Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  “Nearly boiled alive…”

  “– never seen anything like it – “

  “Will she make it?”

  I can’t make my lips answer them, and hopelessness deadens all other emotion as I feel the sharp jab of another needle, sliding me down a tunnel of relief and into a pool of blissful unawareness.

  This time when I wake, I’m in my room again, and although the bandages still wrap me everywhere, there is no pain.

  “Are you planning to live?” a voice reaches my ears, and I twist my neck around to see Megara sitting beside me. I grimace. She would make a horrible attendant nurse.

  “Don’t worry, the others will be here any second. We’ve been watching you in shifts,” she says, the disdain for her task evident in every syllable.

  “I failed again,” I whisper.

  “Yes, you did,” she agrees, almost cheerfully.

  “Am I-am I still injured?”

  “Perhaps just your pride, yes?” she cackles at her own joke.

  I struggle to sit, but the bandages are too tight.

  The door opens then, and I see Tariel first, then the other two Sisters, trailing her. The room is way too small for all four of them. I think of patting the bed in invitation for Tariel to park her butt, but the ensuing smirk is wiped away by Tariel’s stern expression.

  “The womb is useless to you now,” she says, and the others nod.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I hate failing, but I don’t know how to keep Hade away. I can’t keep him away, evidently. He’s inside my own mind, for Styx’s sake.

  “There is only one way left,” Tariel adds, and Alecta huffs.

  “Surely we can find something less risky,” she says.

  “Sister, there is no time,” Megara coos, her voice maddeningly triumphant. I decide I’ll need to pass this mystery test, just to throw it in their faces.

  Whatever it is, I can handle it.

  “What is it?” I croak, my voice barely a broken whisper.

  Nobody answers. They just watch silently as Tariel begins to unwrap me. She presses fingers against patches of my skin, seemingly pleased with my healing.

  “This is even better than I thought it would be,” she mutters under her breath. “You’re almost completely healed,” she says to me, folding the last of the bandages neatly and stacking it on the bed with the others. “She could possibly start tomorrow or the next day,” she turns to Tisiphone.

  The Sisters nod. Megara and Alecta turn to leave.

  “What is the test?” I ask again. They just glance at me as though I’m not important enough to answer, and then they walk right out the door.

  “Tisiphone!” I say, as she too turns to go.

  “I cannot tell you,” she says, her voice tinged with regret. “And neither can Tariel,” she adds, then she’s gone.

  “Don’t even bother asking,” Tariel says as soon as I turn my eyes to her. She begins to rub my bare skin with more of the same salve – it smells green and blue, I think. Like water and plants.

  “I’ll ask them to wait until the day after tomorrow, just in case. Your skin needs to heal a little more before you stay so long in the sun–” she breaks off abruptly, perhaps having said too much.

  I watch her rub the cream on my skin for a few more minutes, wondering how I might get her to give me a few more clues.

  “Do you miss him?” she asks suddenly.

  “Who?” I say, startled. “Lexan?”

  She nods.

  “Of course! Why do you question us so much, anyways?” I say, my voice growing in anger. “I love him, Tariel.”

  “Will it be enough, though?” she asks, turning her bright blue eyes on me. A lock of her teal and blond hair slips over her shoulder. She finishes the last of the cream and leaves my room, neither of us speaking another word.

  I turn to the wall, pulling the covers completely over my naked body.

  Will it be enough? Her question haunts me all night. It has to be enough.

  Love has to be enough to bring us back together.

  But even I’m not innocent enough to believe that.

  As the sun breaks into the room the next morning, someone opens the door and I hear a tray being set on my desk. I don’t turn around, and the person leaves after a few seconds of silence.

  Hours pass, and another tray is delivered.

  The sun’s rays have nearly left the room when a third tray clicks onto the desk. Whoever it is waits longer, and I sense a change in the air, as though he or she really wants to speak. I ignore it, struggling not to turn around. Finally the door opens and closes, leaving me to myself once more.

  I sit up and survey the measured servings. Stretching, I wrap myself in the blanket and hobble to the window, choosing a soft roll. After one bite, my stomach suddenly roars to life, and I eat much of what is there, stuffing myself until I feel sick.

  I think it was Hesten who delivered the food, and I feel guilty for not speaking to her. So as the stars come out to greet me, one by one, I sit to write her a short, happy note. I leave it on one of the trays, and lower myself to the floor to try my hand at this temple business again.

  Just as morning enters the room, I hear the door again. Smiling, I turn, hoping to see Hesten there with breakfast. My face twists into a scowl when I see Tariel.

  She’s holding a jar of salve in one hand, and a syringe in another.

  I let the blanket fall from my shoulders as I stand, my nakedness no longer an issue of embarrassment as I stand before her.

  “Let’s get this done,” I sigh.

  As she finishes, I sit on the bed and offer my arm. “Where will I be when I wake up this time?” I ask.

  She glares at me as she jabs my arm with the needle. “You know I can’t tell you that,” she says.

  I lie back on the pillow and close my eyes. My last thought is that maybe I should have gotten dressed. A grin makes it halfway across my face as I realize Tariel will be forced to do it.

  The sound of water is what wakes me. The ocean – waves rolling over one another in their race to the beach. I’ve spent many hours memorizing that sound, with my legs dangling off the edge of the city.

  But it sounds closer now. Much closer.

  I drag my eyelids open, and the sky is the first thing I see. Endless blue, streaked with barely enough clouds to worry about. And a hot, white-hued ball of a sun.

  I turn my head, noticing that my body seems to be swinging in the breeze. No. Rocking.

  In a boat.

  I sit up too fast, and the blood rushes through my brain as I adjust to the motion, and to the fact that I am in a boat, in the middle of the ocean.

  Mother of Hades.

  I’m in a boat in the middle of the ocean, and I see nothing around me – in any direction – except water.

  And the boat is barely big enough to be called by that name. It’s a bathtub. A canoe. A coffin.

  No, not a coffin, I backpedal immediately from that word.

  I will not die out here.

  I scrabble in the bottom, looking for anything with which to survive whatever those maniacal Sisters have planned for me. I find two oars – currently useless, given that I have no idea which direction land is. Seven leather skins of water, each tinted a different color. Each labeled: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Last. I wonder at the last one, why it wasn’t simply labeled with a number.

  Unless someone wanted me to know there would only ever be seven, I think uneasily.

  No. I will not die out here.

  I’ll be back in Elysium before I need that last skin of water.

  I look in every part of the boat, which only takes a few more seconds. There is no food.

  I pick up the oars, examining them. One handle is severely cracked, the wood weak enough to bend. How will this ever get me home? Even my clothes are odd – I’m covered completely in a thin cotton, with a sort of veil I can pull down to cover my face. If I don’t starve or dehydrate, or break an oar, or lose my path, evidently the
sun itself will roast me alive.

  I curse under my breath, then I begin to yell curses at the stillness around me.

  Who cares if I yell the worst curses I know – nobody is here to hear me. Only the sun, a fiery circle sitting directly above the boat-that-is-not-a-boat. I shoot a few arrows of fire at its bloated, hot body, but they only sizzle to their death in the water.

  My voice grows hoarse, my throat dry. I unscrew the top from the first bottle and lift it to my lips. I’ll have to wait until the stars come out. Then I can navigate.

  Or at least until the sun begins to set, I amend. Then I’ll know in which direction I need to row.

  I take a big gulp of water and nearly throw the bag from the boat as the pain wrecks what’s left of my composure. Fingers shaking in agony, I screw the top on and bend over the side of the boat, heaving bile into the water that is only inches from my face.

  Those cursed Sisters laced my drinking water with crystals, I realize as the pain gradually ebbs and I can breathe regularly again.

  I eye the bottles – no longer saviors, but now palm-sized enemies to be conquered.

  “What is wrong with you?” I scream at the emptiness, hoping somehow, in some stupid vision they have, the Sisters will hear my hatred for them and their tests.

  SEVENTEEN

  LEXAN

  February 6, 2067

  I never thought I’d find someone who understands my ambition and passion for betterment, not even before the war forced us into hiding. But then Charles plucked me straight from the market, like I was a choice bit of diamond for him to create his crown.

  He’s going to save so many people, and he wants me by his side the whole time.

  Of course, it could mean leaving behind all I’ve ever known. Clota has flat-out refused to come, Aisa is too young to ask, and I can’t bear to tell Mother yet.

  But saving myself is my desire, and saving as many good people as possible is my new destiny. Only the best will be allowed inside our haven to wait until the world can be cleared of the mess it’s made.

  From First Leader Lakessa’s personal journal

  Included in Firene’s secret papers

  I stopped counting bodies after ten.

  We took the time to burn each one, although my heart has grown a fraction harder and more panicked with each stop, each hour, each degree the sun slips further down in the sky.

  The walls of Tartarus loom in front of the glass front of our vehicle just as the sunset bursts into its glorious orange and red and pink display.

  Its beauty seems to blatantly mock the reason we are here.

  The earth itself cares nothing for human life, and whether or not it continues.

  Pacem parks the vehicle just outside the gates to the city. Although narrow, it’s still too wide to navigate the cramped streets of the dirty city.

  “We completely evacuated the city,” Pacem says as we walk the silent streets. It’s almost as though he is apologizing. As though he thinks what has happened is somehow his fault.

  I don’t let the idea stay long, or I might begin to believe it too.

  Instead, I focus on searching for survivors, or even better, the shredded souls who could have done so horrific a thing to the people of Kedesh.

  We walk the streets until it is too dark to see anything, then we light torches and make our way to the palace. I climb the steps and weave the hallways until I find the balcony of the throne room.

  “One of the best views of the city,” I say to Pacem, as I light more torches and line the edges of the balcony. “We can see everything from up here.”

  “And anyone down there could see us,” he adds.

  I nod. I’ve thought of this too. “If there is someone who wants to be found, or who wants to find us, they’ll know exactly where we are.”

  We set up a watch schedule and eat the dried meat and fruit we’ve brought. Both of us try to sleep, but with little success.

  The next day we search the city again, and again we feel eyes watching us, and hear footsteps in the distance, but never do we see a soul.

  “We can stay tonight,” I say wearily as we make our way back to the palace. “But I want to leave first thing in the morning.”

  We are nearly back to the palace entry when a shadow passes from a second-story walkway, and footsteps sound above us. We freeze and watch as two, then two more shapes run past the gap in the parapet wall. None of them looks down, and I can’t see their faces.

  “We need to get back to the throne room,” I say, and Pacem is nodding before I finish speaking.

  We run, slinking behind statues and columns, then sprinting across open courtyards and down deserted halls, until we reach the open door of the throne room.

  As soon as we enter the room, the door slams shut behind us, and I hear the mechanics of the floral design snicking back into place.

  A hooded figure steps from behind a column, bow strung and pointed at us.

  I glare when I realize it’s my own bow, left on the balcony to save weight as we searched the city. Stupid.

  My fingers itch to grab the knife tucked into the back of my pants, but I force myself to stay still. As far as I’ve seen, Pacem isn’t armed.

  A second hooded figure steps into view, coming from behind the throne.

  It moves jerkily, as though its legs don’t work correctly. I glance quickly at Pacem. His eyebrows are raised, and I know he’s wondering the same thing. Does this person have a robotic leg?

  Both figures approach slowly, and I sense another closing in behind us. A quick glance over my shoulder shows there are actually two, and I’ve accounted for all the people I saw from the grate earlier.

  The limping figure stops and tosses its head. The hood falls back, and I gasp. Pacem flinches, looking wildly between me and the girl standing before us.

  She grins.

  “Hello, boy with the power of air. I’m happy to see you’re still alive.”

  “You-you’re Serah’s sister!” I finally manage.

  She nods. Then the figure with the bow advances, pulling its hood back to reveal Serah herself. Pacem’s natural eye is nearly bulging out of his head.

  “Pacem, meet Serah, and…”

  “Ashta,” she supplies.

  “Ashta saved Trea and myself from Abraham. We found her sister here in Tartarus.” I look at her, guilt washing over me as I realize we never actually rescued her. That very night had ended with Stian’s death and Zarea’s imprisonment.

  “It’s okay. I escaped in the turmoil of the night,” she says, and her voice is as clear as a bell, and as sweet as the morning that is dawning around us.

  “Lexan?” Pacem whispers. I glance toward him. “The bodies…” he says, his lips barely moving.

  Dread seeps into my bones. Surely these girls are not responsible for those deaths.

  “Did you come here to chase the Lost?” Ashta asks, watching us shrewdly.

  “The what?” I ask.

  “The Lost. They are people who want no salvation. They are the ones who massacred Kedesh,” she spits out. “I would gladly murder all of them, but they are nearly impossible to find.”

  “Unless they are hunting you,” a voice behind me says, and I spin to see a young man. “Charel,” he says, nodding as an introduction.

  The other figure pulls his hood off. “And I’m Adman,” he says. “We’ve been hiding in Tartarus for weeks, evading the Lost.”

  “And hunting them,” Charel adds with a grin. “We’ve killed several, with minimal losses to our group.”

  “There are more of you?” Pacem asks, catching his implication. They all nod.

  “Four more,” Serah adds.

  “Why didn’t you leave with the others when Tartarus was evacuated?” I ask. “Were you not cleansed?”

  A dark shadow passes over Serah’s face. “I do not need to be cleansed. I am not one of those.”

  Her sister hushes her. “We were not in the city when everyone else left. We thought that by escapi
ng Hade’s palace and dungeons, we were doing the smart thing. But it turns out we were really just a few days too early to be rescued.”

  “And we’ve been stuck here ever since,” Charel says. “Every time we get too far from Tartarus, the Lost find us. We used to have closer to a dozen people.”

  “What exactly are the Lost, again?” I ask.

  They exchange glances.

  Finally Ashta says, “We’re not really sure what they are. Just that they are good trackers, but loud. Vicious. Flesh-eating. That’s why we call them lost – I’d rather starve to death than kill and eat a child,” she spits out, and I grimace at her implication.

  “The rest of us need medical attention,” Serah speaks up. “And I need to see the True Prophet. Will you take us to Elysium?”

  I try to swallow, panic nearly choking me. I can’t go all the way back. I can’t.

  “I can take them,” Pacem whispers, leaning in toward me. “In the vehicle. And you can continue on foot. Once they’re safe in Elysium I can find you again.”

  Even as my brain rejects the delay I know this will cause, my heart cries out that it just has to be this way. We can’t leave them, and I must continue.

  I nod. “And you can send birds to help find me?” I say, keeping our conversation private with a slight buzz of a breeze.

  “I can gather what I need here from the old workshops and make more birds – larger ones with more power. We can program them to canvass for survivors, too. I know how to make them find the heat that people give off, and they can record the coordinates.”

  “Can you do that while you travel?”

  He nods. “When we stop at night, I can work. Maybe I’ll even teach Serah’s sister to drive,” he grins.

  “You’ll need to fix my leg first,” she says, so close that I jump. I hadn’t realized she’d snuck past my screen of light wind.

  “We will help you in any way we can – if you will get us to Elysium. Please,” she adds.