Both of their faces split into matching grins at the same time.
“What’s your name?”
The air moved as the female rose from the floor on majestic, feathered wings, her hair defying gravity to float around her face and body. How Lunara had missed those attributes was no wonder—both were white as snow, as the rest of this strange place, blending perfectly like her shift had. Golden light poured from her skin when she spoke in a voice that boomed with infinite layers. “I am called Endellion,” she proclaimed.
Sweet baby Sisters in a cradle…
Endellion’s power was all-encompassing, all-consuming. It sucked the breath right out of Lunara’s lungs and forced tears to her eyes. The warmth of it was staggering.
When her feet touched down again, she reverted instantly back to normal—as normal as she was capable of being—and Lunara sucked in a heaving gasp at the loss of it.
“Yay!” Endellion squealed. “Two out of three!”
“It’s… lovely to finally meet you.” Lunara was having trouble staying upright, her own power thrumming down every nerve ending, alive and buzzing, and growing by the second. “What’s the third choice?”
Endellion’s brow furrowed, suddenly serious. “The one that matters most.” She turned to the golden door. “Two are there, without a doubt.” Her voice was layered again, though less overwhelming than before. She pointed to Lunara, a crushing weight settling over her. “Two go in, but one comes out.” Her voice dropped as she gripped Lunara’s shoulder. “Is the light filled with love, or spiteful and mean? It is peace for the world, or the end of all things?”
Lunara buckled, her knees crashing to the floor. “What’s happening to me?”
“Thingsare happening, moth, outside of our control. The dawn dwindles. You feel its crown slipping. You’re out of time. You must choose, or die.”
“Choose what?” Lunara grunted through clenched teeth. It was like being ripped apart at the seams, her flesh waiting for the moment it could spill free. “I think I’m already dying.”
She crumpled fully to the floor, curling in on herself.
“Sweet, little friend. It’s not you who’s dying. The fourth tower has lost its heart and its hope. Its loss is yours.”
The regret in Endellion’s tone snagged her attention through the agony, even though she couldn’t decipher the words. Not with the weight settling down and trying to snap her bones.
All this way, all this drama, just to die inside of your own damned head. Great.
“It really isn’t,” Endellion whispered. “Now you have to choosequickly,or die.”
Lunara forced herself to all fours and drew jagged air into her lungs. Endellion had led her to this door—the door she’d dreamt of—and it had to mean something. Maybe the choice was to go through it.
She crawled, slipping over and over, losing her balance. Face-planting as she reached her arm out to touch it. More and more pressure bore down on her, her neck bent at a sickening angle as she cried out.
Cracking an eye open, Lunara found herself staring at the floor—and at the faint lines she hadn’t noticed there before, creeping along and up into the gilded frame of the door. What had seemed so perfect from a distance was actually decaying, gold flakes sloughing away as veins of blue worked to dismantle it.
Blue, like the sea on a clear day.
‘Turns out, little moon, that you are my favorite color.’
It suddenly didn’t matter that her insides were liquefying, or that her skull was about to explode. Lunara scraped her body up and threw herself at it with a sob. Blood poured from her nose and mouth to splatter against the unending, pristine white as she reached the jamb and dug her fingernails into it, attempting to pull herself up.
Endellion was at her side in an instant, breathless and urgent. “Do you wish to go through?”
Lunara tried to answer, but all she did was cough up more blood.
“You must answer me, or I cannot help you!” Her hands hovered around Lunara, desperate, waiting for permission to move.
With what felt like the final gulp of air she would ever take, she choked out a garbled, “Yes.”
Endellion gripped the back of her dress and hauled her from the floor like she weighed nothing, using her free hand to shove one of Lunara’s against the knob.
Peace settled into her like a sigh. Certainty. Rightness. This was exactly where she was meant to be.
“You must go through of your own volition, moth.” Endellion’s voice was pleading. “There’s nothing more I can do. Just go. The final choice awaits on the other side.”
