A/N: Did I make a bunch of cultists that can bring down the stars from the sky only to not use a single shred of the awesomeness that idea possesses? I'm afraid so.
Mentions of human sacrifice (kind of).
Cold sweat soaked through Brandon's shirt to make it stick to his back. The chair screeched across the floor from the force of his knee-bouncing. His own erratic breaths rocking his body couldn't distract him from the stillness of Stella's chest.
She was like a statue on the balcony. The air trembled from the glowing aura around her, as deep in meditation as she was. Oxygen was seeping in directly through her skin along with the sun rays she was channeling. Her shadow was the only thing moving, stretching further into the room as the hours passed. It inched over more of their shared space as if to consume it without the setting sun to keep it at bay.
Brandon wiped his clammy palms in his pants once the sunset drowned the sky in dark pink verging on crimson. The clouds may as well have been made of fire or blood and his stomach lurched at the unbidden thought. Sundown on Solaria was always a breathtaking masterpiece of complementing colors but this latest one had become only an ominous warning of what the night with all its million stars might cost today.
Brandon stepped out on the balcony, his loud breathing and clunky steps having no impact on the unnatural stiffness of the evening air. "Stella-"
"You should go to the Hall of the Universe, Brandon," her voice was hard like a concrete wall smacking into him.
The yellow glow disappeared into her skin but it took her chest a concerning few additional seconds to kick into motion. Her eyes remained on the gardens surrounding the palace as if she was taking in the view one last time.
"Let me come with you. Your mom can handle-"
"No!" Stella sidestepped him, his fingers brushing nothing more than the chilly evening air. Her eyes only found him after his arm dropped by his side like a meteor in the ear-splitting silence. "She needs you more."
"I can't help with the stellar eclipse," he clenched his fists, trying to tackle his voice and rein it in. He wouldn't be yet another thing making her fidget and tremble. "I'm useful in battle."
Shadows darker than the creeping dusk were swirling in the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind. His grinding teeth and the furious shaking of his shoulders with every quaking breath could only throw Luna's focus off. Stella needed this spell, clouding the stars, to work this one time when they wouldn't be on her side. She was named after them and yet the enemy had effectively weaponized them against her. All she'd have to count on was the sunlight she'd absorbed to add to the shine of the Second Sun in her veins and her underdeveloped moon powers.
"I can't take you, Brandon," her voice was a stone skipping on the surface of a pond. The second it sank, he would drown in the shimmer of tears in her eyes. "This isn't supposed to be a battle."
No, they were going to cut her open like a sacrificial lamb and drain her blood so that they could infuse themselves with the light of the Second Sun. It would somehow complete their cult to the constellations and give them even more power. And they'd already successfully threatened to make the stars rain upon the whole solar system and decimate every planet in it.
Stella grabbed his hands and squeezed them until he lifted his head to look at her. "You have to look after my mom, Brandon. You have to help ground her. I need this spell to work and only the two of you can ensure that."
"You can't go alone!" Brandon choked on his tongue, on the love confessions tripping over each other only for him to swallow them back. They were all stained with so much pleading desperation for her to stay. He might as well tell them both he believed she would die out there.
"I have to," Stella cried at him, frustration suffocating her voice but she only clutched at him harder. Her nails were digging bloody crescents into his flesh. "I'm the queen."
Her head bowed under the weight of the sorrow and grief over her father's passing. A crown she could never put down.
"Maybe you shouldn't be queen!" Brandon spat out, his features twisting into a grimace. The impact resonated in his bones when the mangled distortion of his love sliced right through Stella's fingers.
"What?" she bounced back as if scalded, arms wrapping around her middle in a hug he should have given.
Brandon ran a hand through his hair, a loud sigh whistling between his teeth.
"Time and time again," he started slowly, eyes trained on the little lines her smiles and laughter had left in the corners of her mouth, "I've watched Sky evade death by sheer miracle. My presence was supposed to make a difference, to keep him safe. And if all those near-death situations are the difference, maybe no one should be royalty."
Brandon licked his dried lips, his tongue scraping itself raw on the cracks in Stella's brave front. All he wanted was to wrap her in his arms. He'd carry her on his shoulders for the rest of his life despite the heaviness already weighing on them from the memories of his failures and uselessness in the face of looming doom.
"Maybe no one should be subjected to constant threats to their life. Maybe you shouldn't have to bet your safety on desperate measures. Maybe I wouldn't have to worry so much that one day this ring on my finger," his wedding band was nothing more than cold metal, hard to make out in the absence of the sun, "will mean nothing because death has taken you where I can't follow."
Stella raised her chin, her jaw clenched so hard that the tendons in her neck bulged out. Her eyes were blazing in the enveloping dusk. "The only thing that can rob this marriage of meaning is you not wanting me."
Brandon stumbled back like she'd blasted him square in the chest. His lips parted but nothing came out through the heart that had jumped in his throat to evade a fatal blow.
Just a couple of steps bridged the gap between them. His palms cupped Stella's face perfectly like they'd been made to do it. Lifting her head cost no effort unlike carrying the load on his own shoulders. And he wouldn't have it any other way. She was facing a horrifying end to her life. He wouldn't pile up on her frame the imaginary corpse of their marriage as well. She wasn't losing him as long as it depended on him.
Stella's mouth opened for him like she wasn't afraid he'd infect her with his breathlessness or bite his pain into her lips. Her arms locked around his neck to pull him into her, their bodies fitting together. Every breath only brought them closer instead of throwing off the harmony of their love. The sun would burn out and die before he let anything come between them.
Breaking away was slow like the melting of snow and Brandon brought their foreheads together. No darkness could veil the warmth of her skin or that of her breath on his.
"Of course, I want you," Brandon rasped, fingers weaving through her golden hair. The burn in his lungs from the lack of air only sealed there the feel of Stella and their life together. "I want you more than my own heart. I'd rather live without it than without you just because of fear."
"I'd rather not live than live without you," Stella's whisper rippled through the night around them like she was manifesting her will.
If it came down to it, that was a burden he was willing to bear for her.