Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  Another, and another, and another person take their place before me. Lexan’s fingers no longer squeeze my shoulders, instead resting limply against my skin. The currents of air he calls around me have died to mere whispers of breath.

  He is too weak for this.

  I think I am too.

  The last thing I remember is burning the last of the light from the last person in the courtyard.

  Then only blackness and despair.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The autumn star is not just the spring star’s protector. He must help her find her true power, harness it, and unleash it on the world. He is tasked with protecting her from the world, but ultimately he cannot protect from her own self-sacrifice. The role of the spring star, as is the role of all saviors, is that of a martyr.

  Secret Journal of First Leader Firene

  I open my eyes and see nothing. All is black.

  I close my eyes and see nothing. All is black.

  I feel around me and find a rough blanket - not the silk and feather down from my bed in Hade’s palace. My palace?

  The bed seems to dip and spin beneath me. I can’t move my legs.

  I open my mouth and try to cry out, but no sound comes. Am I dead? Dreaming?

  I close my eyes and drift away.

  A corner of the bed moves and pulls me back. A hand strokes the skin of my arm, and I notice how smooth it feels, how it catches against me. My skin must be dry and rough.

  I open my eyes and see a faint glow of light, an outline of a person.

  I close my eyes and see a soul begin to take shape. A lovely white one, with pearlescent waves of pastel blue and peach and lightest lavender.

  Lexan.

  “Trea…”

  The sound finds me, prods open my eyes one more time. The glow subsides a little and I can barely make out his face.

  “We did it, Trea. You did it. You saved Tartarus.”

  His voice is a low murmur, and I struggle to make sense of the words. I focus instead on the soothing touch of his skin, cool and smooth where mine seems overheated, dry, and scaly.

  “I thought I lost you…”

  The whisper is so soft I wouldn’t hear it, except that it echoes inside my head, pushed there by the lapping waves of water in his blue eyes. Lost you…lost…

  You did, I think, remembering the darkness. How it found me and filled me and forced the light into a corner, deep where I’m not sure I can reach.

  “We’re not in Tartarus anymore,” he continues. “We’re on a sort of ship - a land ship? I don’t know how it works, exactly. I’ve stayed down here with you.”

  The room seems to dip again, and I think of the lurching truck, abandoned in the woods so many weeks ago. A land ship?

  “Stian and Zarea have gone on horseback to find the Tribes. They’re being followed by a reformed Tartarian army. Charon is no longer the head, and Pacem has displaced all those who might have been sympathetic to Hade.”

  My eyes dart to Lexan’s again. I still can’t move my legs.

  “Irana has taken over the rule of Tartarus. Funny, isn’t it. The goddess of Peace ruling over a place like that.”

  I open my mouth and try to speak again. Lexan ladles a spoonful of water between my lips.

  “Where…we…” I try.

  “Where are we going?”

  I nod.

  “Home, Trea. Asphodel. We have troops following us, too. It will take a couple of weeks, but we’ll make it back to them. And by then you’ll be strong again.”

  I blink away. I’m too strong now - my soul is full of darkness and hate. My body is the weak traitor now. I’m cold because I used too much of my fire. I tug at Lexan’s hand and he understands, because he is Lexan.

  He aligns his body with mine, he on top of the blankets and me beneath. His warmth seeps into my body slowly, and I realize that hot tears are leaking from the corners of my eyes.

  This boy. This boy turned young man turned…what?

  I don’t know exactly what love is, but I want to give him my hand and my heart and even my black, black soul.

  I open my mouth to tell him, but stop.

  How can I give him such a soul?

  His words slink back and tease me: I’m nothing now…broken.

  I wait too long to say anything, and his breathing grows measured and slow. He sleeps against my chest, giving me what I let him. I close my eyes and focus on resisting his light.

  When I open my eyes again, the room is bright with the light that can only belong to late afternoon.

  Lexan is there, sitting beside me, his eyes steady and waiting.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” I say, and realize my voice sounds almost normal.

  “We took the straps off your legs. Can you keep from falling out of bed now?” He spoons some soup between my lips, smiling that blessed lopsided smile.

  “I had my first vision - prophecy,” he continues, and his tone is so casual that I almost miss what he’s said. I wait, eyebrows raised.

  “There were three cities, and three girls. One was you, and you went back and forth between Asphodel and the Tribes. Another was Irana. She was at Tartarus, and another city by the sea - Elysium, I guess. I couldn’t see the third girl, because her back was always turned. But she traveled between Asphodel, and the Tribes, and Elysium.”

  “Eunomia,” I whisper, remembering Irana’s words. “The goddess of Order. Lawfulness.”

  “I kept feeling like I should know who she was, too,” he adds.

  “We’ll find her. We have to. Hade said she was born in Elysium, so that’s a start.”

  “Oh. Then it couldn’t be…”

  “What?” I ask, tilting my head. I reach for the soup bowl.

  “I thought it looked a little like Zarea. Which is crazy, I know. But…”

  “Well, she was born in the Tribes,” I say, scowling at the memory of Abraham.

  Lexan nods. “You know, I asked her once about her mother.”

  I give up on the spoon and drink the soup straight from the bowl, my stomach grumbling its need.

  “But she knows nothing. Abraham told her long ago that her mother died in childbirth. But I keep thinking about that woman we saw. The one from Elysium?”

  “The one with the chain like Zarea’s?” I remember. “Maybe there are things she doesn’t know. Maybe Abraham lied.”

  Lexan smiles. “Maybe. If there’s more to the story, Zarea will be the one to break it from his mouth.”

  I snort, imagining Zarea punching her father in the mouth. “Yes, she would be the one.”

  Just then a light tapping sounds at the small window above my bed. Lexan kneels up and opens the glass. A metal bird hops in and settles on the blanket. He twists his copper head in a complete circle and opens his beak. A red light blinks at Lexan, then a gear inside the bird clicks and it makes a squeaky, chirping sound.

  The bird’s belly splits open and a rolled piece of paper falls onto the bed.

  “We have dozens of these now, going between all of us. We had to split up, but Pacem’s birds keep us together,” Lexan explains as he unrolls the paper. “Stian and Zarea have reached Kedesh. There was some sort of attack, and a lot of people were killed.”

  I slap my hand against the bed and the bird topples over, his belly still splayed open. “How can we ever set this right? How can I cleanse the whole world when I almost…” I don’t want to say it.

  “You didn’t, though, Trea. You’re alive. We fulfilled the first part of the prophecy!”

  I glance back at him and take the bird in my hands.

  “Irana on the throne of Tartarus. That has to be it. A child of peace, born in a place of war,” he explains, quoting Saloman’s prophecy back to me. “We’ll figure out the rest soon. We’re so close now.”

  I nod. Of course, he must be right. Lexan usually is, about prophecies and such. I smile at him. I still don’t know exactly what love is like, but I know I need him every day. And every part o
f every day. And into the night.

  And night falls quickly inside the little room. Lexan lies next to me, as I suspect he has done since we boarded the strange land ship. The straps around my legs are gone, but I am forbidden to get up.

  A healer has prescribed more rest and relaxation, but nothing at all about the caresses of a light-souled golden boy.

  I close my eyes against the darkness in the room and try to sleep. I must sleep, because I wake in a cold, sweaty panic. Lexan is still next to me, breathing evenly.

  I glance around the room, trying to see what might have woken me.

  Then I realize - it’s not outside, but inside my mind. I feel the darkness there inside of me, swirling in my very bones. When I close my eyes, I still see the white of Lexan’s soul. But just to the side of my vision - in the periphery that vanishes when I turn - is Hade.

  I can see him if I don’t look straight at him, as though he rests inside of me with the darkness. Waiting for the right time to push through my flimsy walls and take his rightful spot, looking directly through my blind eyes.

  “Are you crying?” Lexan mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

  “No,” I say, although I realize that yes, I actually am.

  He rolls over and props his head on his hand. He looks down at me, his other hand hovering over my cheek for a second. I take a deep breath and notice he smells like home and sleepy boy and everything I want but shouldn’t. His palm cups my cheek and he bends closer.

  “Trea, I thought I lost you…” he says again.

  “You did,” I manage to say out loud.

  “But I found you again. You found me in that dungeon, and fixed me, and now I’m here. I’m not broken anymore.”

  “But I am!” I gulp around the tears that are quickly turning to sobs. “I have too much darkness in me, Lexan…I can’t let that get near you! I can’t be near you…”

  His lips brush mine and my chest heaves against a sob of hopelessness.

  How dare love come to me now, when I am like this? When I’m a dark, empty shell of what I once was?

  “I will stay with you. I…I love you, Trea.”

  His eyes are bright with tears, and again they remind me more of a starry night sky than the deep, still oceans I have yet to see.

  And I want to be able to say it back - oh, I want it so much.

  But then I blink, and I think I see Hade there, watching me and laughing silently.

  “We don’t get a happily ever after, Lexan. We’re the warriors.” This is as close as I dare come to the truth - that I love him right back. Just like I should have been doing all along.

  “I’ll stay with you, Trea. Through everything. Not because of the prophecy. Because I choose to. I’ve left you alone to make your own choice. I wanted you to be free to create your own destiny.”

  “But if I say it, if I want it, it can be taken away…” I know I’m not making sense, but somehow he understands.

  “Even if you don’t speak something, it can be taken away. I found that out when Stian found you and was braver than I was. I’m done with that cowardice. I love you, Trea, and I’ll never stop telling you that truth.”

  He kisses me again lightly, and my body aches for him. Even the bits of light in my soul seem to reach for him.

  “And when you collapsed in that courtyard. Styx, Trea. I just knew I’d lost everything.” His breathing is shallow and unsteady.

  “What happened?” I ask. I want to know, but I also need a break from this intensity I don’t know how to handle.

  Lexan sighs and rolls to his back. “It was horrible. I kept pushing the air around you, trying to push away the darkness, but it got past me. I was too weak. I’ll never forget it. You turned to look at me, and your eyes were solid black - the whole eye. And you opened your mouth and darkness spilled from it. I could see it. And your fingertips. And even your veins seemed filled with darkness, like black vines winding around your arms…”

  He stops and scrubs at his eyes. I wait, trying to imagine. I don’t remember any of this.

  “Then you…you reached for me.” His voice is so quiet. Too quiet. I know what he’s going to say, and it ruins me.

  “No, Lexan. Please. I didn’t.”

  “You tried to take my light. And I wanted to give it to you! I couldn’t just let you-“

  I sit up and bend over him, taking his face between my hands.

  “No. No, Lexan. You listen. You don’t save me. I know what that prophecy says and you don’t get to save me. You have to let me do it myself - whatever that means in that moment!”

  “I don’t think I can,” he whispers.

  “We won’t have a happily ever after, Lexan. We haven’t even had a happy beginning. Two stars, destined never to meet in the sky?”

  “But when we came to earth, when the stars gave up their places in the sky to become human and help the people - that’s when we chose our destiny, Trea. There are many kinds of happiness.”

  The silence grows as I try to force the words to leap from the safety of my lips.

  “I’m happy here, with you,” I admit, finally. The smile he gives me warms my heart and my blood, and I grin back at him as he reaches a hand behind my neck.

  “Well, then we should take our happiness now, while there’s still time.” He pulls me down to him and crushes his lips to mine. He tastes sweet, and nothing like oranges. When I close my eyes, his light outshines even the darkness, and I am lost and found in him.

  The air swirls around us, lifting my curls from the pillow, and I call a tiny flame in my palm - the currents of air lift a fine spray of sparks to dance around us. They shine brilliantly for mere seconds before the darkness claims them.

  Lexan and I may still be taking two steps backward for every step forward, but now we take those steps together, side by side. We will conquer the evil in this world and lead all of our people to a better place.

  I was buried before, and now I’m a little broken, but I know this much - together, we will rise above the darkness once again.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Now for the fun part! Eh, who am I kidding…it’s all fun!

  Thanks go to David, for letting me just be a little nutty. (There’s a joke there. He gets it. The rest of you can take it however you want.)

  To Mom, Dad, and Margaret, for being there when it counted, still and always. And to my extended Thompson and Gremore family, for all the Facebook and face-to-face love I get for my books and my crazy dreams. A family of writers, we are.

  To Beau and Alayna, my beautiful-souled, creative, energetic children. May you never lose your sense of wonder.

  To Cecily, beta reader and editor extraordinaire. I can’t believe you let me do this again. I really, probably have to start looking at property in Ohio.

  To Kayla and Corrina, who are the type of reader every author dreams might populate the world someday. Thanks for lording it over your friends when it counted.

  To the OCHS LitWits, for always encouraging me to stop worrying and just go for it. Your encouragement means so much.

  To my cover designer, Najla Qambar, for performing magic and pulling images from my mind. I can’t wait to see what you have in store for the third book!

  To the UtopYA 2014 Conference, where I met so many amazing authors, readers, and aliens. See y’all next year!

  To all my new blogger friends - your support is amazing, and I promise to keep learning how to make your jobs easier!

  To Kristi, for lending a sharp proofreading eye before the final submission - thanks for all of your support!

  To my students - past, present, and future - for continuing to ask me how sales are going and if I’ve sold the movie rights yet. I hope sharing my dreams with you helps you find the courage to hunt yours.

  And of course, to every single reader. Without an audience, there is no show. You make my words into worlds - keep your sights in the stars!

  A Starbright Novella

  LEXAN’S PLEDGE

  HILARY
THOMPSON

  OFTOMES PUBLISHING

  THIS ONE’S FOR THE GIRLS,

  AS THEY SAY

  (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE)

  ONE

  August 25, 2066

  This morning I was so restless that I just had to leave the safe house, regardless of all the danger outside. In the end I only snuck out to see Evangeline. Mother doesn’t believe she has the Sight, but I know better. Evangeline has been right more times than Mother knows.

  But she gave me the strangest reading today. Evangeline believes I’m meant to save us from this civil war somehow. She says she hasn’t seen the full vision, but that - together with Clota and Aisa - we will end the war and build a new civilization. A better one.

  I'm not really sure what she means, and I’m not really sure how to believe her when everything is so horrible now.

  I need to be alone with this for a while.

  from First Leader Lakessa’s private journal

  included in Firene’s secret papers

  It’s just a normal Sunday, but everyone in Asphodel seems to be out tonight with some agenda. The Common Area is crowded with my classmates.

  All my so-called friends have left me sitting in the side chairs while they stampede from girl to girl, hoping to start relationships or cement promises in these last weeks before Choosing Day. And I’m okay watching them for now, because I haven’t seen what I came here for yet.

  And they don’t really leave me alone - they circle closer, one by one, to taunt me with their successes, and to rub my face in the fact that I have a promised partner who wouldn’t touch me unless it were a punch.

  “Come on, Lex,” Anan calls. “Pick a different girl and do something memorable.”

  I curl my thumb and fingers together in a zero, showing him exactly what I think of him and his comment. The blonde girl with him lets her eyes go wide at the rude gesture, but I just shrug, giving her my trademark half-smile. Anan glares. But he knows I can’t pick a different girl - not when the memories really matter.