Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  “Are you from Elysium?” I ask as she presses her delicate fingers to Lexan’s wrist. She reminds me of the Sisters – tall and pale and blond. She nods, her lips moving as she counts to herself.

  “And this ship?”

  “From Elysium,” she answers, and her blond hair sweeps forward as she leans down, revealing streaks of aquamarine and teal. She presses her palm against Lexan’s temple, then his neck. “He’s a bit too warm,” she says, eying how close I still am.

  “Warmth helps him heal,” I counter, still wondering exactly why we were loaded onto an Elysian ship in the first place, since we started in Tartarus, bound for Asphodel.

  “Not if it’s feverish, which is what I’m worried about.”

  I hold her stare for a few seconds, then push back the blankets and sit up, still keeping a hand on Lexan’s chest. My head almost touches the bottom of the bed above me.

  “Your friend did something amazing,” she says as she gently opens his eyelids and shines a tiny light at his pupils.

  I nod, wanting to correct her wording – but I’m not exactly sure what to call Lexan. Then I think of the Choosing ceremony I resisted for so long. Embarrassment flushes my cheeks, and I try not to glare at her. “We’re joined. Not just by the prophecy – we will be partnered in less than a year.”

  Tariel straightens, her fingers brushing over a sizeable bruise on Lexan’s forearm. “Of course,” she answers, but her expression is sly, and I find myself imagining how that pretty golden hair might burn.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two to check on him. Call someone if he worsens.” She turns to go, then glances back over her shoulder. “And Astrea? I wouldn’t worry too much about next year. You’ll most likely be dead by then.”

  The door shuts with a soft click before I can react, and I’m left with my jaw slack and my heart pounding after her. What in Hades?

  I almost rise to follow her but push the idea away immediately. A confrontation will only give her what she evidently wants. I pace the room in tight circles, unwilling to leave Lexan yet unable to lie down and be still.

  My body thrums with nervous energy, like tiny sparks of fire nipping at my veins. Inspecting the small room, I notice that Lexan’s things are tucked in a corner – his pack, some folded clothing, his bow and arrows. This must be his room.

  I smirk to myself when I realize it looks unused because he’s been staying with me. Even though I’m not sure why, this seems like a decent rejection of Tariel’s earlier condescendence. I wonder idly what her soul looks like.

  I begin stretching my limbs, reminding my muscles what they will soon be required to do again. Beside Lexan’s pack, I find my own set of knives, which I begin twirling around my fingers. If Tariel is an example of what I might find in Elysium, I may need more than fire.

  The room grows dark as Lexan sleeps and I exercise, and strange voices call occasionally from beyond the closed door. I peer out the single window to see why we aren’t moving, but night has settled too quickly. Black trees and shadowy ground are all I see.

  Many hours into the night I finally collapse onto the bed, pulling the covers back over Lexan and myself. As my eyes drift closed, I realize Tariel never came back to check on us.

  I’m wakened by a groan from Lexan as he tries to roll over. I sit up quickly to give him more space, embarrassment flushing my cheeks as I wonder why I didn’t just sleep in one of the other three beds in the room.

  “It’s okay. We’re fine. I mean, are you okay?” I stutter, trying not to hover as he scrubs his face with one hand. The room is light again, though with the pale blue of early morning.

  “I feel like Styx,” he whispers, eyes still closed.

  Laughter escapes my lips before I can stop it, and he groans again.

  “You suck at being a healer,” Lexan says, but I see a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

  “I did more for you than Tariel!” I say, biting my lip as I realize how childish I sound.

  He opens one eye and assesses me, that bit of grin struggling not to spread across his face.

  Just then, the ship lurches a bit and I feel the movement finally begin again.

  “We must be all fixed,” I say, standing up to look out the window.

  “Was it bad? Was anyone hurt?”

  I pause. “I’m not really sure. I’ve been in here the whole time. Nobody ever came back, and I didn’t want to leave you.”

  He finally gives in, teasing me with his lopsided grin. “Maybe you’re not that bad then, Healer Astrea. Dedication goes a long way, even when you lack bedside manners.”

  I huff and duck back down next to him. “I’ll show you bedside manners,” I whisper in his ear. His hand tightens around my waist as I bite back my nervousness and press a kiss to his cheek. He counters with a kiss on my cheek, and our eyes meet.

  Thank you for staying.

  His message is interrupted as the door opens. Tariel glides into the room, watching us in obvious amusement.

  “Feeling better, then, Lexan?”

  He nods and we both sit up, awkwardly tangled in the pile of blankets and each other’s limbs. She takes his wrist again, and I glare at her shiny red lips counting his pulse. Her hair brushes his chest as she leans down to check his eyes.

  “I don’t see anything wrong at all,” she says, straightening. “You saved all of our lives, Lexan.”

  “What anyone would do,” he smiles politely.

  “No, it was very selfless,” she adds, giving me a pointed look. I take a deep breath and clamp down on my temper. Seriously. What is wrong with this girl?

  “Are we close to the city?” Lexan asks, his hand finding mine and squeezing in both reassurance and warning.

  “Nearly there,” she nods. “I’ll have someone bring breakfast. You should both clean up before we arrive. Astrea, shall I show you to your room?”

  “I’ll take her,” Lexan says quickly. “Thank you.” He locks eyes with her for a long moment before she slips out the door.

  “I do not like her,” I mutter.

  Lexan laughs as he pushes off the bed, steadying himself against the wall. “She’s not bad as long as you’re on her good side.”

  “What did I ever do to her?” I cry, holding out my hand.

  He takes it for balance, but doesn’t answer. A dark look passes over his face before he turns back to me. “Let me show you where your room is, and where the girls’ shower is.” He moves toward the door, but I stay put, tugging him back.

  “Lexan. Did I do something to her?”

  He releases my hand and slumps against the door. “No…not exactly. But you have to remember you were very sick when we left Tartarus. You weren’t yourself.”

  I watch as he struggles not to say the thing I have almost managed to ignore.

  “The darkness…” I whisper.

  “Some of the crew were a little worried you might have – well, I guess they thought–”

  “That I had turned into a killer,” I finish, saying what he can’t. “Lexan, I can’t promise it’s gone.”

  He must sense the desperation in my voice, because he is across the room and wrapped around me before I can take another breath. “We’ll manage it, Trea. Together.”

  I nod against his chest. Definitely together. Because I’m not sure I could find Balance on my own again.

  “Let’s get going,” I say, pushing his arms away gently. “Elysium waits for us, at the edge of the world.”

  Alone, I bathe, dress in clean, plain clothes, and eat a bowl of cold, mushy grains with dried fruit. I try not to remember the opulent breakfasts of Hadeon’s palace, or even the hearty bread of Asphodel. I pull my hair back severely and braid it into a bun on top of my head.

  I’m not exactly certain why, but I don’t want to look anything like a delicate star princess when I arrive in Elysium.

  A knock sounds on the door, and I open it to see Lexan, pack slung over his shoulders and bow in hand.

  I shoulder my own b
ag and follow him wordlessly to the upper deck. It’s been cleaned, and a few people mill around, organizing supplies.

  The storm clouds from yesterday have completely disappeared, and it seems like we have entered another world. A forest of strange, reaching trees spreads before us, blocking any possible path the ship might take. In fact, from the deck, I am nearly as tall as the grove.

  “You must walk from here,” a man says, wiping his hands on a rag as he walks to us. Looking more closely at him, I realize he is the man who was on deck with Lexan after the storm. “Only Zachriel will guide you down to the city. We have…much to fix,” he ends, arcing his arm around the deck and its damage from the storm.

  “Trea, this is Captain Javan,” Lexan offers, taking my hand.

  The man nods at me, raking back his light brown hair and revealing subtle streaks of jade green. “The rest of us need to stay with the ship to get her ready for the next journey.”

  “There are only five crew on board, plus us,” Lexan tells me.

  “Thank you for transporting us,” I say, offering my hand.

  Captain Javan hesitates, then withdraws his hand quickly after barely grasping my fingertips. “Good luck, and I’m sorry we couldn’t take you further as planned,” he says, and turns to beckon to a boy younger than us. “Show them the path, Zachriel, then head straight back to us.” The boy nods and stares at Lexan and me with obvious awe and not a little fear.

  Lexan takes my hand, and I feel the weakness in his grasp. But turning, I see the strength in his eyes.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  I nod. I am. Whatever beautiful and terrible tasks await us in Elysium, I’m more than ready to face them, master them, and then leave them so I can return home. Our families and friends need us.

  We follow Zachriel down the ramp that has been lowered as an exit and enter the forest. The trunks of each tree are slender, and the branches curve around each other, creating a tunnel of shade. The trees are not as tall as the ones surrounding Asphodel, and I wonder if they are younger. Their uniform height and spacing suggests that they were planted, rather than grown wild.

  The forest floor is free of smaller plants except for a carpet of green that muffles our steps. My feet sink in up to my ankles, and the slender vines tangle around the toes of my boots, threatening to trip me. Lavender-colored flowers dot the vines, their petals a whorl of pale color. None of us speaks, and even the birds I saw from the ship’s deck have been absorbed by the silence of the forest.

  The path we walk gradually becomes wider as it turns and slopes toward the ocean.

  And then, after we round a slight curve in the path, Elysium is spread before us, clean and pale gray and bare, resting at what does indeed seem to be the edge of the earth.

  My eyes skip greedily to the glittering ocean. For of all the sights I have seen, the ocean is by far the most powerful. I may carry fire in my blood, but I believe Mother’s water is in my soul. My heart aches that she never got to see this.

  All I can do is gape, lips parted in an unspoken prayer of thanks that I have lived long enough to taste the salt on the breeze that whips across my cheeks.

  “I will leave you here,” Zachriel whispers. “May the powers bless your journey.”

  And with that, he turns and darts around the curve, disappearing from sight.

  THREE

  LEXAN

  Queen of the stars, fair lamp of the night,

  O bright Goddess Moon, heal us with light.

  Shine on your servants with prosperous rays,

  And we will repay you with honor and praise.

  From The Book of Ministry, Addendum to Chapter Seven: Prayers

  First Leader Firene, year 2162

  Trea turns and looks at me in exasperation. I can only shrug.

  “Is it us or them?” she asks.

  “They don’t really trust outsiders, from what I can tell,” I say, but I’m thinking about the way the crew of five summarily avoided Trea for the entire journey, regardless of how she helped the people of Tartarus. That was more than prejudice – it was fear.

  And the abrupt change in plans. Even accounting for the ship’s damage from the storm, I don’t understand why we couldn’t be escorted into the city.

  “So we’re on our own again, entering another strange city,” she says, stepping forward on the path. “Why exactly were we on that ship? Why was it in Tartarus?”

  “The True Prophet evidently sent it. They arrived while you were sick,” I say softly. She glares at her feet, remaining silent. “I think he must have seen our need in a vision,” I add, thinking how he likely even anticipated that we would travel to his city first.

  As we leave the trees behind us, I can see how very few buildings remain between us and the shining ocean. Surely there were other structures here once. I count four before us, laid out evenly, and perhaps five more to the north. All are a striking, gleaming, smooth gray-white, as though the buildings were carved from the jagged piles of rock I see scattered in the distant water, being battered by the waves.

  A pair of white birds soars above us, screaming into the sun. A few shapes move on the horizon – people walking from building to building. Music seems to hover on the horizon, but from where we stand, there is mostly silence.

  “Each city is so different,” Trea says. “Tartarus burned everything around their city like a warning – fear the Destroyer. Asphodel hid in the ground and the woods, afraid of everything. I thought Elysium would be beautiful. But it seems so stark. What do you think these even mean?” She gestures toward the pair of blank, silent buildings we are nearing: larger than most in Tartarus, formed of solid, smooth concrete and bordered by manicured trees.

  I can only shake my head and lean against a tree trunk – I have no answer to her question, and the long walk has sapped the small strength I began with.

  There is no wall or fence to enclose the hard-edged buildings, but two muscled guards stand unmoving before us, hands clasped at their backs, watching our approach. Beyond them stretches clean-swept concrete and four symmetrical buildings, split into pairs by a slice of concrete river which seems to run straight into the sparkling ocean on the horizon.

  “It’s like nobody even lives here,” Trea whispers as we near the guards. She’s right – the shapes I assumed were people are gone, and Elysium appears deserted in the strong midday sun.

  I step toward the guards. They wear white uniforms and hats with a deep front brim, shading their faces from the glare. They don’t even shift their eyes to acknowledge our arrival.

  “We seek entrance to Elysium,” I begin.

  “Only those who were born here may enter, or those traveling in their nineteenth year. You are neither.” The answer is automatic, delivered without emotion or challenge.

  “How do you know?” Trea asks, her defiance floating gently on the air between us. She slips the straps of her pack off her shoulders, and the bag slides to the ground with a thud. I’m uneasy, reminded of the last time she challenged guards in an unknown city.

  “Elysium is home to the True Prophet. You may not enter.”

  “Tell him Justice and Balance are here. Let me speak with him,” she continues, her pride calling fire into her clenched fists.

  The guard is unimpressed. He stares through us, past us, into the solid mass of trees to our backs. His partner is the same: still and silent and steadfast.

  Trea makes a frustrated noise, and before I realize what she’s planning, she darts around the guard.

  The second her foot hits the bare concrete behind him, she collapses, shrieking in pain and surprise.

  I lunge toward her, but the silent guard lowers his arm and blocks me with a rough shove to the chest. I see her desperately trying to bite back the sounds, but her body spasms harshly.

  “She must suffer on her own. It is the only way,” the first guard says without interest.

  I snort and push the arm away, only to have a metal weapon pressed to my throat instead. A
click sounds as the weapon is adjusted. Guns. I’ve never seen one so close – only in pictures, or Madna’s rifle. But this one is no larger than a bird, and threatening in an entirely different way.

  The first guard levels his gun at me as well. “Elysium is not for the weak-minded or the disobedient. It is only for those whose journeys have made them truly strong.”

  Trea’s noise has reduced to soft moans, but her body still twitches a little as she struggles to roll and regain her footing back in the grass and green vines. As the guards turn toward her, she again places one foot back on the concrete. Immediately, her face distorts in pain.

  She jerks her foot back, breathing heavily. “How is this possible?”

  The silent guard smiles, the grin both familiar and startling, but he only slides his gun back into a holster hidden at his back.

  “What is this?” Trea asks again, moving closer to me. “Technology? Magic?” Her breathing has slowed.

  Neither guard answers. They just go back to their original places and poses, unmoving and uncaring.

  I start toward the concrete, intent on trying my luck, but Trea yanks my arm back. “No, Lex. We can figure this out. It’s just another of their riddles.” She turns and stares back into the trees. They seem denser from here than when we were traveling through the groves. “Where is the captain? Where did the ship go?”

  I shrug, slightly aggravated with myself for neglecting to gather such information. “We never really discussed the logistics of arrival. I assumed we would be escorted inside.”

  “If we can’t enter,” she calls back over her shoulder, “can you at least send someone to speak with us?” The guards ignore her, and she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. Her braid has come loose from its tight bun, and it swings over her shoulder as she kicks at her pack in aggravation.