Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  “You must unlearn your appetite for understanding. Trea does well simply because she does not think – she feels. And what she feels is stubborn and headstrong, not seeking and wondering.”

  “Her personality is well-suited for this version of the path,” Tisiphone agrees. “Yours, Lexan, is better suited for a lifetime of quiet conversation with the soul.”

  “A lifetime we don’t have,” I mutter. She nods.

  “But take heart in her success,” the Prophet reminds me.

  “Whose success?” a voice behind me says, and I nearly knock over my chair standing to envelop Trea in my arms. She giggles into my shoulder as I sag against her, feeling her fire begin to warm me immediately.

  “Good morning to you, too,” she says.

  “I missed you,” I whisper into her hair. Someone clears her throat behind us, and when we turn, all three Sisters have seated themselves at the table. Trea tugs me down next to her, keeping her fingers laced with mine.

  “Have your riders had any success locating Zarea?” I ask, remembering the Prophet’s promise.

  He sighs and shakes his head. “The elements have ensured their failure.”

  “We have decided not to send more riders until one of you has completed the path and can accompany them,” Alecta adds.

  I frown in frustration, and Trea slams her water glass down, some of the liquid splashing over the sides.

  “I understand wanting to protect your people, but that is ridiculous! What about those poor people traveling from Tartarus toward Asphodel? They’re subjected to all those elements, too! And Zarea must be found to continue the prophecy!”

  I rest my fingers on her arm, but she only glares at me.

  “Your people are not more important than everyone else,” she says, rising from the table. “Call me when Lady Thema is ready.”

  She turns back as she parts the curtain. “Lexan, I’ll walk you to your room if you want.”

  I sigh and push up from the table, mumbling an apology to the Sisters and the Prophet. He is watching me in amusement – the others, not so much. Trea offers me her arm, and we exit the dining hall.

  Once outside, I tug Trea to a stop. A girl trails after us, but pauses a good distance away.

  “We need them, Trea. We need their help.”

  “Not like that, we don’t. Hesten!” she calls behind her.

  The girl approaches, hesitating to meet my eyes.

  “Can you take us to see the Lady Thema, please?”

  “I’ll see if she is available,” Hesten replies and turns to go.

  “We’ll wait in Lexan’s room. Thank you,” Trea adds, and the girl smiles just a bit in our direction.

  We make our way slowly to my room. Every time I open my mouth to say something, Trea shushes me.

  “We’ll talk when you’re back in bed. You need rest.”

  Soon I find myself being tucked into bed by a beautiful girl with fire in her hair and her heart. I watch her move restlessly about my room, examining the bits of shell and vial of sand I collected from the temple.

  “All I ever wanted was a simple life,” I whisper. “A chance to be with you. A family, maybe. How did things get so complicated?”

  Trea sits on the bed, then lies down next to me, her head resting in the crook of my arm.

  “That’s the way life has always been for me,” she says. “Complicated. But at least we’re stronger together.”

  Her words jolt me out of my self-pity, and I twist my arm under the pillow to retrieve my journal.

  “Look – this is the vision I can never make sense of.”

  “Be strong alone. Be strong together. Forgive yourself. Forgive each other. Create your world. Create your destiny,” she reads softly. “What did you see?”

  I shake my head. “That’s the problem. I only saw – felt – these words. My visions are getting stronger but weaker somehow. I have more of them, but I see less.”

  “You’re still learning, Lexan. Plus this whole stupid womb thing is draining every bit of your energy. I can see it,” she insists when I begin to shake my head.

  “And what about you? What about Hade?” I counter.

  She flinches. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “He’s in your mind, isn’t he?”

  She doesn’t answer, which is answer enough. We’re silent for so long that I nearly drift into sleep.

  Then she says, “Sometimes I feel his fingers on my skin.”

  My stomach collapses and I stiffen next to her, then force myself to relax. Anger won’t help. I hug her close. “Imagine me instead,” I whisper, tracing my fingers along her jaw and neck. She trembles a bit but doesn’t resist. “Every time you start to imagine him, remember this instead.” I gather her small frame to me and find her lips with mine, trying to remind her that what we have together is real.

  She remembers, if only for a few moments.

  When she breaks away, she whispers, “It’s not just my imagination, Lexan. He’s here, inside me. He wants out.”

  I’m processing this and trying to figure out a response when there’s a soft knock at the door. Trea jumps up and straightens her tunic before opening the door.

  Hesten stands there, her eyes fixed on the ground. “The Lady Thema has agreed to see you. She’s in the temple of the goddess.”

  We follow Hesten across the city to the ladder leading down to the cave where I met the Prophet. Just before rounding the final curve, Hesten turns to us.

  “She didn’t wish to see you. I had to promise payment.”

  “What type of payment?” Trea asks.

  Hesten shakes her head. “That is up to her.” She turns and hurries away.

  “She doesn’t like the sea,” Trea says, watching her go. She meets my eyes, and I’m surprised to see hers glimmer with a sheen of tears. “I miss Isa,” she whispers, and only then do I realize how much Hesten looks like Isa.

  “We’ll be back there soon. We’ll save her, I promise,” I say, squeezing her hand. She nods and we enter the temple.

  A woman stands at the opening to the water, framed in the outline of the goddess. Dark curls twist down her back and swing gently as she turns, and I note the body chain which drew our attention to her so many weeks ago in Tartarus. The same chain design Zarea carries.

  She gives us a wary look.

  “I’m Lexan, and this is Astrea. We have come to Elysium at the request of the True Prophet,” I begin.

  “I know who you are. I know what you want.”

  “Please,” I say, sending her all the reassurance I can with my power. “Tell us your story.”

  Her resistance is so strong that for several moments I’m afraid my powers aren’t even affecting her. Is this what it’s like to have followed the path completely? To be oblivious to the struggles and requests of others? To be so focused on your own journey that you miss those falling beside you?

  She interrupts my spiraling thoughts with a gentle hand on mine. “I will tell you what I can, if you promise to help me when I ask later.”

  She gestures for us to sit on the concrete bench opposite hers. I look at Trea, and she nods. I’m wary, but we need her information, so I nod too, and we sit.

  “When I was just a girl, the previous True Prophet had a vision about me. He said that I would both ruin and save our people. That I would both disgrace and honor them. This is the legacy I have lived with for nearly thirty years.” Her voice has turned bitter, and she stops to take a deep breath. “At first, none of us understood the images that accompanied this particular vision. He spent days describing them over and over in great detail, hoping to help me. But nothing made sense.”

  “So even the Prophet didn’t know what his prediction meant?” Trea asks.

  She shakes her head. “He delivers the message, but it is often left to the recipient to decode the gods’ meanings. But he told me of a great man, large as a bear and bellowing, who would come from across the desert.”

  “Abraham,” I whisper
, and she nods.

  “When I was nineteen, I had completed as much of the path as I was allowed, and so I was invited to test my strength as part of a sort of ambassador party – we wanted to learn what others knew of the prophecy. It was a great honor to be chosen, and I went willingly. Yet when our party settled in Hebron to rest, I met Abraham, who was like a bear cub then. Playful and curious. And I finally understood my prophecy. I realized that this journey was also to be my disgrace.” She takes a deep breath and stares at the sea for a long moment. “I told no one how the prophecy had become clear. Most had forgotten about my strange prediction, until earlier this year when signs of the Garden prophecy began to appear.”

  “Like the elements?” I ask. She nods.

  “Why is it disgraceful to marry outside of your city?” Trea asks, but her tone shows she already knows her answer.

  “Well, we did not marry, for one thing. But Elysium is strict about who is allowed to enter our city, and jealous about who is allowed to leave. We invest much time and many of our valuable resources in leading our citizens along the path to their personal salvation. Your time in the womb, for example, is costing us much.”

  I flush and move to apologize, but she waves it away.

  “Salvation is worth every resource we can muster. I just want you to understand that this is Elysium’s first, last, and only purpose: to provide a final defense against the evils of this world.”

  A beat of silence cloaks the open room, and then a gull screams from the water outside.

  “So you left Abraham and returned here?” Trea asks.

  Lady Thema nods. “I did not want him to follow me. It was impossible for him to stay in Elysium anyways. I did not yet know I was with child, and I wasn’t willing to leave my home. He meant…he meant nothing to me.” Her voice betrays her, though, and I think of the type of woman who could love Abraham. The type of man he might have been, once.

  “But you did leave Elysium, later,” I point out, trying to match her story with the one Zarea told me the night before we left Tartarus. I turn to Trea. “Zarea knew her mother was from Elysium, but she was somehow birthed in Hebron.”

  Lady Thema nods. “That is also true. Abraham traveled to Elysium later, but I never asked him what his intent was. He did not even seek me out when the party arrived.”

  “Did he pursue the path?” Trea asks.

  She shakes her head. “He and his men were guests. They crossed the threshold only, and stayed in the guest quarters, where there are no crystals.”

  “You have guest quarters?” Trea asks sharply, and I grip her hand in mine.

  “Go on,” I say to Lady Thema.

  “When he saw me by accident and realized I was pregnant, he changed. He became the bear who bellowed. The man he is today. He would have forced me to return to Hebron with him – would have battled my city for it. And so I followed him to Hebron, where Zarea was born, and a few months later I left her there alone, so that I might return to my home.”

  She falls silent again for several minutes, gazing into the water and milky horizon beyond.

  “And so I disgraced my city by having a child outside of their rules. I did not permit that child to follow the path, so she may have come to ruin. Or,” and she smiles to herself, “perhaps she has transcended her fate and become a blessing to us all. It is this hope which keeps me from letting myself fall from the edge of the world, here by the ocean.”

  Trea leans toward her. “Your daughter has done this, and more, Lady Thema.”

  I smile, startled that Trea is defending Zarea like this.

  “She is a great warrior, and she will make a strong leader for her people if Abraham is defeated,” Trea continues.

  “And if she is indeed the third maiden,” I add, and Lady Thema’s gaze snaps to mine, “then together you and she will have brought the greatest honor yet to both Elysium and Hebron. Zarea may still follow her path.”

  Footsteps sound in the corridor behind us just then, and I turn to see Megara and Alecta striding into the temple.

  “How optimistic,” Megara sneers. “And Zarea will have that chance very soon. Lady Thema, your daughter will arrive in Elysium within two weeks, if our young Prophet has correctly counted the suns in his vision.”

  TWELVE

  ASTREA

  November 1, 2066

  Kess finally told us about the new dream she keeps having, where Mother throws me into the sky, and pushes Clota off a cliff, and then jumps into the air with Kess. I tried to tell her that wasn’t how the dream went, but she just laughed, thinking I was playing games. But I’m not. Every time she has the dream, I wake up and watch it with her.

  But she never sees the truth – Clota isn’t pushed. She jumps.

  And I’m not thrown – I fly into the blue sky on my new wings.

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

  “Two weeks?” I say, startled into speaking directly to the middle Sister. “Where is she traveling from?”

  “We don’t know,” Alecta answers, her tone frosty. “Only that within two weeks she should arrive here. Then we can test her to see if she is who you claim.”

  Lady Thema rises. “If she is my daughter, you will not be permitted to push her through the path with the womb. It has nearly killed this one,” she gestures at Lexan, whose eyes widen.

  “She must be tested,” the middle Sister hisses.

  “I’m certain Zarea would pass any test you gave her, Megara,” Lexan says, rising to meet her eyes.

  She glares at him, and so do I. “How did you know her name?” I ask.

  “He read it somewhere,” she says, a cruel smile on her perfect lips.

  “I must go now,” Lady Thema says, and slips away before anyone can object or question.

  “What should we do for two more weeks?” I demand, although I think I know the answer.

  “The path, of course,” Alecta says, confirming my thoughts. “You only have one more in the womb,” she nods to me. “Come. You may begin now.”

  “Could we just have a day?” Lexan says, surprising me. “We’ve done everything you asked for days and days now. Could Trea and I just…”

  “You may begin after lunch, then,” she says, and the two Sisters turn and exit, their skirts swishing around their silent steps.

  I turn back to Lexan, who is grinning that lop-sided smile that always makes my stomach flip.

  “Finally,” he whispers, stepping closer and drawing me into his arms.

  “Finally what?” I ask, sagging against him.

  “Alone and conscious,” he says, his breath warm against my neck. I shiver as the air around us begins to swirl and his fingertips slip just under the hem of my shirt. The salt from the ocean is fresh and free when it’s filtered through his own smell, which still reminds me of home. Cool and musk, like the still rock walls of the cave. I trace my palms up his arms toward his shoulders, appreciating the corded muscle and the breadth of his shoulders.

  Tilting my head up, I take in his strong jaw, sharpening cheekbones, and those eyes that remind me more and more of the deep water beyond us. “You look older,” I say with a soft smile. “We’re growing up, aren’t we?”

  He doesn’t answer, but a jolt of panic flits through the blue of his eyes like lightning across a midnight sky. But then he lowers his lips to mine, and I forget everything but the boy in my arms. The boy who is quickly becoming everything vital to me. The one who I should have noticed so long ago, and claimed before our lives got so dangerous.

  The boy who said he’d never leave my side, and who has stayed impossibly true to that promise.

  He presses me against the rock wall of the small temple, and I slip into a hazy memory of the hot pool, and the night he first touched my lips with his.

  I find myself smiling around the kiss, and he leans back, his fingers hot on my skin.

  “What?” he whispers.

  “This is how you should be kissed,” I say.

  “Ev
ery day,” he smiles, and leans back to me, our bodies sliding together like the grains of sand under my feet.

  I lose myself in the sensation of him and me, and the strange buzzing of the crystals at my back, and the crash of the ocean waves just outside the temple opening.

  It hasn’t been nearly enough time when hurried footsteps sound in the corridor.

  “Trea?” a voice calls. Hesten.

  Lexan curses under his breath and pushes away from me. I smile at his flushed face as I push my shirt back to where it should be.

  Hesten bursts into the small space, and the panic on her face erases any smile from mine.

  “Your friend – the other maiden – she’s here!” she says, her heavy breathing breaking up the message. She immediately turns to leave again, beckoning us along.

  “I thought the Prophet said two weeks!” Lexan says as we hurry to follow her up the ladder.

  “Not that girl – the water one. With the…the robot…boy.”

  “Irana!” I realize, and we push past Hesten even as she calls that they are in the dining hall.

  The hall looks empty until we enter the curtained area, where Irana and Pacem sit dazedly, a spread of food before them. Their faces and clothing are dirty, Irana’s pale hair unwashed and pulled back to hide the grime. The True Prophet nods at me before slipping out the back side of the curtain without a word, leaving the four of us alone.

  Irana stumbles up and grasps my neck in a fierce hug.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” she says in her child-like voice. “I’ve been so afraid, and your bravery always makes me feel better.”

  As soon as I break away from the hug, I can see something very wrong waiting in Irana’s eyes. She barely meets my questioning stare.

  “What is it?” Lexan asks. She and Pacem exchange a glance which takes my breath and shreds it into a million bits of air too small to do any good.

  “There’s been a message,” Irana says, and her voice is so quiet. Lexan grips my hand so tightly that tears spring my eyes, but I don’t dare tell him. Pacem reaches slowly into his knapsack. When he jerkily unfolds his fingers, I see he holds a tiny brown bird, its wings nearly broken. It’s dirty, but the metal body still shines, and the red eye blinks intermittently.