Chapter 27 #2
‘You know what it will mean? No communication – not while I’m thus weakened.
But perhaps once I reach the island. Assuming…
’ They don’t finish the thought, but I know the rest. The words Orthriel can’t bring themself to say.
Assuming they can even make it back to their floating island, which orbits the peak of the Astral Mountain.
My eyes sting. ‘I want you to go.’
Another long pause.
‘Don’t summon starshine again. Not while I’m gone. It’s too unstable, too dangerous.’
I nod.
‘Promise me, Leilani. This is important.’ Their face sharpens, their eyes flash.
‘I promise.’ But Orthriel didn’t need to extract this oath. I’ll never unleash starshine again, no matter how much I might want to. I’ve enough blood on my hands to last a lifetime. Several lifetimes, in fact.
‘Think of me like the moons, Leilani. You may not always see me, but I’m always there. You’ll never be alone.’ Orthriel’s parting words hang in the frosty air as opal flames rip them from my side.
I stare down at the empty space my Guardian just occupied.
Without the guise of their physical presence, the comforting weight of their consciousness inside my own, I’m adrift, a falling star tumbling through the night sky.
Again, I try to prise open our connection, hoping Orthriel’s right – that the threads bridging our minds will reknit now they’ve returned to their true form, that I’ll be able to find those precious threads and cling to them, even if I cannot cling to Orthriel themself.
But the door is still shut fast, and I don’t think I’m responsible for closing it this time.
I reach under my furs for the starstone. Perhaps its crystalline pulse can anchor me.
But the sight of the dazzling pendant nestled in my palm reminds me of the light that poured out of me when I brought down the mountain.
The image of my hand, slick with the blood of all those guards, rises up like the ill-fated comet still staining the sky.
I remember the exhilaration of unleashing those twin arcs of light: the pitiless intoxication of godhood.
I’ve lost my Guardian. My moral compass. Who will tether me to the Light now? What’s to stop me sinking into Shadow?
I fold my arms around my chest. My body sags, sways limply with the gelid breeze. I remain like this, till a gentle touch brushes my elbow. I turn to see Tansy behind me.
‘Orthriel’s gone,’ I say in a rush, my voice splintered and rough. ‘I sent them away, back to Nimbi.’
She wraps sturdy arms about me, her warm grassy scent a much-needed balm as I lean into her.
‘We knew Orthriel was struggling. It was one of the things they warned us of while you were unconscious,’ Tansy says at last. ‘I didn’t realise they’d return to the breezes so soon, though…
’ She squeezes my shoulder, tightening her embrace.
‘I know it’s hard. I miss Glade and the twins more than I ever thought possible.
It’s a physical pain. Here.’ She draws back and places a hand to her chest. ‘But we’ll see them again.
’ She nods, as if trying to convince herself of this as much as me, then smiles and takes my arm.
‘I was coming to tell you the cragstalkers have agreed to carry us to Talini. Let’s find you somewhere to rest, out of this cold, shall we? ’
I let Tansy guide me back to where the others are huddled together, preparing to remount the cats.
It’s only when I take my place behind Astrophel, and he turns to give me another of those weighted looks, that I remember Tansy’s words and wonder what other warnings Orthriel issued to the rest of the Quaternity as I lay insensible in that tower.
*
TALINI’S SILVER SPIRES soar into view as we crest the next mountain crag. Higher than those in Meissa, many are topped with tear-shaped domes. One stands prouder than the others and needle-sharp.
The Starshrine.
I’ve longed to enter that hallowed space my whole life, to explore its collection of ancient manuscripts – the ones left behind when the city was forsaken.
I’m praying for a detailed map of the Crystal Caves.
I’ve dreamt of beholding the Mystic Scrolls, written in the Dawn Sister’s own hand, the basis for the Book of Starlore.
Perhaps I might even find the lost Book of Mysteries hidden within the temple. Save myself from the curse of my birth.
It’s more dream than hope now, but I need something to cling to after what happened on the mountainside. Deliverance might have to wait till after we fulfil Noelani’s prophecy, but I need to believe that though I’m cursed, I can still be saved.
Astrophel turns to me as we draw closer and his face splits into a grin. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Our cragstalker, leading the rest of the pack over the narrow mountain pass, crawls to a halt, allowing us to dismount.
I nod, wiping sleet from my cheeks as I plant my feet on the sugared ground.
Tansy shudders. ‘I’m not so sure. It looks like bindroot’s throttling the place.’
Now that I’m accustomed to the gleam of the city, no longer blinded by its splendour, I can see what she means. A layer of tarnish dulls the Silver City, and most of its towers are choked by ivy.
I lead the way through the city gates. They list from their hinges like a pair of drunkards, but the fretwork of celestial designs is breathtaking.
Talini must have been magnificent as a living city.
At least we won’t have to worry about Flamefever in this lonesome place.
We’re the first people to set foot here in a generation.
We shuffle along deserted streets, the setting sun casting long, ghoulish shadows behind us, as our feet crunch through virgin snow. The sound is oddly amplified, and we find ourselves whispering, though there’s no one left to hear us.
At least, no one we can see.
For that crawling sensation of being watched, the weight of that invisible presence at my shoulder, hasn’t left me. If anything, it’s stronger here. I try to brush those inklings aside; there’s no one here, just a mournful atmosphere making me jump at my own shadow.
We inspect the tumbledown buildings as we walk, searching for one whole enough to shelter inside, but nature has reclaimed the city with a dreadful thoroughness.
Lichen infects walls, vines garotte slumped roofs, branches quest through cracked chimneystacks and burst through broken casements like skeletal arms. Shrubbery smothers the wide streets, turning them into frosted wilderness.
It’s a city subdued. A dead place. And the longer I walk its silenced streets, the more hopeless I become.
Peering through cracked windows, I see many things have been left in place, as if their owners planned to step away for only a few minutes. Their belongings lie shrouded under decades of grime, but it’s clear they hoped to return. That they didn’t appreciate the finality of their exile.
But there’s evidence of panicked exodus too.
Detritus everywhere. A spinning top lies half-buried in the snow in front of us.
Tansy bends to stroke its rotted surface.
Her eyes sparkle with tears. Is she thinking of her own children?
Other toys lie discarded on doorsteps, reminders of children forced to flee their homes.
A skipping rope eaten through by rats and frost; a doll, its face long since bludgeoned by hail and storm.
It’s impossible to ignore the human cost of the Sickening.
A whole city displaced, forced to leave the place where their families had lived for generations, where children took first steps, and ancestors’ bones were buried.
The memory of the garden of neverborns rises like an ill breeze, along with the rows of tiny jars in the Reliquary.
My vision ripples. I dash my sleeve across my face, but the blurring doesn’t clear – like shimmering gauze has been drawn across my eyes, heightening the colours of the rainbow.
Similar to the sensations I receive with my visions, but also not.
I reach for Orthriel, for the answers only they can give about what’s happening to me, but the door connecting our minds remains shut.
I slam against the barrier, the rebuff a physical pain in my gut.
I can’t ask them whether this is a natural development of my Starborn abilities, or something dangerous. Something best avoided and guarded against, like starshine.
We turn a corner into a market square. As we cross it, searching for a place to shelter, the world tilts.
The ruined buildings encircling us melt away, replaced by others.
And I’m walking through Talini as it must have been in its prime, or might be again, with the Sickening revoked, and the city rebuilt.
Lusty calls of market traders; peals of bright laughter; the sweet yeast of freshly-baked bread and warm spice of mulled honeywine; streets and buildings whole again, their silver facades star-bright, pristine; nature tamed into submission, topiary trees ornamenting the architecture, not consuming it.
The gauze in front of my eyes thins. The vision fades, and I’m back in the ruins, my head swimming, my heart thumping, my breaths frayed as that mouldering skipping rope.
Am I hallucinating? Perhaps I did sustain a head injury during the avalanche, after all?
I steady myself against a moss-crusted wall, suck slow gulps of tainted air deep into my lungs.
Blayze strides over, Serafine at his shoulder. ‘Something wrong?’ He’s staring at me again, concern etched on his gaunt features.
I shake my head, stare down at my snow-damp boots. ‘It’s nothing.’
I don’t want to discuss what’s happened, especially not with him. I don’t need him thinking me an even bigger freak than he does already… or worse, deciding I’ve lost my mind entirely.
Blayze is silent for a long moment, but his eyes are on me, restless and searching. ‘You don’t seem yourself, Sparkles.’
I snap my head up and meet his probing gaze. ‘Worry about finding us somewhere dry to sleep tonight.’
‘Us?’ His eyebrows shoot up in mock surprise.
Insufferable. ‘Oh, just go and help them look.’
I follow a short distance behind the others as we continue our search. The cragstalkers slink behind me, protecting our back. I don’t hear, or see, anything out of the ordinary again, though the feeling of being watched persists. As does the giddiness and that strange smoke-spiced scent.
The domed turrets of the Silver Palace stand only a short distance ahead of us now.
The snow-dusted castle looks like it’s been cut from freshly starched lace, all delicate fretwork and scrolling cornices.
Most of its windows are broken, dead-vine devours the tarnished facade, but some of the inner apartments might be intact.
In front of the palace, the crumbling lines of a marble fountain depict the Wishing Star, anthropomorphised into a beautiful young woman, flailing through the air with a dancer’s grace, trailing stardust in her wake.
To the left of this monument, the Starshrine’s central spire rises – one of seven that make up the Seer Star, the mark branded on my own wrist, in which image the Starshrine was created when it was remodelled in the Lustrous Age after Noelani’s Blood Bond refortified the realm.
It’s hidden behind tall walls and even taller brambles.
I can’t see the star-path or the rest of the shrine from this distance, but even the sight of that lone spire sends shivers up my spine.
Something pulls in my chest, and I want to run to it, to discover its secrets, but my head is swimming, my limbs heavy.
My pilgrimage will have to wait till after I’ve slept.
The gates to the Silver Palace stand open. We walk through, passing flowerbeds run to seed, and approach an arched wooden door. Astrophel pushes against it. The timber is warped and split. It groans beneath his weight, but holds firm. He rattles the handle.
‘I’ll try and force the lock. Does anyone have—’
Blayze kicks the door before Astrophel can finish his sentence. The hinges moan in protest as it caves in.
‘Stay here. I’ll make sure it’s safe.’ Blayze strides into the palace, leaving the rest of us to survey the scattered shards of wood in silence.
That spiced scent once again fills my nose. What’s going on?
I look to the heavens. The moons have not yet risen, but they’ll be full tomorrow.
I didn’t want to use the mooncrystal, not when it means calling on my cursed powers.
But it might provide answers, finally prove or disprove my fear that someone – or something – is following us.
I won’t have to summon starshine to draw forth a vision from the orb.
At least, I don’t think I will, not according to my mother’s instructions.
I won’t be breaking my promise to Orthriel, and I have to know.
I can’t live a moment longer under the torment of these phantom eyes, the invisible shadow at my heel, the faceless figure stalking my dreams.
But am I ready to hear the truth? Because, either my mind is cracking and I’m imagining things, or there really is some unseen force lurking in the shadows, hunting us. And if there is, I know it’s malevolent. I feel it as surely as the wind tugging back my hood, and the snow beneath my boots.
Blayze bursts back through the shattered door, chest heaving.
‘Come on,’ he pants. ‘I’ve found us somewhere to sleep.’