Starbright: The Complete Series

by Hilary Thompson

  I raise my eyebrows but wait for her to continue.

  “Snakebite. I know Stian didn’t do it. So it may have been random bad luck. But the people are superstitious, and they took it as a sign.”

  “That he was wrong?”

  She nods. “That he wasn’t fit to rule any longer. That he was wicked, really. Stian made a bid for leader, and the council voted him in. Not quite unanimous, but close enough.”

  “So that’s when you convinced Hebron to head toward Asphodel?”

  “Well, technically they aren’t heading directly to Asphodel,” she says quietly. “They’re heading straight to the Garden.”

  I nearly fall off my tree branch. “How do you know where it is?” I remember discussing the partial vision with her, way back at Madna’s house. “Even the True Prophet doesn’t know where it is!”

  She glances at me sideways. “Stian thinks he knows. He’s not from Hebron, you know.”

  I nod and wave my hand for her to continue quickly.

  “His family was from a Tribe out east – Shechem – and he thinks it’s the same area where the Garden will be. He has part of a map that his mother left him, and even though it’s torn and almost unreadable, we know one major direction – the old road they numbered 50.”

  “50?” I echo. I remember seeing one or two signs left by the crumbling concrete as we journeyed to Madna’s, but I don’t remember any with that number.

  “Legends say it was once a large road for lots of vehicles. I’ve seen parts of it. It runs from one side of the country to the other – west to east. I know it’s not much to go on –”

  “It’s perfect!” I grin, clasping her fingers in mine. “I’ve had nothing to go on for so long – just the general direction of east!” I’m nearly giddy with the thought that we might have an actual plan for finding the Garden.

  “Well, it was the only way to convince the Tribe. They didn’t want to go to Asphodel. No offense. But the stories they’ve heard of Keirna…”

  I shake my head. “I don’t blame them. She wouldn’t take them in willingly anyways. Or she’d make them work for her. But that’s all going to change soon. I’m on my way there to kill her.”

  Zarea startles, staring at me in disbelief. I flush a little.

  “I know I’m not usually like that. But she killed my mother.” I tell her the rest of the story – the cryptic message from Aitan, and the Prophet’s mandate that I go alone.

  “That’s some heavy task,” she finally murmurs when I’m finished. “I wish I could help you.”

  “But you’re needed in Elysium,” I answer. She meets my eyes, and for the first time since we met today, I think she’ll actually go. We’re silent the rest of the night, slipping easily into the trading of night watch and sleep shifts.

  When morning comes, I’m feeling antsy to leave. Zarea draws what she can remember of the road 50 on my map from Pacem, and I give her a few portions of my food, although she won’t take the water.

  “It’s a very long journey,” she says as I hug her. “Please be safe, Lexan.”

  “And you as well,” I say. Neither of us truly wants to go on alone, but the stars and the prophets have tasked us, and so we answer.

  She goes because she is a warrior, and she fulfills her missions even when she doesn’t understand or wholly agree.

  I go because I finally have more faith than knowledge, and although it scares me, I trust that at least one of the gods is watching over us.

  TWENTY

  ASTREA

  February 12, 2067

  I’m losing my sisters. I feel like they’re getting older and tired of this world and its daily sorrows, while I’m getting younger, drunk on the hope my dreams have given me. Last night I dreamed of three Sisters – like us but not like us.

  They were so beautiful, and they’re waiting for me by the ocean.

  “We’ll let you borrow our wings to fly here,” they said to me in the dream.

  “We’ll be your Sisters when Lakessa and Clota leave you.”

  I can’t stop crying, but I’m not sure if I’m sad or relieved.

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

  The funnel cloud that contains Irana is still visible on the horizon, but only just. I hope she knows where she’s going, because I plan to follow her.

  As soon as I can figure out how.

  A feeling I’m not quite certain how to name is rising in me, as steadily as water rising in a flood. I feel like I am finally understanding what the Prophet meant when he said I need to learn to be strong alone.

  I don’t have anyone out here except myself. The thoughts I had earlier of using Hade’s power have soured, after seeing what he’s done to Irana. What he’s certainly done to me.

  It’s the worst kind of affirmation – like suspecting something is wrong with your face, then looking in the mirror and seeing it’s not just your face, but everything. Those black tendrils winding around her arms…I shiver, although the dawn is as hot as ever.

  The tiny bit of light growing around me confirms that the oar is indeed lost. I think about what Lexan would do to solve this puzzle of no sail, no oar.

  I close my eyes and think through my options. I could make an oar, perhaps. The sides of the boat aren’t very high, but maybe I could just take the top few inches for a paddle. I test the wood – it certainly won’t break.

  But it will burn, I remember, thinking of when Charon forced me to burn the wet wood. I hone and focus my flame until it is like a blue torch, cutting through the boards.

  The plank I cut free is too narrow to push me through the water, I soon find, but I’m not sure if I can risk cutting a wider piece for the paddle. In the end, I tear strips of white fabric from my wrappings and bind the empty water skins to the end of my handle.

  They’re still too flexible for quick progress, but the boat actually moves forward as I row, inch by excruciating inch. Of course, there isn’t any way to measure progress, but when the sun has reached its apex for the seventh time on my journey, I realize that what I’ve been staring at – a dark line in the horizon – is actually land!

  I drop the flimsy oar into the bottom of the boat and whoop out loud in relief. I’m going to make it. I’m not going to die out here, alone in the water.

  Plus, unlike in the womb, I’ve finally been able to resist Hade. Speaking with him directly made him both more real, and less part of me.

  I decide to down the remaining water, ignore whatever pain comes with it, and paddle like mad until I reach the shore. I drain the skin, the water tasting strangely cool and fresh, although it’s been the longest in the hot sun. It actually revives me, and I do begin to paddle faster than before, grinning like a maniac.

  I’m squinting at the horizon, trying to make out any features, when it happens.

  Sadness like none I’ve ever experienced floods my heart – worse than when Mother died and I needed the healers’ pills just to get out of bed. My fingers slacken, dropping the oar somewhere, and I can’t even be bothered to glance around for it. I slump against the boat, and begin to cry in wracking sobs. I have barely any water in my body for tears, but my lungs gasp for air as they drown in sorrow.

  I drift, lost again on the wide, wide sea.

  At some point, long after the sadness began, it shifts and swirls into a billowing rage – again, stronger than any I’ve ever felt. Faces whir through my brain and I scream at them with wordless fury until my voice gives out – cursing the young guard who once took my favorite table at lunch, Isa and Garna and their growing friendship, Aitan and his trickery and taunts, Father and the way he always forgot I was there. Of course Keirna is there throughout the flood of memories, and Hade, and even Abraham.

  But I’m most furious with those who have helped me – who loved me even – and fallen short.

  Lexan’s face in my mind is what breaks the spell.

  The anger beats at his memory, desperately trying to raise my bitterness toward him �
�� his early secrecy, how he played with my emotions, how he’s gone now.

  But he’s my Lexan, and I understand everything he’s done. The rage and its power over me lessens as I think about this contradiction, leaning over the side of the boat to trail my fingers in the water. It’s warm on top, from the sun, and maybe the fire I’ve been throwing. But only a few inches deep, it’s calm and cold and powerful.

  I dip my arm further, leaning toward the coolness as much as I can without falling in.

  Then I do fall in – on purpose. I allow my body to slide headfirst into the dark, cold sea, my fingers scraping at the bottom of the boat. I hold myself under for what seems like an impossible amount of time.

  The water feels like an embrace. It soothes my overheated, dehydrated skin. It spreads my tangled, sweaty hair into waves of flowing curls. It smooths the scowl and squint from my face.

  And last of all, it washes the anger and the sorrow from my heart. There is no sound, no light, and no sensation, other than my fingertips resting on the bark of the boat above me.

  I have created my own womb, and I feel as though the water is with me and within me, and no longer against me.

  A prayer from Grandmother’s meditation comes to me – one I haven’t used in a very long time – and I recite it silently as I climb unhurriedly back into the boat, my eyes closed as I use only touch and memory to return myself to the soft rocking of the boat on the surface of the sea.

  Fire light, burning bright,

  Cast in fury, tossed by spite.

  Power of flame, in dark of night,

  Combined with air, is evil’s delight.

  But cooled with water, heat is spent

  And thoughts and actions are heaven-sent.

  The water around me is calm, and I am calm. The sun no longer feels threateningly hot, and I sense a great peace and balance within me. My power also rests there, coiled and sated in the center of my chest. I can and will use it, but now is not the time.

  Eyes still closed, I repeat the meditation chant until I slip into the true darkness of my subconscious brain. I now see it as a darkened room – the temple the Prophet spoke of.

  Lost on the water, the girl of fire has found the Great Silence.

  “I don’t know how you did it,” a voice says, making its way through the fog in my brain. I twist my head toward it, but my eyes feel swollen shut. “It’s Tariel. You won’t be able to open your eyes just yet. We pumped lots of fluid into your veins to rehydrate you. There is some swelling. Plus you’re pretty sunburned where you took your wrappings off.”

  I crack open my mouth, wincing at its tenderness. I feel her smear some salve on my lips. “Path?” I manage. The area around my heart feels different – heavy, yet somehow emptier.

  Full of power, and free from bitterness. Controlled in a way I’ve never felt before.

  “Yes, you have somehow completed the path of the four basic elements during your Ocean Trials. There is still the Ascension Ceremony, of course. I told the Sisters they needed to wait a few days before putting you through that.”

  I feel her patting the salve all over my body, gradually covering me in the cool, soothing oil. I sigh, both in relief and frustration – of course there’s more. Even after the womb and Hade and the great, wide ocean, Elysium would want more.

  “I guess you could say the Ocean Trials were a complete success. You mastered all of your elements, and Irana has certainly mastered the water path. Her return was quite the event. Her power is phenomenal. Perhaps a little scary…”

  She babbles on, and I wonder how Irana is actually doing – if I imagined her with those black tendrils of Hade’s smoke. Or if she really did somehow let him into her heart.

  “Have her eyes been black?” I ask, interrupting her stream of medical observations and praise of Irana.

  “Black? No, just green, like they’ve always been. Why would they be black?”

  I don’t answer, and as the seconds tick by, she realizes my implication. She curses under her breath.

  “Do you have a reason to ask this?” she says, and I imagine her scowling down at me. I’m actually glad I can’t open my eyes right now.

  I shrug and turn my face to the wall.

  “I’ll inform the Sisters of your question. I suggest you stay right here until I come back with their reaction.”

  “Can you send Irana to me?” I ask as she gathers her bag of implements, wondering where exactly she thinks I could go.

  “Of course not!” she answers as she slams the door of my room shut.

  Eventually my skin starts to return to normal, although it’s still tender, and my eyes slit open a little at a time. I’m sitting up in bed when the door opens again.

  Hesten stands there, wide-eyed and hesitant like the first days she met me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her. She shakes her head, and closes the door softly, setting a tray of soup and bread next to me on the bed.

  “I’m glad you both made it back safely. When I heard what they did…”

  “Is the sabbatical that rare for people to follow?”

  She shakes her head. “That wasn’t a sabbatical. It was the Ocean Trials, and yes, they are very rare. And almost never successful. Giving all seven at once, like they did for you…well, it’s usually a way to…” she pauses and stares out the window, blinking several times. “To get rid of people who are unfit for the community,” she finishes in a rush.

  I snort, then a giggle escapes my lips, then another. At first Hesten just gapes at me, but then a whisper of a smile begins on her face, and soon she’s giggling shyly right along with me.

  “I guess it takes a lot to kill me,” I sigh, wiping a tear from my eyes. I don’t need to lose any more water.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. And Irana too,” she says, her spine holding her a little straighter than I’ve seen before. “It will be an honor to partake in my Ascension Ceremony beside you. Kesh thinks so, too,” she adds.

  “So this ceremony is for those who have finished the path?” I ask, trying to remember if anyone has mentioned it before today.

  “Yes. Kesh and I have both mastered the four elements, and since you have, too, you’ll join all of us. There are two others you haven’t met, so five total.”

  “What is it, exactly?” I ask, thinking of the ceremonies in Asphodel. The Vocation Ceremony, which was brutal and frightening. The Choosing Ceremony, which was supposed to be beautiful and full of joy – but when everything truly changed, with Mother’s murder.

  Hesten still hasn’t answered, and I look back at her. “Have you seen one?”

  “Those who have not ascended cannot attend. We’re kept inside throughout the ceremony, so we can’t see. I have no idea what to expect, except that it’s long. One night and one day, and then the Ascension Ball on the second night.” She smiles. “I haven’t been to those either, but I’ve helped my mother get ready. Everyone wears masks and gorgeous dresses.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’ll be going through it together, too,” I smile. “Thank you for trusting me, Hesten. It really means a lot.”

  She flushes a little. “Irana has made quite an impression on the people,” she says, changing the topic. “They don’t know whether to be terrified or completely charmed.”

  “I saw her on the water. In the funnel…did you see it?”

  She nods. “Nearly everyone saw it. She arrived right around lunch, so most people were walking to the dining hall. At first we panicked, thinking it was a hurricane. But the Sisters could see her and ordered the people to stay and watch.”

  “Did you see anything unusual about her?” I ask, wondering again if the darkness I saw had simply been a trick of my imagination.

  “Other than the fact she was riding on a wave?” Hesten laughs. “She looked stunning. It was like a goddess of the ocean came to visit us. A few people have even been composing music and chants about it.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes a bit. Irana has a lot of
experience in putting on a good performance. Thankfully, my pinch of jealousy dissipates quickly, as I think of how deserving of praise Irana truly is. She’s a lesson for me in patience and waiting for the right time.

  “Do you know how much longer I have to stay in my room?” I ask, but Hesten only shrugs.

  “I wasn’t told. But you’ll need more rest, I think. Your skin is pretty burned – you won’t want to go outside in the sun for a few days. And recovering from dehydration can be deceiving, too. Often people coming back from sabbatical take a week or more to rest, and the Ocean Trials are so much worse.”

  She rises to leave, and even though I don’t want her to, I can’t think of a reason which might make her stay.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she says, turning back to the bed. “The Prophet asked me to deliver this book for you to read while you rest.”

  She draws a slim, leather-bound volume from her tunic pocket, hands it to me, and slips out the door.

  The book seems to be only prayers and meditations. I begin dutifully with the first page, but the words soon start to blur before my eyes, and I lie back to rest a bit longer.

  The next thing I know, Tariel is prodding at my skin again. I open my eyes and rub at them. It is sometime in late afternoon, if I’m judging the slant of the sun in my window correctly.

  “Irana is doing very well,” Tariel informs me as she checks my temperature. “The Prophet suspects she was already very centered and meditative, so now that her power over water has been truly opened, her progress in the womb has been amazingly fast. Perhaps we should have started all of you on the Ocean Trials.”

  I stay silent through her praise, reminding myself that Irana certainly had time to develop a meditative personality, living in that cage in Hade’s throne room. What actually bothers me is Tariel’s obvious delight in Irana.