The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar

by Alexander Richter

  Quinn recognized the man at once. He was the one who tried abducting her back in Woolbury. He was clad in the same outfit. Quinn spat on the dirt in disgust. He was the one who killed her papa and stolen her beloved dagger. There was a surge of revengeful thoughts blasting into her mind as she stood and stared at him. She wanted what was taken from her and did not care what she’d have to do to get it back. “That beast,” she said under her breath.

  Once the horn ended, the army mobilized towards a hollow opening at the base of the mountains.

  “Good thing we flew over,” Abbott whispered, appreciative of Frostbite. He imagined how he and Quinn would have faired once they came head to head with an army so large. Dead.

  The ground thundered and shook as the soldiers disappeared into their hole.

  “Where are they going?”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said, “but I can tell you they’re not going out for late night tea.”

  After the valley below cleared and there was no sign of anyone else, Quinn and Abbott crept down the hillside closer to the towers. They found nothing else stood in their way from the ridge to the encampment below. Reminisce of smoldering fires burnt silently along with scraps of meat slung over fire roasters. The camp was one giant pit of mud with the occasional patch of solid ground.

  The gigantic iron gate was left ajar— big enough for both of them to squeezed through. Although, Abbott hardly dreamt he had the strength to open these doors. They were built by much larger beings than himself, there was a weight behind them.

  Behind the veil of the iron gates and inside the central tower, there was a spiral staircase climbing the length. The tower floors were made of black glass without a single scratch to be seen, and the walls were built to match. What a dreadful place, they both thought. No color, no light, and absolutely no happiness.

  Quinn approached the staircase.

  “Wait! Shouldn’t we look around first? There could be an… ambush.”

  The idea held some weight, but Quinn shook her head in dismissal.

  “Do you think after an army that size marched, there would be people left about? We haven’t seen a single soul since they departed. I am convinced it’s because she wants you to come to her, unharmed and alone.”

  “But what about my father?”

  “He’ll be with her, there’s no doubt about that.”

  Quinn was right. He hated knowing that.

  The sword in Abbott’s hand doubled in weight. His arms weakened with each step they ascended. What use was a weapon if you’d only had one lesson using the darn thing? He was dead meat. He knew it. “I have a bad feeling about—“

  “Shh!” Quinn said, putting her finger to her lips. “We’re not going to start all of that.”

  The staircase went on for ages. When they came to the first floor of the tower, it was nothing but an empty foyer, no doors and no windows. Quinn continued leading upwards with a burn in her legs. Eventually, the staircase came to an end, leading to a long hallway with a singular door.

  With the help of Quinn’s torch, she beamed the light down the hallway. Mammoth fire cauldrons spaced down the length but were dormant. All they could see was the doorway on the other side, dark and brooding.

  Abbott took an intense breath, preparing himself for what he’d find on the other side. Part of him hoped it would be empty, but another part hoped he’d see his father’s face again, even if it meant seeing Lilith too.

  “Together,” Quinn said, offering her hand.

  In a last moment of reassurance, Quinn swung open the heavy door. It creaked against the glass floor until it revealed its secrets.

  “Father!” Abbott said at once, but Quinn stuck her arm out to prevent him from running to him. “What’re you doing? Let me go!”

  “Wait.” Quinn surveyed the room for any sign of another person but found nothing. Her senses were heightened, like an animal that was being hunted. She knew the game. Things that came this easy were often a trick. Upon a table by the window opening was the candle they’d seen burning below. The flame failed to a weaver in the wind. It was made a black wax. A rustling sound coming from the rafters above. A stray raven pecking restlessly away at a dead bird.

  “Abbott,” the man’s voice echoed from the floor. “Is that you?”

  Quinn flared her eyes to warn Abbott to keep silent.

  “Son,” the voice carried on. “Come here… help me… I can barely stand.”

  It took every fiber in Abbott’s bones to stay rooted where he was. His heart pulled on him.

  The figure uncurled and attempted to stand but fell over. They were weak like his father. Seeing the agony, Abbott could no longer sit and watch the struggle. He ran to his father’s aid just as he attempted to stand up again. Abbott clutched his frail arm, dropping his sword. “I’m here, father.”

  “It is you,” his voice was weak. “I knew you’d come for me.”

  “I couldn’t leave you here,” Abbott said, boosting his father around his shoulders. “We’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late.“

  Quinn stood guard with her sword. “Abbott,” she said timidly. The Vailïc marking was clear as day branded on his neck. “I don’t think he's your father.”

  “You’ve brought someone with you,” the man said. “Who is she?”

  “Who are you!” Quinn snapped. She’d never met his father before, but this made her feel all sorts of wrong. The ginger hair on her neck stood up. And her palms filled with sweat.

  He had yet to see the grey wiry reminisces of his father’s appearance. He went to remove the hood, but his father pulled away. An echo erupted from his chest and twisted into a sneer. A pair of ravens blasted out from the slit of the hood, cawing violently into the sky and flying circles above his head. The hood fell empty to the floor. The arm disappeared around his shoulder. Before he could understand what was going on, the same orchestrated army of birds from earlier gathered inside the room, putting out the candlelight in the process. They formed a flurry of winds turning loose parchment out the window.

  “Foolish and naive,” the winds parroted. “Foolish and naive!”

  Abbott launched towards his sword. Quinn stood alertly in the darkness. Back to back they came. Voices whispered in languages unknown, and the ravens shrieked as if prompting to proceed.

  The moon was enormous from outside the window. Its luminous light radiated through the velvety sky, but its light was cruel— unknown to Evinar.

  As they advanced cautiously towards the window to have a look at the moon, a suspended ring of candlesticks ignited in the chamber turning the glass walls into a dazzling shimmer. The room transformed into a glass graveyard with an obsidian box in the center.

  “What is it?” Abbott asked anxiously.

  “A tomb.”

  The words seemed to fall from Quinn’s lips regretfully as Abbott’s eyes began to well up. “Whose tomb?” But she did not know. Written in the stone, Angelia Bradbury and Edmund Bradbury. “No. I don’t believe it. This isn’t real. This is all… a game!” In anger, he slashed his sword at the tomb. It disappeared into thin air. “Reveal yourself!”

  There was another snickering and then the chamber’s glass appearance reappeared.

  “The heir to the Divine Kingdoms, defender of the good, savior of all, you’ve finally arrived. Although, I cannot say I am pleased to meet you. You’re meant to be dead. I suspect that red-headed brat next to you is to thank for that. No matter, I assume if you want someone dead, you have to kill them yourself.” For the rim of the chamber, the talker rose into the candlelight.

  Lilith.

  Quinn grabbed another sword from her belt.

  “Oh dear, the more you have, it makes no difference. Neither of you will be leaving this chamber.” Her skin was the shade of melted candle wax and the flicker from the candlelight set her eyes on fire. “After tonight, you will be nothing more than a forgotten memory. One of the many obstacles in my path. But it does not have to be this way. Another a
lternative lives, one where you join me, and we share the splendors of conquest.”

  “You’re mad!” Quinn spat, raising her blades. “That’s suicide. She’ll just kill you the second she’s finished with you!”

  “You insolent fool!” Lilith’s eyes cracked with rivers of flame down her cheekbones. She turned to shield her face, but Abbott could not help to notice how fragile she was, like an aged old oil painting breaking under the elements.

  Lilith turned to face Abbott, her waxy cheeks normalized, “You do want to see your father again, don’t you? He can be spared if you make the right decision. This woman is not who she says she is after all.”

  “She’s lying! You know she can’t have you alive, and you’d be mad to believe that.”

  “What is she talking about?”

  Lilith grinned. “So many secrets to tell, so little time. I’m assuming the part about her and her father being a wanted criminal was overlooked?” Her audience was clueless about the topic. “You do not know what they have done? Shame.”

  Quinn threw one of the daggers she’d collected straight for Lilith’s head, but it fell short and slid over the stone floors. “Don’t listen to her lies.”

  “I’m the one with your father—“

  “Show me him then,” he said as he lowered his blade. “Show me him first. I want to see he’s alive.”

  “Abbott—“

  But he didn’t listen. “Prove it to me.”

  Lilith’s evil eyes burnt with fire, and his father appeared on the chamber floor. His wrists were bruised and carved up. He was bound like an animal. And the nightgown he wore when he was taken was tattered and unraveling at the ends. It was strain dark charcoal with speckles of crimson. Blood. Abbott ran immediately to the middle of the chamber. His father could barely stand. He’d lost half of his weight and the skin on his face was yellowing.

  “What…what have you done? You shouldn’t have come for me,” he choked on the words as they left his mouth. Tears streamed down both sides of his cheeks, mixing with the dirt in his mustache. “You should have run.”

  “Never,” Abbott said as he held his father’s frail body. “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “So what will your decision be? Life or death to you all?”

  Abbott closed his eyes to think. On one hand, she held the fate of his father’s life, and on the other hand, he knew Quinn was right. She would murder him the first opportunity presented. He searched his father for a solution, but he was too far gone. The illness had taken hold of him just like Dr. Copeland foretold.

  The moon shined more brilliantly through the window, directly onto where they were. They clarified the mystery for him. He’d fight his way out of here. There was no other way. It was life or death.

  Silver steel lifted in a fighting manner towards Lilith. Quinn joined. “I’ll never join you knowing the hurt you’ll cause. You are sick, evil, and vile. Your plans will fail.” Abbott drew forward knowing his fate had been sealed. This was his battle. No one else's. No one else would die for him.

  Lilith’s lip curled maliciously, as she presented her weaponry, “Bad move.”

  He did not hesitate for Lilith to take the first strike. He slashed and chipped away at every opportune chance he got remembering what Quinn taught him. Full of rage and full of fire, he chopped.

  “You’re terrible with a sword,” Lilith said in mockery. “You strike with awkwardness and inability like a pitiful child. How is it that you intended to leave Unduk Validur alive with this skill set?”

  Abbott whirled at Lilith’s side ignorantly, lodging his sword into a thick roof beam.

  “Humiliating,” she hissed. “This is the one who was meant to stop me? Soren could not choose someone better than you?” Lilith parried another strike from Quinn and kicked Abbott onto the floor. The stone sitting in his pocket fell from his pocket and rattled on the black glass.

  “A Guardian!” Lilith narrowed, attempting to reach for it.

  Quinn sliced left and then right just underneath Lilith’s guard, but even her skill was not enough to match up. Her eyes grew as she discovered what Lilith wielded in her hands. “The broadsword!”

  Lilith’s cheeks broke while she dueled Quinn. “Yes, it is. Inedal, in all its glory, has returned to set right the errors of history.” She struck left, right, overhead, parry, guarded, until Quinn had lost both of her weapons and was defenseless. “You little—“

  “You mean to break the veil between the Archway, don’t you? It will never work!”

  In one swift slice, Lilith swept her edge past her chest, cutting through the cloth of her lavender robes. Quinn rolled over, clutching her chest. A thin line of red blood marked her hand.

  “You see what becomes of you?” Lilith sneered.

  Quinn gasped.

  “Quinn!"

  "I've had enough of this." She headed straight for Edmund. “Give me the Guardian or he dies!” Inedal caressed the thin skin of his throat.

  “Don’t do it, son,” his father whimpered.

  “But—”

  “I’ll be okay,” his lip lifted in a grin of confidence just like he always did, and his eyes went as glossy as the moon.

  “The stone!” She yelled again, her cheeks crackling with rage. “It makes no difference whether he lives or dies to me.” Inedal wiggled and her purple eyes burnt hot.

  Abbott seized the stone from the glass floor and ran his thumb over the polished surface and then to the marking on the rear side. “Please help me now,” he whispered, praying the Guardian would arrive in his aid, but it remained just as it was in his hand. No extraordinary arrival to protect him. “Why won’t you help me!” he said in frustration, shaking the stone in his hands.

  “Son—”

  “Quiet! Hand it over.”

  The stone was heavy in his hand like it opposed to being given away. Lilith had him at checkmate. “The stone for my father,” he negotiated. “Unharmed.”

  Lilith’s jittery hands lowered the blade from Edmund’s throat. “Hand it to me!”

  He did as she commanded, with an overstretched hand, the stone left his possession. Lilith clutched the stone as if it was intoxicating to the touch. Flashes of bright white lights flickered through the room before dissipating. “Finally,” she said with a nefarious tone in her voice. “Was that so hard?”

  “You got what you wanted, give me my father.”

  “And so I shall,” she sneered. “I will cut them down one by one and after every line is accounted for, I will take back what was destined for me to have. The English will kneel before me to ask for forgiveness and I should not like to give it to them. I will strike them all down with the very blade of Zane! You will not be worthy of such luxury. I will kill you like a common fool.” A blade in her hand grew like a slithering snake until it paired the measurement of her other weapon. The wicked edge whistled through the air as it sliced matter in two. “But there’s one last thing to do. You must be silenced.”

  “Abbott!” Quinn called as she tossed a sword to him. He caught it in time to connect with Lilith’s blade.

  With all his strength, Abbott held against Lilith’s death kill.

  This was it.

  Life or death.

  Lilith gritted her teeth as she strained harder. “Make this easier for all of us. You knew it would come to this. Why is your life is so important that it is worth living? Death will welcome you home. You can be there with your mother and soon your father!”

  “NO!” Abbott said as he pushed back. “Quickly, Quinn!”

  Lilith turned to see Quinn as she ripped the broadsword from under her belt.

  “Drop it,” she said, blood covering both of her hands. “Drop it, or I’ll finish you off.”

  A look of bewilderment rested upon Lilith’s face. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with little girl.”

  But Quinn repeated herself. “I mean it.”

  Lilith disconnected from Abbott. “Foolish and disobedient. The exact reaso
n why I had Martin slain.”

  Revenge flooded Quinn’s mind. She could end it here and kill her. No one would have to suffer ever again.

  “Strike me down,” Lilith dared.

  Quinn had thought about this moment for some time now. She’d have someone to avenge for her father’s death. Things could be set right and fair. But as the moment presented itself, Quinn found herself stuck. She couldn’t kill someone no matter how bad they truly were. Fighting back was one thing but taking someone's life, what would that make her? A murderer.

  “I thought so,” Lilith sneered, “hand it over little girl.”

  “You underestimate me,” Quinn said as she drove the sword into Lilith’s side beneath her armor plates. “I’ll wound but not kill.”

  Lilith’s howled in anguish as a long-forgotten substance flowed from her. The blade in her hand fell to the floor. Abbott punted it away. Lilith’s white skin fractured even more though her visible skin and fire continued to burn. “You’ll have to better than that,” she said. With a wave of her hand, a spear appeared from the dark and shot towards where Abbott stood. A flurry of ravens filled the room, and when they cleared, Lilith had vanished.

  Abbott was unharmed, but his father shrieked.

  He ran to his father. The spear had punctured his stomach. The crimson of his insides flowed rapidly, covering the black glass. He tried to stop the bleeding with his palms, but it was coming too fast.

  Harrowing reality began to set. There was nothing he could do. Abbott’s worst fear had come to see his eyes. “I am sorry—I should have—Father I—” He choked on his words. The tears streamed down and rippled like rainfall over his father’s expressionless face.

  Edmund’s skin grew paler with the loss of more blood. Every breath he took was harder for his lungs than the last. He lay in Abbott’s arms, empty. His eyes focused on the dimension between where he was now and where he would be soon. A trail of sunlight found an opening through the moonlit sky.

  “I wasn’t strong enough to save you.”

  “You were,” Edmund muttered. Blood filled his mouth “Don’t… don’t ever think otherwise. I’m proud of the son I raised. Your mother and I are both proud.”