Chapter Fifteen The Girl Who Drank Stars
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE GIRL WHO DRANK STARS
T HAT NIGHT , D IRANTAS sent a dream chasing after Lythlet.
The little prison island Nazao was sinking into the ocean.
Waves of violent black water swirled around it, an inky soup rising and falling like a bolt of forgotten laundry fluttering in the storm.
On the shores, Lythlet watched as ship after ship departed, plunging into the ocean to find a new home.
Above the Fated Ships rolled clouds of black thunder, coruscant veins of lightning hanging beneath, swaying in equal parts threatening and theatrical—they rather resembled Oraanu wind chimes dangling off the eaves of Setgadian houses.
Thousands of Exiles were fleeing; thousands would sink in the perilous journey, innumerable bloodlines buried at the bottom of the fathomless ocean. But dangerous as the journey was, all coveted the chance to escape certain death, and Lythlet was no exception.
Yet no ship would let her board, each turning her away.
“Please,” she begged one, then another.
“ Thief! Liar! Beaten! Bruised! ” they denied her, setting sail for the west one by one.
The storm was closing in on her, the island beneath her disappearing inch by inch. She stared heavenwards, and in the eye of the storm was a fragment of the unsullied sky. Stars dotted the firmament like candles lit in the distance.
Then one flickered, twinkling coyly, before streaking southwards in a spiral.
Lythlet’s eyes widened—were she to catch that star, she’d need not a ship, nor need she beg for passage.
She elbowed her way through the remaining Exiles, navigating through the marching mess of embarking men and women and children alike, pale and dark and every shade in between.
Her feet scraped against strands of weeds and fronds of bracken as she ran from the sandy shore.
The star was reaching the island, a violent yellow amongst the black backdrop.
It burnt a golden streak across a gusty field of tall grass, and she threw herself after it, catching it in her hand.
It was alive, untamed and as wild as a breathing beast. Fire burned from within, searing to the touch, yet without scorching her, a fire birthed from divinity—the Star of Fate.
She wrestled with it, subjugating it to her will.
Raising it to her lips, she tipped it into her mouth, drinking the starlight, the flame of heavens flooding her until all within her was golden.
Walk upon water, daughter of Kilinor.
At once, the eye of the storm widened, storm clouds parting above her.
The stars of the night sky wheeled in concentric circles, she at the center of a vortex of destined greatness.
Time and space coalesced into her, until it was her alone with the night, steps leaving a trail of fire the darkness could not quench.
She turned the seas golden in her wake as she crossed into the new world.
· · ·
L YTHLET SNAPPED HER eyes wide open, the worn-out wooden boards of the ceiling staring back. Her mind was still, her thoughts lucid, as though the dream had been nothing more than a daylight wandering of the mind.
Could it have been a vision?
She sat up, staring out the window at the waking world, the rising sun, and the Tower of Setgad piercing the heavens in the distance.
The guilloche sun symbol gleamed on the Tower, sunlight making the golden-white flames dance free from the borders of the diamond, flames impossible to cage and beautiful for that violent ambition.
She smiled. In both dreamscape and the waking world, she remained one and the same, captain of her fate and fortune.
“Good morning,” she said to a city on the cusp of recognizing her as a protagonist at last.
· · ·
“T HAT ’ S SIX WHITE valirs,” said Lythlet, beaming as she poured the coins into Tucoras’s palm.
The loan shark stared with barely concealed disbelief.
It was an easy pile to count, but he made a great show of thumbing through every single coin individually, biting into them to check their authenticity.
At last conceding he was not being cheated, he shoved the coins into his pocket.
He regarded Lythlet and Desil with an impressed look.
“That’s another six white off your debt.
Next month will be five white valirs due—”
“And then my debt will be paid in full,” said Desil, grinning.
Tucoras nodded. His lackeys stood behind him dumbly; they’d not been given anything to do in the past few months, with Lythlet and Desil paying off their debt and more so easily every time.
He reluctantly turned to leave but paused.
“How in the name of the Sunsmith are the two of you making so much?” he blurted out.
“You went from struggling to pay me spiras and dumasi to handing over full white valirs.”
Lythlet and Desil exchanged a look, a satisfied glint in their eyes.
“We made some very wise investments,” she answered, “and we’re now reaping the rewards.”
Tucoras sidled up to her. “Well, if this investment of yours is still open to newcomers, I would love to be introduced to your people. I could help you, you know. I have connections of my own you may find beneficial—”
“We’ll think about it,” said Lythlet, fighting the urge to crow in the man’s face. He’d treated them like beggars to spit on for years, and now here he was, practically crawling on his knees to be let in on their success.
Life really is different when people know you have coin to your name .
· · ·
A KNOCK ON the door of her kataka flat startled her.
“Expedited delivery for Lythlet Tairel!” hollered a voice from the other side.
Eyebrows furrowing, she peeked suspiciously through the window.
Faravind Post never delivered directly to the kataka flats.
The risk of the delivery-carriers being robbed of all their parcels ran too high otherwise.
One had to pick up their mail from their offices instead to ensure the safety of one’s own possessions.
But true enough, it was a man clad in a Post cloak, a winged envelope stitched into its back.
His face was red, sweat dripping from his jaw; the climb up the ladder had winded him.
He noticed her through the window and held up her parcel as a token of goodwill.
“I have a long and busy day ahead of me, miss. I’d appreciate it if you took this off my hands. ”
She waved at him to leave it by the door. She was not foolish enough to open her door to a stranger, least of all without Desil at home, and it was not impossible for a common thief to procure an official cloak through underhanded channels.
With an impatient shrug, he did so and returned to the ladder with an unsubtle groan.
Once certain the man had gone, she opened the door, snatched the parcel inwards, and shut the door firmly, lock clicking in place.
What in the name of the Twelve Divine could this be?
One had to pay a premium to have Faravind deliver a package directly to a recipient living in Southeast, yet she couldn’t imagine who would bother doing so for her.
A scrap of paper slid out on top of the unopened box.
Lythlet,
A gift you must never speak of to anyone else. Consider this a necessity in times to come, when I no longer want to see you stumbling and slipping. You can’t afford to lose momentum now. You have some time to break them in.
Yours truly,
Not quite a friend, but most certainly a partner
She lifted the lid disbelievingly. Master Dothilos?
A pair of fine, luxuriously supple leather boots rested snugly in the box.
She ran her fingers over the threaded seams, all precisely stitched in even lines by expert hands.
There was the shoemaker’s stamp imprinted on the side, an elaborate crisscrossing pattern of stars.
Lythlet intentionally kept herself unfamiliar with the ever-changing fashions of the highborn, ignorance being the best defense against envy, but even she could tell these were no commonplace boots.
The hobnails at the bottom were defined, especially compared to the pair currently on her feet.
She touched her own soles, marveling at how used she’d gotten to the fire-flattened nubs, then ripped off her boots to pull the new pair on.
She tightened the laces, the leather taking shape around her calves, forming a perfect fit. How would he know my size?
She grabbed the note again, hovering between joy and disbelief. There was something written on the back.
P.S. I know you well enough to guess the inquisitive nature of your thoughts. If you must know, there were some of your footprints left in the arena, pressed into the sand, and I had them sampled for your size.
She laughed, touched by the thought and effort that had gone into this.
She was not na?ve: Master Dothilos was not a man of charity.
He was a merchant first and foremost, and he counted his costs dearly.
There would be unspoken expectations behind such a generous gift—but he would only cast such expectations upon a person with something to offer. One who deserved further thought.
And that , she thought proudly, is what I have become.