Page 126 of A Clash of Stars

I was stunned with zero words. So unlike me—I do not have any words to say. Luna reached up and grabbed my necklace. The one Queen Amari gave me.

“When your stars align…”

She ripped it off my neck, and I gasped.

“I want you to imagine all your hate, rage, anger, happiness, and extreme feelings. Focus all of your energy on this necklace. Every power and morsel of you.”

I interrupted her. “Why! What’s the point of this?”

She handed me the necklace, placing it in my hands and folding hers around mine, ensuring I would hold it.

“Amari and every other Queen extracted this gold from their power markings and placed it inside this necklace. We will use this necklace as a catalyst to solidify the magic within you. Dear Clara, you are about to become a goddess. I need you to close your eyes and focus on pulling together your powers.”

The tightening of the cords around my neck took hold. The blood was pumping faster than my heart could handle. Breathlessly I answered her.

“I don’t know how to do that, Luna. I don’t know how to project all my power at one time. I don’t know how to do any of this. How is this even possible? I don’t know—”

The panic clutched me, squeezing every organ and twisting my insides until I couldn’t breathe. Dark spots flooded my vision when a gentle shake of my arms brought me back to the present.

To reality.

With Luna.

Her soft hand caressed my cheek and gently touched my neck, exposing my inamorato marking.

Then, she whispered. “Do it for him.”

I felt the tears starting to fall down my cheeks, realizing I was right. I was right. He is my mate. Evander.

I looked at my arms, one holding the power marking that every royal had that I had recently learned was part of this curse, and the other marking the marriage I had to Evander. I decided right then and there that I would do anything for him, even if it didn’t make sense.

I closed my eyes, still sobbing. I could taste the saltiness from the tears as they rushed toward my mouth. I gripped the necklace tightly in my hands and focused all my attention on every memory with Evander.

I thought about his eyes, lips, and how he made me feel. I remembered his nightmares, the drawings, his smile, and the peace I had in his arms.

I saw the luminescent glow rising from my skin. I lit up the room in a kaleidoscope of colors. Almost instinctively, I focused on each individual power, materializing it. I would use it to manipulate the power in my hands as if it were putty. Shaping and bending every single ether tied to my soul. The golden necklace that I gripped within my hand started to push outward.

Opening my hands, it started to rise in front of me, and my eyes flickered open. I wanted to see it. Every second of it.

What was happening to me felt otherworldly. Something I would never have expected—anything that happened in the past few months was unexpected.

With one last thought, I imagined something I’d like to happen. I wanted to be Queen. I wanted to be a great ruler. I wanted to be a mother one day. I even wanted to have Evander’s children.

Pure happiness overpowered any emotion I had wielded in the last hour, and I smiled, unable to contain it. Once I did that, it was a breakthrough for the world around us and me. A shift of the ground beneath us caused me to wobble slightly, catching my balance.

All around us, the colors that once beamed brightly out of me, combined into one solid gold. The necklace radiated as brightly as the onyx ring did during the Variance, but the necklace burst suddenly.

The gold shrapnel pierced into me, and instead of pain, all I felt was completeness. With each piece entangling within my skin, I was glowing brightly, like the sun.

I looked down at my arms, and that’s when I saw the golden markings vibrating and pulsing on my skin. The onyx ring that stayed on my finger started to pulse as if the ring itself reacted to me.

The light started to subside, and I gained my focus on Luna in front of me. She was smiling. Grinning enormously. Without hesitation, I had a confounding understanding and clarity of what to do.

I had to kill Theo, no matter the cost. It had to be done, and I was the one who would do it.

“Now you are our True Queen and Goddess, Clara. You are unlike any other being in this world or out of it.”

I took a deep breath glancing at the reflection of myself in the black-rimmed mirror behind Luna’s desk. My hair swayed behind me, no longer the same hair I once had. Gold remnants shimmer throughout my hair and golden constellations are written on my skin, flickering as if I was the sky itself.

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