Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  My heart beats, and I wish it did not.

  Stian does not question. He only takes me in his strong arms and holds me so tightly I would break, if I were not already broken.

  It is some great time later that I realize with shock that Lexan sits with us. He doesn’t speak, nor does he watch me rest in Stian's embrace. He watches the candle and the water, patiently waiting.

  My sobbing quiets and the room fills with silence, only the water carrying on with the normalcy allowed for things without hearts.

  “They killed her mother,” Lexan begins and I look up, confused. He looks away from me, but continues. “She told the story. The one of the beginning times. Earth’s revelation and Asphodel’s genesis. So Keirna killed her.”

  Stian interprets my confusion as well. “Tre, your Leader would never let the truth be told. It would start a civil war. Is it so hard to believe that she would murder your mother to stop it?”

  But my mother was killed by an accident. It wasn't murder. An errant knife. A clumsy entertainer. Even as my brain strings these thoughts together desperately, my heart shrinks with the knowledge of truth.

  “She told me I have to go.”

  Lexan jerks to attention. “Go where?”

  I shrug.

  “She wants you to leave Asphodel,” Stian says quietly. I notice his use of the wrong tense…wants. My mother doesn’t want anything. She’s dead. My mother is dead.

  I’m seventeen today, and my mother is dead.

  “I’m sure that would work out great for you!” Lexan’s voice shows his anger is barely controlled. “But you never told her about Stian, right, Trea?” Lexan glances at me for confirmation, then he realizes I’m not going to speak and he glares at Stian. “How could she ask her to leave Asphodel if she didn’t know there was a way out, or someone to guide her?”

  “So? It sounds like her mother knew more than any of you. Maybe she knew how to leave the cave. Maybe she knew Tre would find someone outside to guide her.”

  “But she can’t just leave. What would everyone think? It’s not like there’s anywhere to go, like outside. You can’t just move away.”

  “I’m sure you could come up with a story. If not, who cares? I could have her a hundred miles from here in a week and nobody would ever find us.”

  Now they speak as if I’m not here. And I’m not, not really. My heart has shrunk so much that I’m not sure how it still pumps blood to my limbs. My mind has shut down everything important. I’m not really in the room, covered in my mother’s blood.

  The blood. Suddenly it’s all I can see and smell and feel and I want it gone. I jerk to my feet, clawing at the dress, pulling it from my shoulders, exposing my nakedness and not caring.

  Stian reaches me before Lexan, wrapping me in his blanket as I writhe from him, still tearing at the dress. Finally it falls to my feet, where the water laps at its small red pile, pulling it gently. I begin to shake, my legs giving out beneath me. Together they catch my fall, but I grasp now for Lexan, my voice buried in his chest.

  “Take me home.”

  As I crawl from the passage, following him mechanically, he stoops and gathers me, one arm under my knees, one against my back. I lean into his chest, closing my eyes. He does not smell like the outside, or the wild unknown. He smells like the calm cool floor of the cave, the smell I have known all my life.

  Father lets Lexan in the door but says nothing. He is tending to his own grief.

  Lexan lays me gently on my bed, smoothing Stian’s blanket around my unmoving body. I might never move again. He sits on the edge of the bed, his fingers covering mine. I tug his hand toward me, and he lies down, matching his body to mine, his hand resting on top of the blanket I wear. I shiver, and he pulls another one up around us, so I have two layers of warmth.

  His closeness does not set fire to my body like Stian’s, but instead is like a cool salve on the wounds I now bear. Will always bear. He holds me and my eyes and the blanket tightly to him, and I see an image of comfort, an unbroken idea of home as I drift into a heavy sleep.

  When I wake, it is late morning. Lexan is gone from my room, but there is a small paper on my bed.

  Gone to class. I’ll come by for lunch. Please don’t leave.

  I wonder at the last sentence, if he means don’t leave the house, or if he is thinking of Stian’s offer to take me so far that nobody could ever find me. Part of me wants that desperately: to be in a new place, to start over, to leave everyone so that Mother leaving me wouldn’t hurt as much by comparison.

  But I know that my problems will always find me, even if people can’t.

  I reach under my mattress, feeling for the box I know is there. I look at it, running my fingers slowly over the latch. It contains hundreds of small white pills. Pills I have saved over the years, not really knowing why. Pills my counselor gives me each time I visit her. Pills to take away heartache, sadness, to refill an empty heart with calm and even with happiness.

  I swallow two, hide the box again, and return to sleep.

  When I wake again, Lexan is sitting on my bed. He hands me a chunk of bread with a slice of cheese. I just look at it, not moving. The medicine has absorbed some of my sadness, but my heart is still empty, a hollow space that feels larger than my chest.

  When he leaves for class again, I swallow two more pills.

  When someone in Asphodel dies, the family is given two weeks of time away from their classes and vocations. We are supposed to use this time to grieve, rest, find a sense of normal when the world has become a trap of sickening chaos.

  I will need more than two weeks.

  I will need more pills than my box contains.

  Isa comes later instead of Lexan. She pulls me from the bed, gentle but firm, and leads me into the bathroom. She cleans the dried blood from my fingernails, washes the dust and tangles from my hair. She dresses me in normal clothing, moving my arms as though dressing a small child. I return to bed, never speaking.

  She hugs me tightly before she leaves, promising to return the next afternoon.

  I reach for the box of pills.

  Later, I awaken. I’m not sure if it’s morning or night. I hear a noise somewhere in the house – a sob – and I think of Father, of what he has lost. I think of him, but I can’t feel anything for him. That part of me is broken now.

  I lie in bed, watching the darkness. After some time, my door opens and Lexan stands there, more of an outline against the light than a solid figure.

  “Astrea, I have something you need to know.” His voice is terrible, stony, scraping at my soul. I’m too terrified to move.

  “Stian is gone.”

  I struggle to sit, as if trapped underwater by current. Why would he leave me now? How could he abandon me?

  “I think…I think something bad happened to him. I went this morning to talk to him, to see if he could help us.”

  My throat has closed and I am suffocating. I thought my heart was so broken it could never feel again, but I was wrong. I cannot think from fear. I panic without moving, wait for Lexan to continue because it’s the only thing I can do.

  “I noticed the passage was different – wider, somehow. It was full of dust too. When I got through, he wasn’t in there, and his things were everywhere, like someone went through everything.” He sits on the bed, taking my shoulders in his hands, steadying me. He ducks to meet my eyes.

  “They know about him, Trea. Keirna knows.”

  My hands are shaking and all I can think of is the box of pills beneath my mattress. If I take enough, I will be able to deal with this, I know it. I will be able to figure out what happened, how to help Stian. The image from my nightmare flashes again before my eyes, then mingles with the image of Mother, bleeding out in my arms.

  I lean over the edge of the bed and become sick, my body heaving desperately. Nothing comes out, because I am utterly empty.

  Lexan gathers me to him, and I feel his breathing roughen with emotion.

  “I’m so sorry. Y
ou don’t deserve this. None of us do.”

  Something in his words and his touch finds a place in me I thought had turned to dust, and I begin to calm. It is a slow process, but finally I am quiet. My head flops heavily backward as I lean back to look in his eyes. They are filled with tears as he holds my gaze.

  Gradually, I begin to see an image. A hazy picture of what he wants, of what he hopes I will want too. But I see he is afraid. His fear somehow allows me to become brave again, building my courage on the knowledge that he desperately needs me to be brave.

  Gradually, he sits straighter, and the image he projects becomes more defined, the process to get there lined with courage and action. As our eyes sear into each other, a tangible connection links us, our abilities transferring a plan, transmitting the strength required to complete it.

  In a flash, I understand the power we have together – why the injections were given to both of us. As a team, we can give others an image of what needs to be done, and the courage needed to act. Together we have the sunfire of the spring star, and the moonshine of the autumn star.

  Together, we will avenge our parents, and save Asphodel from burning.

  TWENTY

  Justice bright, with piercing eyes,

  Use heaven’s might to expose our lies.

  You wait and watch all humankind:

  To revenge and punishment you are inclined.

  But balance tempers a reddish mind,

  And your Scales will save us as our threads unwind.

  Come, fair Justice, hear our cries,

  Soothe our sorrows, stop our sighs.

  From The Book of Ministry, Second Edition,

  Chapter Seven: Prayers

  Translated by Head Minister Charles, year 2086

  I have no problem taking my excused absence from classes, but the next day I am waiting for Isa when she leaves the training room, pressed against the wall to avoid my classmates’ stares. As we find an empty table in the Common Area, she eyes me with obvious, understandable concern.

  “How are you doing?”

  “A little better. I mean, not great. My mother’s dead for no reason.” Lexan and I discussed how I should tell everyone I think it was just a horrible accident, hoping that Keirna will believe the lie too. “But I’ve been to the counselor, and she’s helping me get through it.”

  Isa nods. “Good. That’s a good idea.” She’s never had the same aversion to our counselors or their medicines as I have. She believes, like everyone else, that sometimes the medicine is necessary, and she assumes my ability to even get out of bed has much to do with these medicines.

  I think of my box of pills: as usual, Isa is more right about me than I would like to admit.

  We sit watching people filter through the room from classes and vocations. Isa allows me to be silent as she braids my hair. She pauses to wave at Dalen and he walks toward us, smiling kindly. My stomach roils – I wish people would stop treating me like I’m about to break. I’m already as broken as I can be.

  A strange crackling sound suddenly invades the cavern, and everyone looks around in confusion. A voice enters the room from the rarely-used public address speakers suspended above us.

  “Citizens of Asphodel, this is First Leader Keirna. You must all report to the Common Area immediately.” The last word echoes softly, then people begin to rush into the room from every passage.

  Isa and I stare at each other, both terrified: me, because I have an idea of what might be happening, and her, because she has no idea. I’m not sure which is worse.

  I know for certain there is only one reason for Keirna’s request: with each heartbeat, an image of Stian knocks at my hollow heart.

  Keirna climbs the stairs to the natural platform used for the ministry during gatherings. Her face is a mask of grave concern, but her walk is proud and triumphant. My hands begin to shake. I scan the crowd for Lexan, gaining nothing.

  Keirna watches the room, waiting for the crowd to assemble. When the doorways empty and nobody else seems to be coming, she holds her hand up for quiet.

  “People of Asphodel, my heart breaks for you today. This week has marked both the happiest, and now the saddest, time in our recent history. We lost a great woman on Sunday, our storyteller Chanah.”

  My chest fills with rage. How dare she speak of my mother as though she is saddened by the death?

  “But today, I must share with you an even greater horror. Chanah’s death was an accident – terrible and heartbreaking. But still, an unplanned death.”

  Isa’s fingers hold mine tightly – she is afraid I will do something, say something stupid, and she has reason to fear this. I am nearly consumed by hatred for Keirna and a sudden, inhuman lust for revenge. But what comes next shatters everything left in me. Three protectors enter the room: a tall, muscular form held tightly between them.

  Stian.

  His movements are slow and clumsy. He must have been drugged. As they come closer, I see the skin around his eye is blackened, and crusts of blood wrap his forearms, blotting out the lines of his tattoos.

  Then I choke on my own breath, and Isa grabs my arms in fright. I feel like I might be violently ill.

  At Stian’s temple glints a pattern, formed of the onyx beads now implanted into his skin. He has been marked with the sign of Sagittarius. In a horrific, prophetic irony, my early conversation and my dream have merged into a nightmare of reality.

  “This man,” Keirna continues, “has committed the unforgivable crime.”

  She pauses as a flood of whispers sweeps through the room. My breath still has not made it past my throat, and I know I will soon faint from lack of air.

  “This man has admitted to killing – in a cold, calculated way – one of our city’s protectors. Citizens of Asphodel! I submit to you…a murderer!”

  The crowd is beside itself. We have not had a murder in Asphodel since before Keirna was born. Most alive don’t even remember the last instance of this horrible deed.

  Of course, there have been many hidden murders, I think, and finally my lungs gasp with air. Keirna may have killed a dozen people for all I know. People like Lexan’s father Witter. He did not die of old age. The shopkeeper, hanging in her cell. And Mother.

  The gears of my brain jam against each other, clogged with images of death.

  Keirna holds her hand up again to quiet the people. “In Asphodel, we are a fair and just people. We punish only when needed, and never above what is merited by the crime.”

  The crowd murmurs its self-righteous assent, already forgetting the shopkeeper.

  “And so, people of Asphodel, you will agree with what justice requires in this situation. If you take a life, you must give a life! This man will pay for his crime with everything he has to give – on Sunday, before our monthly gathering, this man will die for his action!”

  “Let it be done!” the crowd screams as one, then again, and again. The force of their words sends me to the floor, and again my world goes black as I once more lose something I never dreamed could be lost.

  When I open my eyes again, I am in my living room, surrounded by Father, Brenn, and Lexan. Lexan appears to be praying quietly while they watch over me.

  None of them are speaking to me, and none of them are touching me, for which I am grateful. If any of them shows me a shred of sympathy, I may never stand on my own again.

  The only way to get through this is to assume it will not end in another life lost.

  “How are we going to free him?” I say, and they all startle.

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” Father begins, but Brenn holds up a hand.

  “Jasson, wait. You don’t know who this young man is. If he killed a protector, it was in self-defense.”

  “He comes from the outside, Father.” My voice is stronger than any of us expected, and Lexan nods at me to continue. I avoid Father’s eyes. “He has lived outside his whole life, and he sought Asphodel for his Tribe. If Keirna kills him, she kills what he can do for Asphodel�
�s future. We need allies outside. Not enemies.”

  “There is always a way…” Brenn says thoughtfully, and I hope he is remembering his time as a protector, not that long ago. But he looks so tired, and so many new lines have formed around his mouth.

  “And we have our abilities,” Lexan says, gesturing toward himself, then me.

  Our discussion lasts many hours, long into the night. But we gradually formulate a plan to free Stian from his public cell in the Common Area. We must work quickly, but still, it will take us at least two days to prepare. Stian will be weakened with dehydration, hunger, medicines, and taunts from the crowds who will inevitably gather to see him.

  Finally, Brenn leaves, his eyes nearly closing in fatigue as he closes the door behind him. Father also retires to his room, and I see the sadness that lingers in his face. I have pushed my thoughts of Mother away to deal with this new tragedy, but I know he still thinks of her. I can’t afford that luxury, if I am to continue at all.

  I throw my mind totally into thoughts of rescuing Stian, for here is something that can be fixed – here is a battle I can fight.

  Lexan follows me to my room, sitting on my bed while I burrow under the covers.

  “This will work, won’t it?” I ask him.

  He nods. “I think so.”

  “And Lexan? Thank you. I know you don’t like him.”

  He stares at me, shock in his eyes. “Trea, that has nothing to do with it. Keirna wants to kill him. It’s not right, and we have to stop her.”

  His words open a door I had closed weeks ago, when I reconciled myself to what was expected, rather than what was right. Lexan is reminding me of the truest part of myself – I must save Stian because he is innocent, not because I care for him.

  Because it is just.

  Watching the door close behind him, I recognize how far I have come in my opinion of him. I’ve been acquainted with Lexan my whole life, but it’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve really come to know him.