Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  “How clever you two are,” comes a low voice from the shadows. Lexan freezes, and I whirl to face the ledge behind the door. Keirna steps forward into the scant light. She grins as Stian’s voice shouts, echoing around the small room. I hear scuffling from the passage above us. Then Lexan squeezes my hand, focusing my fractured attention back on the shadowy figure before us.

  “I knew this room was special when I found it. Or rather, when you led me here. Stupid girl. You’ve practically killed all your friends by yourself.”

  Anger shoots through me, sending adrenaline shimmering into every limb. I wonder if I have time to get my knife out of my slipper.

  Then Lexan shoves in front of me as a silver glint leaves Keirna’s hand. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. A breath of wind skims through the room, and the knife just misses my shoulder. Keirna’s hair shifts back, and I see a strange hint of fear cross her face. Her lips form a small no and she steps one foot backward.

  “Trea, let your anger out,” Lexan whispers in my ear as he steps behind me, his hands laced across my collarbone like a living necklace. He pulls our bodies tight and I feel a small weightlessness, as though the air had lightened.

  Keirna rushes us, long daggers in each hand, and Lexan shouts as a burst of flame and wind knocks her backward. She screams in rage and pain, splashing into the water. An acrid burning smell chokes my lungs.

  I’m frozen with fear and confusion and jumbled loss, so Lexan has to practically throw me up onto the ledge. He is climbing up after me before I can even squeeze into the passage. Stian stands inside, waiting and disoriented like a lost, dull child. A protector’s body is crumpled in the hollow where our packs wait. I blink away and shove a pack at him, pushing him forward. Lexan and I each grab a pack, and he slings the bows over his shoulder.

  I hear scuffles and yells from below, and I realize someone else has made it into the secret room. Keirna’s voice shrieks an order. We have to move faster.

  Something finally clicks in Stian’s movements as we get close enough to smell the fresh air, and he halts right before stepping into nothingness.

  “Wait,” he says. “Put this on your faces.” He tears two strips of cloth from his tunic and hands them to me. “Your eyes won’t be able to take the light for a while.”

  He’s right, because even standing inside the passage, the outside world is like staring directly into a lit candle. I stumble backward into Lexan, and we help each other tie the cloth over our eyes. It helps a little, but I’m blinded either way.

  I notice suddenly that I can no longer hear any noise from the cave.

  I wish I knew if that was a good sign or not.

  “We’ll have to jump. You won’t be able to see to climb down.” Stian’s voice cuts in, adding to my worries. “Tuck your arms and legs – try to land on all fours.”

  “Point me in the right direction,” Lexan answers. His fingers brush mine and then are gone. I hear a whoosh of air as his body falls.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Before the Great Sickness, the Earth was rich with beauty and untold plant and animal species. There were more colors, sounds, and flavors than mankind could respect. So when it came time to close the steel doors of Asphodel, it was with a judicious hand that First Leader Lakessa selected the seeds of her garden. She chose only the highest-yielding varieties of vegetables, only the most disease-resistant of fruits, only the cleanest of animals. And she chose only the most honorable of men and women to plant the future in the heart of the city of Asphodel. The deformed, the crude, and the ignoble she left to make their way in the great wilderness that is now the world outside.

  From Community History, Chapter Four

  Leader Lorcan, year 2080

  “If you can't trust me now, you should turn back before the journey begins,” Stian warns me, as I hesitate to jump. He tosses the packs over and I hear light thunks as they hit.

  I bite my lip, nearly drawing blood. I don’t know what’s down there. I can’t jump. I can’t even see.

  “Lend me your hand,” Stian says. “I know your whole world is crumbling, but I won’t let you fall.”

  For a long moment, I breathe in the fresh green smells. I listen to the rustle of air moving and the sounds of small animals and birds, so foreign.

  I try not to think about the last ten minutes of my life in Asphodel – of who I’m leaving behind. Of the paralyzing uncertainties.

  Then my fingers grasp his wrist, and my knees bend deeply for the jump. And we are sailing through the misty air, a cool freshness overwhelming my senses. I hit the ground hard, rolling, and sit up in a panic. He rolls over to me, grasps my hands in his, laughter spilling into the forest.

  “I keep my life, and you, star princess, keep your soul.”

  He brushes a light kiss on my mouth, but I break away, self-conscious. Lexan is here somewhere. Suddenly I’m fiercely glad my first encounter of the outside world was of the goddess moon, and with Lexan.

  Stian helps us shoulder the packs and bows, then he leads us into the dense undergrowth, giving constant directions. In the darkened heart of the forest, we remove our blindfolds.

  Finally I open my eyes to the world, and I decide I may never close them again.

  This world is more beautiful than I’ve ever imagined.

  Every color pops in my eyes like the juice from a golden apple. Tall, ragged-barked trees with clusters of thin pointy leaves shade us from the sun. Other trees have smooth trunks and only small buds. A blue and white bird I’ve only seen in a school book swoops past us, nearly close enough to touch. Others cling lightly to branches, bouncing in the air, music without words trilling from their tiny beaks.

  And the sun. I still can’t see it, but I can feel it sifting through the branches. Although I shivered last night from cold, now I feel my hands lift into the air, feeling a glorious warmth coat my skin.

  I meet Stian’s eyes and he laughs, catching my hand as it lowers. Lexan is grinning as widely as I am, and we shake our heads at each other in disbelief.

  “You two are like kids at Christmas,” Stian laughs. I don’t even know what he means, but I laugh too.

  We did it. We rescued Stian. We escaped Asphodel. We’re outside.

  We push our way quickly through the dense growth of new young ferns and older, thick-trunked trees, the ground soggy and squishing beneath our feet. This alone is enough to give me pause – my whole life I have walked only on clean rock floors, or waded in icy underground rivers.

  I feel the water already soaking through my light slippers. I’m certainly not dressed for our journey – none of us were prepared to leave the way we did. Even Stian is dressed in our thin slippers and a long tunic.

  My eyes have adjusted somewhat, although I have to squint when the trees part and allow shafts of sunlight to pass. Suddenly, Stian pauses, and I bump into his shoulder. I blink at him, the grin on my face slipping at his expression. His eyes are the color of the sleeping moss at my feet.

  He presses a finger lightly to my lips, asking for quiet. I nod and know I should be worried, but all I can register is the electricity that passed from his finger to my lips.

  He draws his bow and points an arrow at a large fern. Now I’m nervous.

  The leaves rustle and slowly, from behind the cover of tree trunks and leaves, steps a golden-brown animal with small white spots dotted along its back. It has large brown eyes, and it looks at us curiously. I stare at it, awed by its beauty, and then an arrow buries itself in the animal’s side. It falls, the light fading quickly from its eyes.

  I choke back a sob – this is just an animal, I know. But somehow, it reminds me of watching my mother die. My hand scrabbles with the zipper of my pack, and I have to force my fingers away: I can’t take any pills right now.

  Lexan rubs a hand across my shoulder, silently asking if I’m all right. I turn away from Stian, who is already on his knees, slicing his knife through the animal. I take small comfort in Lexan’s shoulder, allowing a few tears to slide d
own my cheeks before I force myself to bite back the emotion. I’m being silly and weak.

  “This will make a very nice lunch,” Stian says excitedly. “And enough hide for shoes for all of us.” He points at our feet, brown and soggy with mud.

  “If you walk very long in wet shoes, your feet will wrinkle up and crack wide open.”

  I look at him in horror, and he laughs again.

  “Lots of danger in the outside world, princess. Not like your little rock castle.”

  Stian finishes with the animal and creates a small bag from the hide and a long branch, bundling the raw meat inside. He rests the branch over his shoulder, and the bag dangles from the end.

  “Let’s keep moving – I want to put more distance behind us before we cook anything. There’s a small cave with a little creek about three miles up here. We’ll stop there for lunch.”

  Lexan and I exchange a glance: there is definitely no way we could have done this on our own.

  “Look at these,” Lexan exclaims a few moments later. Seeing what he holds between his fingers, I draw in sudden breath.

  “Beautiful,” I say, entranced, fingering a tall stalk with silky white flowers. An earthy, fresh, green scent transfers from the crushed petals in Lexan's hand to the air I’m inhaling.

  “A type of asphodel flowers,” he says to Stian.

  “So this is what your community is named for?” Stian grunts, and I feel as though he is annoyed with Lexan. I’m not sure why – the flowers are truly beautiful.

  I claim a large flower, snapping its white bloom from the stalk, placing it in my braid, inhaling the strange scent with a smile. “I could live on that smell,” I laugh. “It smells like hope.”

  The boys both grant me smiles, and I feel the discomfort fade a little. As we walk carefully through the forest, I systematically shut down the parts of me that were left behind in Asphodel.

  I close up Father and memories of Mother. I sweep Isa and Brenn away. I ignore what happened with Keirna and Lexan and his hands on my body because I can’t process it, and he will tell me when he can. I even command myself not to worry about our awkward little trio – we will learn how to be comfortable as time passes.

  Instead, I focus on the sights and smells that surround me, overwhelming in their unfamiliarity and raw beauty. Every few minutes I cry out at some new and beautiful sight, and Lexan and I laugh over Stian’s exasperation with our ignorance.

  As we walk, I hear Lexan whispering prayers of thanks to the goddess earth, and I smile. Although I haven’t been a very faithful follower, his words create a bridge of hope between the worlds of yesterday and today. I realize he, too, is finding a way to move forward despite our losses.

  I can tell our pace is much slower than Stian wants, but I’m sure we’re not being followed. All day we’ve heard no noise behind us, save that of the small forest animals. Stian names them for us – deer, rabbits, squirrels. Lots of different birds, playing tag above us in the treetops. Once a large, strange bird he calls a turkey.

  “Those are good for eating, but most of the others are too small to bother with.”

  Stian also finds more asparagus for us as we walk, and we munch it raw as we travel. We don’t reach the cave until late afternoon, and we decide to stay for the night.

  “I’ve stayed here lots of times on missions,” Stian says as we unpack a few things. “This small cliff side keeps it pretty protected from larger animals.”

  He begins to build a fire, and Lexan follows me back down to the small creek to wash the mud from our slippers.

  “What happened in the cave? With Keirna?” I ask as soon as we are alone. Thoughts of the strange fire have been swirling in my mind all day, despite efforts to tamp them down.

  “I’m not sure, and I don’t want to talk about it if Stian is near. He didn’t see anything and I want to keep it that way,” Lexan says sharply.

  “But-”

  “Please just let it go. I need to read some more. Trea, please keep Stian out of this for now.”

  I hold his gaze for a long moment before deciding to trust him. Whatever he knows, he will tell me when he can. “I never got to tell Father goodbye. Or Isa,” I say finally.

  “They’ll understand. Brenn will explain everything.”

  “We don’t even know if Brenn is alive. Or Aitan. That was amazing, what they did.” I feel stupid, because I’m supposed to be the brave one, yet all day I’ve been nothing but a coward, pushed along by everyone else. Lexan stays silent, and I wonder how he really feels about his brother, or any of what has happened.

  I finish rinsing the slippers and sit heavily on a flat rock. “Mother would have loved this.” Lexan sits next to me and I lean against him, blinking back tears.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I say softly. His hand covers mine in answer and we sit like that until Stian calls down that we should bring more wood for the fire.

  As we approach the small cave, arms full of broken branches, I smell the deer meat. It is unlike anything I’ve ever smelled, and it simultaneously makes my stomach growl and roil in nausea. Stian laughs at my expression.

  “Your first taste of meat, huh. This’ll be good. Now don’t eat too much at first – you might get a little sick if your body isn’t used to it. That happens sometimes at home, when we go for a while without meat…” he glances away, and I wonder if being outside is making him miss his Tribe. Surely it is, despite his earlier claims.

  Lexan and I take tentative bites of the hot meat, burning our tongues a little. I make a face. “It’s too chewy.”

  “I think it’s good,” Lexan says, grinning around a big bite.

  I eat a few more bites, then give up, reaching instead for the beans I’ve boiled in Stian’s little metal pot. Maybe the texture of meat will grow on me.

  Lexan falls asleep almost immediately after we eat, wrapped tightly in his blanket in the cave, head resting on his pack. Stian kneels next to a small pyramid structure he has built to smoke the rest of the meat. He adds small green branches a few at a time to keep the fire going. As the meat cooks, he hacks at the deer hide, trying to fashion it into rough slippers for us.

  It is much colder away from the fire, but the smoke from the fire blots out the stars. I walk to the edge of the cave anyways and sit, my legs dangling over the edge of the rock ledge: I can’t tear my eyes from the night sky.

  Of all the sights I’ve seen today, the stars are by far the most wondrous.

  Stian approaches and sits next to me, wrapping his large blanket around us.

  “They’re so beautiful,” I say, staring into the night sky. “I never imagined how bright the stars would be.”

  “At home, we have a poem, a children’s game really. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight,” he recites softly in my ear, hugging me tightly beneath the blanket. My skin thrills at his touch. “It’s a tradition to make a wish on the first star of the night.”

  “I think I could have enough wishes for all of these stars, Stian. We have so much before us.” More even than he knows.

  “We do. But, Tre, we can’t do any of it tonight.” His fingers find mine in the darkness and he leans in to find my lips. I twist to him, hungry for his touch, desperate to feel something other than fear or pain.

  But at the same time it feels strange, knowing Lexan is barely twenty feet away in the darkness, sleeping under the same bright stars. What would he wish for?

  “Tre, thank you. For everything,” Stian whispers into my neck, his breath warm against the chill air. “I can’t believe you’re here with me. Outside.”

  I pull back to smile at him. “Stian, once I knew they had you, there were no other options. None of my family – or Lexan’s – could let them kill you. And neither Lexan nor I could stay either, or we would be killed too.”

  He glances into the distance, remaining quiet for a minute. “But do you want to be here? With me?” His voice sounds uncertain, like he’s
not sure if he wants the answer, or if he’ll believe it when I speak.

  So I don’t speak. Taking Garna’s old advice, I twist further, boldly straddling his lap. I hear his breath catch as I pull my fingers through his shaggy hair, brushing it away from his face. My fingers stutter over his implants, and my heart fills with anger at what Keirna has done, what else she will likely do. All in the quest for power.

  As my anger burns, I pull Stian to me and kiss him like I’ve secretly dreamed about for days, letting my anger spread into a new type of fire that warms me from the inside out, from the pit of my stomach to my cheeks.

  “I’m here because I want to be. And I want you.”

  Guilt or no guilt: with Stian’s strong arms around me, I can’t resist this truth anymore.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name;

  Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses

  As we forgive those who trespass against us; And lead us not into

  temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

  Prayer from before the Great Sickness

  Recorded in the Archives

  In the morning, I busy myself tending Stian’s injuries. He insists everything is fine, but the bright red skin on his temple shows him a liar. Lexan helps, finding the right medicines in Father’s case as I read from the herbalist.

  “These might need to come out,” I finally say, looking at the raw skin at his temple.

  Stian nods his head. “Good – I want them out. What’s the best way?”

  Lexan gives him a long look. “Cut them out. They’re made to stay in a lifetime.”

  “Do it.” Stian mumbles a short prayer, then touches his forehead, his chest, and his two shoulders.