When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy)

by Forbes, Amber Skye

  Parson Hill has not been cleaned since the burning yesterday. The oak tree bears deep gashes and scars from the flames, and ashes still litter the ground, almost warding off any snow that wants to make home there. Nathaniel isn’t here, but as I search around the base of the hill and around the tree, I do discover footprints almost half the size of mine that could be his. They’re even boot imprints. Many boys wear boots--of course, I doubt many children would want to play around this tree after what it bore witness to.

  “He may have been here,” I say, bending down and putting my hand on a print.

  Oliver looks down at the boot prints. “There are a lot of boys who wear boots, Amelia.”

  “But then where could he have gone?”

  “Why don’t you ask Oliver where he has gone?”

  Footsteps sound behind me, then stop, and the familiar voice causes me to look over my shoulder. Oliver looks as well.

  “Colette?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”

  She ignores my question and darts her eyes toward Oliver. “This is all your fault, Oliver, that Nathaniel’s gone. And you’re trying to act innocent with Amelia. You were going to kill her here, with her back turned.” She looks at me. “Maybe it was too much of me to ask you to earn his help. I never thought he’d stoop this low.”

  Colette walks toward Oliver and starts towering over him as she shouts a string of insults his way. “Kidnapper! Murderer! Liar! You know Nathaniel is with the Shadowmen Alliance. It’s your fault for telling the Shadowmen Alliance about him at all. Why did you have to mention he was Amelia’s brother? Why did you have to mention the close relationship they have? Now the alliance figures his greatest strength is his love for his sister, and this alone could turn into some phenomenal power they could use against us all!”

  I cringe over her words, but they do more than that to me--they make me livid. I stand, approach Colette, and deliver a hard slap to her cheek. She stands there and stares at me, bringing two fingers up to the bright purple hand print that stands out on her cheek like a testament to how far my trust for her has fallen. As in life, though, she composes herself, closing her eyes against what she believes to be a false reality.

  “It’s true, Amelia. The Shadowmen Alliance kidnapped your brother because of what Oliver told them. And Oliver wanted that, don’t you understand? He knows what kind of weapon Nathaniel can become. The Shadowmen Alliance has individuals with remarkable powers, but none quite so remarkable that this little rebellion of theirs will be made any easier. With Nathaniel though, they’re certain their work will be finished.”

  I stomp my foot on the ground, my heel catching in the earth. “Quiet, Colette! You don’t even sound like yourself. Do you realize how irrational and silly you sound? Out of all the witches out there, why my brother? Why not me? Why not some other witch? You’re being ridiculous.”

  “It’s because you’re his sister, Amelia.” She looks toward Oliver. “And Oliver’s Exaltation. You were slated to die today.”

  Oliver narrows his eyes at her, and before I can register all of what happens, roots shoot out of the earth and trap Colette in an earthy catch. A slender root slithers through the cage and wraps around Colette’s neck, slowly squeezing her windpipe.

  I release a breathless cry. “Olly, stop!” The root tightens. “Stop it, Olly!” Colette claws at the root, her black eyes dilating as precious air--do Shadowmen even need to breathe?--and her jugular are pushed upon. I throw myself at Oliver, my face pressing into his chest and a fist beating his shoulder. My next plea comes out as a scratched scream. “I said stop it!”

  He stops, but he doesn’t release her from her root cage. He keeps her there, the slender root teasing the tender skin of her neck.

  I look at Oliver in disbelief. “W-why would you do that to her, Olly? You know she is my friend!”

  Oliver purses his lips. “A friend who lies to you!”

  I shove Oliver away from me. I look up into his face, my eyes wide. “Or maybe--or maybe you’ve been lying to me.”

  What is the truth anymore? I turn away from Oliver and run.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I sit beneath the leftmost portal of Cathedral Reims, my face slick with tears as betrayal severs my heart in slivers. Hail falls from the sky, small chunks of ice occasionally scraping my cheeks when a hard wind picks up and blows the hail in my direction. But I am too numb--I have been too numb--to notice the icy stings of the storm. A sermon booms from within Cathedral Reims, words like sin and damnation being thrown around. No one knows what those words mean to the people who are actually steeped in sin and damnation. I think I hear something about witches, which is surprising considering no one in all of Warbele ever wanted to admit they existed.

  Sitting here at the very cathedral that shunned me is my way of giving up. Nathaniel is with the Shadowmen Alliance at Deus knows where. For all I know, he could already be dead. If he has the potential to turn into a Shadowman with an incredible power, then why would they want to delay his transformation? Even if I did find them with Nathaniel still alive, I am one person. I would not be able to go against them alone.

  As Oliver’s painful betrayal pulls at my sutured being, I say the most obvious thing that hasn’t crossed my mind until now: “Oliver is Purgatory.”

  Of course Oliver is Purgatory. How else would Purgatory know me? I should have suspected something when Asch actually listened to Oliver, and when Oliver kept dodging questions about his past. I should have suspected even more when he was able to admit that he was a Shadowman after that incident with Asch at the grotto. I was too wrapped up in my own feelings to know the obvious. My own selfish feelings. I’m not even disgusted that I am his Exaltation. I am disgusted that he would put my brother in harm’s way.

  I lean my head against the door, allowing a sob to break through. This is all my fault and has been since the beginning. It’s like fate determined from birth that all my actions would have deadly consequences for those that I loved. Had I prepared a speech, I never would have been stuck with latrine duty. Had I never been stuck with latrine duty, I would never have met Oliver. Had I never met Oliver, everything would be safe, Nathaniel would be safe, Colette might even be safe, and dear Deus knows what else could have been prevented. I never should have come to Cathedral Reims in the first place. I should be in a safe marriage by now, making even safer choices for a quiet, uneventful future I could have had versus this uncertain future where shadows want to kill all in a pathetic attempt to rid themselves of their own pain.

  Then it occurs to me to wonder if Oliver has known since the first time he met me that I would become his Exaltation. Colette’s revelation of his thoughts back in the barn at least tells me he is pained by having me be his Exaltation, but that doesn’t excuse the verity that every second he spent after meeting me was one second closer to making me his target to end his brutal suffering.

  He loves me. What a ridiculous notion now. His Exaltation has lied to him. He doesn’t love me. If he truly loved me, he would have severed ties with me knowing what it would eventually lead to. From the first time we met, I believe he always knew where the two of us would lead, considering it was only a few months after that he began to develop feelings for me--and I in return foolishly returned those feelings, even though every craving we had for one another had to be suppressed.

  With trembling legs, I press my shoulder against the portal doors to help me stand. Once I’m up, I stumble a bit, then find my balance by tucking myself away in the corner where stone meets the door. Hysterical laughter bubbles through the bitter tears over how foolish I have been this entire time. I never thought my selfishness would come to plague me like this. I always thought that as long as I kept to myself, I would never be able to hurt anyone else. I was wrong. It’s so funny to know how interconnected everyone is to one another, even if one feels like the most insignificant thing in the world.

  I look out on to the main road, noting how packed the road is with people under umbrellas
, wrapped in black frocks. Carriages crowd the road, pulled by horses crusted in snow. No one would notice if I were to walk out into the road, stand in front of a carriage, and allow the horses to trample me. My life would be snuffed out, just like that, until some poor person finds my mangled body on the road. That person would be scarred for life.

  “Damn it, Deus!” I scream to the hail-filled sky. I can’t even kill myself without hurting someone.

  The portal doors open. For a brief moment I think to let everyone crush me under the weight of boots and heels, then decide the thought is pointless. I can’t forget that no matter how much I wish for death in this life, I will just come back as something worse. I step out of the way, watching with indifference as the churchgoers pour down the steps, hail hansom cabs, and leave back to their quiet lives with this sermon a lingering afterthought.

  Once the nave clears of everyone, I decide to slip into its emptiness. My boots drag bits of ice and snow along the marble floor, and the ice and snow lay there. I don’t care about the tracks I’m leaving. Not even the snow is given a chance to die. Water returns to the sky to be reborn nonetheless, only to be thrown on the ground once again.

  I walk over to Deus’s eye and wonder what Mother thought when she knew she was dying. Or did she even know? Did the opium haze have her too trapped to let her know her own body was wasting away? Or was she always awaiting death? I’m certain she’s disappointed, if she found herself in this place called Paradise. It’s another life, after all, in spite of how tempting The Vulgate makes it seem. After all, I’m convinced when one dies, a person does not leave everything that person was in this life. It all goes with that person in the afterlife. Nothing can ever be perfect, because people themselves are imperfect, and I don’t think Deus changes that when one enters Paradise--if it even exists at all.

  I fall down in the center of Deus’s eye, inclining my head toward the skylight. The cold marble floor seeps through my damp coat. The jamb statues of suffering witches are steeped in shadows, their presence tucked away from a world that doesn’t want to acknowledge that real suffering exists. I used to find those statues frightening. Now I just find them sad.

  I pull my knees to my chin, not even sure why I’m sitting beneath Deus’s eye. This was the place, after all, where Oliver and I promised we would do anything and everything to rise in the ranks of the Professed Order and change the world of our own accord. I think we made so many unspoken promises that day, ones I can’t even think of, but I know they’re there.

  The tears return, sobs convulsing my body with violent tremors. I fall to my side and just lay there, wanting to desperately scream at Deus to forgive me for all my faults, unwind time, and give me back the life I’ve wanted since coming here. I am a terrible, terrible human being. Shouldn’t I be doing everything in my power to find Nathaniel, instead of lying here and sobbing, already having given up on this thing called living? I don’t have it in me though, in spite of how much pain overtakes me.

  Colette told me it’s only natural for a living being to want to rid itself of pain. What she doesn’t realize is that sometimes the pain is all there is, and to dispel of that means to steep oneself in nothingness. All I have is right now. I don’t know where I’m going to be tomorrow, or the day after, or even a few months from now. I don’t know if I’ll still let myself cling on to this existence, or let go and find out what the Shadowman existence is like.

  I truly don’t know.

  Sobs continue to wrack my body, my persistent crying only being interrupted by a familiar click of boots on the marble floor.

  “Amelia?”

  Mother Aurelia’s soft voice tucks the tears in a raw part of my body that is so fragile and ready to break when I need to cry again.

  I sit up, not even bothering to wipe my face. I don’t know what I should say to this woman. Should I be bitter that she destroyed my dream?

  I truly don’t know.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I truly don’t know.

  She bends down to my level. The hardness I’m used to seeing in her isn’t there. Genuine concern outlines the folds of her face. “What is wrong, dear?” She pauses, as if knowing that question is not enough to make me talk. “You will always be a part of this church, Amelia.”

  “But--”

  She takes my cold hand in her bony, frigid one. “You can talk to me, Amelia. It’s my purpose as a Mother Superior, to be here for my girls, when they need me. You are still my girl, and you always will be.”

  And I know she means it because she never says anything she doesn’t mean. But it’s too late to feel like her daughter, or whatever she considers the sisters and nuns here.

  Mother Aurelia looks down, as though she is beginning to understand why I’m here. “I sent you away for your own good, Amelia. If I didn’t care, I would have kept you here, making you endure trials with the knowledge that you weren’t ready for them. I don’t put my girls through the trials knowing they can’t handle them.”

  She purses her lips, revealing a pained side that suggests she doesn’t approve of the path to the Professed Order any more than anyone else does. “The girls who make it through all the trials always make the Professed Order. The girls who endure, who show they can endure, they are never told that they won’t make suitable nuns because of any weakness they show during the trials.”

  The question slips out of my lips before I even digest the point Mother Aurelia is trying to get across to me. “Then why was I told no?”

  “Being able to power through one’s own weakness is a sign that one has the strength to endure this type of life. You weren’t ready, Amelia. You weren’t ready to accept that weakness is an inevitable part of life, and that true strength lies in not giving in to that weakness, but accepting that weakness as a part of yourself and using it to find strength.”

  Even now I still haven’t learned that. I don’t want to learn that. The next thing that comes out of my mouth is information that is none of Mother Aurelia’s business, but I don’t know what else to say. “My brother was kidnapped. I don’t know where he is. Father doesn’t know where he is.” I pause. “He’s probably dead.”

  Mother Aurelia straightens herself. “How come you have not alerted the authorities of your missing brother?”

  I raise my shoulders. “If he’s dead, what is the purpose?”

  “And how do you know he’s dead?”

  I say nothing.

  “I’m going to fetch Theosodore. You stay right here, Amelia.”

  This gesture should sicken me. But the only emotion that is acceptable for me is melancholia because that’s what this is, the feeling of giving up on life, not caring what happens next, and accepting the pain as something that will never go away. I harbor no grudges for Theosodore, even though he wanted to make me his Exaltation. He only wants to escape the pain. He just refuses to realize that there is never an escape from pain. Trying to do anything about it only results in more pain.

  Those Shadowmen will never understand, and that’s all right. Wanting to get rid of their pain means they haven’t given up on existing just yet--unlike me.

  When Mother Aurelia comes back with Theosodore, he is not donning his usual jagged grin. He looks forlorn. Perhaps he has realized pain is impossible to escape. Mother Aurelia grips my wrist and pulls me to my feet.

  “Amelia, Theosodore will help you find your brother.”

  Mother Aurelia leaves the nave, either because I refuse to respond, or because she planned to leave with the belief that I would protest his help.

  I look Theosodore full in the face and say, “I know what you are.”

  He responds as I knew he would. “And I’ve always known what you were.” There is no malice in the way he says this, no sharp smiles or hidden motives. But I’m not sure what he means by this. Of course he has always known I was a witch, from the first day I entered Cathedral Reims. Unless he just didn’t know that I knew. “Now why don’t we find dear Nathaniel? Mother A
urelia doesn’t want you to come with me. She doesn’t want me to put you in any danger, but if I know you, you’re not going to stay put.”

  Theosodore would be right in another time. Now I don’t care what I do.

  “The Shadowmen Alliance has him.”

  “Then I have an idea of where he may be,” Theosodore says.

  He starts toward the main portal. For some reason, I follow behind, not even questioning why he would help me when I’m still the likely target of his Exaltation. I suppose I’m at the point in my existence where it is all right for others to dictate what I do, what I say, how I act, and where I go. If I have no will to take charge of my own life, someone will have to take charge of it for me.

  We are on the main road of Malva. The hail has stopped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Theosodore leads me through the snow-crusted back roads, his stride sure of where it is going and my stride plodding along with his. Despite Theosodore’s nonthreatening presence and determined demeanor, I nonetheless have an inkling of where he wants to lead me, and this, I believe, is nowhere near my brother or any Shadowman. He may be different from the Theosodore that attacked me in the library, but perhaps he has changed tactics and believes the old adage that one will catch more flies with honey than vinegar. This would explain his seeming eagerness to help with a cause that doesn’t benefit him.

  “You won’t have to force me,” I tell him, my voice monotone. “I’ll willingly give myself to you.” At least I can better someone else’s existence this way, since I have not been able to find a way to better my own.

  Theosodore stops by an abandoned shack sandwiched between two dingy, boarded apartments. Instead of presenting me with his usual jagged smile, he raises an eyebrow. “You truly think this is why I chose to help you, just so I could take advantage of your vulnerability?”

  I nod without the fear that would normally be present. “Don’t you want to make me your Exaltation? Don’t you want to end your suffering?”