. “Just an old priest talking to his Atena.”

“Favorite Atena,” I teased.

Saric winked. Another cough rattled from his chest and Caelum’s easy smile fell away. “When we reach Lumina, I’ll have someone bring some hot tea with healing herbs,” he promised.

“I would appreciate that very much,” Saric replied, inclining his head. Kiran sat at his side, in the seat Citali had occupied before I arrived.

I turned to Caelum, who rocked back on his heels. “I’d love to introduce you to someone very important to me,” he said.

I stood, then bent to place a kiss on top of Saric’s head. He patted my hand and told me to go with the Lumin, shooing me away. Kiran’s amber eyes followed us as Caelum led me to the ship’s bow. “Who am I to meet?”

“Lumos.”

Ahead of us, the river water wended. As Lumos’s cool white light peeked over the horizon, his brightness pulsating with gray-blue splotches of power, the god of night white-washed his kingdom with the hand of a brilliant painter. Silver highlighted the trees on either side of us, glistening off their dappled leaves. But it was the water that served as Lumos’s mirror. The river turned to glass, mirroring his light as it weaved over the land.

Slowly, he rose.

Caelum did not raise his hands or rush him, but patiently enjoyed the god emerging from the other half of his journey. Then he turned to me, seeming to forget Lumos as he gazed upon me. “Your dress…”

I looked down to see that every moon diamond sparkled, casting pale moonlight onto the ship’s planks all around me.

Caelum raked a hand through his dark hair. His eyes caught Lumos’s light and I realized his eyes weren’t pale blue crystals at all, but held every one of his god’s colors and glinting light within them. If my eyes shone with golden light, his were their pale match.

Suddenly, my heart squeezed. I looked away from him to Lumos again, stretching himself higher. Soon, he would fully emerge from the water and claim his rightful place in the sky.

The river looked like it poured directly from his mouth. Sol pushed us faster, as if she knew we could see him and wanted to see him, too.

Lumos and Sol were once lovers. They’d harshly severed that reverence many years ago and completely removed themselves from one another’s lives, but could enough time have passed to settle their hearts so they could at least be civil now? Did Sol’s heart still ache for him?

I pressed a hand to my chest. A brilliant flash flew from my sun diamonds and pointed directly to Lumos.

Sol, guide me,I begged.

“I would like to see Sol someday,” Caelum admitted.

I smiled at him. “Then I shall introduce you.”

A warm light appeared in the distance near the shore. Then another. And another. I realized the lights came from the flickering flames of candles placed in windows. “Lumina?” I guessed.

Caelum nodded. “This is the home of my people.”

I smelled something distinct on the air and recognized it as the scent I associated with Caelum but couldn’t quite place. “What is that scent?”

He laughed. “The brine? It’s the sea.”

I ticked my head back in surprise. “Lumina is situated on the sea?”

“One of them, yes.”

“I want to see it.”

He winked. “Then I shall introduce you.”

I didn’t tell him that he smelled of salt. I watched for the flames, and more and more appeared just as the stars above had, drawn to the heat and fire and the desire to see the House of the Moon. The temple of Lumos. So many things I’d read about, but never thought I’d see.

The Luminan homes thickened like the trees in a dense forest; they grew taller the closer we sailed to the land’s heart. Tiny flames flickered as far as I could see. How vast was this city? How great was the sea it abutted?

While our kingdom was being scorched, drying and becoming brittle, we huddled together in a city that shrank instead of expanded. Under Lumos and the cooler air and light, the Luminans thrived.

They should just wait us out,I thought bitterly. Once we were all dead and Sol had no one left, she might burn away, too, and Lumos could claim the entire sky.

“Noor, I had an ulterior motive in inquiring about a potential union between us, and I…” he began.

“You mean between you and either me or my sister,” I interrupted.

He shook his head. “I inquired about you. Your father was the one who insisted on presenting you both.”

Surprise nestled in my chest. “Why me?”

“That’s a longer story, and one for another time,” he evaded.

I narrowed my eyes shrewdly. “What is your motive?”

“My kingdom needs help. I need your help.”

I gestured to the flickering lights, to the angular homes stretching as far as I could see. “How could I possibly help you? Lumina is—”

“Bound for the same fate as Helios if nothing changes. Lumina’s decline may be slower, but it’s dying, Noor. The earth demands a balance. She needs both Sol and Lumos. She needs to rest and cool, but her plants need light and warmth. She needs rain and storms and seasons. I believe our existence, and the future of Helios, depends on whether you and I can convince our gods to form a truce.”

“What makes you think they would hear us out? What makes you think they would deem us worthy enough to save?”

I looked over his kingdom as the wind from Sol eased and the sail went flat. The riverfarer used the wheel to guide the ship to the left where in the darkness, an enormous structure emerged. “We’re home,” Caelum said, sounding tired. “We should eat and sleep and talk more about this once we’re rested and thinking more clearly.”

But I wasn’t finished with this gut-punching, eye-opening conversation. “Am I to assume that all the interactions we’ve had thus far were you pretending to be enamored just to get me here?” I asked.

His brow furrowed. “I’ve only ever been honest with you, Noor,” he echoed my words.

“And would you say the same to Citali?”

“Your father wouldn’t agree to let you travel here without her being with you. I tried to be fair to her while in the dusk lands, but in doing so, I’m afraid I’ve given her false hope. I’ll set things right and make it clear to her that I don’t harbor romantic feelings for her first thing tomorrow.”

Citali wouldn’t be deterred regardless of what he told her. She would stay and seek the crown. And if Caelum removed himself as her potential future husband, she would latch herself to Beron like a leech to bare skin.

“I’m sorry if I handled this poorly. It was the only way…” He looked truly stricken. “I’ll explain everything, I swear. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I agreed.

The ship slowly edged toward the dock, and when it was close, a few guard members bounded off the ship’s deck and began tying the mooring lines to keep her from drifting. Caelum offered me his arm. “Allow me to welcome you, Noor, to the House of the Moon. I sincerely hope that you will make yourself at home here.”

Temporarily, I could.

The phoenix in my stomach stirred and I envisioned her escaping my throat and mouth and flying through this darkened sky to see Lumos and the stars more closely, reveling in the feeling of Luminans watching her aerial dance.

Caelum and I walked to the side of the ship where a short ramp was extended to the dock. I looked at the churning water beneath us and noticed a shift in the color. “This is an estuary. The river empties into the sea, just there,” he explained, pointing his finger downriver. “Fresh water and sea water mix here.”

A bright blue streak filled the water, then dissipated again.

I thought I imagined it, until another appeared. Caelum smiled. “Algae. It produces its own light. We have many stubborn forms of life in Lumina that refused to die when Sol left our skies. They learned to produce the light they needed.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He nodded. “It is. Sometimes, the entire tide line flares blue. Sometimes the sea carries in creatures called jellyfish that glow like this, great swarms of them. You can’t touch them, though. Their sting can be deadly to humans.”

“Jellyfish and nightthorn berries. What else is deadly here? I’m at a marked disadvantage.”

He smiled. “I’ll warn you if you encounter anything dangerous.”

“You can’t be with me all the time.” Besides, it wasn’t him I was worried about. Beron might stick something venomous in my bedsheets just to get rid of me at this point, or give one to Citali so she could…

Caelum escorted me to the bottom steps of the House of the Moon. I thought the House of Dusk was impressive with its seven floors, but Caelum’s home had ten. I craned my neck to see them all, counting them a second time to be sure.

Caelum brushed the side of my hand with a finger. “Before I left, I arranged for you to have a private suite on the top floor, with a balcony that will provide privacy and plenty of moonlight,” he said pointedly.

The book in my pocket suddenly felt heavier. “Thank you.”

I wouldn’t be able to rest or relax until I spent time reading it.

“Your suite is next to mine.”

I nodded once. That was fine.

He cleared his throat. “Per Luminan custom, the proximity of our rooms will send a message.”

“What sort of message?”

“The sort that says we are engaged to be married.”

I scoffed. “You’re quite detailed with the pretenses you’ve woven.”

“Noor, I know my admission might lead you to think that my suggestion of a union was a false ploy, but it wasn’t. I sincerely think it is in the best interest of both our kingdoms.”

I quirked a brow. “Was that supposed to be your idea of a marriage proposal?”

“I know you need time to consider it,” he defended, looking almost hurt.

“This is absurd. We barely know each other!” Add to that the fact that things might change very quickly depending on a number of factors, beginning with the contents of the mysterious book I hoped Lumos could help me read, and ending with the safety of his mother and Lumos’s priests.

“You’re right. We barely know each other. Yet it doesn’t feel that way, does it?” he asked, gently taking hold of my upper arms, his eyes searching mine. “Tell me it’s not just me.”

It wasn’t, but I couldn’t allow the words past my lips.

Those who disembarked from the ship made their way toward us as two guards rushed around us to open a pair of enormous, ornately carved double doors, waiting until we walked inside. It was darker inside than it was out in Lumos’s light. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness. I barely got a look at the columns and arches, the shining white floors and artful walls before a locust-like swarm of people surrounded us, all smiling and welcoming Caelum home.

They used his name, not his title. They were young and old, pale-skinned like him and Beron. Like Vada. I wondered where she was and how long she’d be on board. When she reached Helios, would someone greet her the way she’d greeted me at the ship? Would my people make her feel equally as welcome? Would she be able to keep herself safe?

Caelum smiled at me when a heavy-set woman grinned cheekily and asked who I might be. “Someone very special,” he answered cryptically. That suggestive comment drew everyone’s attention. Their gazes crawled over me and comments flew from all around.

“She’s Helioan! Look at her beautiful brown skin.”

“She looks like a princess!”

“Like Lumos cast her from the sky just for Caelum.”

“A wedding!” someone said, punctuating their swoon with a dreamy noise.

Sensing my unease, Caelum interceded. “Atena Noor and I are very tired from our journey. I’d like to see her to her room so she can rest.”

The crowd playfully pouted but slowly dispersed, everyone returning to the tasks we’d interrupted with our arrival. Caelum gestured to a wide staircase, but just before reaching the bottom step I remembered my priest friend and his terrible cough, the way he struggled to walk and labored to breathe even as he sat.

“Saric will not be able to climb far. Would you send him the tea and herbs as soon as possible?”

Caelum caught the attention of a woman passing us on the steps and asked her to personally find Sol’s priests. He explained that the eldest had a cough and would appreciate some herbs to ease the tightness in his chest, then asked that Saric and Kiran be placed in a first-floor room.

The woman curtseyed. “I’ll see to it, Caelum.”

She rushed across the floor and guilt swarmed me. I paused and pivoted to run after her. “I should go see about him.”

“Saric will be well cared for, Noor. I promise. He actually pulled me aside on board and insisted that I take you to the moon as soon as the ship docked.”

Of course he did. “Then I’ll go to him after.”

Caelum nodded. “He’ll be settled in by then. He needs a warm bed and some rest more than anything.”

“Warm?”

“His room will have a hearth.”

“Thank you, Caelum. He… he means a lot to me. More than most know.”

He glanced at me questioningly, but I didn’t elaborate. The heft of the book in my pocket seemed even heavier with every step I ascended.

The tenth-floor landing was paved with the same shining tile that ran along all the floors in the House of the Moon, reflecting Lumos’s pale light throughout the interior. There were only two doors on this floor, one to the left and one to the right. He gestured to the one on the right. “This is my suite.”

He opened the opposite door and waved me inside.

There was an ornate silver and marble table at the entry, but the space opened to reveal an enormous bath and basin area to the left, all built from the same glassy tile. There were no doors, walls, or separations, only a spacious room sectioned into discrete areas for bathing, sleep, and work. The balcony spanned the length of the space on three sides. Pale curtains, not unlike those in my rooms at home, fluttered on the cool breeze that wafted and swirled throughout the space.

The bed, draped in cool, silvery blue silk, was large enough to sleep ten. It sat alone on the farthest outer wall. An armoire in a matching pale wood had been placed nearby, large enough to hold the clothes of the ten who could fit into the bed.

To our right were tall shelves filled with books, along with a matching desk with quill, parchment, and ink already set out on its smooth surface.

“Is it to your liking?” Caelum asked.

My brows shot up. “It’s beautiful.” It was beautiful and perfect and so much more than both of those combined.

His shoulders relaxed just before a commotion came from the landing. “Your trunks,” he explained, waving in those toting the trio of heavy boxes.

While Caelum instructed the placement of the trunks near the armoire, I drifted toward the balcony. Outside, Lumos had risen higher into the sky. It felt like we were at eye-level, staring at one another. Each curious and cautious about the other. The striations of his darker and lighter features were easier to see now, as were his scars.

What happened to you that you have so many?

Footsteps came from behind. I turned to the side, keeping Lumos in view as I looked up at Caelum. He hooked his thumb back toward my room. “I’ll give you some space, but I’ll be next door if you need me.”

“Thank you, Caelum,” I told him. “For everything.”

He and I needed to talk, and we would, but not yet.

I needed to see what was so important in this book that it had to be hidden away. What was so important that Father kept it on his person when he could’ve left it in Helios or left it in his rooms in the dusk lands. I needed to know what was important enough in it for me to steal, risking his wrath and the lives of everyone who’d helped me.

The Lumin’s hand ghosted down my arm. Goosebumps rose in the wake of his touch.

My phoenix’s wing extended toward him, brushing the inside of my stomach as Caelum walked away.

When I heard the door to my suite close, I took a seat on the edge of a plush, padded chaise and eased the book from my pocket, the weight now filling my hands and pressing upon my shoulders.