Chapter 32
“Luxterra has been overrun. His Royal Majesty, King Illias, Ruler of the Celestial Court, King of Astradeon has fallen. Do not send the Drakari and Drengr. Save your people.”
General Duxada of the Celestial Guard
ORION SNORTED AS ASTRAIA NUDGED him into a walk, leading him along the dirt road out of Volpes toward the hilly countryside.
It was mid-morning when they had finished gathering provisions for the journey to Asynjur and set out from the manor.
Their path led them close to the Virellian military training grounds, and several Empyrean guards had stopped their sparring to watch them pass.
A few of the guards saluted Astraia, no doubt due to rumors of her fight against the wraiths. She nodded back at the young men, giving them a small smile in thanks. She could have sworn Draven stiffened in his saddle as she did.
As they passed the last outlying buildings of Volpes and entered the forest, she breathed deeply, dampening the sliver of fear that threatened to split open her resolve.
Glowing red eyes seemed to flicker behind every tree while the shadows morphed into black cloaked demons.
A shudder ran down her spine, her knuckles turning white as she gripped Orion’s reins.
The weight of her bow pressed into her back, and arrows knocked together in her quiver.
She eyed Draven by her side as he rode. His face was unreadable, placid.
The black iron broadsword was strapped to his back, nearly the length of her entire body.
How he managed to wield such a blade was beyond her comprehension.
In the sunlight, the faded scars on his arms and neck shone, only a small representation of the rest of the scars she knew carved his entire back and chest.
“See something you like, Starborne?” The insufferable smirk pulled at his mouth as he looked at her.
She rolled her eyes, straightening in her saddle and refocusing her gaze ahead. “Do you enjoy provoking me to anger?”
“Immensely.”
“If I asked you how you got those scars, would you tell me the truth, a half-truth, or a lie?” she asked, glaring at him.
“If I asked you about your life before your brother died, what version of the truth would you tell me?” he countered, tilting his head to one side, a challenge in his eyes.
“Very well. One truth for a truth,” she replied.
Even if he told her the honest truth, she was still uncertain she could believe him.
There was a lot of his nature and past she had not unearthed.
Yet a small voice in her mind whispered through the waves.
It was a voice she had not heard in many moons, begging her to allow him through the wall she had taken years to construct.
A wall fortified by grief, guilt, and betrayal—a wall of nightmares.
The voice of hope.
“Hmm.” He paused, running a hand through his beard, then looking back at her. “Fair. But my story is not a pleasant one. You’re certain you can stomach it?”
“Yes.”
Draven straightened in his saddle, rolling his shoulders back.
He glanced around them, checking their surroundings before he spoke.
“My fate was determined before I could learn how to dream, much like your own.” He stared ahead, lost in old memories she could sense had not been unearthed in some time.
“My father was a very influential figure to my people, one whose voice commanded any room. He led legions of soldiers into battles, annihilating our enemies with the wave of his hand. So he would not have a son any less fearsome.”
He paused, letting the silence stretch onward until it was nearly suffocating.
She almost screamed at him to continue before he took a deep breath, his voice lowered as he spoke.
“I was trained to destroy any threat. Many scars were won from those fights. But if I was not the perfect warrior, my father made sure I remembered my failures. Strike for strike.” He flexed his jaw, tensing his shoulders as if to stretch the skin pulled tight by the scars.
Anger simmered under Astraia’s skin, her teeth clenched as she imagined Draven’s back laid bare and blood pouring from his wounds—wounds inflicted by his own father.
If we was not already dead, I would kill him.
The dark thought surprised her, making her inhale sharply. There was no logical reason for her to care. Yet the idea of anyone or anything harming the man at her side made her instantly vengeful.
“Who is your father?” Astraia asked smoothly, trying to mask her fury.
“No, no, Starborne. One truth for a truth, remember?” He smiled smugly.
Huffing, she readjusted herself in her saddle, an ache already settling in her backside. “Very well, what is your question?”
“Your life before your flare. What was it like?” His tone softened, as did his gaze.
She allowed herself a moment to bask in the sunlit pools staring back at her. The fluttering in her stomach intensified, the fiery warmth returning like a lost friend to her spine, flooding her senses. The waves in her mild stilled, a peaceful calm settling over her thoughts.
For a moment, she was sitting on the banks of the sand dunes near her home. Only this time, it was Draven sitting next to her instead of her lost brother. She breathed deeply, blinking to clear the vision, then set her eyes forward on the road.
“From the moment I was able to run, I was trained to be a weapon. My father did not believe in weakness, neither did my mother. They forced us to condition our body and mind, both Elion and me. I knew how to shoot a bow by the time I was eight and could outshoot most of the men when I was twelve. We ran for miles every day, sparred, warped our bodies into soldiers. When we weren’t pushing our bodies, we were honing our minds.
We learned literature, history, warfare, and above all, the bonds of the Stars.
” She paused, sighing as she recounted her childhood to a man who wanted her in chains only a week ago.
“My father desired nothing more than for us to be selected as Starborne. He would sit at his desk, scheming all the ways he would use our destructive bonds to his advantage.”
She laughed, wiping a stray tear from her eye.
“How ironic that I was chosen by Sacrifice. The day I turned twelve, the lumenmark appeared, and my father cursed the day I was born. He said I was a disappointment and a waste. He stripped me of my childhood, carving me into his creation, then when I did not meet his expectations, he cast me aside.” Her voice quivered, but she gritted her teeth, forcing the lump in her throat down.
“When the Stars never bonded with Elion, my father lost all his senses. He went mad with his craving for power. He even went so far as to experiment with Starshards. That’s when Elion and my father argued.
The night they fought, the night I flared, was the night Power bonded with me, and that night… ”
She trailed off, unable to finish the story. Darkness simmered along the precipice of her mind, slithering along the edge, coaxing her to jump—reminding her of her failure.
It is because of you that he died. His blood is on your hands.
Her chest tightened, and her mouth went dry. Spots danced across her vision as she struggled to remain upright in Orion’s saddle.
“Traia, breathe. Listen to me. Breathe. In and out,” a low voice called to her, muffled and soothing.
She obeyed the voice, taking deep breaths through her nose and out through her mouth.
The road ahead cleared, and the sounds of birds chirping and hoofbeats were crisp once again.
Grabbing her canteen with shaky hands, she drank until her mouth no longer felt like desert sand.
When her lungs felt like they would no longer collapse, she looked over at Draven, expecting pity.
But he stared at her, brows furrowed and jaw clenched.
“If your father lived, I would take pleasure in killing him slowly then burning him from the inside out so not even his ashes remained,” he growled as small pillars of smoke bloomed from his skin and glowing red veins pulsed up his arms. His eyes flashed golden, rays of sunlight pouring over her.
Her eyes widened, but the red veins dissipated, and his eyes mellowed with every breath he took.
“You are stronger than any bond. Worth more than any bond. And I am sorry your parents could not see that. Just know that I see you, Traia. I see you.” His gaze bore into her, piercing her soul with not only his eyes but also his words.
Despite warnings from her past, the faint whisper of hope that had blossomed in her mind grew brighter. She extended a hand to the whisper, clinging to it desperately.
“Thank you,” she said, grinning at him.
He smiled back, a small, swift gesture that lit her body on fire. The pull toward him intensified, leaving her to wonder if she would drown in the fires of Rage.
***
The ride northeast was blissfully uneventful with little more than a few weary travelers on the road passing them on their way to Volpes and a few deer spooking the horses.
Astraia thanked the Stars that they had not crossed paths with any wraiths, despite their main objective to learn more about their origin and hiding places.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not eliminate all the dread of facing another demon of Dominion.
Draven had been quiet since their first conversation on the road, offering only a few jests to enrage her.
His mind was clearly preoccupied, but despite her burning curiosity, she did not press him.
Instead, she focused on the road and their surroundings and occasionally reached out in her mind for her golden thread—the tether to the Stars.
In spite of the light floating in the expanse of her mind, there remained a nagging fear that one day she would call out for her tether, and the Stars would once again disappear.