Heavenly Bodies

Ariete murders her parents; Helios demands she become a weapon

Elara has been running for a month—stowed in a fruit cart, clutching a crystal-hilted dagger, crossing Asteria's borders into the alien golden skies of Helios.

Ariete murders her parents; Helios demands she become a weapon

Elara has been running for a month—stowed in a fruit cart, clutching a crystal-hilted dagger, crossing Asteria's borders into the alien golden skies of Helios. Behind her: parents murdered by Ariete, the Star of Wrath who seized her throne after hearing a prophecy that she cannot be killed by a Star without the Star also perishing. Before her: a letter begging King Idris of Helios for sanctuary. The king grants it, but his price is steep—she must train as a living weapon, honing the three rare Asterian gifts she possesses (shadowmancing, illusioning, dreamwalking) to potentially fight the god who destroyed her world. His son, Prince Lorenzo, will oversee her training. The arrangement is a cage disguised as mercy.

Enzo cannot read Elara's soul, and he doesn't trust what he can't see

At the first banquet, Elara sits beside Prince Lorenzo—Enzo, as she'll reluctantly come to know him. He is devastatingly handsome and insufferably arrogant, a warrior prince whose gifts mirror hers in Helion form: light, fire, and the ability to see into souls. But when he tries to read Elara, he finds nothing—a void where her essence should be. It unnerves him. He tells her plainly that if she threatens his kingdom, he will kill her, delivering the warning with the same ease he uses to whisper to the girl in his lap. Elara fires back with equal venom, and their mutual loathing sets the court whispering. She also meets Leo, his loyal commander, and Merissa, the warmhearted maid who becomes her first friend.

Elara jumps off a cliff, and the prince dives after her

Weeks of training yield nothing—Elara's magic remains trapped behind walls her parents built to suppress it. Isra, the half-Svetan seer Enzo brings her to, reads Elara's future and says she needs duskglass to kill a Star and must face a fear to unlock her power. The vision leaves Isra visibly shaken. Standing on a seaside cliff, Elara realizes what she must do. She backs toward the edge and leaps. Enzo, cursing, dives after her. Plummeting together, he orders her to spread her wings. Terror ignites something primal, and torrents of shadow erupt from her hands, forming a massive dragon that catches them both. They soar through the sky, screaming and laughing—the first moment something other than hostility passes between them.