The Courage of Stars

season 2 | chapter 15

In the end, destiny won. The force of the wind unlocked the inseparable bonds between their fingers, tearing them apart. Inevitable tears were cascading down to Selene's cheeks, her scream an excruciating cry of her soul.

"Endymion!"

He was shouting her name to no avail, his melodic voice a painful reverberation against the pandemonium.

And just like that, everything stopped.

She was flying into the void, everything around her a cold black. A white glow appeared, casting light everywhere as a tornado of stars exploded around her.

"Make it stop!" Selene screamed, her throat constricting from the guttural outcry. The flaring stars burned her arms and she brought her palms up to cover her face in one last, desperate attempt to deny the reality. "Please, make it stop."

Another static silence. As opposed to the first pause, her heart continued to race, her skin crawling. None of it was right, but here underlay something else, something she couldn't pinpoint.

A deep, familiar laugh caused the hair of her neck to stand on end. The oxygen was almost gone as Selene tightened her fingers around her throat, craving for the air of the freedom she was forbidden to have.

"You were always foolish, Selene."

His voice was the emperor of her worst nightmares.

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Her back arched off the comfort of her silky sheets, a muffled cry escaping her.

Selene's chest thundered, her lungs gulping dolorous breaths of air. She placed her hand over her heart, praying to the heavens above to help her calm, to help her settle.

Her braided hair was a mess. She touched with her index finger the underside of her eye, tapping the puffy skin there two times.

She presumed she had been crying during her sleep. After a few beats of patience with herself, she exhaled, her lower lip trembling. As much as she did her best to fool her subconscious, there wasn't a day where Helios' presence didn't terrify her.

She scanned frantically the room around her, her honey-colored eyes alarmed. She wasn't naive to let the relief of awakening to fade the nightmare away. The eerie silence that predominated had her mind running through the worst-case scenarios.

The night was wrong. The palace was wrong. She was wrong. This life was wrong –

A knock on her door snapped her out of her paranoid trance.

Eos, her beloved brother who spread the bright, hopeful colors of the Dawn peeked in. Selene's shoulders relaxed and her mind went blank. All the catastrophic speculations about her life vanished as a tender smile shaped her lips.

"Eos," she breathed, her heart beating in a tune of gratitude. She watched him diminish the distance between them as he sat on the edge of her bed.

He regarded her in silence. Throughout the years, Eos had found ways to approach his sister and help her open up when she was torn, an emotional wreck, but Selene's reluctance to take the initiative always was a knife twisted in his back. He couldn't understand how her mind worked at all. Wasn't it better to remove the weight off the chest and finally be able to breathe?

"Having nightmares again?" he asked, at last.

Selene raked her fingers through her hair before she rubbed her eyes. "Yeah..." she trailed off, refusing to look at him.

Eos's expectant stare at her to elaborate didn't sway her. Selene was adamant on caging everything within.

He sighed heavily and made to protest, but his sister's firm grasp on his wrist prevented him from revealing his perception of their relationship.

"It's fine, Eos," she told him with a pretended nod of composure. "It's just another bad dream."

"That's what you always say," he scoffed to mask the hurt lacing his tone.

His derision caught her off guard. Her little brother had never spoken to her in that manner. "It's the truth, Eos. A nightmare is nothing more than a bad dream. It's not real, so why stress over it?"

Eos could handle almost everything, except for lying. He didn't intend to stay and listen to Selene's nonsense.

He stood, his eyes narrowing with disapproval. "When you're ready to trust me and not treat me like a child, you know where to find me."

His long strides carried him out of the room. Eos closed the door behind him, the anger boiling in his chest supressing the bitter aftertaste of one more unsuccessful conversation with his sister.

Selene hardly had the time to process Eos' aloof behavior. The moment she was in the company of herself again, a hand closed around her throat.

Gasping for air, she grabbed the arms of the black figure in front of her in an attempt to set herself free. If he was able to slip into the palace with undetected, the Kingdom wouldn't be alive for long.

Chills glossed down her spine at his low voice. "You're not going to protect your city this time, Goddess of the Moon."

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A / N

Hi everyone! I hope you're doing well.

I know this chapter is a whole lot shorter in comparison to the previous ones, but this was an actual relief to write because it saves highly important details and plot points that will be revealed and tied up later, instead of spoiling everything at once. Also, I love how this chapter was the starting point of Selene and Eos' relationship revelation & how complicated it is. What do you think?

If you enjoyed the chapter a vote & a comment are highly appreciated for they can truly motivate an author.

Much love,
Pavlina x.