In the Heavens

Chapter Sixty

Isadora felt like she was floating outside of her own body, suspended in limbo as a fuzzy feeling settled deep in her chest. The illustrious markings on her body remained vivid once more, pulsing with life and magic as the star above her heart pulsed with the beating of her heart. 

There was a bitter chill in the air, so much so that it made Isadora shiver under the thin fabric of her blue silk nightgown. 

Her brown hair was carefully braided, with the faint scent of vanilla emanating from the curls—the work of Stella, Isadora assumed. But the streak of white stood out like a sore thumb, a stark contrast against the warm shade of brown. 

And then it hit her. 

She didn't look like her mother anymore. 

Queen Iliyana didn't have white hair nestled amongst the brown, a bitter reminder of the price of her own failure. Queen Iliyana didn't have markings on the entirety of her body, a telltale sign of the fragile thread of her life, dimming whenever she pushed herself too hard. Queen Iliyana didn't have grey eyes freckled with the remnants of a painful betrayal, golden and hard to look at. 

Tears welled up in her eyes, but Isadora didn't let them fall—she refused to cry over someone who'd try to kill her. 

A particularly harsh breeze blew through a window, freezing Isadora to the bone as she rushed to close it. But when she reached the window, she realized that it wasn't a window at all, but a huge chunk of wall missing, leaving her exposed to the frigid weather outside. 

Dusty shards of glass littered the floor, no longer its radiant shades of blue, purple, and gold, which managed to reflect under the thick layers of dirt and debris from years of abandonment. Dead vines of ivy curled in from the outside, wrapping around the jagged bricks of stone. 

Metis. 

She was back home—if she could even call it that. 

Hiking up the hem of her nightgown, Isadora ventured further down the hall, sparingly glancing at all that was left of the palace. She'd been transported here more times than she cared to count, and still, it felt as though she hadn't even explored a fraction of what was there. 

The first building that she approached was a colossal spire, its peak lost to the swirling white maelstrom above. It's glistening surface, once polished to a sheen, was now a mosaic of fractured obsidian, like a shattered mirror. 

A cold jolt shot through Isadora. 

The air around her went thin. Every sound, every detail—the loud whistle of the wind, the destructed visuals of the art that once displayed the excellency of Metis reduced to a shattered mural—locked into perfect, unnerving stillness. 

Suddenly, everything shifted. 

"They'll never find us here, I promise," Alastor rushed, clutching his chest as he leaned against a wall, heaving for breath. His white hair had been tousled, with stray curls sticking up from the wind. 

Alastor had traded the traditional royal blue for a tunic of deep midnight navy, a color so deep it absorbed the twilight of the late hours of night. Woven from some of the softest Metian cashmere obtainable, it made no sound as he moved. 

Iliyana merely rolled her eyes. "I shouldn't even be here, Your Highness." She took a deep breath, wiping her palms on the indigo apron that she wore over her off-white dress. "Your father and brother would have me thrown in the dungeons if they knew that you were sneaking me into the palace when there are marriage talks for you and the Princess Samara of Eraklyon."