Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  Maybe I don’t even have a soul.

  It’s barely the edge of morning, and the city of Tartarus is fully awake. I can see the market stalls opening and hear the vendors calling to shoppers. Coffee. Oranges. Sweet rolls.

  I know I should go back to my room, but I can’t face Lexan. I don’t want to see Ama. I don’t want to see her soul, or discuss this new power with them. I don’t want to be comforted for my loss.

  I want to take revenge, and I don’t want to wait until after breakfast.

  I’m studying the stylized portrait of Justice when a strange creaking noise catches my attention. A slim form is making its way along the wall toward me, its movements slow and jerky. Then I see a blue glassine eye as he passes through a patch of sunlight.

  “Pacem?” I ask, hurrying to him.

  He holds a small sack out to me and beckons, retreating the way he came. I peek into the bag and see three more of the metal spy birds. Leading me to Irana’s cage, he bends to turn the crank at the edge of her pedestal. The drape begins to rise and she shifts inside the golden bars.

  “You made quite a spectacle last night,” she smiles at me, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I didn’t even get to do my new performance. Do you like my costume?” She stands and I see that the peacock feathers have been replaced by red and orange and yellow feathers, with gauzy silver and gray lace that resembles smoke.

  “A fire bird?” I guess.

  “A phoenix. Just like you, the phoenix is reborn,” she answers.

  “Just like me?”

  She nods. “Of course. Surely you know you were born from a star. That doesn’t happen often, but there is always a Lady of Justice. When you die, there will come another.”

  “And a Lady of Peace?”

  She nods. “And a third - Lawfulness.”

  I remember Lexan’s prophecy from Head Minister Saloman. “What are we supposed to do? The two of us are here, now. What about the third?”

  “We’ll find her. If the prophecy says three, there will be three. Perhaps the True Prophet will tell us more. He will be here tomorrow, if the gossip is true.”

  “Tomorrow?” I say in shock. Hade had mentioned his visit when we first arrived, but I had nearly forgotten. I remember his other warning - the Three Sisters would devour me if I had not found my power yet.

  “Irana? Do you have any power?” I ask, tracing my fingers along my cold palms. I haven’t found my fire again - since the Judgment last night, I’ve been cold and powerless.

  “I do. Sometimes I can push my thoughts to others, if they are willing to listen.”

  “You did that to Lexan!”

  She nods, smiling and smoothing the layers of her skirt. “And Hade doesn’t know, but Pacem has been helping me practice this…” She reaches around her and draws a small pitcher of water from a cupboard in the floor of her cage. She places the pitcher before her and moves her fingers in slow circles. Soon there is a miniature waterspout inside the glass.

  “Power over water…and I have fire.”

  “Elements,” she says, and Pacem’s eye glints as he nods in agreement. I think of Lexan’s power over the air, and I feel a realization forming in my tired brain.

  I don’t quite get there because the throne room doors click and whir open, and I hear angry steps in the empty space.

  “Astrea?” Hade’s voice surges through the carved screens. I hurry to help Pacem replace Irana’s curtain and the robot boy creaks his way into the shadows just as I turn to see Hade pushing the screens further apart.

  “You should not be back here. You should be in your room. Did you sleep here?”

  “I was looking for a bathroom. And no, I didn’t sleep here. I’ve been watching the city.”

  “All night?” His voice softens just a little as he draws me away from the room of cages. “Your young friend Lexan was quite beside himself. He accused me of so many ugly things last night.”

  “Did you deserve any of them?” I ask, guilt swelling over me as I think of how Lexan and Ama must have worried.

  Hade pauses in his long stride and looks at me. “Possibly.” He smiles and resumes walking, leading me to the large double doors. “Go change and clean that awful blood from your arms. Charon will come for you shortly.”

  I glance down, having nearly forgotten the blood that crusts my dress. The lace is torn in several places, and I am newly grateful for the slip Ama gave me.

  As soon as I step into my room, Lexan is there. He gathers me into his arms and it feels so nice to be held that I almost forget to push him away. When I try, it is feeble. He grips my face, his hands large enough to cup my cheeks as his fingers splay along my jawline. He tips my face to his as words spin from his deep-water blue eyes.

  I am so sorry, Trea. Stian never deserved that.

  “It’s okay. He’s not gone.”

  I know. The ones we love stay with us forever.

  Suddenly, I’m too tired to correct him and I slump in his arms, wanting nothing more than to sleep forever. He hugs me tightly, his lips moving against my forehead as he recites a prayer. I allow myself to rest against him, although my traitorous body responds more than I’d like it to. I feel the heat build in my chest and spread into my stomach, then down my legs and arms, until I am gulping deep breaths and a bead of sweat rolls between my shoulder blades.

  Lexan’s hands slip down my back, pausing for a spare instant at my hips before reaching between us to grasp my own limp hands. He laces our fingers together, continuing his whispered chant against my skin.

  I feel his grip tighten and he gasps a bit, and I realize with a start that I am calling fire. I’m burning his hands without even realizing it.

  “I’m sorry!” I say and try to pull away. But his grip is too strong. I stumble and trip over the couch, falling backward. Lexan falls with me and together we tumble onto the cushions, splayed together in a way I am not comfortable with.

  With an obvious effort, Lexan wrenches his hands from mine and pushes back onto his knees. He is breathing heavily, as though there isn’t quite enough oxygen in the air for the both of us.

  I push my hair away from my face, noticing the heat of my skin. The heat impossibly increases as a blush travels up my body, pooling in my cheeks as Lexan looks down at me, eyes open and earnest.

  “Trea…I…I didn’t mean to do that.” He sounds embarrassed. He runs a hand through his golden hair, pushing it away from his own flushed cheeks.

  “How did you know?” I ask, watching a flame dance in my palm and wondering again just what it is about Lexan that I seem to need. Of course, Firene’s interpretation of the prophecy spells that out for me.

  But I want it to be something else.

  If we need each other, I want it to be for reasons we have decided, and not because the stars demanded it.

  “Know what?” Lexan’s voice is a soft breath between us.

  “That I needed you to help restore my fire. Your air…”

  He looks at me with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile. “Is that what happened?”

  I look away. “Since the ball last night, I haven’t been able to summon anything.”

  “I didn’t even know you had lost it. But I was so worried, and when you came in, I had to hold you. To make sure you were okay. You were so cold - like when you’ve summoned before. So I called some warmer air around us, and…”

  “And we got a little too warm,” I admit. “Did I hurt you?”

  He looks at his hands. They are an angry red, but the skin seems unharmed. “It felt like you were burning away my skin. I even felt the fire in here,” he touches the place where his heart is. Where his soul is.

  I close my eyes against what he is saying, but the tendrils of luminescent white are still there, beckoning to me instead of his eyes. His soul is so beautiful.

  A voice in my own soul asks me to reconsider. It reminds me that Lexan and I should be one, just as the prophecy says. But faced so closely with the whiteness in Lexan, I know I should never taint
him with the darkness I feel growing in myself, snaking around my own fingers.

  I can’t see my own soul, but now I can feel it. And it isn’t happy with Hade - it wants revenge, not Justice.

  “Hade claims he can revive Stian,” I say, changing topics so fast that Lexan actually blinks three times at me.

  “That’s…that’s great, Trea. I mean, do you believe him? Maybe we can somehow free him and you can go somewhere…”

  I hear the confusion, the stilted insincerity in his voice. “I don’t love him.”

  Lexan narrows his eyes at me, waiting.

  “I haven’t found the person I need to be with. It’s not Stian. And it’s not Hade. It never was him, by the way. But…”

  “It’s not me either.”

  I shake my head, keeping my eyes down. “I need to be alone. Independent. I can’t find my power if I’m always looking for love. And I don’t need love until I have found out what I can do on my own.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Trea. About me. And your power. But I’ll wait a little bit longer for you to figure it out.”

  I still don’t look at him. He wouldn’t be Lexan if he didn’t say something like this.

  “I’ll wait for you. Because I have always waited for you. But I’ll warn you now - I’ll never be the same person again. Every day we change just a little, and break just a little bit more.”

  He pushes abruptly off the couch, turns on his heel, and leaves, leaving me to wonder what he has seen of our future, to speak so.

  TWENTY

  January 1, 2068

  Clota has gone a little mad from Mother’s death. She is obsessed with designing her city for after the war. She says she will call it Tartarus - after the name given to hell in mythology. It’s where all the bad people will be, she says, because all the good ones will be dead. Aisa is still crying nearly all the time, although she tries harder to hide it.

  From First Leader Lakessa’s private journal

  Included in Firene’s secret papers

  “I want proof,” I tell Hade when he strides into the courtyard where I am losing myself in training. “I want to see Stian, alive and healthy. Until then, I won’t help you. I won’t even practice.” This last part is a bluff, as I now officially want my true power even more than Hade does.

  He hands me an orange and watches as I roll it along my palm, the heat there releasing its sweet citrus scent into the air. “You will practice. I have just begun to break you, and I need you to heal stronger. I told you that last night, if you had listened.” There is a hard quality to his voice today - all the humor has gone.

  “The Three Sisters will be here tomorrow. If you are not ready, they will send you straight back to the heavens you were born from. We will have to wait another generation or hundred years or whatever it takes for the prophecies to be seen and fulfilled again. So yes, you will practice. And yes, you will help me. Or every person you care for will suffer for your bad decisions.”

  I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. I don’t know what to address first - the implication that the prophecy which binds my life is somehow uncertain, the idea that the Three Sisters are coming to kill me, or the open threat against people I haven’t yet learned to protect. So I stall. “My decision last night was Just.”

  “Perhaps. But it was a weak form of Justice. Choosing whether a person lives or dies is easy for Justice. Life is nearly always more important. There is more you are meant to do. It’s up to you to find out what.”

  He pivots and stalks from the courtyard. I look at Charon and he glares at me.

  “Are you ready to focus a bit longer then, Lady?” he asks, his lips trying to stretch into a smile and failing.

  I nod, realizing again that I must somehow solve the riddle of being the Lady of Justice before I can exact revenge on Hade and take control of the armies of Tartarus. If Hade won’t help me march on Keirna, I’ll do it myself.

  By the end of the day I am so exhausted I can barely stand, hollowed out from hunger and thirst, and still angry enough to level the city of Tartarus if it means I can kill Hade in the process.

  Before Charon releases me, he dictates a list for Hade, detailing all of the random skills I’ve demonstrated and honed over this long week. The guard copies his words quickly on a thick pad of creamy paper.

  “Her fire is consistently hotter than the average flame. She can sharpen it down from a yellow to blue hue. The range is still limited - up to three or four feet in the air, and launching maybe three times that far. She can throw small flames to ignite objects in the air. Good aim. Overall, good progress, but nothing like what we expected from the teachings.”

  He flicks his hand and the guard hurries away, presumably to deliver the list. It sounds meager, even for a week’s work - I’m the Lady of Justice, and I can’t do any more than a common archer can with a lit arrow. I just don’t have to carry flint.

  At the door of my room, Charon presses me against the frame with a bony hand. His breath is sour as he leans in to whisper. “You are the girl of fire - there is fire in your very blood. But all of that means nothing if your blood is spilled in useless battles. Stop plotting revenge and learn your true task, or your bones will decorate the gates of Tartarus.”

  He pushes me inside with a single finger and leaves before I can speak.

  Ama waits for me near the bath, but there is no sign of Lexan. When I emerge, clean and dressed in black lace leggings covered slightly by a black linen tunic, there is a crisp envelope on the bed. A letter from Hade is enclosed.

  Tonight you may visit the prisoner. I have revived him and pointed him in the direction of the living. Whether he makes the full journey is up to him, and in part, you.

  A guard will collect you at nine. Lexan must stay in the palace.

  Yours in darkness,

  Lord Hadeon

  I wonder at the stipulation that Lexan stays, and at the formal yet intimate signature. But that is soon eclipsed by the excitement of knowing Stian lives, and I will soon see him.

  Of course, that means I will need to tell him the truth I have learned about us. My heart withdraws further into my chest as I wait the remaining hours, eating by myself, and pacing before the door that Lexan never opens.

  Finally, the door does open and an armed guard beckons. He points to his sword as if to warn me not to try anything. I raise a small flame in my hand in return.

  A shadow of a smile crosses his masked face and he turns to lead me through hallways I’ve never seen, but which are still familiar in their incessant black and white. I try to count the turns and the minutes, but I lose myself in nerves and anticipation.

  He stops before a sculpture mounted on the wall, larger than three men together. Three iron circles overlap, and metal vines of lilies twine around each. The middle circle is the largest, filled with tiny buildings, plus one great building resembling Hade’s palace. The circle at the left contains endless waves of water that click back and forth infinitesimally as I watch. One particular wave hides the opening to what looks like a cave, and several others wash away to reveal a building made of overlapping squares. The circle at the right holds a forest of miniscule trees, which also seem to tick one way and then another, as if a breeze blows their iron branches. I lean in to see, and behind a dense grouping, I can barely make out a hollow, like the entrance of a cave.

  “These are the three cities!” I say to the guard, who has been meticulously plucking pieces from the center circle. He holds five tiny buildings in his hand.

  He just shrugs and chooses a sixth building. The sculpture stills for a moment then begins to shake. The circles twist around their contents, pulling the vines straighter. When the vines are straight, the center circle stops moving and the sculpture begins to rise on a track I hadn’t noticed. Behind it is an open door, leading down into darkness.

  The guard pockets the six metal pieces and ducks into the tunnel. I hurry to follow him through the twists and turns. If I fall behind down here, I’ll never find
my way. We finally come to a set of stairs that leads to a wooden door bolted in several places. The guard produces a key ring and begins to undo each lock, then shoves at the door with his entire body weight.

  I follow him into a stone corridor lit by electric torches. We pass a few guards in the hall, but I keep my face tucked inside my hood. My guide stops so suddenly that I bump into his broad back, mumbling an apology.

  But then the keys jangle and the iron door squalls and I am pushed into the dank cell. A figure lies still on a dirty cot. I drop to my knees and push the hair from Stian’s forehead. He stirs in his sleep and his eyes flutter open, then closed again. His forehead still sports a large lump, but somehow, the gash across his neck is well-healed.

  A thin tube is lodged at the inside of his elbow, traveling up the wall to a bag of clear liquid. My heart surges and hardens at the same time - Stian is alive, but Hade has only done the minimum necessary to accomplish this.

  Stian opens his eyes again and they gradually focus on me. He starts to sit and I press him back down, alarmed at how easy it is to move him. He was so strong just a few days ago.

  “Tre…” he rasps, trying to clear his throat. I look around and find a mug of water on the floor near the cot. I tip a little into his mouth as he swallows, grimacing. I wonder if the bag of liquid contains anything to lessen pain.

  “Rea?” he asks, and I bite my lip to keep from smiling. What I have to say will be easier if he is still in love with her. Of course, that’s selfish, but right now I don’t care.

  “Hade is holding her prisoner too, but she’s not hurt.” Charon is actually the one who gave me this information, but I think he was telling the truth. We have come to a bit of an agreement during our practice sessions: I don’t burn him, and he occasionally gives me useful information.

  “Are you okay?” Stian asks.

  I nod. “Hade wants my power, so he’s keeping me very healthy. Lexan too, although I don’t think he knows what we can do together yet.”