House of Eclipses by Casey L. Bond

House of Wolves

1

Like a strong perfume too liberally applied, Zarina’s bitterness wafted into my rooms before her. I’d never seen my eldest sister look anything but harsh and poised, a façade she’d honed to perfection and one I had always envied. But as she approached, that careful mask chipped away. By the time she drew near, my stony sister was nearly molten.

The soles of her sandals slapping the stone floor were the only sound in The House of the Sun, which lay eerily empty. All the servants had abandoned their positions to watch Noor claim her place atop her mother’s temple.

Zarina’s pleated gold dress had been tailored to match Father’s ceremonial kilt. Her hair was sleek, tied at the nape of her neck. Around it lay an ornate, red collar necklace that draped to the swells of her breasts, its colors alternating in shades of dried and fresh blood.

The affronted look she wore made me wonder whether she felt as if she’d been stabbed in the back, or if she felt Noor had taken a dagger straight to her heart.

Either way, I didn’t have time for her anger. I was leaving before Noor could command someone to make me stay. Someone… or some mutt. I refused to be locked in any room again. I’d be gone before they knew it, and I would be smart enough not to leave a trail for Beron to pick up.

I ignored her and continued to rummage through my things, plucking out what I would need and what I might be able to sell. I piled some gold jewelry on the bed, then turned to gather more from my chest of drawers, built specifically to hold my garish baubles. The stand on top for my aureole lay empty. I’d abandoned it, and my past, in Lumina, and though it was frightening changing my trajectory, I knew it was the right decision.

I’d trusted my youngest sister – who should never have given me the opportunity since I didn’t deserve it –I stood with her against our tyrannical father. Finally. And now he lay dead.

I wondered if the priests had dragged him into the sand where every inch of him would rot. Where he would never reach the hereafter, and the ravages of the desert and scavengers would share his corpse until nothing but bone remained. Eventually, the sand would take even them. I smiled.

“You traitor!” Zarina spat as she stopped an arm’s length away, the ragged edges of her tone pausing my hands. She clenched her fists at her sides.

I narrowed my eyes. Did she come here to fight? Slowly, carefully, I informed her, “I am no such thing.”

“Noor is not the heir of Sol,” she said so resolutely, I wondered if she might actually believe it.

“You saw her. You know that she is.”

From atop the temple, Sol’s light poured from Noor. There was no doubt that she had descended directly from the sun goddess. None of the prior Atens’ skin, or very soul, glowed. Noor still had a golden, sunny corona outlining her shape long after she killed our father and I slipped away.

That aura sometimes leaked into her eyes, making them glow warm and golden, too.

As if those indications weren’t enough, Noor was endowed with a trove of sun diamonds, so hot only she could bear to wear them – again, because of her lineage. Because of her mother: Sol.

Sadly, Zarina had been groomed by our father since birth to trust only him. Perhaps she doubted her own mind because of his poisonous teachings. He’d promised her more times than I could count that she would succeed him as Aten. He told her that Sol would listen when he recommended his eldest daughter. That he would pass me and Noor over.

He lied.

He knew who and what Noor was. He always had.

And like every other lie he’d concocted, it led to hurt and pain. This time they were Zarina’s, and she was unaccustomed to such feelings. He had never coddled her, but he’d made it abundantly clear who she must become if he was to recommend her as the next Aten. As a result, she’d fought, stretched, and crammed herself to fit the mold he’d described. She’d cut away the pieces of herself he found invaluable to earn his favor, his praise, his occasional manipulative kindness.

Hadn’t all of us, his daughters, done the same at least a thousand times?

Zarina pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at me. “Father told me what she, and you, have done. I cannot allow it. I cannot let her become Aten and steal this kingdom away.”

I tilted my head to the side. “This kingdom was never yours.” It was never Father’s, truth be told. He only held it in trust for a time until Noor came of age and her body matured enough to contain the power her mother would endow. “Father was a liar, Zarina. A divider. I’m not sure what he told you, but you can be assured it was untrue.”

She seemed to weigh my words, standing quietly for a long moment. “He said that in Lumina, you not only convinced Lumos to help you, but that the two of you made a darker bargain. One with Anubis.” She hissed the ‘s’ of his name, drawing out the sound to a whisper. She took a step closer as if we were confiding in one another. So close, she bent to place her mouth at my ear. “It was he on the temple steps, wasn’t it? You can tell me the truth, Citali. You don’t have to fear her, or him.”

My bones went hollow. I pushed her away. “Don’t speak his name in this House! Don’t even speak it in this kingdom.”

No one uttered the name of the banished god of the dead without consequences. When the Sculptor sealed him into the fire in the middle of the earth to punish him for trying to kill Lumos and Sol so he could take their powers, it was decreed that even uttering his name was forbidden. His history was given only as a warning to us all to be on guard against any dark magic that might escape the depths and spew like lava onto the land, and so that if anyone dared dabble, they knew what fate lay ahead.

Anyone who dealt with the banished god invited a curse upon herself and her family.

“Think about it. The dark one can make anything appear real with his magic. He could make Noor look like Sol had poured through her!” Zarina breathed, her eyes wild. “He spins illusions like twisted storms of sand.”

I wished she would stop talking about him. I took a steadying breath, hoping she might see reason. If she refused, I hoped to at least shift the conversation into safer territory. “Father was desperate to cling to power, Zarina, and to keep Noor from ascending to Aten. He lied to you in a final attempt to turn you against everything he hated – Sol and Noor.”

She flung a hand in the direction of the temple. “Explain the jackal on the temple roof, then!”

“That wasn’t a jackal; it was a wolf,” I explained. “The Wolven is the Luminan equivalent to our great Sphinx.”

She shook her head. “Father told me that in the darkness of the moon’s kingdom, your mind would be twisted. He warned you would come back changed. That was no lie.”

I shook my head. “Zarina… have you forgotten how Father tried to use you to shield himself when Noor came? Or how he tried to run away, leaving you atop the temple alone to face her wrath? Father was a coward until his dying breath. He was a liar and a murderer. You know that. How can you possibly trust his word?”

“What did Noor do in Lumina to provoke such a strange change in her, when we had no indication of it here in Helios – her home – the land of the sun and Sol herself?”

“Noor came of age,” I explained. That was the long and short of it.

Zarina shook her head, giving a mirthless laugh. She wasn’t listening.

I tried again. “The Sphinx even told Father that Sol would reveal her heir when Noor came of age. Zarina, the goddess was waiting for Noor. Noor did nothing in Lumina other than attempt to find the crown. Instead, she found she didn’t need it in the end because of who she is. She is Sol’s heir.”

Zarina went still, her elegant frame straightening. She brushed a hair back from where it hung in her eye. “I thought you would stand with me, no matter what.”

“I don’t stand against you now, sister. But I do know the truth, and I won’t stand against Sol.”

She shook her head, her eyes catching on the small pile of clothing and treasures amassed on my bed. “You’re leaving? If Noor is so wonderful all of a sudden, why do you flee your own home?” she challenged.

“I have no reason to stay.”

A slow, vicious smile spread over her lips. My fists curled at the sight, as she looked just like Father in that moment before he was about to do something malicious. “I know where you’re going. Father told me of your great secret, too.”

As if he’d sliced me from the grave, her words cut across my chest. Directly over my heart. No… No more. Never again would someone threaten him.

“I should pay him a visit. Introduce myself,” she threatened.

“I’ll kill you if you go near him,” I quietly vowed.

She slid her hand into her pocket. Instinctively, I took a step back. When she withdrew her hand, she brought something with it: an obsidian dagger. Zarina bared her teeth. “You say you will kill me, Citali? What if I kill you first?”

She lunged, slashing at my side. I sucked in my stomach and jumped back, barely missing the bite of her blade. “You’re insane!”

“You have been corrupted,” she carefully punctuated, each word another jab, stab, slash. “Anubis has his claws in you. I can feel him within you, writhing. I can smell his burn on your skin.”

Wild but fluid, she sliced the air between us. Fever turned her eyes to glass, her skin pale and ashen.

“The only one possessed by the dark one is you,” I shrieked. “You and our wretched father!” I blocked a slice with my forearm, sucking in a breath when her blade zipped through my skin. A guttural cry clawed from my throat. “You cut me!”

I didn’t have time to evaluate the wound, because Zarina kept jabbing, stabbing, slicing. I ran to a small table along the wall and slid it out between us to impede her path. Zarina gave a push and it teetered, then toppled, crashing onto the floor with a splintering crack. A spindly leg broke off and skittered toward me on the floor. I grabbed it and attempted to fend her off, bludgeoning as much as I could.

My confidence grew as I managed to land several hits. I bloodied her knuckles, cracked her brow, and split the tender skin there so blood pooled in her eye. She blinked and wiped furiously to stanch the flow and clear her vision as I prepared for her next attack… or to see if she was finished and her anger quenched.

Zarina’s feet slipped over the blood she’d spilled from me as she lunged again. Now hers was mixed with it. “This is madness, Zarina!” I told her.

She answered with a roar and another slash.

Her knife caught in the wood of my table leg. She ripped it out, splinters and dust falling to the bloody floor.

I took a risk and snatched her wrist, stopping the dagger. She tugged and pulled to free herself, gritting her teeth and growling.

“Where did you get this? What sort of blade is this, Zarina?”

She gnashed her teeth at me, then slipped in the sticky blood and lost her footing, landing on the unyielding stone floor with a gasp. I kept hold of her to stop her blade and keep her close, all the while striking her with the wooden leg. She covered her head and face, screaming for me to stop. Her forehead was bruising, her lip swelling and bleeding. After a thunderous blow to her chest, the red beads layered around her neck, now soaked with my blood, broke and scattered over the floor, some landing in the crimson smears and puddles underfoot.

“Stop, Citali. Please!” she cried, panting, her teeth coated in blood. Her free hand braced in the air between us to block my next strike

I pointed the spindly table leg at her throat. “Threaten him again, and I will end you. I took Father’s abuse for years. I will not take it from you. I will never endure such threats again and will eliminate the source of them without hesitating. This is your only warning. Blade or no blade, I will best you. I swear… I’ll kill you and drag you into the dunes. I’ll lay you right beside him.”

I squeezed her wrist for good measure.

She relaxed. Her breathing slowed and she looked spent. “Please. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll leave the palace,” she vowed.

“I don’t care what you do or where you go now. Just stay far, far away from me and mine. If I free you and you try to cut me again, I won’t stop the next time I raise this stick. I’ll beat you into the stone itself,” I panted, my chest heaving from the effort to keep her contained.

I couldn’t let her know it, but I was weakened and my vision was swimming. I’d lost a lot of blood. It spattered onto the floor at our feet, constant as a fountain.

How could an arm bleed so much?

I let go of her wrist, flinging a finger toward the door. “Get out,” I gritted.

She nodded and her feet slipped in a crimson puddle as she stood. I raised my arm to see how bad the cut was when I felt a sharp prick on my left side. Zarina’s fist was against my skin.

No… not her fist. The handle of her dagger was pressed against my stomach, the blade sunk in as far as it could. A wave of warmth crashed over me.

Zarina’s face was contorted in rage as she pushed the knife in further and twisted the blade. I pushed her away as hot water flooded my mouth.

“What did you do?”

She jerked the dagger from my body, sending a white-hot, searing pain through my stomach.

I couldn’t hiss.

Was afraid to move.

Could barely breathe.

Dark blood oozed from the wound. It didn’t seem that bad at first. Then it flowed, pouring like the river that ran south from Helios into Lumina. If I thought my arm bled a lot, it was nothing compared to this wound.

Zarina’s dark eyes were now wide. Tears welled. Her chest heaved and her hands shook with a trembling force. Her fist opened and the glass-like dagger clattered to the floor. She pressed blood-coated fingers to her mouth as if unable to believe what she’d done. The obsidian turned to gold from blade tip to pommel when my blood swelled over it, the crimson puddle pushing it a few inches toward her, almost as if Sol wanted her to take it back up and finish what she’d started. To deliver a nobler, quicker death than the one she’d begun. Or perhaps it was a trick. If she touched it, perhaps she would perish for what she had done.

“Sol claims your blade. Touch it now, Zarina. Please,” I gritted. “See what punishment the goddess will mete out. She saw… everything.”

“Sol isn’t here,” she asserted, her voice quivering.

“Sol is everywhere, as is Lumos. And beyond the sun and moon gods, the Sculptor watches.”

I kept my breaths shallow, but deep hatred welled in my chest, mixing with disbelief and fear. And most potent of all, agony. I’d come so close to leaving this place and finally going to him, finally able to be what he needed me to be.

I looked at my eldest sister, who watched keenly to see if I would lash out or keel over, and despite my weakening voice and the fact that every word felt like she’d stabbed me all over again, I promised her one thing. “Until my last breath, in this life, or in the hereafter, I will not rest… until you are dead.”

Zarina hesitated for only a moment. She did not apologize or cry for help for me as she sloppily fled the room, a trail of sticky, crimson footprints evidence of her escape.

I didn’t know what to do.

There wasn’t much I could do now. My hands shook and my arms were leaden weights, but my legs felt like the spindly table legs, too weak and frail to hold me up any longer.

A cold sweat beaded on my forehead and spread down my neck and arms.

I fell to my knees. All I could think of was him. How to save myself. How I couldn’t bear to leave this world without seeing him one more time. I wasn’t ready to die. Didn’t want to leave him.

Noor…

Noor would help me, but she wasn’t there.

Frantic, desperate thoughts rushed through my mind. There was only one who might hear me. And with the commotion outside, I wasn’t sure even his senses would be able to cut through to find me.

Still, I had to try.

I pressed my wound tighter, hot crimson bubbling around my fingers despite my efforts, took a deep breath and screamed his name as loud as I could. “Beron!”

My voice tore at my wound.

Sliding onto my side, I braced my weight on my elbow, holding myself up as long as I could. Then my elbow buckled and slipped forward, cracking my temple against the stones.

Suddenly he was there, standing at the doorway. “Citali?” his worried voice cried.

A slow blink.

He was on his knees, cradling my head. My hair was wet and cold now.

His hands were so hot. And strong.

I didn’t feel strong anymore. Feeling bled from my fingers and feet, leaching from my arms and legs.

“Look at me. Stay with me,” he begged. “Caelum!” he growled.

My vision swam, focusing on his sharp cheekbones and jaw. I thought of Beron’s usual smirk. His teasing laugh. Even his frustrated growls. The way he chased me and told me I was a nuisance, spoiled, a ridiculous, petulant girl.

He hated me. But he was here now. He came when I needed him most.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I couldn’t hold them back. They slipped onto the floor and on his skin, mixing with my blood.

I knew I wouldn’t survive this but needed Noor to know… so she could protect my greatest secret, my greatest weakness. My greatest love. My lips and mouth were as dry as the desert. They were numb and didn’t feel like mine, but tingled when I whispered, “Tell Noor…”

He stopped, brought his face closer. “I’m here, Citali. Noor is on the way.”

A tear fell from my eyes, trailing down my cheeks. We both knew there was nothing to do for me now. “Tell Noor to take care of him,” I pushed out weakly, wincing when a sharp stab of pain rushed through my wound.

“You can tell her. Caelum heard me. She’ll be here in a second.”

“Tell her to take care of him,” I slurred.

A loud buzzing filled my ears, but the pain slowly began to release its grip on me.

“Who?”

A shake.

“Who, Citali? Who should Noor take care of? Talk to me.”

A vision came to mind of a tiny hand curled around my finger, dark hair and skin that matched mine, so, so soft. Perfect little bowed lips. Toddling steps… He had grown so tall last I saw him. “He’s so smart,” I tried to say, but my words were slurred and disjointed.

He called me Cit-i. If things had been as they should, he would have called me mother. “My son,” I managed. My voice sounded distant, drowned in a deep, dark sea.

Strong fingers stiffened on the back of my neck. “You have a son?”

“Beron?” I breathed, finally focusing on him. We locked eyes. “Protect him.”

“I will. By my life and last breath, I swear it. But you must stay with me so you can protect him, too. Who did this, Citali?”

“Zarina…”

Could he hear me through the roar?

Could he see me through the bright white light that appeared as a glimmer but grew and blossomed in its intensity? Did he feel her heat?

Sol…

Sol was here for me. My spirit cried. I’d done such wretched things to her daughter, but here she was.

A terrible howl resonated through me, rattling my bones. The sand itself trembled. But it couldn’t put out Sol’s fire now that she’d kindled me.