Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  He avoids my eyes while I spread a numbing tincture on the area, and Lexan sharpens my small knife on a stone. I try to make as few cuts as possible, but the pattern is large. Lexan helps every few minutes by wiping away the trickling blood and sponging on a stinging cleanser. Stian breathes heavily, and sweat beads onto his forehead. When the implants are gone, I sew a few awkward stitches to help the flaps of skin heal together.

  “Shit,” Stian breathes. “Glad that’s over. What a bitch.”

  “Of all the signs to put on you, Sagittarius is the one with the most implants,” Lexan grins. I can’t help but wonder if he found a perverse bit of pleasure in this operation.

  “Isn’t that what you think I am, Tre?” Stian’s laugh is still a little shaky.

  I grimace at the disgusting irony strewn about the rock next to us.

  “Do you think we should take ours out?” Lexan asks, tossing the bloodied cloth onto the fire.

  “Why?” I ask, my stomach lurching at the prospect.

  “Well, do we need to keep our identities a secret? I mean, if someone knows anything about Asphodel, diamond zodiac implants are going to be obvious.”

  Stian thinks about it for a few minutes. “I don’t think it’s necessary right now. We can always change our minds. I think if we meet anyone from the Tribes, they’ll guess who you are no matter what, just because you’re with me. But Tartarus or Elysium? Who knows.”

  I’m secretly glad: even though I used to fantasize about ripping the implants out, right now I like the reminder of home.

  We pack up camp, and I sneak three more pills, pushing away the guilt. I need to be brave: for now, I need the pills to do that.

  The morning goes by quickly as we settle into a rhythm of walking, Stian in front, Lexan at the back. Stian pauses occasionally to teach us something, such as which of the many small tracks in the mud signify deer. He also shows us how to keep our arms and packs from breaking too many extra branches, so we can avoid creating a trail we don’t want to leave.

  “Do you think someone’s following us?” Lexan asks, narrowing his eyes at the forest behind us.

  He shakes his head. “But we still want to be careful. Sometimes the Tribes send people through here on recon missions, just to see if anything new is happening. That could be as bad as someone from your city following us, because either they figure out who we are and try to kidnap us for reward money, or they ambush us and steal everything we have, kill Lex and me, and take Tre to the slave market.”

  “The what?” I know my face is white.

  “The slave market focuses on pretty young girls. Sometimes boys. They’re sold in Tartarus for sex. You’re older than normal, but also better-looking. So it’s a threat.” Stian’s voice is flat, but he won’t look me in the eye.

  “You sound like you know something about this,” Lexan says. I can’t help but notice how he thinks about everything – he often asks Stian a second question before I’ve even processed the first answer.

  “Only because I’ve lived in the Tribes my whole life. I’ve seen girls get kidnapped while out playing or hunting, and once I saw parents sell a girl for money. It’s not pleasant, but it’s better to be ready.”

  None of us speak for a while after that.

  Stian pauses around lunchtime. We find a small clear stream to refill our water bottles and eat some of the smoked deer meat. Stian slices mine very thinly to alleviate the chewiness: I like it even less cold, but I’m also hungry enough not to care. I can tell by Stian’s impatient movements that he wishes we were moving faster.

  Lexan is re-packing his bag and I’m cleaning the hunting knife when Stian stands swiftly, hushing us, drawing his bow. I hear nothing, but my skin prickles in anticipation.

  Several long minutes pass with nothing stirring. Even the birds have gone strangely quiet. Lexan and I crouch by our packs, unsure what to do. He eyes his bow and arrows, sitting about five feet away. I clutch the serrated knife tightly.

  Then the ground I’m touching begins to vibrate beneath my fingers, and I hear a man shout in the distance.

  Stian darts toward Lexan’s bow and kicks it toward him, then he strides in front of me, his legs blocking most of my view, and hopefully, most of me. I see Lexan’s hand shake as he readies an arrow. My hands are steady only because I’m pressing my knuckles into the dirt, the handle of the knife slippery in my sweating palm.

  The trees seem to rip apart as three huge beasts burst into the clearing from my right, pulling up short when they see us. I grip the grass to keep my balance, watching a tall, wiry man jump down from one of the snorting animals, his black eyes greedily covering the three of us. Stian steps back again, almost treading on my fingers. He’s muttering under his breath again, and I’m shocked when I recognize the old prayer.

  The man grins, showing gaps where teeth used to be, and steps forward. He lifts his long dagger at us in an unmistakably threatening gesture. The point is barely a foot from Stian’s drawn arrow.

  Now that the animals are stopped, kept in place by ropes around their neck, I can see that the other two beasts also have riders: a smaller man and a hard-looking female. They look wild, with metal bands around their upper arms and dirt smudged on their faces and necks.

  Stian doesn’t back up again, and he doesn’t lower his weapon. Lexan stands behind him, also ready. I’m still crouched on the forest floor. Then the man steps deftly around Stian and places the point of his weapon under my chin before the boys can react. He presses upward on the knife, hard, forcing me to stand or be cut.

  The other man makes a noise of approval. Lexan shifts slightly, now aiming his arrow in that direction. Stian hasn’t moved, but he watches the first man sharply. The woman says something in a low voice, and her companion laughs. None of them seem worried. We must look like children to them, although they can’t be much older. Only harder.

  Just then a gust of spring air blows through the opening in the trees, lifting strands of hair from my face, exposing the diamonds to the sunlight. The man gives a yell of triumph, nearly slicing my throat in excitement.

  Chaos opens in the clearing.

  Stian twists and shoots the woman directly in her heart, enough force to bury the arrow halfway in. She falls sideways, hits the ground with a soft thud, and doesn’t move again. An arrow flies toward Lexan, even as his own hits the smaller man in the shoulder. Stian has loosed another arrow into the man’s neck before he can cry out, and he slumps backward, then falls off his animal. The beast darts away into the trees, spooked by the arrows and the sudden absence of its rider. The woman’s mount is still prancing, making desperate noises as its ropes tangle around a low branch.

  I can only watch, still frozen to the knife point digging into my neck, paralyzed by the gravelly laughter grating through the gaps in the man’s teeth. If he can laugh as his companions die, I know with horrible certainty that I can’t let him an inch nearer to me.

  On the edge of my vision, I see Lexan on the ground, an arrow lodged somewhere in his torso. His arm is moving, but he’s not getting up. My eyes lock on Stian. One thing at a time. He circles toward us, another arrow ready, but he’s hesitant to attack with me poised on the edge of a blade.

  The man stops laughing and shifts slightly so he can protect himself if needed.

  “I guess I’m outnumbered now,” he says, still smiling strangely. Stian’s eyes narrow, and I guess he’s looking for the trick that’s sure to be played.

  I’m tired of waiting for the man to play it.

  I don’t pause to think about what I’m doing –his gaze is still resting on Stian, and I’m impatient to end this. I throw my body away from his knife, then spring myself back and lunge under his arm. The wild thrust buries Stian’s knife several inches deep into the man’s soft stomach. He makes a horrible shrieking noise, more rage than pain, and then Stian kicks him to the ground. I tumble down with him, landing on his chest because I can’t let go of the knife and it can’t let go of its snare of bloody intesti
nes.

  Stian roughly shoves me out of the way and clamps a hand around the man’s neck, his knee pushing into the man’s heaving chest.

  I hear Stian say something, but I’m too dazed by the sight of my arm, covered to the elbow in blood, my fingers locked around the knife handle as though my life still depends on it. I think the man answers Stian, but then I see a flash of silver blade at his throat and he is quiet.

  I lean heavily to my side and retch, depositing chunks of just-eaten deer meat onto the dirt and blood-splashed grass. What have I done?

  I don’t look up for several minutes, focusing on breathing through the horror of what has just happened. My actions seem disconnected from myself, as though I simply watched someone else shove a knife into a man’s stomach.

  Finally I notice the clearing has grown quiet – even the animals have stopped their noises of fear. I look up and see Stian standing next to the woman’s animal, his hands stroking the length of its face, calming it.

  “Is that a horse?” Lexan’s voice asks weakly, and I nearly laugh out loud, remembering that he was hurt and realizing he is okay all in the same instant.

  “Damn fine one, too,” Stian says. He glances back at me, then bends down to the woman’s body, pulling the shoes from her feet. He brings them to me, but I don’t want to look at them.

  “Are you okay?” he asks softly. I nod, but I’m lying.

  I’m not hurt. But it’s not okay that I just helped kill a man – even a horrible one. It’s not okay that my arm is covered in blood because I used a knife to rip open a man’s stomach.

  I turn away from everything, pushing my face into the grass instead. The clean smell of the dirt calms my mind somewhat, and the darkness created by my closed eyes helps me focus on what’s important.

  We’re all still alive. We were attacked, and we survived.

  I repeat this to myself, hoping its logic will impart strength to my spinning head.

  I hear Stian and Lexan moving around, talking in low voices, but I ignore them completely. When I finally grow tired of avoiding reality, I look up. All I can do is gape at how industrious the boys have been.

  The three bodies have been stripped of their outer clothes and shoes, then piled in the taller grass at the edge of the clearing. Lexan no longer has an arrow protruding from his shoulder, replaced by a small bandage. He is admiring his feet, laced into a pair of dead-man’s boots. The two horses stand quietly as Stian straps our packs next to what they were already carrying.

  Lexan notices me watching them, and he grins a little sheepishly.

  “Here.” He hands me a wet cloth so I can wash my arm. I try to avoid looking at the patch on his shoulder. It’s high, only inches from his neck. I don’t want to think about the many variations on how this attack could have ended.

  “We can make much better progress with these horses,” Stian says happily.

  I just look at him, my mouth set in a grim line. “I am not getting on that.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, you are.”

  I glare at him and cross my arms. “No. I’m not.”

  Lexan laughs at the two of us. “Stian, you’ll never win.”

  Stian pauses and looks at me curiously. “You really won’t?”

  I don’t answer him, and I don’t move either. He sighs.

  “Here, Lex, let me help you get on. I guess I’ll walk with Tre.” He holds his hands together to create a step, and Lexan hoists himself onto the brown horse, grimacing as his shoulder muscle flexes beneath the bandage.

  Stian takes the ropes from the gray horse’s neck and tugs it forward. I walk next to him, but still what I consider a safe distance from the horse.

  And, I admit to myself, a safe distance from Stian, who has just killed three people and is not acting any differently than before. Maybe even happier.

  “Those people…they were slave traders?” Lexan asks, his voice drifting down from the horse’s back.

  Stian nods, his eyes distant. “They weren’t interested in us, only Tre.”

  “It seems like a lot of risk, just to kidnap a girl.”

  Something in Lexan’s voice makes me start going back through the attack. I can tell he thinks something’s not right, and the more I remember, the more I agree.

  “Why was he so interested in my diamonds?”

  Stian looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t give the yell to attack until the wind blew my hair back. He saw my implants.”

  I can see Lexan nodding slowly.

  “Well, diamonds are very valuable,” Stian says.

  I don’t speak again, allowing him to assume I’ve accepted this as an explanation. Maybe that’s really all there was to the attack. But I don’t think so.

  “I did find some gold and a few stones in their bags, which makes me think they were robbers. A little money always comes in handy,” Stian adds as we move forward. I think about Firene’s wealth of gold and precious stones hidden in the bottom of Lexan’s and my packs. I’m struck with a sudden, unexplainable relief that Stian doesn’t know about this.

  As the sun continues its daily journey above us, we settle again into a rhythm. I know we could move faster if I consent to ride the gray horse, but something about the beast’s size and obvious power makes me very nervous. I’ve never been around animals before, and I was unprepared for the intelligence I see in their eyes. However, my battered feet soon complain that avoiding new boots and an animal to ride is plain stupid. As we pause to rest for the night, I decide that in the morning I will wear the dead woman’s boots, and I will try to ride the horse.

  My refusal isn’t going to erase the deaths of those people.

  Sleep comes quickly, dreamless and heavy. At some point during the night, I wake to see the fire still burning. Stian and Lexan are sitting beside it, silhouetted in the moonlight. Their backs are to me, and they talk in low voices. I wiggle my body under the blanket, inching forward silently. I close my eyes and turn my ear to them.

  “I get that you might be killed if you stayed in Asphodel, but what’s really in it for you?” Stian asks.

  “If you’re talking about Astrea, I realize she’s with you now.” Lexan’s voice is hard and glitters like the stars above us. “But there’s a lot more to this than you know. I might only be the second half of the prophecy, but my family has been preparing for this for three generations. I have to stay alive for our plan, too.”

  I’m instantly alert – this sounds different from what Lexan has told me in the past.

  “My great-grandmother was the First Leader before Keirna, and she took her power directly from Lakessa. She knew everything about Asphodel’s history, and she wrote it all down, keeping it secret.”

  I suddenly remember Firene’s journal – I never even asked Lexan if he read it.

  “So what’s your family’s plan?”

  “Fulfill the true prophecy of the garden. Take control of Asphodel. Make the world a better place, more free. We want to make up for what happened in the past – not make it worse, like Keirna would.”

  “Sounds like your family would get along well with some of my Tribe.”

  “And I plan to kill Keirna when the opportunity comes. She killed my father.”

  My breathing stops altogether. Witter. So the rumors were true – but how does Lexan know for sure?

  Stian grunts. “Well, at least if you did, that would keep Tre from trying it.”

  “That’s part of it, yes. A long time ago, I made a promise to keep her safe no matter what. I don’t intend to break that promise. I go where she goes.”

  I bristle slightly at this comment. I don’t need another protector.

  “I’m sure she’d understand if you needed to leave and take care of other parts of the plan, though. I can keep her safe, too.”

  “I didn’t promise her. I promised my family. Trea’s more important than she knows. She has to stay alive for any of this to work. So I go where she goes.”

  I bite m
y lips, my head half-raised from the pillow. Then I slowly lower it, admitting I’m simply too tired to get up and confront them. They can joust over duties all night. But I still don’t like the feeling that I need protection.

  Crossly, I roll back to my stomach and try to fall asleep. My brain repeats Lexan’s last words, images of how he was always just…there…in Asphodel. He followed me everywhere he thought I was in danger. Because he promised his family? Even in my foggy exhaustion, I know that explanation is too simple.

  If I can ever get him alone, I need to ask him a few questions.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The Sickness took with it much more than the lives of many people. We lost much of our culture, our history, our technology. We will record what once was, but we must never try to recreate the civilizations of the past. We must begin anew. It is therefore expressly forbidden to indulge in study or creation of unauthorized technology or additional weaponry.

  Official Recommendation on Technology

  First Leader Lakessa, year 2095

  I wake up before either of the boys, so I quietly pull on the woman’s boots, then shoulder a bow and a quiver of arrows. At the nearby stream, I pause to wash my face and drink deeply of the cold water.

  Across the narrow running water is a small bed of the asparagus shoots Stian loves, and nibbling there in the early morning haze is a pair of rabbits. I smile, stringing an arrow noiselessly. I push the thought of death away, focusing only on hunger. Maybe rabbit tastes better than deer.

  My arrow hits the larger one, but the other bounds away into the ferns. I step from rock to rock across the stream and claim my kill, gathering handfuls of asparagus as well.

  Returning to camp, I find Stian rubbing his eyes sleepily while he builds the fire, and Lexan still hunched in his blanket, watching the clouds drift. I plop the rabbit down next to Stian, pulling the tender asparagus spears from my pockets.

  I grin at him, thinking, see – I can take care of myself. He shakes his head, smiling, as though I had spoken the thought aloud.