Page 1 of Return of the Darkness
Prologue
Elisara
Elisara immediately felt a chill when she draped the talisman over her neck—not the chill of the air during Vala’s snowfall as it raised the hairs on her arms, or the bitter cold that burrowed into her bones when she plunged into the Vellius Sea, nor was it the aching cold of loss settling over the broken remnants of her heart. Amid the starfall, the cold cocooning Elisara felt like a warning. Something primordial was nearby.
The night sky was awash with light as thousands of stars fell across the atmosphere. Some collided with the crimson trees on her left in the distance, brightening the leaves like garnets and casting a kaleidoscope of red across the forest’s edge.
Elisara resisted wrapping her arms around herself; her military instincts forced her to be alert and prepared for anything, despite how easy it would be to allow someone to take her, like Caligh had taken Kazaar. The fabric of Kazaar’s shirt between her fingers was as comforting as it was agonizing as she clenched her fists around it, mirroring the way she had clung to his dying body before it dissolved into ash and floated away on the Keres breeze. Elisara blinked, uncertain if there were any tears left to stream down her numb cheeks. One moment, she stared at her reflection, her incandescent, glacier blue eyes haunting her as she placed Kazaar’s talisman around her neck. The next, she found herself here, in a place that would always remind her of him.
The carved throne room on the Unsanctioned Isle was as she remembered, save for one important detail. The walls had crumbled, like they had once in her dreams, leaving onlythe chequered floor with a deep crack through its centre, and the onyx and marble thrones naked to the blanket of darkness and cascading starfall.
The bitter air stilled as Elisara took a cautious step forward in her blood-stained boots. The ground felt unusually uneven. Sand shifted around her feet, but it was no longer the burnt orange of the Ashun Desert. Elisara bent to scoop the fine granules into her hand. The glittering dust fell through her fingers like sand in an hourglass, though counting down to what she did not know.
“Stardust.” An ethereal voice echoed from behind the onyx throne, a stone's throw away. Elisara’s head whipped up, but she felt no need to form a defensive stance. Instead, she slowly brushed her hands together until her palms tingled, and the remaining dust fell to her feet. “Such a magnificent consequence of a star’s death.” Elisara tilted her head at the tired lilt in the owner’s voice, who stepped from behind the throne. “There is beauty in death, my child.”
“From where I stand, there is only ever torment in death.” Elisara responded flatly. The two women watched one another, assessment deep in their gazes. Elisara trailed her eyes up the woman’s body from where her bare feet stood buried in the stardust, piling up around the throne’s base. She rested a delicate hand on the arm of the throne to the right of where she stood. Her inky dress shimmered, as if it had stood beneath the star fall for so long its dust had made the folds of her skirts their home. If the dust was the remnants of a dead star, she was simply a walking graveyard. The woman felt like death, emanating the bitter cold, yet a luminous sheen on her dark skin reminded Elisara of the sun’s glow—the glow of life.
“Ah, but from pain, the greatest beauty of them all can bloom. Strength. Resilience. Power. All will make you even more beautiful.” The woman smiled with full lips and Elisara wanted to believe that good could follow the heartache shattering her chest, but that was difficult knowing she was at her strongest and most powerful by Kazaar’s side. His absence only highlighted her weaknessand damaged heart. “You cannot see it now. I understand why, trust me.”Trust—a word so foreign to the queen, who felt so accustomed to betrayal. With a regal posture, the woman waded through the stardust and sat on the onyx throne, glancing longingly at the marble throne at her side. Elisara’s eyes flickered to the symbols: the sun engraved on the marble’s base, and the moon she knew was hidden behind the woman’s skirts. Elisara, with the power flooding through her veins, had an innate awareness of the air, which was still and undisturbed around the marble throne. The stardust around its base sparkled less, as though it was still and waiting, too. It was almost like the fabric of the universe recognised the absence of the being who should sit alongside this grieving woman and was mourning the loss as well. Elisara finally met the woman’s eyes, knowing who she faced. Her irises held the birth and death of stars. Crushed sparkles glistened in her dark eyes—darkness she had only seen once in Kazaar’s eyes, interspersed with threads of light.
“Sitara, I presume.” Elisara lifted her chin, allowing the goddess to assess her. Elisara’s first encounter with her own goddess, Vala, had been unsuccessful, leaving her cautious of the rest. But Elisara felt no fear when challenging Vala. She thought perhaps that had been because of the goddess’s translucent state when she had appeared in the Neutral City, unable to inflict harm upon her descendent. But watching Sitara now, she realised it was because Vala did not exude the same level of power. The goddess of her realm was not the same primordial being as Sitara. Around the goddess, the surrounding air rippled with darkness, and the universe hummed in response. Elisara tasted the power in the air and only needed to glance at Sitara and the way she commanded attention from the world to know she wastheGoddess, the first after Chaos and Order. Beside the pain in her chest, Elisara felt awareness too. The being before her could release chaos on the world, not just Elisara.
Resting her head on her hand, the goddess smiled and tiltedher head, like they were merely two old friends reconnecting. Her twisted crown of twinkling stars tilted with her, disorienting Elisara. Though she had never pictured meeting Sitara, the Goddess who birthed the kingdom’s gods and goddesses from not only love but the essence of her power, Elisara would have expected someone far more stoic and rigid. Instead, Sitara gazed upon her as though she had known Elisara her entire life.
“You presume correctly.” Sitara shifted and patted the marble throne beside her. “Come. Sit.” Elisara glanced at the marble but did not move. “Nobody will take his place anytime soon,” Sitara added, quieter this time. She briefly closed her eyes. She was grieving, and the shared feeling prompted Elisara to move towards the throne.
The coldness sharpened the closer Elisara approached, as though it were slowing her movements and seizing control. Shaking the feeling, she sat upon the uncomfortable marble, trying to angle herself towards Sitara, whose dark braids hung over her shoulders as she smiled, waiting for Vala’s queen to speak. Elisara kept her mouth shut. She had not come here willingly and thus had nothing to ask of the goddess who transported her here.
“Ah, I did not transport you.” Sitara flicked a braid over her shoulder.
“You can read my thoughts?” Elisara asked, and Sitara hummed.
“It is more like an innate knowing. I am the first god, created by Chaos himself. I know everything.” Elisara frowned, wondering about the limitations, if any.
“There are some,” Sitara confirmed. “I sense events unfolding, but I cannot predict the future. All I know are the many threads of possibilities and different destinies.” Elisara nodded. “In answer to your original thought, I did not transport you. We are not physically on the…” Sitara trailed off as though remembering the names of lands was too mundane a task for a being of her importance. “Unsanctioned Isle. Your body is still in the Ashun Desert. This is simply in our minds.”
Elisara could hardly process her thoughts, let alone Sitara’s rapidly changing topics.
“I apologise. Sonos always said I spoke too swiftly and acted too rashly.” Sitara’s smile vanished as she glanced at the other throne. Elisara shifted beneath the goddess’s gaze; the throne was rather uncomfortable. It was not just its coldness that brought such discomfort, or the hard, solid marble; something inside Elisara urged her to stand and move from the throne, as though it was reserved for another. But why? Caligh had named Kazaar the essence of Sitara, and thus the rulers had deduced Elisara held Sonos’ essence. Should she not feel at ease upon his throne? Perhaps the unease was caused by the god’s absence, as though the essence within her knew it was still alone, its owner missing.
“Where is Sonos?” Elisara asked, despite sensing it was a risky question. Sitara’s smile dropped. Shadows swept the stardust along the floor and stars blinked out of existence, consuming everything in its wake and creeping towards Elisara and the goddess. The beautiful, falling light was drained, leaving only threatening and all-consuming darkness. Sitara straightened and waved her hand. The shadows dissipated before reappearing and winding up her arms. “Gone.” Sitara tapped her fingernails on the arms of her onyx throne. “Taken.”
“By Caligh?”
“Please do not speak that traitor's name,” Sitara murmured, turning her hand over, where shadows wrapped around her arm and squeezed. Elisara frowned. The goddess knew Caligh well then.
“Can you find him?” Elisara asked. While she had little left to live for, perhaps she could learn to defeat Caligh and enact her revenge, seeing as she was created from Sonos’ essence.
“That is why I am counting on you—all of you.” Sitara crossed her legs and planted her clasped hands on her knee. Her warm smile vanished as she pursed her lips. “It will be harder with Kazaar dead, but not impossible.” Elisara flinched at the bluntness inwhich she said his name. Sitara peered sideways at her. “You do not have time to mourn, child.” Anger bubbled up within Elisara, who shifted against the pain in her limbs. “You feel it, don’t you? The power I planted within you.”
“You?” Elisara asked, confused. She never realised the goddess could control Sonos’ essence. Sitara scoffed.
“Have you not worked it out yet?” Sitara pointed at Elisara, beckoning the shadows closer. Elisara did not flinch, although the darkness felt different without Kazaar nearby. “It was never him, child. He is a part of it all. You all are. But he is not the one with my power. Caligh lied to you to release your pain, and with it, your power. Or so he thought.” Sitara clenched her fist, and the shadows creeping around Elisara’s wrists tightened, holding her hands captive against the white marble. Elisara tried to pull her arms free, but the shadows only tightened with her attempts, ropes that burned into her flesh with every twist of Sitara’s command.
“What are you doing?” Elisara asked, shoving back against the throne as Sitara rose and leaned in until she towered above her, consuming the space. At Elisara’s feet, stardust stirred and merged with Sitara’s shadows, creating a furious blaze of darkness and light in chaotic plumes.
“I have waited too long to reach this point for you to ruin it with your grief.” Sitara’s mood shifted, and her smile darkened with her eyes. “I want him back. We need him back to restore everything. There is far more you don’t know, but you will begin to. And if you think I—or mychildren—will sit by while you squander our only chance of fixing things over a MAN!” Elisara flinched. “You are sorely mistaken.” Sitara’s delicate hand was far bonier up close as she reached for the talisman around Elisara’s neck. The large black onyx stone appeared to stir with shadows beneath the goddess’s touch, calling to its power. The talismans enhanced power, so what would become of Elisara if Kazaar’s talisman did the same?
“Says the goddess telling me I must find a man for her,” Elisara spat, and Sitara narrowed her eyes. The shadows tightened furtheraround Elisara’s arms, like claws finding purchase in her skin; they could tear her arms right off if Sitara willed it.
