We Are Bound by Stars

by Kesia Lupo

  Valentina shakes her head slightly. ‘We’ve only been mascherari for three days,’ she says. ‘I think we all need to allow ourselves time to find a balance.’

  They both look at me now – inviting me to join them where they stand beside the door. But instead I turn away, shame stinging my throat. I don’t agree. I’m not happy to let things stay as they are, pacified by vague words about getting used to it. I’m not like them. I’m different. The realisation has never been stronger or clearer than it is at this moment. ‘Just go to bed. Get your rest,’ I say, the words bitter in my throat.

  ‘Beatrice …’ Ofelia says softly.

  ‘Just go.’

  It’s the early hours of the morning. I lie awake, staring at the canopy above my bed. I’ve not slept – my thoughts are too loud, memories of the night screaming and chattering through my mind like gulls.

  For all my frustration, I know Valentina and Ofelia are right. I have to learn to accept this life – even if I can never love it. After all, it’s the only one I’ll ever have. One look at my sisters’ faces, mirrors of my own, tells the truth: I may be different, but I am not special. I am part of a chain of inheritance stretching back centuries – millennia, even. Nothing can change that – not me, not the Contessa, perhaps not even Mythris himself.

  In the morning, I’ll make up with Valentina and Ofelia. In the morning, I’ll work hard to accept the hand we’ve been dealt, once and for all. But right now, I need to let go. I need to sleep.

  It feels good to surrender responsibility like that. Tension falls from my body. At last, my eyes grow heavy, and I start to drift away …

  I hear the soft, soft creak of a floorboard and jolt awake, my heart pounding. It’s still dark, and I know with sharp, undeniable instinct that someone else is in the room, standing by the door. A breath of air tickles my face – colder air from the corridor. Somehow, I’m certain it’s not one of my sisters. I know it’s a stranger … I feel the realisation tingling down my spine—

  The assassin.

  All at once, my breath is shallow, my heart racing. How did he get past the guards?

  If I’m alive, I think, Valentina and Ofelia are too. That means he’s come here first, and I have a chance to stop him.

  I ease myself out of the side of the bed furthest from the door, the side in front of the window where the bone roses are ghostly in a shaft of moonlight. The bed with its closed curtains now stands between the intruder and I.

  But it’s only a temporary solution. I have to do something … Can I try to sneak out, fetch help? No – there would be no way to pass the assassin in the corridor unseen. If I scream, the guards will hear me – but so will the assassin. By the time the guards get here, it may be too late anyway. Could I fight? I shake my head in frustration. I may have the element of surprise, but I’ll be weaker than the assassin, and I don’t have a weapon …

  Or do I?

  I remember Ofelia and I sitting on the docks – it feels like years ago. You’re a mage, aren’t you?

  I fix my eyes on my hands, flex them gently. If I can set a puppet theatre on fire, I can set a man on fire too.

  Silence. And then a whisper of material as the bed curtains are pulled back.

  My heart is racing. I don’t know how to summon my magic. Every time it’s risen in me, it’s been unbidden. I close my eyes and remember how I felt at the theatre, how I felt when specks of light flew from my fingers in the mask room, how I felt last time the assassin tried to kill us … What’s the link? My magic sparks when I feel threatened, trapped and hopeless – like a kind of defence. So I think of the argument with my sisters, the life I’ll never live, the sea I’ll never sail, the Contessa and the god who’ve forced this fate upon me – and now, yes, the feeling is rising inside me. That power, surging closer to the surface of my skin than ever before.

  I’m so angry.

  The assassin’s soft footsteps creak over towards the window – and now he’s standing right in front of me. He hasn’t looked this way yet – he’s too busy peering under the table in front of the window. I have to strike now – now – while he’s distracted. I hold out my hands, but they’re trembling, thin and pale in the moonlight. The power that felt so close a few seconds ago has drawn back inside me …

  How dare he try to steal the life we never chose to live.

  I take a deep breath and rise from my hiding place, letting a stream of … of magic loose into the darkness. For the first time, it has a distinct colour – a bright, livid green that sends shadows arcing across the room as it hits him in the shoulder. He staggers, grunting, then spins, barely hesitating before he sends an answering flash of deep orange light across the room towards me. I duck, crying out instinctively, the attack smashing a mirror on the wall then ricocheting into the bed, where a cloud of feathers plumes into the air.

  The assassin crosses the room, grabbing my throat with his hand and pressing me against the wall. I watch the bone roses turn towards us, slowly, like a many-headed creature roused from deep contemplation. I’m too slow. Too damn slow – and I can’t breathe … But that only makes me angrier. I press my hands against his chest, and although I don’t know how I’m doing it – or if I’m doing it – I feel my power surge.

  The room spins as the magic breaks free, my hands glowing green where they’re pressed against him. A muffled bang sounds, and the assassin is flying across the room – he hits the opposite wall and slumps to the floor.

  Like a puppet with cut strings.

  I gulp air in the ensuing silence, as if I’ve surfaced after being held underwater. Oh gods. Oh gods. What happened here? My hands are shaking. The assassin does not move.

  Trembling and drained, I hurry over and touch his black mask, which feels dead and cold under my fingers. Oh Mythris, how am I going to explain what I’ve done? There’s no doubting it now. I am a mage. A mask-maker and a mage. But how?

  I lift off the mask. The face beneath is warm and – to my relief – I can feel my assailant is still breathing. I’ve knocked him out, but he’s not dead. He’s fair-skinned, his brown hair cropped close to his skull. A man of perhaps thirty years. Apart from being a northerner, there’s nothing distinctive about him at all, except – and I only notice it because his head is turned slightly – there’s a tattoo behind his right ear. A tiny sun – like the sun in the Santini crest, but this one isn’t rounded by stars.

  I don’t have time for this. I stand up, backing away.

  No guards have come running. No Anna-Maria. I’d have thought the struggle was loud enough to wake the dead. I have to get Ofelia and Valentina. Only my sisters can help me figure out what to do next.

  I hurry out into the corridor, the mask still clutched in my hand, loathe to leave the assassin out of sight in case he wakes and follows me. I open Ofelia’s door. She’s lying in bed, the moonlight sliding across her face, her eyes shut. I feel a stab of impatience: after everything that’s happened tonight, I’d have thought even she’d have trouble sleeping. I run to her side and shake her, hard. ‘Ofelia, wake up!’

  She doesn’t move. I jerk my hands away instinctively. Ofelia’s puppets sway and rattle on their stage, their eyes impassive.

  ‘Ofelia?’ I manage, forcing myself to reach out, shaking her harder. Nothing. She’s so still.

  Suddenly, violently, I step away from her bed, my movements so clumsy and uncoordinated that my wrist collides with the unlit lamp on her bedside table, sending it crashing to the floor.

  She’s dead. She’s dead.

  Tears obscure my eyes as I sprint into the corridor – I burst unsteadily into Valentina’s room, and what I see there sends the world spinning. A scream runs through me, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.

  My eldest sister has been brutally killed. She’s on the floor, reaching for the door as if she is still trying to escape, blood running from her nose, her eyes open, the lightning-like red marks left by a magical attack spread across her face and down her bare arms. The stench of bl
ood fills the air, blood mixed with electricity, the heaviness before a storm … My stomach twists and I blink my eyes, as if this is something I can wipe away with my tears. How … how could he do this to Valentina? I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him. Sparks start to fly from my fingers. Something rises up inside me … the power again …

  With difficulty, I wrestle it down. I’m in trouble. How can this be? I am still alive, and we are one soul – one power split three ways. One cannot exist without the others. And yet, here I am.

  I’m not who I thought I was. There’s been some kind of mistake … some kind of mix-up. Because I shouldn’t, I can’t be alive. Maybe … maybe Ofelia and Valentina were twins. And I was a third sister, born in the same womb. Is that possible?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  There’s only one thing I do know.

  I have to run.

  FIFTEEN:

  The Sun and the Storm

  Livio

  Once Hal’s footsteps disappear, I turn to the sky. The stars swirl overhead, the moon hidden. I feel oddly elated, light-headed. A thought reaches into my mind, clear and bright and true.

  I love Elisao.

  The words fill me up like a magical kind of air.

  But then I remember what happened – how he tried to tell me he loved me, how we can never truly be together. I sag, deflated, rest my head in my hands. A low groan of frustration escapes my lips. Why did I let Hal kiss me, anyway? I can’t exactly ask Grandmother to assign me a different personal guard without telling her why …

  ‘My lord?’ A voice from the balcony below – my grandmother’s steward.

  ‘What is it?’ I walk across the rooftop towards the staircase, peering down.

  The man’s face is pale in the light cast from my room. ‘The Contessa has asked to see you now, if you please.’

  I open the door to Grandmother’s room as the clock on the mantelpiece strikes eleven. The room is empty, the bone roses pressing mutely against the glass. I shut the door behind me and pick my way across the room to the secret door leading up to the blue glass tower, the ancient temple hidden by time – and here I find her, sitting at the marble table with her hands flat on the surface, her head tilted back, gazing up towards the stars.

  ‘You shouldn’t climb those stairs alone,’ I say quietly, remembering how she struggled last time.

  ‘And yet, I must.’ She smiles, the blue light of the moon filtered through the tower glass softening the wrinkles on her face. ‘My servants tell me the fire in the square has been extinguished. There were only a handful of casualties – given the size of the blaze, we should count this a victory.’

  I nod, wondering if she will chastise me again for challenging her authority out in the gardens.

  But her face is grave and calm as she continues. ‘Unfortunately, one of the casualties was the mother bearing our three new triplets.’

  My hands tingle with cold. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The woman was there with the rest of the city. In the hurry to escape, she fell and was trampled in the confusion. By the time my people found her, it was too late for the babies.’ Her voice is flat, unemotional. But I feel my stomach lurch in mingled pity and horror.

  I try to breathe deeply, running a hand through my hair. ‘What now?’

  ‘Now, we seek guidance. Lie down, as you did before. You saw a burning face. The next evening, the puppet theatre catches fire.’ She smiles slightly. ‘After today, I am beginning to think you are an even better natural astromancer than I gave you credit for – you saw something I didn’t. So, let’s see what else you can tell us.’

  I feel the press of the altar, cold as a tomb against my back, and gaze up at the stars again. I slow my breathing as she instructs. I find it easier, this time, to see the first layer of stars, and I feel the same place inside me respond, thrumming in time with the shimmer across my eyes. The chains ring softly like bells, calling me in. I stay calm. But this time, I can feel two distinct paths open to me, two different ways to reach for this power – this, I was not expecting. But I wonder … I choose one, tug softly, but there is no vision this time.

  Instead, I hear my grandmother inhale sharply.

  ‘Livio, what …?’

  I sit up abruptly, my head spinning. Sitting on the altar in front of me, quite calm, is a sandwolf, its yellow eyes glowing.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, blinking. ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Impossible,’ Grandmother breathes. She appears to gather herself together, standing up and backing slowly away from the altar. ‘Send it away, Livio. At once.’

  But I’m not listening. I’m watching the swirl of the creature’s body, the little dust devil of sparkling sand, and – without realising it – I’m reaching out. My breath catches. The sandwolf’s head is surprisingly warm and soft against my fingers, and its eyes narrow at the contact, as a cat’s eyes close when it purrs. I push my fingers over its body – firmer than I’d expected. The sensation of sand running across my palm feels like nothing so much as fur. I can feel something else too – but not with my hands. With my heart. I can feel its fierce, questioning intelligence: its willingness to do my bidding.

  ‘Livio, now,’ Grandmother’s voice interjects – her obvious fear bringing me to my senses. ‘Send it away … if you can.’

  ‘I can,’ I breathe. I remember the sandwolf in the arena – it had appeared to listen. Is this the same sandwolf, I wonder – the same one as on the rooftop, too? Or has it been a different one each time? ‘You … You can go now,’ I say to the beast uncertainly. And, in a spinning whirl of sand, it disappears, leaving my hand outstretched and empty. I let it drop. ‘So I was right. They do listen to me. And on the rooftop … it did save me from the assassin.’

  But Grandmother isn’t listening; she’s sitting down as if she’s suffered a great shock. ‘It appears you have inherited the … the other kind of astromantic powers, Livio, alongside the ability to read the stars,’ she says, her voice sounding strained with something … Fear? ‘I didn’t think it was possible. In fact, I thought powers over the sandwolves died even before your …’

  Your mother. That’s what she was going to say, I know it – but she trails off. I stroke the signet ring without meaning to – the sandwolf emblem suddenly holding more meaning than I’d realised. I remember the line in the book – the two powers, carried separately. Two families: the Santini and the Lupina. The visions of the future in one. The command over the natural magical creatures of the Wishes – sandwolves, I know now – in the other. And those bloodlines are combined in me. ‘So … Mother couldn’t do this?’ I ask softly.

  Her eyes widen. ‘How …?’ But then Grandmother falls silent – as she always does when I raise the subject of my mother. I feel a jolt of anger. Why has she been kept from me my whole life? Apart from the ring – and now the book – I own nothing that belonged to her. Isn’t it strange? She lived in the palazzo – she must’ve had belongings here – why is there no trace of her? I don’t even have memories – I was far too young when she disappeared – or stories, because Grandmother will not speak of her, and Father is long dead.

  But I won’t stay silent any longer.

  I finish her question for her. ‘How did I know? I read it in a book.’

  ‘What book?’ She’s holding her breath, her whole body visibly tense.

  ‘I found it in the temple library. I’ve read how the Lupinas, Mother’s family, were granted the other branch of astromancy by the goddess Fortune. Command over the natural magical creatures of the Wishes, it said. That means sandwolves, right?’

  Grandmother is silent.

  ‘Tell me …’ I ask, leaning forward. ‘Could my mother do this too?’

  She sighs – and when she finally speaks, I feel the words are dragged out of her from somewhere deep and cold. ‘I don’t know anything, Livio, truly. There is so much that Serafina kept from me – the nature of her magic, her thoughts, her pain …
But now … Now I am almost certain she could summon sandwolves. It’s unlikely she couldn’t, if you can.’

  I fall back into the chair, the anger fleeing from me all at once. I gaze up at the twisted stars through the blue enchanted glass. ‘What if she’s still out there?’

  Grandmother reaches out, grasps my hand firmly. ‘You must not think like this. It’s too cruel to yourself – too painful.’

  ‘But her body was never found,’ I say. I hold her hand tightly, her mourning rings pressing against my fingers. Tears fill my eyes for a reason I can’t quite fathom. ‘And if … if she were alive, she’d be the only one in the world who knows about this kind of astromancy. The only one who could help me make sense of it.’ I blink, feel my cheeks turn wet. ‘Gods, did she not …? Did she not love me? Why did she have to—?’

  ‘No. Enough of this.’ Grandmother’s eyes are firmly fixed on mine. ‘Livio, your mother loved you – any fool could see that. And she cared deeply for your father, too. I was certain, at first, that she would return in time – that perhaps she only needed respite from her duties as mother and wife. But it’s been close to sixteen years, now – there is no doubt in my mind that she is dead. Don’t torture yourself with maybes and what-ifs.’ She squeezes my hand again. ‘I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night, don’t you?’

  I wipe my eyes, nod once, tightly. Together we leave the temple, hiding the entrance behind its curtain, and once back in her room, I settle Grandmother in her armchair before sending for her maids.

  I finally fall into bed past midnight, my head swimming. Feeling a hard shape under my pillow, I pull out my mother’s book. I hold it to the lamplight, open the cover, run my finger over the inscription written in her childish hand.

  Who left this book for me? And why? How did they get hold of it?