Her orb-like eyes lock with mine, once filled with comfort and love when she looked at me, now crowned in contempt. “I wasn’t ready to face you, after what you did.”
I hold my breath as I take in her familiar appearance. Her dusky-blue waves cascade down to her waist, tattoos—similar to my own—adorning her skin, and a frown etched on her soft features.
“What is it I did?” Every cavity of my soul aches when I see her, when I hear her voice, and I’m suddenly aware of how lonely I was in her absence.
Her thin face contorts in anguish, and the ethereal-like colors in her eyes seep into a profound darkness that surpasses my own. “You used mine and Volan’s bodies to keep Essentria, Cyna, and Nyxara trapped here. You cursed us all.”
“If that is true, then why did Nyxara take my memories?”
“So you wouldn’t return.”
“She underestimated me.”
“I knew you would return,” she says. The longer I stare, the more colors I notice swirling in the depths of her eyes. Blues, purples, and silvers weave her irises, capturing her ethereal magic as she continues to build the surrounding dream.
“How?”
“Because the mortal is here. You’re drawn to her.”
“Calista?”
“Yes.”
“Why does she have my power?”
Her delicate, silver sandals glide over the long, gray grass. She stops in front of me, her presence demanding eye contact. “I do not need to tell you. Instead, I will help you remember.”
Her fingers lift to my ears, and I flinch as she slowly lowers her hands around the crown of my head. I’ve waited so long for this, but now that the time has come, a part of me holds onto the amnesia.
Astraea tilts her head, her dusky-blue curls sliding over her shoulder. She glances up, then closes her eyes, blue shimmering and glittering over her skin as her magic engulfs her being, then tendrils around me.
The memories reveal themselves in our dreamscape, as the surroundings shift and change, warping through time.
My heart skips one beat, then another, pain slicing through every inch of me as I recall the events that led to trapping my family.
A woman appears in the vision, the one from the sacrificial chamber. I gaze into the eyes of a mortal woman, and my love for her floods back to me. “Calista.”
She stares at me, through another’s eyes, but I recognize her soul, although there are subtle similarities—from her crooked smile, to the challenging glint in her blue eyes, and the way she purses her lips when she’s angry.
Her dark hair, woven within a crown made of leaves and thorns, shimmers under the setting sun as we stand by the temple on Tenenocti, the surrounding houses in their former glory.
I shake my head as the throbbing in my skull increases, a pressure threatening to erupt. The memory continues to unfold, and I close my eyes, envisioning the scene with a newfound clarity.
Essentria sits by the fire, her long fingers, covered with rings forged from plants and vines. Her thick, dark curls are decorated with poisonous purple and yellow flowers, her plump, peach lips pulled into a hard line as she watches us from the sidelines.
The scenes cascade into one another, like an ocean of waves, painting the story in a montage: How Calista and Arabella were Essentria’s favorites. We could not have children of our own, but when my sister laid her eyes upon the two sisters, her pupils dilated, and I noticed the motherly care laced in her irises, woven in every softening expression as she taught the pair how to enhance their magic. Both, healers, gifted with her ethereal magic: Creation.
Only my sister wasn’t the only one enamored with Calista.
She was so filled with vigor that watching her live, dance, and laugh reminded me of how beautiful being in the mortal world could be. I couldn’t help but live vicariously through her. I never imagined she would feel the same toward me. But the connection was undeniable.
It was torture being unable to touch her, and everything in her was so filled with life. I couldn’t help myself. When I was with her, I finally found what I imagined home to feel like.
I should have left her then so as not to give in to my own selfish desires and create her in my image, but I couldn’t resist. I needed her. Without her, I could not breathe.
It was Astraea who helped me harness a spell to link Calista to me, gifting her my ethereal magic alongside Essentria’s. Binding us. Except my decay magic took over.
It didn’t matter then, that she wanted it too, so we could be together. I was at fault because she could have known what it would do to her.
I splutter for air as I recall the decay magic heightening with each passing day, how the decay magic leaked into every crevice of Calista’s soul.
I did not understand why it affected her so badly, but our powers tore her apart until she turned mad, and Tenenocti Island was decimated with shadows and decay.
We tried to contain her, dragging her and Arabella into the temple. But her sister got too close and when she stabbed her with a dagger, that was when I knew the essence of her was gone.
Goosebumps cover my skin as my deepest memory surfaces, and I am panting, unable to breathe. I stand in the temple, the recipient of Essentria’s bitter scowl as she hovers over Calista on an altar, crying as Arabella lays next to her, dead.
Essentria’s venomous glare latches onto mine. “This is your doing, Azkiel.”
My sister carves her fingers into Calista’s ribcage, crunching her bones into dust, and before I can scream for her to stop, my love’s heart is in her hands.
I rush to her side, holding Calista’s lifeless fingers in mine. Tears fall thick and fast. I hold my beloved’s body, and I am alone, falling into an abyss of darkness.
I open my eyes, struggling to catch my breath. I stare at my hands, my nails biting into my palms.
Once Cyna imparted his final judgment, damning Calista’s soul to the darkest reaches of the Darklands, to be torn apart, I knew I had to stop him. He would have me punished by destroying her. My brother would have had Calista obliterated from existence. I couldn’t let that happen.
Using Calista’s and Arabella’s hearts, I did something I never thought I would—completing a sacrificial ritual. Their deaths bound the magic to spell my siblings into a permanent slumber that could never be undone by anyone but them.
