Star Eater

by Kerstin Hall

  “We’re nearly there,” said Cyde.

  I could imagine the flesh and tendons of Lars’s legs fusing back together as he dragged himself through the mud. I closed my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said faintly, although I wasn’t sure who I was talking to or even what I was apologising for.

  It had started raining again; a thin, bleak drizzle that pattered against the roof of the cab. In the distance, I heard the yips of anxious Cats. Lariel swore under her breath.

  “They’re gaining on us,” she said.

  Out of nowhere, Finn laughed.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at him. His face was temporarily animated, his expression verging on gleeful, and then it fell into blankness.

  “It’s over.” His voice was like wind through old trees. “What are we trying to do?”

  “Finn?” said Cyde carefully.

  While the rest of his body remained preternaturally still, he turned his face toward her.

  “Nowhere is safe,” he said. “No one is safe. The island is sinking now, and I can hear them.”

  “Hear who?”

  He blinked slowly, and his blue eyes gleamed the yellow of ripe corn.

  “The Old Ones,” he said. “They know she is coming.”

  Then he shivered and his gaze lost its weird, feral intensity. His breath rattled, coming out in short, suppressed bursts, like he had just surfaced from water.

  “Let me out,” said Lariel.

  I could think of nothing to say. Finn looked like a wreck; he gripped his knees and his shoulders shook violently. Cyde stared at him in incomprehension.

  “Let me out!” said Lariel. “I’ll turn myself over to Enforcement, I swear, just let me go.”

  I reached out and placed my hand on top of Finn’s. He flinched. His coldness radiated through my palm, so intense that it almost seemed to burn.

  “Stay with me,” I said softly.

  The cab jerked as Osan pulled the reins hard. The horses stopped. We had reached the end of the road. I heard women shouting in the distance. The Sisters following us must have seen our cab.

  “Come on,” said Cyde.

  The Edge was the Order’s primary site for disposing of Haunts. I had never attended a drop; until now, I had only seen the platform from a distance. The dock protruded from the island like an accusing finger, and below stretched the vast expanse of Ventris. Aytrium’s looming shadow cast a swath of deeper shadows over the undulating hills, where faraway lakes shone like dull metal.

  At the end of the dock stood a wooden-slatted cage: roughly square, about twelve feet across and shrouded by enormous white sheets. It sat on four sets of rollers.

  Osan swore again. I turned and saw Cats tearing down the road behind us. Eight Cats, eight Sisters. More than Cyde or I could hope to handle alone.

  “Run!” said Osan.

  We raced for the Edge. The wet ground was slippery; my bag bounced against my back and I almost stumbled, but Millie grabbed my hand and kept pulling me on. Osan reached the cage first. He set his shoulder to the slats and heaved. It rolled a few inches closer to the drop. Finn joined him, and their combined efforts drove it forward.

  “We’re descending in that?” Millie shouted, aghast.

  Behind us, the horses snorted with fear. A coil of lace caught me by the neck, wrenching me backwards and away from Millie. I choked, found my own lace, and slashed through the rope restraining me. The moment I severed it, another appeared. I broke free again and turned around.

  Cyde, a few feet away from me, struggled to defend herself. Her breathing came out harsh, and her eyebrows were drawn together in concentration. The Cats drew nearer, their riders closing the distance to the Edge.

  I struck back and the closest Sister toppled off her mount with a scream. Had to be aggressive, had to break away before they overwhelmed us completely. A net wrapped over my legs, pinning me to the spot. Another collided with my shoulder.

  I was so focussed on fending off the lace attacks that I had forgotten about Lariel. During the chaos she had remained hidden inside the cab, but now she jumped out and sprinted toward me, her expression furious.

  My lace dissolved.

  “Go on, corpse eater,” she snarled, shoving me toward the platform. The nets around me vanished as the crossbow bolts in Lariel’s fist drained their lace. “Move!”

  “What—”

  Cyde cried out as a bone in her right leg snapped. She staggered and fell. I moved to shield her, but Lariel shoved me backwards.

  “I can deal with a bunch of old women,” she snapped. “Go.”

  Cyde’s face had turned bloodless, and she spoke through gritted teeth. “Channel your lace into the sheets.”

  “Reverend—” I began.

  “We’re all relying on you,” she said. “Make it count, Elfreda.”

  Millie snatched my hand again and pulled me away. Osan and Finn had rolled the cage almost to the edge of the platform. Over my shoulder, I saw Lariel step in front of Cyde, planting her feet wide.

  “All right, corpse eaters,” she shouted. “Who wants to take me on without your blood magic, huh?”

  I tore my eyes away from her and scrambled over the railing of the cage. Millie followed me.

  “Finn!” I gasped. “Stop pushing.”

  He jumped into the cage. Osan copied him, and then caught my eye for a split second as if daring me to argue. No, not you as well, I wanted to say, but we had run out of time. I extended my lace and felt for the weave of power meshed with the sheets. I fed the web and the fabric billowed upwards. The cage lurched over the rollers and toward the yawn of the abyss beyond.

  “What are you doing, Sacor?” I heard Celane shout.

  I took a deep breath and poured my lace into the sheets. With a last jolt, we slid forward and off the platform.

  The last thing I heard before we dropped was Lariel’s defiant voice.

  “You should have paid me better, bitch!” she yelled.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I BURNED THROUGH MY lace like wildfire, feeding the sheets to slow our descent. Aytrium loomed over us, too colossal to understand, hideous and misshapen. Updrafts rocked the cage and threatened to smash us into the cliffs. I steered us away, but the extra effort bled my power.

  Millie stared at the platform as it shrank above us. “Why?”

  My forearms felt bruised where Lariel had shoved me. The situation had fallen apart so quickly, so brutally.

  They’re dead. A creeping coldness stole across my body. Lariel, Cyde, neither of them stood a chance against that many Sisters. We had left them to die.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Osan looked sick. “El?”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

  In truth, I felt lightheaded; acutely aware that only my lace prevented us from falling. The cage’s wooden supports creaked in the wind, and the sheets flapped and strained ominously. A heap of bags and crates was piled near the railing. We had no other resources, nothing and no one to help us. I fought off my mounting sense of panic.

  “Why would she do that?” asked Millie.

  Finn slowly walked across the floor and crouched beside his sister. She shrank away from him.

  “She never even said sorry,” she said. “Never apologised for anything.”

  Finn spoke to her in a voice I could not make out over the wind, and laid an arm around her shoulders.

  The landscape below grew larger; the faraway patches of shadow and light resolved into plains and valleys. Streaks of low-hanging cloud touched the summits of hills. My dizziness increased; the cage seemed a paltry shelter from the sickening drop below us. If I made the smallest of mistakes, if I ran out of lace, if I lost my composure, we were all dead. Osan, his expression grim, made his way over to me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, softer than before. The wind whipped around us. “Their lace hit you pretty hard.”

  “Fine,” I said, breathless. “Need to concentrate.”

  Thousands of mos
sy channels scored the sheer face of Aytrium, where rainwater cascaded over the stone and into the open air. We glided downwards, a feather caught on a draft. The cage’s rolling motion made me want to throw up. I swayed, and Osan quickly reached out and steadied me.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, using the sharp pain to focus my mind. “Unless you can suddenly wield lace, no.”

  He squeezed my arm. “I haven’t mastered that yet, I’m afraid.”

  “Osan?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know if I can get us to the ground.”

  The wall of rock drew away as it tapered inwards; the underside of Aytrium rippling with inverted mountain ranges. Until now, I had never been confronted with the island’s full impossible scale, and I could not entirely countenance the horrific enormity of it all. My whole life, I had lived on this mass of earth and soil and stone. And yet standing before Aytrium, I was nothing—a mote drifting in space. Streamers of algae dangled from the cliffs like river weeds, and colonies of bats flew out from hidden crevices in the rocks.

  “You can only try,” said Osan.

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “Didn’t have much of a choice, under the circumstances. Besides, Rhyanon made me promise that I would take care of you.”

  My throat hitched.

  “Hey, none of that.” He forced a smile. “I’m barely holding it together myself. But I trust you, Just El. I believe that you can do this. You aren’t scared of anything, remember?”

  Forget the terror, forget the cost of failure. Lace flowed out of me like water. I nodded.

  Then we dropped further and for the first time, I saw the crater. It gaped like a maw in the earth beneath Aytrium, the depths veiled by mist and shadow. The place from which the Eater had first dragged Aytrium into the air. The experience was like staring up at the night sky; from above, the crater appeared bottomless.

  “Eater,” Osan whispered.

  I pushed us away from the chasm. No matter what happened, I would not risk us drifting down into that awful scar. Rather crash into the ground, rather die where the sun could still reach us.

  Finn cried out and clutched his head.

  “Finn?” I said in alarm.

  He slumped over sideways, and Millie caught him. His back arched as if electricity coursed through his body, and his muscles went rigid. His mouth opened in a silent scream.

  “Finn?” said Millie, panicked. “What’s wrong? Finn!”

  The vision struck without warning. The world inverted; the sky burned black and the earth melted into a sea of white. I floated in space, suspended and unable to move. In the distance, the mountains shimmered oily and slick with mother-of-pearl iridescence, and from their base a bright red ribbon burst from the ground. It cut across Ventris, unfurling toward us over the hills.

  Follow the path of grace, boomed a voice inside my head. Enormous pressure filled my chest. Over the surface of the ribbon, I saw thousands of people walking, and I knew they were dressed with flowers, I knew they were coming for me.

  I gasped and staggered, and felt hands close around my arms.

  “El!” shouted Osan.

  Reality snapped back like a spring released. Osan held me up, his face bloodless.

  “Pilgrimage.” I coughed. My ears were ringing. “The pilgrims’ road, the path of grace. She was trying to tell me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  The cage tilted dangerously; I had lost my grip on the lacework. My stomach lurched, and I threw out ropes to catch the flailing sheets. For a few awful seconds, I fumbled and we were truly falling. Osan’s hands crushed my arms.

  I caught the nets. The shock wrenched my lace violently, almost enough to drag the sheets out of my grasp, but I held fast. The fall slowed and the floor levelled.

  My breathing was ragged. Too close. Much too close.

  We were only a few hundred feet above the ground now. The red ribbon remained seared across my vision, coiled like a snake. Millie helped Finn to sit up.

  A sudden crosswind battered us toward the chasm and I stumbled, knocking my knees into the wall of the cage. The darkness loomed and fear surged through me. Come on, come on. My remaining reserves of lace dwindled as I poured power into the nets. It might have been my imagination, but drawing on my lace felt different: less smooth, less clean, denser somehow.

  I drove the cage away from the crater. The hillside ahead was barren; I could see the cracked earth and dead grass, a few scattered shrubs with grey leaves. Closer, closer, the ground rushing closer far too quickly.

  With one final effort, I yanked the nets upwards. The platform slowed and, with a shudder, we coasted onto the rock-strewn earth.

  Silence.

  I had done it.

  My limbs turned liquid, and I collapsed against Osan. He held me up and began to laugh, his shoulders and chest shaking.

  “See? I told you so,” he said. “You had it all under control.”

  Bright spots danced across my vision. “I never want to do that again. And I think I’m about to be sick.”

  Osan guided me to the railing, and I promptly vomited over the side of the cage. He rubbed my back as I heaved. The taste of meat lingered in my throat. Again, I caught the smell of rot.

  “Finn?” I straightened shakily. “Are you okay?”

  Blood rolled down his chin; he had bitten his lip during the fit. “I’m fine.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t know.” He wiped his mouth. “But whatever it was, it’s stopped.”

  For now. A symptom of the infection? I had never heard of men suffering from seizures during their transformations. And if it had occurred once, was there anything to stop it from happening again? Even now he seemed disoriented, not altogether present—his eyes wandered across the landscape to the crater.

  “So long as you’re okay,” I said uncertainly.

  He nodded, but I had the sense he wasn’t really listening. Millie was also watching him now, a slight frown on her face. She hugged her arms over her chest.

  “So now what?” she asked. “Is this really Ventris?”

  I understood her reaction. I hadn’t been sure what to expect either, but this unassuming brown hillside felt curiously underwhelming. As if there should be something revelatory here, but instead there was just … nothing. I turned around. Behind us I could see no end to the crater, only a thin bar of daylight in the distance, curving with the line of the horizon. Aytrium blotted out half the sky.

  “It’s so quiet,” said Millie.

  None of us moved or spoke. The sheets fluttered in the breeze, and their rustling was the only sound in the empty wilderness.

  Osan shook himself and walked over to the pile of bags and crates.

  “Reverend Cyde packed provisions,” he said, leaning down. “We’ll have to hope there’s food and water somewhere ahead of us, but this should last for at least a few days.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance that they—” Millie stumbled. “That the Reverend and Lariel survived?”

  “It’s not impossible,” he said, but by his voice I knew he was trying to be kind. Millie recognised it too, and her face fell.

  “Right,” she said. “Of course.”

  Osan busied himself with sorting the supplies. I joined him. Leather shoulder bags bulged with provisions; I looked inside one and saw fire-starters, water canteens, preserved meats, and dried beans. Two crossbows and some blankets nestled between the crates.

  “Cyde told me that she hadn’t done enough to prepare,” I said. “But she still thought of all this.”

  Osan glanced at me, then away. “We’ll only be able to take what we can carry.”

  Millie picked up one of the bags, testing its weight. She slung it over her back and rubbed her eyes.

  “Celane would have wanted to question the Reverend and Lariel,” I said with false confidence. “And Cyde mentioned Commander A
san was heading to the Moon House, so maybe help was already on the way.”

  “Maybe,” said Osan. “At this stage, we have no way of knowing.”

  “Finn?” said Millie.

  Her voice was strange. I looked around.

  Finn stood at the edge of the chasm, staring into its depths. He had been beside us only seconds before, and I had not seen or heard him move. My heart quickened. His stance—on the balls of his feet, every muscle coiled, leaning forward over the emptiness—disturbed me. Like a dog that had heard something in the night, he watched the darkness: alert, unmoving, absolutely still.

  “What are you doing?” called Millie.

  He was silent. Millie caught my eye. A draft stirred the fabric of his shirt.

  “Finn?” I said.

  A long pause. I climbed out of the cage and slowly moved toward him.

  “No,” he said.

  I stopped. “No?”

  An infinitesimal shake of his head.

  “Finn, you’re scaring me.”

  Wind rattled the dried grass and fell still again.

  “There’s something coming, and I don’t think I can stop it,” he said, his tone curiously flat. “You need to run.”

  A patter of falling stones inside the chasm, out of sight. I took a confused step backwards.

  “Go,” said Finn.

  “But what—”

  The Haunt leapt out of the chasm. It moved like an insect, emaciated limbs bending at all the wrong angles. Huge antlers, stained with age, branched above its gaunt face and its lips peeled back in a grin, revealing rows upon rows of needle-thin teeth. Twice Finn’s height, but hunched and scuttling, it shot toward me in a blur of bone-white limbs.

  I recovered from my shock and threw a web of lace into its path. The Haunt tore through my ropes like they were spiderwebs. It closed the distance from the crater before I even had the chance to move.

  Finn crashed into it, sending them both to the ground in a furious tangle of limbs and claws and teeth. He held fast to the creature’s shoulders.

  “Run, damn it!” he shouted.

  I bundled up my lace, coiled it around the Haunt’s neck, and pulled. The creature cried out in surprise—a dry, rasping caw—but its neck did not break. It was as though I was trying to snap a steel rod. I pulled harder.