Starfire’s Heir (The Soul of Serentyn #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

They tell us every person is born with the possibility of accessing any of the seven channels. Most people have one or two, to varying strengths. More than three is exceedingly rare. And access to all seven? An impossibility. Guess I’m an impossibility then.

— From the journal of Violet Andrever

Stubborn piece of shit.

I aimed a sturdy kick at the stuck water pump, not that it did anything but make me feel better. Hauling on the pump with all my strength also did absolutely nothing. The damn thing wouldn’t budge.

“Lexa Andrever, what are you doing?” My grandmother stood in the doorway of our small cottage, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Although we shared the same black hair and pale skin that turned rosy with the sun’s rays, that was where the similarities ended.

I wasn’t short by any means, but my build was slim, whereas Nana was tall for a woman, and held herself with a regal bearing that age hadn’t weathered.

Her chocolate-brown eyes, so different from my turquoise ones, were warm as she watched my antics with amusement.

Assessing the situation, Nana walked over and pulled up on the pump effortlessly. Water immediately began flowing.

I shoved my long black braid, hair already escaping and sticking to my neck, over my shoulder. “How did you do that?”

I had been struggling with the damn water pump for the better part of a quarter of an hour and hadn’t been able to make it so much as wiggle.

She winked at me but didn’t answer, just grabbed the bucket at my feet and began filling it. She never answered how she accomplished seemingly impossible tasks with ease.

She never answered a lot of questions.

Nana was a healer, the only one in our small farming village of Fairhaven, and she grew everything she needed, from the herbs for healing tonics to moss for packing wounds. She even kept bees, for the antibacterial properties in honey. And, of course, to sweeten our morning tea.

She patted my arm as she waited for the bucket to fill with water. “Best hurry on now. Cormac will be waiting.”

Leaving the water pump to Nana, I started down the path that connected our little cottage to the main road, heading to my daily sword practice with the blacksmith.

“Stay in the village!” Nana’s call floated down the lane to me.

I rolled my eyes even as I waved over my shoulder.

She had been telling me to stay inside the boundaries of our village for as long as I could remember.

We’d moved here after my parents’ death when I was a baby, and here I’d stayed, for the last twenty-two years.

In all that time, she had never explained why we’d come or what laid beyond the small onyx stones that marked the edge of our village.

And despite my own obstinance, Nana could out-stubborn me every time, so no amount of questioning would make her budge.

Every time I left the confines of our small plot of land, her final words to me were the same—Stay in the village.

I had yet to find out what was so godsdamn important about staying in the village.

I padded along the dusty road, clouds of dirt billowing up to irritate my eyes, my long black braid swinging with my steps.

My boots and pants were already covered in dust, even though I’d only left my home a short while ago.

We had two types of weather here: dusty or muddy.

And sometimes, like now, we had both. Lucky us.

I passed the wheat fields where sleepy workers were just now arriving to put in a long day’s work for the harvest, waving at the ones I liked and ignoring the waves of some I didn’t want to engage with.

I knew everyone in this town—it was hard not to in a place this small.

But beyond Nana and Cormac, there was no one I was close to.

Even the other villagers who were my age…

there was always something different that held us back from being true friends.

They were happy to stay here, farming, for the rest of their lives.

And while I loved my town, I couldn’t help but feel like there was more out there. More what, though, I had no idea.

As I approached the two onyx stones that marked the boundary between our village and the rest of the world, my steps slowed, as though I was moving through molasses.

The call had never been this strong before.

This feeling had started when I was a child, just a whisper on the edge of my consciousness.

I had dismissed it as my imagination. But as the years had passed, the call had grown stronger, more insistent, more determined.

Now, every morning, when I stood at the edge of our village, it was a thumping in my chest, as rhythmic as a drum.

Today, it beat stronger than ever, as though something had shifted overnight, tugging me onward into the unknown.

“Lexa Andrever, adventure awaits, if only you would look for it.”

The words, if you could call them that, shimmered in the air around me, though no voice had spoken them aloud.

Variations of the call had reached out to me over the years, but I’d never given in.

Never stepped across the threshold delineated by those stones.

But to cross it… something had always held me back, whether fear, common sense, or Nana’s warnings to stay close to home.

So here I’d stayed, on my side of the stones, doing my best to ignore the feeling of something else out there, calling to me.

Today, though… today was different. The pull was so forceful, so acute, it made my chest ache. I raised my foot, but before I could take that step, there was a sharp cry behind me.

Stumbling down the path was Egan, an older farmer who lived over a mile away.

He was limping heavily, his ankle turned at an awkward angle, normally ruddy face pale with pain.

I rushed to his side, throwing his arm around my slim shoulders and taking his weight.

As he leaned heavily on me, I smelled the unmistakable copper scent of blood.

“What did you do?” I asked, as I helped him back toward our cottage.

“Ax slipped chopping wood,” he gasped out.

Nana, with her sixth sense of someone in need, hurried to meet us and supported his other side. “Stubborn fool, what were you doing chopping wood when you have six strapping grandsons who would happily do it for you?” she admonished him.

He tried to bristle but let out a gasp of pain and settled for gritting his teeth. “It had to be done.”

Between the two of us, we got him into the cottage. I kept him upright as Nana hastily cleaned off our breakfast table, which doubled as an exam table for her patients. Somehow, between the two of us, we hauled the obstinate farmer onto the table. He let out a shout of pain as Nana moved his leg.

“Lexa, I need comfrey, yarrow, and calendula.”

I ran out to the garden, grabbing fistfuls without looking, before rushing back inside and setting the herbs in the kettle to boil.

Without taking her eyes from her patient, Nana sniffed the now fragrant air. “Chamomile as well? Good choice.”

I couldn’t take all the credit. Somehow, the answers for what was needed simply came to me.

Some of the villagers said I had a gift for reading the earth.

The most fanciful of them believed I could push and prod at the earth to make it do my bidding.

The more practical said I could simply decipher the clues the earth showed us and use them to figure out what to do.

We worshipped Erde, the earth goddess, and it was said if you prayed to her, you could access the dormant power of the earth.

Since I had a feeling about the earth and the way it moved, people said I was touched by her hand.

Nana always laughed when she heard someone say it—another thing I’d given up asking about.

Whatever the reason, it kept me useful in our small farming community. And it was especially useful in times like these, when the answer to what Nana needed jumped into my hands.

Clearly Egan had started to feel relief as some of the pain began to ease away from his sweat-drenched face. “Thank you, Rose,” he said to Nana before turning to me. “And thank you, Lily.”

I made a face. Egan insisted on calling me by my real first name, Lily.

Every woman in our family was named after the earth.

Nana was Rose, my aunt was Violet. My mother had gone along with the tradition but had insisted on calling me a shortened version of my middle name, Alexandra, and Lexa had stuck.

Except with the more superstitious of the farmers, of which he was one.

I didn’t pay it much mind, other than when people used my given name as further evidence for Erde’s hand on me.

I would inevitably point out that I didn’t think Erde had any say in what my parents had named me, and they would think I was being sacrilegious.

Things would devolve from there, at least until they needed my help again.

“Go on.” Nana jerked her head at the door but also gave me a fond smile, silently thanking me for my help. She turned back to her patient before calling over her shoulder, “Stay in the village!”

I hurried down the lane. At this point, Cormac was bound to grumble over how late I was. But once more, as I approached those onyx stones, my steps slowed and my eyes were drawn to the other side.

There was no visible difference to the path I was standing on and the one past the stones. Nothing that I could tell that would make Nana so insistent that I never go beyond them.

“Lexa Andrever, adventure awaits.”

The call sang out again, thundering through my body. And for the first time in my life, I listened.

My feet moved forward without conscious decision. I stepped past the stones.