House of Eclipses by Casey L. Bond

27

Before the celebration was over and while we could slip out together, people assuming we coveted privacy, Caelum and I made plans to abscond to our secluded spot on the beach, where we would spend the dark hours together. Where I would be far enough from the House of the Moon to ensure my secret and make sure those who lived in and near Lumina were safe.

Every moment this evening felt like it might be our last, and I couldn’t help but again feel like we were a living reflection of Sol and Lumos, separated, yet almost close enough to touch. Stuck in a perpetual cycle of longing for something we could never have.

We made our way out of the crowd, pressing toward the doors that would free us. “Will you find Kiran? I need him with me,” I told Caelum, pressing my lips to his once more. I couldn’t stop kissing him. Couldn’t get enough of his touch, the feel of his hand in mine, on the small of my back, brushing my cheek and jaw, pushing strands of hair from my face.

Time felt urgent. And that harried energy frenetically sizzling beneath my skin intensified with every passing second.

“Of course. Should we meet you at your room, or on the beach?”

“I just have to run and get a few things. I’ll meet you on the beach.”

He hesitated. “Should I send Beron with you?”

I shook my head. “He’s busy watching Citali like he knows she’s up to something.”

“Is she?”

Sighing, I replied, “Yes. I just don’t know what.” I spotted Kevi in the crowd. “I just need a few moments,” I promised.

He kissed me again and nodded, then located Kiran in the crowd and carved a path toward the priest of Sol, who appeared as a startling burst of warmth – ruddy flesh, gold kilt, and gilded cuff – against the mass of silver, blue, and paleness.

“Kevi!” I called out, tugging off my aureole. A few strands of my hair tangled in the spires.

She pulled me in for a hug with a wide smile. “Oh, to be seventeen again…”

“I want you to have this,” I said, holding my headdress out to her.

She coughed a laugh. “Atena, I cannot accept this. Someone will assume I stole it and have my head!”

I insisted. “I’ll make sure Caelum and Beron know it was freely given.”

“It’s too much,” she argued, shaking her head, refusing to touch it at all.

“I promised I would see that you and your girls are taken care of.”

Kevi quirked a perfectly arched brow. “Caelum is doing exactly that, and without using the sacred Atena’s aureole as collateral. He’s a good man, Atena Noor. A rare jewel, indeed.” She pushed my hand away. “Perhaps one day you will have a daughter. Save this for her. Please.”

“If you refuse, I’ll have no choice but to leave my other gold jewelry in my armoire with a note that says you and your girls are to inherit it.”

“Inherit?” she asked. “Are you unwell, Atena?”

I froze. “I’m leaving.”

A fire lit in her eyes. “Are you going after him?”

I nodded once.

A devilish smile spread over her lips. Kevi leaned in and spoke against my ear. “Make him pay for every bruise and every drop of blood spilled. Then collect our debts as well.”

I nodded, a promise in my eyes that I would do exactly that. “I have to go.”

She hugged me again. “I believe in you, Noor.”

I rushed to my room and unlocked the door. Hurrying to the desk, I lit the candle and scrawled a note to leave with my jewelry like I’d promised Kevi. Then, I slid my sandals off, tucked my aureole into one of my trunks, and removed the box from my pocket.

I changed into a gauzy dress that was a pale mixture of blue and green, slid Caelum’s cuff into the pocket, and took a deep breath to steady myself. I had to hurry. But was everything ready? I only needed Mother’s book…

I’d just raised a hand toward the secret compartment when Citali pushed the door open. She crossed her arms and leaned against the facing. “Why did you try to give that harlot your aureole?”

She’d been watching.

“Stop making assumptions, Citali. It makes you look like a fool. I took it off because it was heavy. I asked her to take it back to my room.”

She shook her head, her dark eyes flaring. “You are a liar. I heard you, Noor. Did you find it?” she pressed. “Are you going to take it to Father, or do you plan to claim this kingdom as your own?”

“Forget the crown of moonlight, Citali.”

“Give. It. To. Me. Noor.” She stepped inside, a dark flame in her eyes.

“I know you don’t understand, but I have to have the crown, Noor.”

“For what? Do you actually think Father will keep whatever promise he made you? If he has something you love, he will never set it or you free. You know that. You cannot give it to him.”

“What will you use it for, then?” she asked.

She moved closer and I looked her over, not finding any weapons. “I don’t have the damned crown, but rest assured that I would never have given it to Father!” I snapped. “I would have used it to destroy him. I would have moved the moon to forever block the sun if it meant he suffered.”

She growled in response. “I wouldn’t see it in his hands either, but I would pry from his clutches the thing I love most in this forsaken, wasted world.”

“What’s that? What do you love more than yourself, Citali?”

She seethed, but kept her secret, if she even had one.

“If you attempt to harm me again, I will take you from this world, and from whatever it is that is so important that you would try to take my life, take Caelum’s crown and kingdom when you know… you know his heart and that Lumina was meant to be his.”

Just then, Beron’s large shape loomed in the space behind her. He jutted his chin at me in hello. “They’re waiting for you on the beach. My brother gets antsy when he has to wait too long.”

“Who is waiting? Who’s with Caelum?” Citali demanded. “Tell me what’s going on, Noor.”

“Beron?” I said, ignoring her.

“Yes, Noor?” He left my former title behind just as his brother had downstairs, but couldn’t disguise the grin I heard in his voice. He loved needling my sister.

“He’s presenting you to Lumos, isn’t he?” Citali whispered. “Isn’t he?” she shouted.

I didn’t have time for Citali’s speculation or hysterics, nor did I have time for her envy or anger. My energy was building to a boil. I needed to get out of here. Fast.

My hands began to glow as I reached for the secret door built into the wall, sliding Mother’s book from the shadows and tucking it into my pocket.

I took slow, deep breaths, willing the fire to settle. The light leeched from my skin and melted back into my middle.

“I’m going to need you to restrain my sister until Caelum or I instruct you to set her free.”

A rumbling mixture of laughter and a growl tore from his chest. “With pleasure.”

Citali scrambled into my room. “Don’t lay a finger on me, mutt!” she seethed.

I slid out of the room and locked them inside. Citali would not shake Beron this time. He was far too keen on her tricks now.

Caelum and Kiran stood on the beach. Caelum’s shoulders relaxed when he saw me walking toward them. Lumos’s wind was cold and urgent. It pushed at my back, urging me away from the House of the Moon, toward his Lumin.

I hurried down the steps and made my way to them, pushing through the powdery, soft sand. Caelum’s ancestors winked overhead, each one watching us closely. I could almost feel their concern… and their hope.

A strange, warm hum began to resonate throughout my bones. The ocean roared. Angry waves rushed relentlessly toward our feet. “Citali was asking about you when I found Kiran among the crowd. Beron is watching her closely.”

I glanced at him. “She found me, but she won’t be a problem.”

“Why?” he asked carefully.

I smirked. “She’s a little tied up at the moment. Courtesy of Beron.”

Kiran and Caelum laughed.

I tried to join in, but – couldn’t. I planted my feet in the sand, panicking. Choking. I clawed at my throat until Caelum’s arms clamped on mine. I shoved him away, frightened because even though I stood on his beach, I could smell the dunes of my homeland. Waves of heat rushed over me. Caelum reached out to me again and a wall of heat pushed him backward. He crashed into the sand, but quickly sprang up again.

Kiran planted himself between me and the Lumin. “Let me help her. I can withstand the heat, Lumin. I swear I won’t harm her.” Kiran approached, singing loudly to Sol, his voice seeking to comfort me.

The choking sensation worsened until whatever was filling me finally demanded to be unleashed. I opened my mouth and spilled a ribbon of light – warm, beautiful light – into the sky.

In my periphery was the House of the Moon. I’m too close! A tear leaked from my eye. Anyone could see me out here, a beacon in the dark.

“She’s too close to the House,” Kiran said. “We need to move her away. Quickly!” With a steely arm around my back, the priest swept my feet out from under me and began to run.

“Beron!” Caelum cupped his hands and shouted through them.

Over the wind and waves, I thought there was no way his brother could hear him. But I was wrong. Moments later, I heard the pounding of paws on sand.

I closed my eyes, listening. I could hear every grain flying through the air, only to hit the earth again. I could hear Beron’s claws digging in to propel him, hear the flexion of his muscled haunches, the way his ears rose to find us in the dark.

“Kiran, can you hold her steady on his back?” Caelum asked.

I was deposited on something warm and soft. Beron’s back supported my weight and Kiran’s. The priest wrapped one arm around me and clung to Beron’s fur with the other. I reached out for Caelum. I needed to feel his frost. I needed him.

“Go!” Caelum shouted.

I started to scrabble at Kiran’s arm, my eyes wide in panic, when my friend soothed, “We’re just getting you to a secluded spot, Noor. Please calm down. All will be well soon.”

I didn’t think priests were supposed to lie.

Tears streamed down my face. I didn’t want to leave Caelum, but as Beron raced down the shoreline, the light vanished in a flash and the tension in my throat eased. I gasped for air, trying vainly to suck it in, and coughed until I was sure my lungs would collapse.

“We’re almost there, Noor,” Kiran said, trying to calm me.

I boiled and churned, feeling the urge to scream as he whispered prayers to Sol. The words were steady and rhythmic, settling over me like a warm blanket. I began to feel calmer, like the worst of the transition had come and gone and I’d survived it.

Then, the fingers that were fisted in Beron’s dark fur emitted a golden light, the same light that began in my rooms when I was arguing with Citali. It raced up my forearms, to my shoulders, up my throat and down my chest, back, hips, and legs. Even my toes warmed. My face filled with light, reflecting off the churning seawater like a sun rising in the darkness.

“Beron, stop!” Kiran yelled.

Beron dug his paws into the sand and ground to a halt, grains spraying all around us. We were at the place where Caelum had given himself to me, and I to him. We waited for many agonizing minutes for Caelum to catch up and when he appeared in the night, his crown glowed on the skin of his forehead; pale blue, gray, and white all mixing in that intoxicating beauty only Lumos possessed. Beron, still in wolf form, bent and kneeled before his brother when he drew near. A whimper emerged from the great beast.

It wasn’t from physical pain. Beron wasn’t hurt. This was something deeper. Something far more emotional.

Caelum’s steady hands lifted me from his brother’s back and held me, watching my face with an awed expression. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” I breathed, holding my arm out to see it better.

Kiran slid off Beron’s back, inclining his head to Caelum respectfully.

Beron shifted from Wolven to brother in an instant and I saw tears glistening in his eyes. “I didn’t expect to see the crown, or the sun, within my lifetime,” he said, emotions washing over him. “To see both at once is… I’m honored.”

And overwhelmed. I understood the feeling well, but had no time to dwell on it.

Suddenly, a familiar scene appeared before me. I slowly peeled away from Caelum and walked toward the heat I knew by heart, leaving the cold, powdery beach sand for the hot desert of which I knew every inch, crest, and fall. The oppressive heat watered the air, but in the far distance, someone was making their way toward me.

I couldn’t make out who it was.

The hot wind tore my skirts to the side. They were golden now, pleated, ceremonial…

So were hers, I noticed as she drew closer. We were mirror images of one another and I wondered if this mirage was a hallucination or if I hadn’t survived the transition to Aten and was entering the hereafter. I looked behind me to the darkness where a small, blue-white light shone.

Caelum.

I didn’t want to leave him.

But I had to know… Is it her?

I turned back to the woman to find her much closer. I was thrilled to see she wasn’t a reflection of me at all, though we shared the same gait, build, and deep brown hair and olive skin.

Mother?

“Noor!” she cried, breaking into a run. I ran, too. I struggled through the sand and tears until I crashed into her. She held me tightly to her chest and Sol, goddess of the sun, cried with me.

Happiness and relief mixed with sorrow and anger, then gratefulness washed over us both. “Are you finally free?” I croaked.

“I will never be free as long as you and Helios are not free, Noor,” she answered sadly. “I will shine on you as you claim what is rightfully yours – not only by blood, but by virtue. Your heart is as pure as the flame, as beautiful as gold itself. You know what you must do, and I will look over you as you do it. I will see you through this.”

She waved a hand and a scene appeared over the heat-soaked air, rippling then settling. I saw Father in his golden kilt, standing atop the temple of Sol with Zarina standing beside him. She knelt on the stone, surrounded by prostrate priests. He was lying to them all, presenting her as the newly chosen Aten.

Which meant his powers were gone now.

Vada and her priests stood to the side, encircled by guards. I gritted my teeth at the sight wondering what had happened to the Luminan ship sent to sneak them out of Helios had gone. Had it disappeared with the falconer’s message?

It didn’t matter. They were still in Helios. Still in Father’s crushing hands and subject to his power. He would use them as a bargaining chip.

The scene expanded so I could see it unfold from above. Father’s guard surrounded the temple, strategically positioned throughout the palace and spread over Helios. He anticipated my arrival and obviously expected to fight a battle he could not win.

I needed to go home to set things right and release Sol, my mother. Now.

Father had no power over me, or her, anymore. And he never would again.

“I have to go, Noor. I await you in Helios,” she said, drawing away. “Bring the Lumin. And if he will agree, ask him to beseech Lumos to guard you both.”

Bring Caelum to Helios? Bring Lumos from the south to the sun kingdom? My heart raced at the thought of the two gods occupying the same sliver of sky once again. If we tried this, would the Sculptor allow it, or would he use his great hammer to smash us all to dust?

I didn’t want to let her go. Now that her face was so clear, my faded memories of her sharpened. “I will come for you,” I promised. “I’ll fight for you.”

She smiled, her lips so much like mine, right down to the bow. “Come home, daughter.” She placed a hand over my heart and power unlike anything I’d felt poured from her palm into me. It was sharp and searing, but not uncomfortable in the least, because her fire was mine now.

In an instant, the heat and sand were gone, as was Mother. Cold air wrapped around me, the chilled gusts tearing at my now-golden ceremonial gown.

My heart raced from the journey.

Caelum, Kiran, and Beron, wearing only Caelum’s pale blue tunic hastily knotted around his waist, were searching for something… shouting, running along the shore. Beron splashed into the waves and called out my name. Caelum tore at his hair.

“Caelum?” I said, my voice as loud as thunder.

He whipped his head toward the sound and his mouth fell open. “Noor,” he breathed.

Beron and Kiran must have heard me, too, because they sprinted toward me. “You disappeared,” Caelum said, pulling me into his arms. “We felt a blast of heat and saw… I think I saw the red sand you’ve told me about, and then you stepped onto it and were gone.”

“She was there. Sol was there!” I croaked. “I have to go to Helios. Now. I can take us there. She wants you to come with me.” I bit my lip. “She asked if you thought Lumos might guard us as well.”

His eyes met mine and held. “I can only ask and hope.”

“Your mother and Lumos’s priests are there under heavy guard. Either they didn’t get the missive, or it was ignored.”

Beron cursed vividly. “He’ll use them against us.”

“Caelum, Kiran… We need to go.”

Beron snarled a savage laugh. “You three aren’t having all the fun without me. I’m going, too.”

Lumos’s face peeked above the horizon. From the depths, he watched us, spilling light over the water to the shore. “I need a moment,” Caelum said. He held out his arms, absorbing the light of his god onto his bare chest. His crown reappeared and he began to speak in a language I did not recognize.

He sank to his knees in the sand, in the surf. Waves surged toward him, crashing over his thighs, soaking and spraying his skin.

Though everything in me wanted to race to Helios now, I waited.

For Caelum. And for Lumos.