Sins of Calate: BOOK II OF THE FOUR REALMS SERIES

The Garden of Evara

Though he could not recall a time before Her, he knew there had been such a time. He knew that to be true in the same way he knew all other truths. It was an acknowledgement, an awareness that lived inside him; an acceptance which was neither doubted nor questioned, it simply was. Just as there had been a time before the oceans, the sky, the stars, and the moon, there had been a time before Her. A time when the sun had not shone and when it had been but three of them with Father's eye cast over all. Brothers.

Whether he had come before Calate and Zybar he knew not, for neither could he recall a time when it had been only him under the glory of Father's gaze.

He did not know why she had been brought to them, she simply was — a gift in the form of a sister. And suddenly there was sun where there had been once only night. Soon, the day she appeared before them in the Garden of Evara became known as the beginning. And soon after that, his soul, which he slowly began to realise had known only darkness, was flooded with light — just as the world was flooded with light. Her light.

It became known as The Arayis.

Life.

The Garden grew and the flowers bloomed, and the seas and skies beyond it filled with stars and beasts great and small so that the world as he knew it became a waking joy. A joy so great that often he thought his heart might burst inside him just to live in it. She was beauty and glory and life and soon nothing mattered but how she smiled, or the sound of her laugh, or the scent of her carried to him by the wind like a gift.

So utterly consumed by her happiness was he that the day he found her crying in the garden she had borne, he felt a piece of his soul shatter in two. She sat by the fountain, her shoulders moving with soft sobs which escaped quiet from her body. He froze, so stricken by the sight of it, that for moments his mind was lost in a loud startled panic, useless in its chaos, cold in its grief. 

'Azura?' It came out as a question from his trembling voice.

She stilled, then lifted a delicate hand to her face, wiping, before turning to him with a warm smile. The sun shone upon his face.

'Leo, I was supposed to meet you, in the Avalia ni Palateia, I had not forgotten.' She stood from the edge of the fountain and turned to face him. The tears had brought a soft pink hue to her cheeks, her eyes glittered, and though his heart ached he thought she had never looked as lovely.

'Why do you cry?' He frowned, moving toward her. She looked as though to deny it, opened her ripe pink mouth and shook her head a little. Then some breath expelled from her and she offered him a hopeless look. Another crack appeared in his heart.

'I shall not speak of it.. not this day...' she glanced up at the sky. 'Not while the sun shines so.' She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to it, her graceful neck exposed to him causing his mouth to water thirstily.

'The sun always shines so,' he said, drawing his eyes back to her. 'It has always shined so. Since you.'

She brought her eyes to him and smiled a sad smile. 'And you have always outshined it, my Dark One.'

He felt the frown slide back across his face.

How could any being outshine her? Outshine the sun? Outshine that which gave life to all beneath it? She closed the distance between them and slid her hand into his to pull him out of the garden. His feet were heavy, laden with foreboding and she stopped to look back at him, careful. He asked the question again with only his gaze then.

'Leoth, please.' Her voice was a pained whisper. 'I cannot... I will, but not yet... Not yet...' she peered up into his eyes. 'I am not ready to lose you.'

At that, he moved closer and pulled her tight against him. It was the first time he had ever held her like this, ever felt her warm body pressed against his, and he felt the power in it, felt the inexorable shift in everything he knew. Every truth he had known and would know altering inside him.

'You will never lose me, Azura,' he told her. 'You cannot. For I am yours. If we were ever parted then know this; I will look for you in the stars. In every life after this until I find you again. I will search for you in every light that shines — For my soul has known no light before you.' 

There was indecision clear in her eyes as she stared up at him. When she spoke again it was in a tone he had not heard before; she was frightened. 'But one day you will have to choose, Leoth, between losing me and losing yourself.'

'Then I choose you, Azura, I will always choose y—.'

She reached up and kissed him, stealing the word from his mouth. The taste of sunshine and wine flooded his tongue and with it sparked to life a part of himself he did not yet know existed. Her fingers slid up and into his hair and pulled his head closer, her mouth tasting his own, deeper. Warmth enveloped him, spreading out from his heart as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. When she pulled back from his mouth he could scarcely breathe, his entire body trembling with a new hunger. 

Neither saw the cloaked figure hidden so plainly in the shadow of the moon's gate, watching like an assassin.