The Starless Girl

by Liz Delton

  When Sir Jovan finally decided to end his search, he sought Sir Rokuro. He found him in the city of Carina. It was difficult to move freely through the Realm now, as they once did with ease. The Grey Knights, due to their nature and position, were normally universally respected by both Light and Shadow. But since the Fall of Azurite, some six years prior to this day, the Grey Knights’ allegiance had shifted to Light.

  The Storm King’s forces were scattered, trying to secure strongholds throughout the realm, and on many fronts succeeding. Sir Jovan could no longer shirk his calling to help protect the Realm.

  With no sign of his wife, and his brothers-in-arms giving up their searches one by one, Sir Rokuro was not faring well. He was thin and tired-looking when Sir Jovan met him in a tavern in Carina.

  Though there are many accounts of the Camellia Seven’s search for Sir Rokuro’s wife, none can say what passed between Sir Rokuro and Sir Jovan the day they met in Carina. By all accounts, however, the two friends did not speak afterward for a long time. This is mainly because Sir Rokuro—perhaps out of grief for his wife, or at strong words from Sir Jovan, neither would say—dove into fighting the Shadow forces with incredible vigor.

  Sir Rokuro shunned his family home, in which he had lived together with his new wife for only one month after they were married, and took to the roads of Camellia to begin his solo campaign.

  The Camellia Seven were now effectively six. Sir Jovan has championed the Grey Knights ever since.

  Kira jerked her head up at a thump from somewhere deep in the library. Her heart thudded, and quietly she closed The Grey Knights of Camellia. She strained her ears for any other sounds but heard nothing else. Perhaps it was time to get back to bed. She spared a thought for her library card, tucked under her pillow, as she wondered how she might borrow books from this library.

  She eased to her feet and silently slid the book back onto the shelf. The back of her neck prickled, and she felt like she was being watched. She whirled around, but no one was there.

  She ran for the door as if being chased. Her soft shoes were quiet on the stone floor. She giggled at the ridiculous way she was acting once she reached the door. She glanced back into the empty, glowing library, then walked back to the dorm house as fast as she could.

  ***

  Kira intended on sleeping in the next day, having finally fallen asleep closer to dawn than she would have liked. She was woken by Hana, though, shaking Kira gently and smelling like the kitchen house.

  “Jun wants you to get up,” the older novice said by her ear. Nesma and Michi were still asleep.

  Kira mumbled an incoherent question, but Hana seemed to get the point.

  “He said to tell you to meet him at the combat rings in fifteen minutes.”

  Somewhat more capable of manners after sitting up, Kira thanked Hana for the message. Irritated at being summoned by her own trainee, and overcome with grogginess, Kira dragged herself out of bed and dressed.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she scoffed. She stopped at the kitchen house to grab some food on her way to the rings. She didn’t need to answer to Jun anyway.

  The path up to the combat rings barely registered in her mind as she climbed the stairs, munching on a warm bun. When she arrived, he was waiting in the main ring, alone.

  “No one comes here this early,” he called jovially to her when she entered the ring.

  “I wonder why,” Kira replied tartly.

  Jun’s face crumpled a bit. “I was going to ask you last night, but we were busy talking about you and Zowan. How did it really go anyway?” he added.

  Even though they were alone, Kira looked around the clearing before speaking. “Pretty well, I guess. He taught me some knife fighting and told me about the Fall of Azurite.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “You didn’t really make me get up early to just ask me about Zowan, did you?” Kira couldn’t help it. Lack of sleep made her irritable.

  “No,” he replied, a smirk on his face that Kira desperately wanted to slap away. “I thought you and I should get a start on extra training if we’re to become pages by the new moon.”

  “You really think you’ll be advanced to page by then?” Kira asked, genuinely surprised. “I thought you were joking.”

  Jun shook his head. “My father is Sir Jovan. I’ve got a lot to live up to. Oh! But you won’t know—”

  “Actually,” said Kira with a slight smile, “I do know a little about him. He’s one of the Camellia Seven?”

  “Well, it’s six now,” Jun replied. “But you’re learning!”

  “Six? Oh,” Kira remembered the other Grey Knight she had read about. “Sir Rokuro, he was Master Starwind’s son, wasn’t he?”

  Jun nodded. “He was killed at Sayuri, not even a month ago. Sir Rokuro was spying on some Shadow mages positioned there, but there was an ambush by raiders from Ga’Mir. My father was inconsolable when he heard.”

  Kira wasn’t sure if she should ask any more about Jun’s father, so she said, “Do you think you’ll be a Grey Knight?”

  He shrugged. “It’s possible. It’s often in families. My father says it’s more difficult these days, though, since we can’t cross-train at the Shadow temples like they used to. That’s why there haven’t been any new Grey Knights in a while. People with both magics don’t tend to notice when they never try.”

  “What did you want to practice this morning, then?” Kira was throwing off her morning stupor like dropping a heavy jacket off her shoulders.

  “I’ve been dying to try some real fighting,” Jun said, reaching out and summoning a Light staff into his fist.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Matter of Will

  “Have you tried making something out of Light magic that doesn’t glow white? Something that looks real, that is,” Kira asked Jun several days later.

  They were alone in the middle of the main combat ring, an hour after dinner, during the time when most trainees relaxed or studied in the library. After two more days of early morning practice, Jun gingerly suggested they do it in the evenings instead, when Kira was less hostile, as he put it.

  “Not yet. It’s a matter of will, my father told me once.” He gazed down at the glowing staff in his hand. “The masters only expect novices to summon and shape Light magic—it’s not until squire that it’s a requirement to make it look lifelike.”

  Kira looked down at her own staff, glowing like a lightbulb yet hard as wood. With Jun to compete against, it hadn’t taken Kira too long to summon her own staff so she could keep up with him.

  He finally told her that he had been summoning weapons for weeks before he arrived at the temple. He had started trying to teach himself the moment his Light magic appeared and practiced while his father got his affairs in order before sending Jun to Gekkō-ji.

  Proud though Kira was that she had been able to summon a staff at all, she could see the downside of fighting with a glowing weapon. Stealth would be out of the question. She couldn’t wait to make something that looked real.

  She still didn’t know whether the dagger Zowan had given her was Light or not. She took it out at night when everyone else was asleep, but it only looked like a normal dagger. If it was made of Light, it must have been made with a really strong will.

  Footsteps sounded from the stairs leading to the combat grounds behind Kira. Jun’s eyes flicked over Kira’s shoulder and then away.

  “Let’s keep practicing, shall we?” he said, trying to sound casual.

  “Who is it?” Kira asked, resigned, about to turn around.

  “Don’t worry about it.” And she couldn’t, because his staff was swinging right toward her face.

  She ducked, watching the arc of his staff and meeting it with her own to stop his momentum.

  “Good,” he said. She turned to look at the newcomer, but again the staff was swinging into her field of vision, this time from below.

  She brought her own glowing staff down hard, with both hands, catching Jun’s staff with a
jolt. Seeing her target momentarily trapped, she sank down an inch and dared a kick beneath their crossed staves.

  But Jun had grown up in Sir Jovan’s house, with the benefit—or chore, as Jun normally put it—of private combat lessons since he was five. He dodged the kick entirely, disengaging from Kira and hopping back a few feet.

  Kira resisted the urge to go after him. She had already learned that lesson a few times, and the bruises still hadn’t faded. She stood, feet planted, and waited.

  His right shoulder gave him away before he lunged forward, and she spun to his other side to bring her staff up toward his undefended ribs.

  He had foreseen her attack, though, and caught her with the other end of his staff, knocking her back so forcefully that she hit the ground.

  “Sorr—” he began but was nearly swept off his feet by her staff, whizzing along the ground.

  She lost control of it in the swift motion, and her staff went flying all the way across the training ring. It skidded along the dirt and landed near one of the walkways surrounding the ring.

  Both she and Jun looked at the staff, then each other. They burst out laughing, and he held out a hand to help her up.

  “Whoops.” She giggled and headed to retrieve her staff.

  As she walked back to Jun, staff in hand, she finally noticed who had arrived. It was Master Tenchi.

  He was leaning against a tree at the far end of the large ring Kira and Jun occupied, with his arms crossed over his chest. Kira’s face flamed. He must have seen her lose control of her staff in that wild move.

  “Just ignore him,” Jun whispered, his lips unmoving. He got into position, and Kira followed suit.

  “I don’t recall either of you wielding staves in the novice class,” Master Tenchi remarked coldly before they could get started again. “Why is that, do you think?”

  They both froze.

  “I think it’s because we only just started trying to use them, sir,” Jun said after a moment’s hesitation, lowering his staff. Kira turned to face Tenchi, who had come forward and was standing on the edge of the ring.

  “Jun’s helping me train for advancement to page,” she added.

  Master Tenchi narrowed his eyes a little, but he said nothing. He took a few steps closer and said, “Go again.”

  Kira bit the inside of her lip, hard. She squared off with Jun without a word, even more nervous than before.

  They began.

  She earned a rap on the knuckles from Jun, but overall, she thought, it could have gone much worse. At least she didn’t fling her staff away this time. By the time they were both out of breath, Master Tenchi held up a hand.

  Kira leaned on her staff and looked at the ground at Tenchi’s feet, disliking being on display.

  “You, Savage—why do you wait for Kosumoso to attack? Why not attack first?”

  “I give myself away,” Kira told him. “I take less hits when I let him come to me.”

  Tenchi’s mouth twisted into a strange grin. “Yet if you attacked sooner, you could end the battle quicker. Don’t count the blows, count the time. The longer you fight, the faster your energy fades.”

  Kira nodded, feeling strangely grateful. She had expected harsh criticism, from what she had witnessed in class.

  Then Tenchi’s voice snapped like a drum. “I want both of you in the main ring tomorrow, with the other armed combat novices. And if you do advance to page,” he pinned Kira with an icy glare, “I expect you to keep up.”

  He turned toward the path, his silver robe billowing behind him. But then he halted in his tracks. Someone else was coming up the path.

  “What are you doing here?” Master Tenchi demanded of the newcomer, and Kira winced, glad he hadn’t used that acidic tone with her.

  Zowan entered the clearing and spotted Kira and Jun. He turned casually to Master Tenchi and said, “Collecting my page.”

  “Savage?” Tenchi replied doubtfully, eyeing her. “What do you want with her?”

  That was a good question, Kira thought. She wasn’t due to train with Zowan until this coming weekend.

  “I’m taking her on a quest,” Zowan replied succinctly and strode forward, dismissing the combat master.

  There was no mistaking the disdain in Master Tenchi’s tone as he said, “Good luck,” and left. Kira couldn’t tell if it was directed at Zowan or herself. She raised her eyebrows at Jun, who shrugged.

  “Ichiro said I’d find you two up here,” Zowan said, casting a squint-eyed look in Tenchi’s direction but otherwise ignoring the combat master’s retreat. “How’s training?”

  “Good,” Kira replied. “Are you really taking me on a quest?”

  “Of course,” Zowan replied stoutly.

  “A real quest? Not a history lesson?”

  “Well, we might be able to get some history in on the way there, if you really want.”

  “Where are you going?” Jun piped up, his eyes betraying his eagerness. Not guaranteed an advancement like Kira, he wasn’t allowed to go on quests until after he passed the rite to become a page.

  “Fujita,” replied Zowan. “And this time, I’ve borrowed an extra horse.”

  Half an hour later, Kira perched precariously atop her own borrowed mount, Meluca. The small brown mare seemed easy-going but didn’t like having her reins pulled in the slightest. So Kira let Meluca follow Briar and Zowan and held the reins loosely, so they wouldn’t fall to the ground.

  “What happened in Fujita, anyway?” Kira asked, taking in a deep breath of crisp fall air as their horses walked down the steep mountain path.

  “No one knows,” Zowan replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “An entire field of apple trees was completely destroyed, smashed to bits, and no one knows why.”

  It didn’t take long to reach Fujita, especially after Zowan enticed Kira’s horse into a trot, although Kira herself was reluctant, to put it lightly. Her bottom bruised, she dismounted on the edge of the field. Now it really smells like fall, Kira thought. The earthy scent of dying leaves was nearly drowned out by the crushed apples. She half expected to see a carved pumpkin or two on the doorsteps of the nearby farmhouse, but there were only a few worried faces peering from the windows of the houses she could see.

  “We’ll be back to Gekkō-ji tonight, won’t we?” Kira absently tightened the black sash about her waist, just then remembering Master Tenchi’s command that she report to the main ring in class tomorrow.

  He made a noncommittal “mmm” sort of noise.

  “Zowan! I have lessons tomorrow!”

  “Ah, come on, I thought you would find this interesting.” He lowered his voice. “As, you know, who you are.”

  Kira raised an eyebrow at him.

  “It could be a spirit, but I don’t think it is, from what I’ve heard. No traces or history of this sort of thing in Fujita. Normally there’s some evidence, or it wants something.”

  He gazed over the devastated apple field with a professional eye. “No, this is different. And you and different seem to go hand in hand these days.”

  Kira knew he was thinking of the black abyss that had opened in the village outside of Gekkō-ji. The earthquake that was not an earthquake. The Storm King had never claimed credit for the destruction.

  “How do you know it wasn’t Shadow mages this time?” she asked several minutes later as they picked their way through broken branches and squashed apples. “Wouldn’t Shadow magic leave no traces like this?”

  He shrugged. “Possible, but quite unlikely. This is Kosumoso land.”

  “Jun’s family? Would the Storm King not attack a Grey Knight’s land?”

  “Right,” he agreed, nodding, then whipped his head around to look back at her. “I didn’t tell you about the Grey Knights.”

  Kira grinned. “I went to the library.”

  “Well, aren’t you clever.”

  She shrugged. “What are we looking for, anyway?”

  “Anything. Magic might not leave traces, bu
t people do. And I’m rather hoping there’s people involved. They’re much easier to deal with, even if their motives might be just as sinister as the evilest spirit in the land.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because people can be held accountable for their actions.”

  The sun’s light faded as they tromped through the field, and Kira began to see Light magic outlining her surroundings. She smiled and breathed in the potent sweet air. The devastated field sparkled with starlight.

  Even after they searched the field and surrounding area and interviewed several of the villagers, Kira and Zowan had nothing. It had grown dark, and Zowan didn’t want to borrow a lantern from the village—Kira almost forgot that he couldn’t see in the dark like she could.

  The villagers were distinctly rattled but could think of no explanation. Years ago, an old man told them, they had trouble with a spirit that liked to disguise itself as a small twig and cause harmless mischief. The worst that ever happened was when old lady Misato tripped over a string the spirit had strung between two trees and broken her leg. They hadn’t seen that spirit in years. The old man even sounded disappointed that it had left.

  Kira had hoped the villagers could tell them something, because the broken trees had reminded her of the enormous creature that had chased her back in her own realm. She had hoped the villagers had seen something—anything—that would disagree with her notion. Her stomach was twisted into a ball of worry by the time they finished, and Zowan begrudgingly muttered, “Let’s go back to the temple.”

  As they mounted their horses, Kira spoke. “Did I tell you how exactly I came into the Realm of Camellia?”

  Zowan paused in the middle of tightening one of his saddle bags and straightened up in his saddle. “Not really,” he replied warily. “Does it have something to do with this?”

  “I don’t know,” she huffed, settling herself onto Meluca’s saddle. She pulled the reins but released them immediately when Meluca danced and jerked her head. “I hope not.”