**This chapter contains mature content**

She had never been able to choose between the world bathed in the sun's warmth, or the pale silver that came with the chill of the moon. Both existed because of the other, each a side of the same coin.

The garden that she had nurtured to bloom blossomed to life under the eye of day, but by night it dreamed the sweetest of dreams. Dreams of a love which existed beyond the stars, beyond time; of a warrior braver and more honorable than any who had ever lived, and of the woman he loved beyond all measure. His soul brightened by her very existence.

Did Leoth love her thus? More than a sister? As a God loved a Goddess? So much that no force could separate them? There was but one way to know, but she did not know that she could take the rejection should she offer him her heart and have him refuse it.

Lying deep in the fragrant grass of her inner garden, she gazed up at the sky, at the stars which blinked like the rarest of jewels in the deep and endless indigo. She longed to disappear once again inside the dream of the black-eyed warrior who embodied He who owned her heart. She longed to feel the power of his love and devotion running through her veins, the love and devotion which drove him onward toward his cause.

A soft sigh behind her caused her to startle. She sprung up and turned to look over her shoulder; Calate leaned casually against the archway of the rose gate, eyes gleaming as brightly as the stars above. Something in his look reminded her of a viper before it struck, and a tremor of unease moved through her. How long had he been watching her there, silent as an assassin? She pulled her shawl up and over her shoulders.

'Must you always linger in the shadows, brother?' she said, dry.

Calate's mouth curved up into a wintry smile. 'There is a far better view from the shadows, sister. It would surprise you the secrets one reveals when they do not know they are being watched.'

'And which of my secrets have you learned, Calate?' She sighed, bored. She turned from him and a moment later she heard him move toward her across the grass, footsteps light and slow. She felt him crouch behind her before brushing her hair back from her ear.

'All of them,' he whispered, his fingers caressing her hair. She shivered, though whether it was with foreboding or something else, she refused to consider. 'You give much away as you sleep, sister. Did you know that?'

A burn of shame simmered through her, heating her cheeks. She moved to stand. Calate did the same, towering over her as she rounded on him. His eyes shone with amusement.

'If you enter my quarters while I sleep again, I shall summon you before father.' It was an idle threat, and Calate knew it, for what did Father care for the horseplay of his children now? He was far beyond such trivial things. He had all but abandoned them; his work long done.

Calate took a step closer, his voice a thick whisper. 'Tell me, are you more welcoming of our beloved brother when he comes to your bed? Or has he not yet formed the spine to act upon the desires which plague him?' A small laugh. 'He really has always been the weakest of us...'

She glared at him. 'In fact, it seems you see nothing from the shadows, Calate, nothing at all.' Her voice dripped with scorn. She moved past him, but he was quick, reaching out to grab her wrist. He dragged her toward the marble wall which encased the inner garden and pushed her against it. Then he was close, pressing his body into hers, his hips into hers, the heat of his arousal against her. She gasped, and to her horror, felt it awaken that now familiar need which lived inside her.

The need which came to her in her dreams now, which caused her to wake slick and aching. It sometimes came in waking too. Where she tried so hard to keep it at bay. But it overpowered her. As she lingered upon the soft curve of Leoth's smile, the perfect pink arch of his lips, the power in his thighs as he ran, the smooth marbled skin of his hands. Hands she longed would pull her to him with desire.

'Is the desire I smell from you for him or I?' Calate growled as his lips brushed close to hers. She pressed her head back against the cool marble and lifted her chin. She felt alive from the emboldened by that which pulsed through her veins, wild and untamed. 'Do not ask questions you do not wish to know the answer to, brother.'

A cruel snarl twisted his mouth as his gaze darkened. When he pulled up her skirts, she brought her hand up and struck him, her nails clawing his cheek. He only smiled, his eyes dark from craving. When his fingers brushed the aching spot between her legs an unbidden moan loosed from her mouth. His fingers tested her entrance, pushing, teasing from her that which she did not wish to give.

'Do not dare,' she hissed, her thighs tightening around his hand.

'You save this for him?' Calate mocked. 'He will never touch you, Azura, you know this. His cock is as useless as his spine.'

She struck him again. For the foul insult, and the truth which lived inside it.

Calate was unmoved. He ground his hips against her once more.

'You need not love me, Azura,' he whispered. 'You need only let me give you the pleasure you so desperately crave.' As he teased her place of most need again she bit her lip so hard that she broke the skin, tasting the sweet ichor spread across her tongue. Calate brought his mouth to hers, kissing her hungrily, tasting the honeyed lifeblood upon his own tongue. 'Only I can give you that which you dream of... we are the same you and I...' he breathed against her lips. There was something forbidden in the taste of him, something sweet yet bitter too. Something poisonous, dark, violent. And it called to some part of her which had never been awakened before, and as his kiss deepened, she fell further and further from the light.

It was he who ended it. He separated their mouths and stepped back, licking the taste of her from his lips. She pushed down her skirts, breathing hard and fast. Bright green fire glowed in Calate's eyes.

'You will come to me, Azura,' he said, brushing a hand through his hair. 'When the ache inside you burns as hot as your precious sun, and you accept that which can never be, by the tide of the moon you will come to me.' With that he turned and strode from her, his stride as arrogant as his words.

She did not linger long in Evara's Garden, afeared he might return and awaken again the demon that lived inside her.

It was as she hurried through the corridors of the villa she came face to face with her sin. Her glory. Leoth was rounding the corner as she crashed into the warmth of his chest. The scent and touch of him enveloped her, chasing away the shadow left by Calate's touch. With the steadiest and gentlest of touches, so unlike Calate's mercilessness, Leoth smiled down at her.

To Leoth's own mind, she had never looked more beautiful; wisps of grass in her hair, a faint stain of pink settled on her cheeks, her full mouth blood-red like the flowers she tended each day. The sight of her warmed him like a new sun.

'You are not abed?' She asked, her breath still quick. 'It is so late.'

'I could chide you for the same,' he jested.

She gave him a wavering smile. 'The moon and stars were so glorious tonight, I could not bring myself to chase them away just yet.' Shame made her look away from him for a brief, fleeting moment. Though her eyes found his again a moment later. He smiled the same smile he always did, cleansing her.

'Then you know that while you are awake under the moon, it is impossible for me to sleep.'

She felt a crack splinter across her heart. Swallowing down the pain, she reached up to brush his cheek with her fingers. 'Well, you may rest now, for I intend to sleep well past the dawn.' Stretching up on her toes, she pressed her lips to his cheek. 'Goodnight, beloved,' she whispered, before brushing past him. Azura did not see him turn to watch her go toward her chamber. Nor had not noticed the way his heart quivered as she kissed him, the longing scorching through him to render everything else an insignificant cloud of ash.

Once inside her chamber, Azura closed and locked the door. Then she went to the gilded basin of mirrored water to stare back at herself. A Goddess. One whose beauty was incomparable. A female created so to weaken the hearts of men. Gods and mortals alike. And yet it was she who was weakened. Weakened by love, by desire; by a dark hunger which threatened only to grow with each tide of the moon.

You need not love me, Azura. You need only let me give you the pleasure you so desperately crave. We are the same you and I.

Were they? Was she more like Calate than Leoth? Cold, selfish, and filled with devilry.

She reached out to stir the liquid silver with one finger. With only a thought, Leoth's image was conjured upon its surface. His hair whipped around him by the swell of the wind as he turned to smile at her, her own mouth forming into a smile too. She pulled her fingertip through the water to trace the shape of his lips until his image dissolved.

With another thought, the image transformed. Calate stood upon his terrace sipping from a goblet. He turned, and behind him stood a female, naked, her hair unbound in thick waves of white-gold. Slowly he walked toward her, tilting his head to study her, before bringing his mouth to hers.

The kiss was hard and violent, uncaring almost. Then, before Azura's eyes, the woman began fo be transformed by it. The change bled from Calate's lips outward. Her skin darkening just a touch, her hair turning from light to dark, hips widening a fraction, legs lengthening. When Calate pulled back from the figure, the figure which now appeared to be Azura herself, he smiled, pleased with himself. The figure smiled back, slow and seductive.

'How may I please you?' She asked. The voice was not Azura's. She saw Calate frown.

'Do not speak. And kneel,' he said as he sat down his goblet and began to untie his robe.

Furious, Azura thrust her hand into the water and destroyed the vision.

That night as she closed her eyes to bring forth the sun, she summoned it to rise brighter and burn hotter than it ever had before. Bright enough and hot enough that it would burn away the cold, insidious grip of darkness which had begun to spread through her veins.

**A/N**

I promised you a treat DIDN'T I??
Well, here it is! So a few weeks back I commissioned the v talented star-powered to bring Theo & Fara to life with one of her adorable illustrations and she did an AMAZING job. This is honestly how I imagine my babies would look if Disney made BoA. Aren't they beautiful? Ugh, I'm so in love with it!