An ancient dragon seeks the elf who stole her inheritance, and he wants her for her library.
Oksana has spent her lifetime trying to restore her mother’s legacy, and the fey who stole it happens to be her ideal mate. Well, that is what the seers tell her. She will see for herself, but she isn’t handing over her hand in marriage until she gets her mother’s belongings back.
Hyther thought that a dead dragon meant the artifacts were up for grabs. He has since found out that dragons can hatch from eggs, and they have a long memory.
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Desperately Seeking Starlight
Copyright © 2016 Zenina Masters
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0990-6
Cover art by Carmen Waters
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Desperately Seeking Starlight
Shifting Crossroads Book 42
By
Zenina Masters
Chapter One
Liwin wrapped her body around her egg and exhaled light and fire on it as necessary.
When the egg began to crack, she sighed in relief. Having her child in the world was her final wish. Her scales creaked as she shifted into her human form, ready to catch her daughter.
The shell shattered and Liwin stepped back, covering her eyes. When she lowered her arm, Oksana was stepping free of her shell and coming toward her.
They stumbled and collided in an embrace. Liwin pressed her lips to her daughter’s forehead. “I will not be with you long, Oksana.”
Her daughter leaned back, and her mouth opened and closed before she whispered, “I know. I heard you.”
Liwin sniffled and slid her arm under Oksana’s, lifting her to her feet. “Come now. We need to read the sky to see your future. I want to know that things will go well for you.”
“Things will go as they are meant to. I can hardly wait to start reading. The books you shared with me were amazing.”
Oksana had spent time on her feet while in the egg. It was obvious in her balance and the strength of her limbs.
“It was my pleasure to read to you. I am sorry that you were beast-born, but I was caught by surprise at how fast you developed. A few months of preparation and you were too big for me to form my human body around.”
“I understand. Thank you for waiting until I was born to join the soil.”
“I hadn’t taken the time to have a child before. You know what our kind are.”
“We are born pregnant. You could have overrun the world if you wished, but instead, you studied.”
Liwin smiled at her daughter’s observation. “Yes. Just like my mother did before me. You come from a long line of women who saw the world for what it would become. I know you will do us proud.”
They emerged from the cave and stepped out onto the wide ledge that gave them a one hundred eighty degree view over great plains and distant mountains. The sky above was filled with stars.
The roar of the distant ocean waves came through the rush of night air that greeted Oksana. Each of the elements hoped that she would choose them.
Oksana staggered alone to the edge and looked around. She knelt and looked around her. “Mother, how did you choose?”
“I chose the one that came to me and made me feel alive. It made me feel hope for the future, and when the wind and earth touched me, I knew that I would have to choose between them.”
Oksana looked over her shoulder and smiled. “How did you choose?”
Liwin shrugged. “You will know it when you feel it.”
Oksana watched the sky lighten, and just as the rich blue was fading, a streak of light burned across it. The energy in that blazing light sang in her blood.
“Starlight! I pick starlight.”
She turned with excitement to look at her mother and get her opinion. Her mother was slumped against the wall leading to the cavern, her skin grey.
“Mother!”
Oksana knelt at her side and stroked the long silver hair that had crowned her mother in all their silent tutorials. Two hundred years of growing inside the egg had left her seeking the light with her mother at her side the entire time. Now, Liwin of the Harvests was passing into the soil.
“You have done well, but don’t go through this life alone. You need to seek out a companion.”
Oksana frowned. “Like a pet?”
Liwin chuckled. “Call it what you will, but you need an immortal or long-lived being to be at your side. I told you about the others of our kind, so meet with one of them and seek a friend.”
“Why?”
“Because I had my mother, and she had hers. I left having you until it was too late. You will be alone, and being alone is not a good thing.” Liwin smiled softly with her eyes closed. “I have taught you most of what I know, and you will learn what you need to know. Knowledge is power.”
Oksana nodded and held her mother as the power that had rippled through Liwin for thousands of years unravelled into the universe once again.
It was a very emotional birth day.
* * * *
Oksana sat in her tower, under the expansive dome of glass that she had created for her in the seventeenth century. She looked up as her companion entered, “What is it, Ygritte?”
“You have a call.”
Oksana took the handset and smiled. “Thank you. How are the kids?”
The half-elf smiled. “Doing well. Bridgette will be able to take my place as your assistant in thirty years or so.”
“How is your mate?”
“My husband is posted in the court, so he comes home and leaves me with another baby before returning to his people. It is an odd balance, but it is what he and I signed on for.”
Amerathican was a grey elf and an excellent scribe and scholar. Ygritte had met him while he was doing work in Oksana’s library.
Oksana thought about it while she looked at the blinking light on the phone. Had it only been a century ago that her assistant had gotten together with the elf? Time was a funny thing.
She pressed the phone and held it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Is this Oksana of the Weeping Stars?”
She sighed. “It is.” The nickname was not her favourite. When she declared herself for starlight, the meteor shower that resulted had fallen in time to her own tears as she held her mother. The elements had whispered the story, and eventually, she was recognized in magical circles. Her silver and starlight appearance had made an impression on those who watched for that kind of thing.
“I am one of the seers working on matches with shifters, and we have discovered you in several visions.”
She sipped at the tea that Ygritte brought. “You don’t say.”
“We were wondering if you might consent to a discussion about the matter.”
“There isn’t a need for it. I am a self-replicator.”
“We have heard that, but we are willing to make the consideration worth your while.”
She took a cookie sprinkled with red crystal sugar and smiled. “I am listening.”
“We have in our possession a book that you may be interested in seeing.”
She bit the head off the snowman with the red hat. “Continue.”
“If you grant us an audience, I will bring the book containing the names, images and tales of nine of your ancestors, as well as yourself.”
Her interest was perked. “You have possession of the live archive?”
“It was acquired during a period of transition after your mother’s passing.”
“When the elves broke into my library.”
He cleared his throat. “That is possible. It was centuries ago and those responsible were never identified.”
“But my books are in the fey archive.”
“It is part of our offer. May we meet in person?”
“You obviously know where I am, so yes. Two representatives may come to my home.”
“Thank you, Mistress Oksana.”
“Today before sundown is good. I am looking forward to watching my stars.”
“We will be there within the hour.”
She hung up and put the phone on the tray at the edge of her table. “Ygritte, we are having guests.”
“Excellent. Shall I get out the wine?”
“Nothing too good but grab a cheese platter as well. We aren’t savages.”
“Melba toast?”
“Water crackers. I don’t want them to move in.” Oksana smiled.
“Good choice, lady. I am on my way.” Ygritte grabbed the phone and left Oksana to her reading.
As she often did, Oksana thought about Urmbret the fey. He had been her first companion, and Ygritte’s children were the latest generation. It had never occurred to her that she would be keeping a family line alive throughout the centuries of famine, plague and natural disaster just so she would have someone to bring her tea.
Urmbret had been one of the fey stealing her mother’s library. Apparently, they had not gotten the message that there was a daughter who inherited. Her new assistant had sacrificed his body to her service in order to spare those that were with him. She had ignored his body and taken his service instead. The books already taken were slowly retrieved over centuries. The remaining list was incredibly short.
If she could lay hands on the living archive, she would be one step closer to completing her mother’s collection.
Since the fey were willing to offer it up, she would definitely be agreeable to hear what they had to say.
This was going to be an interesting chat.
Chapter Two
The twin seers looked surprised by her appearance.
Oksana sat across from them and raised her brows. “I thought you had a picture of me in the book?”
The seer on the left inclined his head. “We do, but we can’t read the book. So, we weren’t sure if that was actually you or an elf standing next to the dragon.”
She stared at him in surprise. “You mean to say that you can’t even read my mother’s books?”
The other seer shrugged. “At the time, acquisition was the goal of our librarian. He became overzealous in pursuit of knowledge.”
She sat back and crossed her legs, drumming her fingers on the arm of her wing chair. “Where is the book?”
The first seer lifted the satchel next to his feet and opened it, pulling out the heavy tome that contained most—if not all—of her family history.
She smiled and reached for the book, but he held it back.
“We need to discuss our offer first.”
Oksana snorted, beckoned with her fingers and the book sailed to her. “So, talk.”
She stroked the binding and smelled the faint scent of her mother still in the leather. Her mother had read the contents of the book to her over and over. Each time the story ended with Oksana being told a story through the egg. It had been her favourite book.
The seers looked at each other, and the right one smiled. “Well, your affinity for the stars is well recorded. The sight of you streaking across the sky in search of the fallen stars is whispered of in myth and legend.”
“I like a good chase now and then.” She shrugged.
“The fey in question is one of the dark elves with a peculiar clan affiliation.”
She waited.
“He is a star catcher. His kind are sent out to meet the falling stars, and if they are close enough, they take the power from the landing and wear it on their skin. They become starlight.”
She tensed. “I have not heard of these fey.”
The first seer shrugged. “They are rare, even among their own kind. To catch a falling star is not an easy task.”
Oksana looked out the window at the reddening sky. “Why isn’t he in a mating bond?”
“He absorbed himself in his studies, and his family is not the highest-ranking. His family does not have the connections to make a proper match for him, and those outside his clan won’t have him. The starlight makes him... unpredictable.”
Oksana quirked her lips and looked at them. “So, I am to accept one book and a defective elf as my mate? I do not need one to have my own family as you are doubtless aware.”
“We have heard that, and our visions have indicated that you will breed true, but your mate will be balanced with you and share in all that you are.”
“What do I get out of it?”
The two men spoke as one. “Starlight.”
Oksana looked at Ygritte as she brought in the cheese tray. “Am I that predictable?”
One of Ygritte’s children was behind her carrying an empty tray that she tilted. The word Yes was scrawled on the wood.
Oksana sighed and rubbed her hands on her jeans. “I will meet him. That is all.”
“Excellent. The arrangements at the Crossroads have been prepared, and Hyther will be waiting for you.”
Oksana felt her body charge with power. “Hyther? Librarian Hyther? That thieving bastard is being offered as my mate?”
She rose to her feet, opened the long casement window and jumped, shredding her clothing as she changed into her dragon form.
A long flight was just what she needed to cool the fire in her veins.
After two hours, she concluded that she was going to the Crossroads and bite the head off the librarian who had dared to invade her cave on Oksana’s birthday.
She would meet him, and she would make him pay.
She changed shape just as she would have hit the walls of her home. Naked and human, she tucked and rolled into her living room.
The elves jumped to their feet and looked around in embarrassment.
“I will agree on one condition.”
Ygritte was standing with an amused look on her features, near the fireplace. Oksana took in the armaments near to hand and fought her smile.
The seers nodded as one. It was disturbing and cute at the same time.
“If you take him as your balanced mate, we will agree to anything.”
She smirked. “Every artifact relating to myself and my line is to be returned to me.”
“Yes, Mistress Oksana.” They bowed as one again and disappeared before she could say another word.
Oksana put her hands on her hips and wrinkled her nose. “I wonder how they will take their prize stud being returned to them without a head?”
Ygritte sighed and opened a hidden cabinet, removing a silk robe. “They might notice. Then again, the fey are a funny lot. Should I ask my other half?”
“Only if the conversation won’t result in another baby. I am drowning in little peopl
e.”
Ygritte snorted. “There are only five, and one is away at college.”
Oksana settled into the robe and tied the sash. “Five? I could swear there were a dozen.”
“It only feels like that sometimes.” Ygritte cleared up the food and wine remains and headed for the kitchen. “Good night. Let me know before you go on your vengeance trip to the Crossroads.”
“Yes, dear. Keep those kids out of my library. They have their own to play in.” Oksana headed for her room.
Ygritte called out, “Do you want me to pack for you?”
“Nope. I will shop when I get there.”
Her friend shouted, “You are not going there naked.”
Grinning, Oksana sent a ball of light to spell out the word Yes in large letters in front of her friend.
She flicked her fingers and summoned her book. It thudded into her hand with a satisfactory smack.
She had enough time to read the tale of Liwin before she headed off. She had to send the request for portal authorization. There was no way she could use a regular transport portal, she would blow the Crossroads to bits. The thought really shouldn’t have made her smile.
* * * *
Dira left her children with their dad and transformed to greet the other dragon.
Her wings flared and flexed as she pulled herself higher and higher. It had been ages since she had approached the limits of the Crossroads, and stretching her wings felt amazing.
The portal opened with a twist at the precise location that Oksana had agreed to. Dira lazily swirled through the sky. Oksana was nothing if not punctual.
A dragon made of crystal did not seem like a likely creature, but Oksana moved through the sky with grace and steady beats of her wings.
The portal flexed and strained as the crystal dragon came through.
Dira could feel the pressure on her mind and in her body. Oksana had grown in the three hundred years since they had been together.
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