Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Ch 21.2: Liminal spaces

Cw for mentions of blood and violence

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Seven women sat in a circle, their legs crossed beneath them, their bodies shrouded by diaphanous white gowns that looked as thin as gauze. Their hair, in varying colours, draped down their backs and pooled around them like capes.

It took Ella a long moment of unwaveringly staring at them to realise they were not indeed hyper-realistic statues. The women didn't even appear to breathe, their chests and bodies rigid as marble, their long necks craned back to stare at the crystal sky. Only when she squinted and sharpened her hearing was she able to make out the almost inscrutable way their lips moved, as if air barely passed through. They were speaking, she realised, mumbling at rapid speed. Low and quick as the wind.

In unison, as if they had a singular mind, the women tilted their heads down and pierced them with their eyes. Ella bit back a gasp. They were sightless. All of them. Milky white eyes, as if their irises had rolled into the backs of their skulls.

When they spoke, it was enough for a full shiver to run up and down the length of her body, sending all her nerve endings into alert.

"Children of the Gods, welcome," they said all at once.

Or rather, it echoed around the cave, like a dozen voices speaking at once, in perfect synchronicity. The sound was like a whisper carried by a raging, roaring wind. The priestesses, however, had not truly opened their mouths or shifted their gestures. They remained impassive, their lips opened the slightest bit, still whispering inaudibly.

Ella immediately bent at the waist, deeper than she'd ever before. She recognised, innately, that she was not in the presence of something normal. She knew it wasn't an exaggeration on her part when wordlessly, Aedion and Blaise went down on one knee, and Val bowed just as deeply as she had.

"Rise, children of the Gods," their mingled voice said in a calm, toneless way. "We have been waiting for you for centuries. The time for our paths to join is anon."

Ella didn't bother asking what they meant by centuries of wait. She knew enough to understand the Star Sisters were present and not present, all at once. She recognised those white eyes to mean their bodies were here, but perhaps not their minds. At least not entirely.

Personal experience had taught her that plane travelling was a strange place where body and mind-melded and disjointed, at all once. Minutes could turn into hours, and hours into days in the blink of an eye. The other plane had different rules, and the Star Sisters existed in a liminal space caught in between past, present, and future.

She stood on shaky legs and floundered for words. She'd gone through a list of important questions to ask, but after the long travel and the disorientation of finding herself in a space so permeated with magic, she found her thoughts floating around her mind like the motes of dust that fluttered by.

"You found the Sphere of Illumination," they stated, more than asked. "You see what the Elders have seen. You see the war of wars."

Ella nodded, grateful they knew more than they should. "Yes, we have found the sphere. We have questions."

"Come closer, Children," they said, their milky eyes twitching and attentive. "She knew you would come. She knew the sphere would lead you here."

Ella hesitated only a moment before stepping forward into the semi-circle formed by the Star Sisters. Aedion took the spot beside her, but before Valren and Blaise could enter, the Star Sisters fixed them with those spectral, all-white eyes.

"Only the youngest," they said. "Only the youngest and the thickest of the blood."

Ella and Aedion exchanged a perplexed glance, the smallest of frowns, before silently nodding to Blaise and Val, who took it with grace and stepped aside, though not without visible confusion of their own. They would have time to speak of this afterwards.