Page 324

Maybe. Eventually.

Sighing, she glanced again, her touch landing beside Brand’s as her mind turned over to⁠—

They both gasped when a prismatic light pulsed and the ink swirled, words appearing beneath the image.

Ray and beam meet one another. Through the jet, the barb holds rot.

Sun to star, like mated lovers, until the Night is rendered nought.

“What does it say?” His voice was barely a whisper, gaze boring into the text as if he could will himself into understanding it.

She read it aloud and they shared a single, fleeting look before frantically shoving their laced fingers to the next page where it was the same.

“Well?”

Lunara swallowed, half expecting Endellion to make an appearance as a chill worked its way down her spine. “‘Thus, daybreak merges with dusk’s diamond seed, and seizes command of that which moths keep. Stone cleaves as a god-hand, long fingers the bonds. Vengeance made snowlike and crowned as the dawn.’”

Their places within the riddled words were clear enough, very little left to mistake.

Brand’s grip tightened on a sharp exhale and he turned, eyes dropping to Illamiata before meeting hers again.

Shitting stars.

“How appropriate.” The sound that crawled out of her was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Can’t tell you how many times I had the thought that this was my prison.”

“Oh, my little moon…” Brand swiped at her cheeks. “But that isn’t how you feel now.”

“No. It’s not.”

She’d come to love Illamiata. Not for the power it gave her, but the freedom. The security. There was immeasurable comfort in knowing it was there, and that she possessed the ability to keep not only herself safe, but the ones she loved, too.

The irony was not lost on her.

Brand kissed her palm and cupped it against his cheek. “Illamiata is not the thing that makes you powerful and never has been. You are who you are, Lunara, with or without it.”

“I know that. I do.” She melted, her head tipping back. “And if that is to be my sacrifice, then I thank the Sisters for it. That it would be material, not corporeal…” She huffed. “I’ve been half-terrified I was going to have to die, or some other ridiculous, stabby shite.”

He chuckled. “Stabby shite, hmm? That’s…”

A pause, the universe holding its breath—not for Lunara, but for Brand.

His face went blank, and she waited for him to make his choice. For that shift to click one way or another, fate sealed and cradled in his hands. And when his stillness settled into her, Lunara knew to her bones that he found the answer they were looking for.

“A shadow, once living. A vengeance, once loving. Night and Okthana.” Brand nodded slowly, the cogs clearly turning. “It is a bloody dagger.” He scrambled for the book in her lap, eyes darting over that strange star image before he made her touch it with him. “Can you read it to me again?”

“‘Ray and beam meet one another. Through the jet, the barb holds rot. Sun to star, like mated lovers, until the Night is rendered naught.’”

His excitement was infectious, buzzing over her skin, and Lunara felt real hope for the first time since their battle started.

“Where’s the one from your Occurrence?” he asked.

What were the odds she’d demanded it from Araxis. That they’d even had such a conversation about it.

Dazed, Lunara called the blade to herself and presented it to him.

Brand set it almost reverently beside the drawing and pointed. “Do you see what I see?”

Weeping moons.