Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  NINE

  LEXAN

  October 20, 2066

  I’ve found a way to bring Clota and Aisa to see Evangeline.

  Of course, knowing what we can do to help will mandate that we do it.

  I’m ready, but will my sisters be?

  From First Leader Lakessa’s personal journal

  Included in Firene’s secret papers

  I’m no longer bothering to keep track of night or day, of the difference between reality, memory, or vision.

  My hours are marked by pain and exhaustion, and yet still they come for me. I’ve stopped asking for news of Asphodel or to see Trea. Surviving the womb has been my only focus for days, and I’ve made almost no progress.

  Tariel opens the lid and peers in at me. “Still conscious? That’s improvement.”

  I can’t even muster a smile at her attempt to joke. It really is an improvement; the first two weeks I would wake in my room with no recollection of how I got there.

  “You’re halfway through the air path now. I know you think this is slow progress, but our people spend their lifetime learning the path, Lexan,” she reassures me.

  “And yet Trea has nearly mastered the entire thing,” I manage to grunt out as I haul myself out of the water and wrap the waiting robe around my body.

  Tariel’s back is turned to me, ever proper. “She’s been cheating. Yesterday, I finally discovered how.”

  “Cheating?”

  She nods, and as I quickly towel off and get dressed, she describes how Trea was using her fire to keep away the darkness. I can’t help but smile – it’s brilliant, actually.

  “But yesterday, she got a taste of the true water test, and she failed completely. They had to carry her out, and her eyes had gone completely black. The Sisters were livid.”

  I’ve stopped moving, and Tariel turns to face me, then flushes as she realizes I’m only half-dressed.

  “Her eyes were black?” I whisper, cursing to myself. Tariel nods, and I rush to pull on my shirt, my brain swirling. I’ve been so stupidly wrapped up in my own misery that I never even thought about the possibility that the darkness would come back to Trea in the womb.

  “Did she hurt anyone?” I ask.

  Tariel glares. “She tried to torch me, but I was wearing a shield. I’m not an idiot. That girl is unstable on a good day.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” I say, looking up at her from where I sit. She flushes again and lowers her eyes. I curse again under my breath. She’s been very polite and respectful of my relationship with Trea, but her interest in me doesn’t seem to have changed.

  From the first day we met, Tariel has been caring for me as a patient, and I’m worried she’s grown to care for me as a person. And I don’t know what to do with that.

  “Can I see her now?” I ask instead, giving voice to my need again. Tariel’s face shifts into a scowl.

  “No. She is in seclusion in her room. We were forced to restrain her and nobody except the Sisters are allowed to enter her room. Speaking of that, let’s get you back to your room for some rest.”

  I bend to put on my shoes, knowing our conversation is over. I might be able to charm some extra information from her, pretending just like I used to with the girls in Asphodel. But all of that seems so wrong now.

  More than anything, I just want to be able to hold Trea in my arms. I know we would heal each other, making this process faster.

  “Tell me again why we must be separated?” I ask as I stand to leave the room. “You know we have the ability to heal each other – in some capacity at least.”

  Tariel’s scowl deepens. “Yesterday, Trea was so far gone that she wouldn’t even have known her own mother.”

  A flare of anger crackles across my shoulders. “You do know she watched her mother die in her own arms, don’t you? Or haven’t you even bothered to ask about your patient’s mental health. You focus so much on the physical in your vocation that you sometimes forget how the emotions are linked with the body.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, already regretting having said that much.

  Tariel advances on me, looking me straight in the eyes, fury swirling in hers. “I do not care what she has been through. She is not fully mortal. She should be stronger than her emotions. She should be stronger than her body. She is not strong enough to save any of us!” She nearly shrieks the last bit, and my eyes widen with realization.

  “You’re afraid,” I whisper, reaching to touch her shoulder. She flinches as my fingers brush her arm, then sags, looking suddenly small. Without even thinking, I gather her into a hug. She’s stiff at first, but soon she melts against me, tucking her face against my shoulder.

  “We’re all afraid, Lexan,” she whispers. When she raises her head, her eyes are glassy with tears. “We’ve been told our whole lives how these are quite possibly the last days of the human race. That we’ll have to move all the way across the land – from one ocean to another – to even attempt survival. But we’ve also been told that if we follow our paths and cleanse ourselves diligently, that we would be ready when the saviors come. And then you come.” Her voice grows bitter, and she pushes away. “And you’re so young and she’s so…so immature.”

  She scrubs at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Tariel,” I say, rubbing at my temple. “I know we aren’t what everyone was expecting. But if it makes you feel any better, we’re older and a lot more mature than when we started.” I grin halfway, and she sighs a little, her anger dissolving into a half-hearted laugh.

  “She doesn’t deserve you,” she whispers after a moment, though, and I sober.

  “None of us deserves another person. We can only hope to offer them something they need. I need Trea’s fire – her spirit, her temper, her vitality. She keeps me from the darkness in my own heart. And she needs me for balance, and for the air to fuel her strength. She’s not weak – she’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  Tariel shrugs. “So far, she hasn’t proven that to me.”

  She turns and heads for the door, leaving me no choice but to follow.

  As we walk silently toward the air building, a young boy runs up and delivers a folded note to Tariel. She reads it and thanks him, and he scatters, barely glancing at me.

  “The Prophet wishes to see you. I’ll take you to the temple.”

  My eyes widen. I’ve never been to the temple – the Prophet has come to see me in my room a few times, but he has never asked for me to come to him.

  My steps quicken, catching up to Tariel. We walk the edge of the concrete river all the way to the ocean. I glance around, seeing nothing except a steep drop-off, then the jagged white rocks and the ocean beyond.

  Tariel turns to face me, her back to the water. Then she bends down, puts one leg below the ledge, and begins to descend. I peer over the edge and see a sort of ladder embedded in the stone, reaching down the face of the cliff. Hurrying to follow her, I copy her movements.

  We reach the bottom after a few dozen rungs, and she ducks into a small opening.

  “A cave?” I ask, smiling in wonder that I have come so far only to find myself underground again.

  “There are many caves and tunnels to the sea beneath and beyond our city. There are also other temples, but the Prophet’s favorite is down here.”

  I follow her through the semi-darkness for a few minutes, then the tunnel opens again, and I’m between cliffs, standing on sand and sharp-edged grass.

  Tariel points ahead. “The cave of the Goddess.”

  I examine where she is pointing, and suddenly I see what she’s showing me. The rock before me is like a window, with the sea framed within it. The outline, however, is in the unmistakable shape of a woman – her head is the sky and she wears a dress of crashing waves.

  “I’ll wait here for you,” she says, gesturing for me to move forward. I nod and continue into the cave. It’s not a large space, and the Prophet is seated on a carved bench, staring into the ocean t
hat makes up the form of the goddess.

  “Sometimes at night, the moon is situated in just the right place to form her face,” he says by way of greeting.

  “So she’s the Goddess Moon?” I ask, sitting opposite him on another bench.

  “It is what we choose to believe. This cave is ancient, however, and none alive know the origin of the woman. She is old, and her secrets are many.”

  “Sounds like she fits right in with Elysium,” I say with a sigh.

  The Prophet smiles. “You are correct. We guard our information as closely as our borders here in Elysium. It is how we stayed valuable to the Destroyer for so many decades.”

  “Surely your city has more power than Hade’s?” I ask, almost amused that the Prophet would use Hade’s common nickname.

  “More and less. But he is the Destroyer, Lexan. That nickname was not given to him solely for the destruction he caused to the mortals in his city. Haven’t you guessed, Lexan?”

  “He wasn’t mortal,” I say, admitting what I have guessed, but hoped isn’t true.

  “You are almost correct. Your choice of tense, however, is not. Hadeon is not mortal. He lives still.”

  “In Trea,” I whisper, thinking of when she first crossed the Elysian border, and a voice spoke through her. About her. “He’s in her mind, isn’t he?”

  “I believe so. Our task now is to make certain he never gets inside her soul.”

  I startle, thinking how disastrous that would be. “How is this possible?”

  He is silent for several minutes, as we watch the ocean crash into the rocks beyond the cave.

  “I brought you down here to teach you some of our lore. You seem to need to understand. To learn. Perhaps knowing some of our secrets will help you on the path to understanding your own secrets. I don’t mean to place more pressure on you, but we are indeed running out of time.”

  He stands and begins to move around the room, pointing out symbols carved into the rock walls and crystals embedded in the carvings. I hadn’t noticed them before, but as he touches each one, they seem to sparkle with energy. They are the same crystals that mark the paths, and the same shapes that label each of the buildings in Elysium.

  “These shapes – symbols – they are the alphabet of creation. You and Trea must learn their code, so you can become the creators of a new world. Otherwise, we will all perish in the waves of water, the wails of wind, the shaking of the earth, and the desolation of fire. Create your destiny, and you will save ours,” the Prophet continues.

  “Can you bring Trea down here?” I ask, standing to follow him around the narrow space. I touch the air shape, and I’m pleased that there is no pain. I hesitate, then touch another, and I feel a faint buzzing, but not exactly pain.

  He nods. “When she is well again.” He sits again on the bench where I found him and waits for me to examine all of the symbols. None cause me pain, exactly, but there is a distinctly different aura reflecting from each of them.

  “I have more to explain,” the Prophet finally interrupts my study. “You will need to teach Trea these lessons if I cannot. In the alphabet of creation, the sphere is the first letter. Pretend you are the center of the universe, and throw out your arms and turn. Your fingers create a circle. Your head and feet extend the circle to a sphere. With your own body, you have created a symbolic universe. Now. The sphere may contain exactly five shapes, if each shape has sides of equal shape and size. A pyramid, for example.”

  “A pyramid can be contained within the sphere, or a cube,” I murmur, beginning to understand. “So there are four elements. And three maidens, plus me, is four of us. I get that. What of the fifth element?”

  “Yes. The ether. Both a combination and an absence of the other elements.”

  “How is that possible? Is there a fifth person?”

  “No. You must create the fifth from within yourselves.”

  My brain spins with uneasy confusion. “Create…like a baby?”

  “No. Do not think so literally.” He smiles when I breathe a deep sigh of relief. “The fifth element is the letter of pure life force. It can only be created when the other four elements are both combined and transcended,” he explains.

  I just shake my head. I have read none of this in Asphodel’s books, and I wonder if Lakessa even knew of these teachings. Perhaps Aisa and Clota each had their own philosophies to life.

  “But beware. Just as the fifth element can create, it can also destroy. It will be up to your joining energy to determine if the world is re-created at the eclipse, or if all of life is to be consumed by the dark energy.”

  “Could Hade somehow become the fifth element?” I ask.

  The Prophet’s young face darkens, but he nods. “It is possible, I believe. Perhaps that is what happened before, with Clota. We don’t really know – only that when the Three Sisters tested Clota, she failed. Her failure led to that of Lakessa and Aisa, and then the destruction of the world. If only one link in the chain is weak, the entire chain may break.”

  He rises and beckons me to follow, but we don’t go toward the city as I expect. Instead, he steps through the opening that forms the shape of a woman and I follow him down to the ocean.

  “Our people fear the ocean, you know,” he says softly.

  “I can see why, if they’ve ever been inside the womb,” I answer, thinking of how the great mass of water before me could easily become a tomb for anyone crazy enough to set foot in it.

  “Recently, the storms have grown worse. Waves as tall as our buildings grow on the horizon of my dreams. The elements are becoming impatient, Lexan. They have been long without a master.”

  “And you think someone like Irana could calm all of this?” I ask, gesturing to the water stretching endlessly before us.

  He shrugs. “The earth and the elements will always test our faith, but yes, I think she could, and I think you could calm the wind, and Astrea could cool the fires that blaze through the trees north and west of here. And the fourth, when we find her, must learn to control the earth’s shaking. Only then can you build a Garden of refuge for all the people.”

  “So do you know where the Garden is?” I ask after several minutes of listening to the crash of the waves on the rocks. The Prophet smiles.

  “We have seen the same and no more: the Garden rests in the east, near the ocean that borders that land. Our opposite. Beyond that, I have nothing either. Perhaps you will be the one whom the gods choose to grace with this knowledge. It would be a substantial trust.”

  I snort. “Well, if they actually want us to succeed in saving the human race, perhaps they should be a little more forthcoming with the instructions.”

  He smiles, ancient irony on his young features. “Oh, I do not believe the gods want us to succeed. Nor do they want us to fail. They have given us free will, after all. If we succeed, it will be because we have decided to succeed. If we fail, it will be because our time has ended.”

  TEN

  ASTREA

  October 23, 2066

  I’m never going back to Evangeline – there’s something wrong with her now. I wish I had just stayed home and watched over Mother yesterday, instead of sneaking out with Kess and Clota. They were up half the night whispering plans to each other, all because Evangeline thinks we can somehow save everyone from this war. They thought I was sleeping. Evangeline does have the sight, I think. But it doesn’t come from the light. Her visions come cloaked in darkness, and that’s why I don’t trust her. She doesn’t even have enough sense to look around her and realize that others see things, too. My dreams have been like hers for weeks now, I just didn’t know what they meant.

  From Aisa’s personal journal, saved from before the Cleansing

  Tisiphone has warned me that I must rest longer before attempting the water crystals again. I trust her more than the others, but I’m afraid she won’t let me try again at all, and I’ll fail before I’ve truly begun.

  All because of Hade, and my weaknesses in Tartarus.

/>   Reading the slim book the Prophet left me has only filled me with more fear that I might fail. Every night I study Aisa’s story: how she grew from a timid young girl to be the first leader of Elysium, and how she struggled not to follow her sisters into darkness. Her sisters, of course, being the ones who founded Tartarus and Asphodel.

  But she was somehow successful, so I try to keep faith that perhaps I can be too. If she can resist her own family, maybe I can keep Hade out of my brain.

  My only success lately is how I’ve managed to keep my secrets from Tariel, who has been using my rest time to interrogate me. I don’t believe for a second that she is the scientist she pretends to be.

  She’s just another girl who doesn’t think I deserve a guy like Lexan, and another Elysian who thinks I’m not worthy to be here.

  “Surely you have been reliving memories,” she prompts me, sitting in my room as I eat breakfast from a tray balanced on my strapped-down legs. At night, I’m confined to the bed, but once Tariel checks me each morning, I’m free to move around, as long as Hesten is with me.

  I shrug away her question, keeping silent as I run my fingers down the spine of the book the Prophet left me – a diary, actually. Aisa’s diary. I read every word of it that first night after he told me I couldn’t fail. That I couldn’t let the darkness in.

  “And the darkness? Are you still having trouble with that?” she asks, aggravation seeping into her voice.

  “Not so much with the medicine,” I lie. Every time the darkness finds me, so does he. The medicine just makes it bearable, so I can shut out his voice and ignore the sensation of his fingertips brushing along my shoulders.

  I wish she would leave so I could read, or walk, or do anything other than relive these awful memories. Since the Sisters and the Prophet are still withholding nearly everything from me, I’m still withholding my bizarre, recurring visions where I dream that I’m visiting the Goddess Moon in her sky, and she gives me advice that I can’t quite remember when I wake.