"She is more powerful than we ever imagined."
My teeth press together as I groan at the unwelcome voice. I knew Vena
would come eventually. It was only a matter of time, despite my threats.
The guardian is persistent, I'll give her that. It doesn't lessen my
displeasure, however.
"And that concerns me how?" I growl without turning around.
"Her magic is great but volatile," the guardian says. "She needs a tether
or Oryndhr will be lost. Balance is a necessity, Darrius."
Clearly, Vena has not lost her flair for the melodramatic. While it was
amusing when directed elsewhere, I resent it now, especially as I detect
judgment in her tone. As if I somehow have been derelict in my duty. "I do
not care about a cursed realm that renounced their devotion to the gods. My
duty is here not her, my fucking father saw to that," I bite out with enough
force that I can feel the old guardian flinch. "Now begone, crone, my
patience is at an end!"
I sense her irritation, but I do not care. I do not answer to the Royal Stars.
The flavor of salted honey blooms on my tongue, and I quell the instant
clamor of the darkness humming a thunderous chant in my veins. My
shadows might crave the star in their night sky, but I cannot afford to be
weak . . . not now.
My breaths come in shallow bursts, the feeling of sentience crawling
beneath my skin almost too strange to bear. Has it been inside of me all this
time? Slumbering like the crone had said? Though the creature has calmed
—thank the stars, or perhaps not, since they are to blame for all of this
magic in the first place—I can still feel its power swirling like a restless
tide.
Watching and waiting . . .
"We're on your side," I hear Roshan say, once he's sure that I have
myself under control. He gestures to his uniform and the rank stripe on his
arm. "New cadets who got separated from our unit."
"Which unit?" the man behind me says.
"Redpoint," Roshan says confidently, and I frown at the ready reply. How
does he know what to say? The answer is immediate: he's a prince with an
army of intelligence behind him—of course he would be familiar with the
crown's biggest enemy.
"Under Captain Swift?"
Roshan lifts his brows with cool composure. "Captain Sattari, actually."
After a moment, the man beside him spits and lowers his weapon. "Good.
You can explain what happened to the rest of your unit to him. And if
you're lying . . . well, we'll be in the middle of the Dustlands, and the Scavs
love fresh meat . . ." His smile is ugly as he trails off, his meaning clear: if
we aren't who we say we are, we're Scav food.
He gestures for Roshan to join me, and I exhale in relief while the man
behind me disappears into the stables to procure a horse. Once the mare isbridled and hitched, the carriage jerks forward at a rough pace, and soon the
smoking citadel disappears from view.
Roshan and I sit on the back bench under the watchful eye of one of the
men while the other drives. They might believe us—but they're not stupid
enough to take chances.
I have to admit, the uniforms had been a lucky touch. Without them, it
would have been a lot harder to convince the men we're with the rebellion.
It's a good cover, one that will hopefully keep us from being separated if
our captors don't decide to kill and dump us in the Scav-ridden Dustlands.
Roshan reaches over and briefly squeezes my hand as we sit in silence.
"What do you think is going to happen to us?" I whisper.
Shadowed brown eyes meet mine. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Will they execute us? Or leave us out here?" My heart pounds as my
throat tightens. Whatever is inside me hasn't abated; it's only biding its
time. I clench my fists together as I feel my palms tingle. "I'm scared. I
don't want to hurt anyone."
Roshan sidles closer on the seat. "You won't. I'm here. We'll get through
this together." I stare at him. Something flashes across his face that looks
strangely like contrition, or maybe it's regret that we're now trapped here.
He glances up. Neither of the men is looking at us.
Gentle fingers lift to brush the hair out of my face. The touch is oddly
tender, and I lean into it, desperate for anything to counter my internal
paralysis. The soft strokes over my hair soothe my fear.
"How are you feeling?" he asks.
"I feel like I can't breathe," I whisper. "Like I can't get any air into my
lungs no matter what I do."
"You're in delayed shock. Here, let me."
To my surprise, he shifts noiselessly and pulls me between the bands of
his arms, nearly wrapping his whole upper body around me. My body
tenses at the feel of him enveloping me, but after a moment, I relax, my
face resting against his firm chest. Roshan is all sinewy planes and sculpted
contours, and I fit perfectly against him, my softer curves melting into his
harder angles. His heartbeat is slow and steady beneath my cheek.
Solid. Comforting.
"Slow your breathing," he instructs. "Start at your toes and connect to
each muscle in your body as you work your way up."My hands lift to steal around his waist as I do as he says. The rhythmic
pulse beneath me accelerates, and his arms cinch tighter, his head dropping
down to rest on mine until I'm practically blanketed by him. Cocooned in
safety. My heart is battering my rib cage so hard, I'm surprised he can't feel
it. Or maybe he can.
After what seems like an eternity, Roshan tips my chin up, his thumb
brushing my jaw. "Better?"
Breaking the connection, I sigh softly. "Much. Thank you. I needed that."
"You're welcome." With an indecipherable look, he shifts away to sit
alongside me once more, and I miss the loss of his strength more than I care
to admit. "Try to meditate if you can. Calm your mind. If they were going
to kill us, they would have already. We're safe for now, I promise. I'll make
sure nothing happens to you."
When Roshan inhales deeply and his eyelids flutter shut, I try to do the
same. But when I close my eyes, all I see is the soldiers disintegrating under
my power. I see the dead crown prince of Oryndhr. They fly open again,
and I peer at the barren earth around us and worry that we're heading to our
deaths. Restless, I shift my gaze to my palms instead.
I trace the odd shape of the mark on my left hand. I can see the rune so
clearly now, almost like a five-pointed star. The one on my right is nearly
identical, its edges pale and shimmering. They've never been this visible
before, but then again, I've never wielded magic. At the stroke of my
fingertip, the star starts to glow with a luminous milky color.
"the Star will burn."
The familiar voice is a croak, and when I look up, instead of seeing the
men in the driving seat, the hunched crone with the starlight eyes has taken
their place on the bench opposite me. I blink rapidly, but the old woman is
still there, staring at me.
"Where did you come from?" I ask wildly. "Who are you?"
Brilliant eyes meet mine. She cocks her head to the side, her finger
tracing an invisible path in the air. "The stars have spoken, and one of their
own awakens. Flee, child, flee. For death travels in your wake."
Frustrated, I bare my teeth. "Stop speaking in riddles and tell me what I
am."
"You are the final falling star. The supernova. The bitter, beautiful end."
"I don't know what any of that horseshit means," I snap. Fuck, can't
diviners say anything in a normal, ordinary way? I stand, closing thedistance between us. "What in the rotten pits of Droon am I?"
"Servant of the star," the old woman replies, her eyes burning bright.
"But you must become its master, Starkeeper."
That word. It makes a bone-deep shiver ripple through me, giving a
strange credence to Roshan's prophecy. I move toward her. My fingers
reach for her shoulders, wanting to rattle some sense out of her, but instead
they close upon a thick very male neck.
Reality is like a shock of ice-cold water. My eyes widen as the soldier I'd
grabbed shouts and elbows me backward. Roshan lurches awake, but a
vicious kick from the man has him crashing back into the seat. I hear him
groan as the sharp tang of blood fills the air, but I can't take my eyes off my
attacker, who now has his blade in hand. "Crazy bitch, you're dead."
"Stop, I'm sorry," I gasp, twisting in the small compartment and
wondering if my mind has finally given up. "Where's the old woman?"
"Are you sick?" he yells, glaring at me. "Droonish brain fever?"
"No! There was a woman . . . a crone."
But there's no evidence of anyone else but the four of us here. The man
only growls as his partner steers the coach to a wild stop and leaps from the
driver's seat. Dimly, I see Roshan spring from the carriage, but my brain is
still confused, my body slow and uncoordinated.
"I knew we should have killed you," the soldier snarls.
Heat surges to my palms, but I force it back. Lunging forward, I use the
bench for leverage and jab him in the throat with my knuckles. His head
snaps back, but he's bigger than me and quick. He vaults easily over the
front lip of the coach, and his kick punches into my gut, sending my breath
emptying out in a painful whoosh. I wheeze for breath, and all I see is his
ugly face as he straddles me and holds me down.
I block his attacks as best as I can, but as he presses down, stars blink
across my vision and pain flowers in every vulnerable spot he connects
with. I won't last much longer at this rate. Nor will he, I realize, as my body
starts to fill with whorls of violent energy.
Oh, flaming sands, no.
Voices trickle through the haze, and then suddenly the man's weight is
dragged off my chest. Moments later, Roshan's bloodied face fades in and
out of the blackened edges of my vision. I force myself to calm, sucking
great gulps of cooling air into my aching lungs and focusing on memories
of my family.Better. My teeth feel loose and my ribs ache, but I'm alive.
I blink and turn my head slowly, looking toward the prince. "Roshan,
you're bleeding," I say hoarsely.
"It's worse than it looks," he says, but I can hear the pain in his voice.
"You're safe. The men can't hurt you."
"Are they dead?" I whisper.
His lips flatten, and he doesn't answer. If it's a choice between them or
us, I'd rather it be them.
My gaze flicks to my open palms. The lines there—heart, head, life, and
fate—look nondescript and ordinary.
Starkeeper, the crone had called me. More like star-killer.
Still, something sizzles to life along the inside of my skin as if even the
name carries power.
Roshan's concerned gaze collides with mine as he lifts me to the bench
and scans me for injuries, but though my beaten body screams in pain,
thankfully, I'm not bleeding out anywhere.
"What happened, Suraya? Why did you attack him? Did he say
something to you?"
"I didn't attack him," I blurt out, and hesitate. He's going to think I'm
foolish or irrational, but then I shake my head—after all, he's also seen me
vaporize people with light from my bare hands. "He didn't say anything. It
was me. I thought . . . he was someone else. I mean, I saw someone else,
sitting opposite us."
He frowns. "Who?"
"One minute, it was an empty seat," I say, searching for the right words,
"and the next it was an old crone going on about the stars and my destiny. I
must have imagined it or . . . or hallucinated, because the next thing I know,
I was in the man's face and his fingers were clamped around my throat."
"It was a vision?"
I swallow hard and nod. "She called me the Starkeeper, too."
Roshan stares, and the stark look on his face makes me quake inside,
almost as if, until that very moment, he hadn't truly believed the validity of
the prophecy himself. His gaze falls to my outstretched hands, and I snatch
them back to fold my arms across my chest, tucking the damnable things
out of sight in my armpits.
"So it is you . . ." he begins."Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong," I interject harshly, shaking
my head. "I'm not that. I can't be that."
Without replying, he reaches out, his fingers sketching a trail down my
forearm to my wrist. The pads of his fingers are warm to the touch and
make a shiver chase up my skin. Gently, he unfolds each of my arms. He
doesn't touch my palm but cradles the back of my left hand in his and lifts it
between us. His eyes travel the crisscrossing lines there. "How else do you
explain these and what you can do? That was magic, Suraya. You were born
with akasha in your blood."
We stare at each other in fraught silence.
He waits for me to say something, but my heart has climbed into my
throat, throttling any ability to speak. "I've only ever heard the word
Starkeeper in the story my mother told me, just like yours did," he says
after a few moments. "He was the first in the Order of the Magi."
I exhale hard. "I'm not a fucking magi, Roshan. The Order of the Magi is
extinct. Killed off by your ancestor. Akasha doesn't exist anymore, at least
not inside human bodies in Auridon"
"Then how do you explain what you can do? Or those markings?" He
eyes me, a pointed gaze falling to my forearms where the silvery
inscriptions had glowed. All that remains now is faint script like pale vines.
"Droonish brain fever?"
My weak joke falls flat. I falter for a second, recalling what Aiden had
said about an illusion and my mother's protective runes. Had she somehow
suppressed the . . . thing . . . inside of me? But how? Mama had also
been . . . no one. The memory of Amma's furtive words about her sister's
protections comes back to haunt me. Maybe she had akasha, too, and
whatever she'd done to safeguard me, the cost had been steep. And now,
I'm exposed.
"You said this was all planned," I say, remembering how I'd tried to
figure out the rhyme or reason behind the selection. "How did Aiden decide
who to invite?"
"The invitations went out to women with very specific birth charts."
I blink. Birth charts are the astrological guides created when children are
born. My mother had shown me mine. At birth, the position of the stars, the
moon, and the sun foretell a person's future. Thousands of years ago, seers
and wise men used them to translate the divine intentions of the gods. Likechiromancy, they predicted facets of life, marriage, work, dharma, and
karma.
However, no two people could have the exact same chart.
I exhale a weak breath. "What do the birth charts have to do with it?
Every woman invited would have a different one."
"The sidereal zodiac would have shown the constellations at a precise
moment in time when the Starkeeper's soul ignited. The chosen had to be of
a certain age, born on the night of a blood moon twenty-five years ago." He
lets out a slow exhale. "They're marked by the magic of the four Royal
Stars. Like your runes."
I feel cold, my breath stuttering. Birth records wouldn't have been hard to
get, especially for someone like the prince. "In Auridon, Aiden said the
queen knew someone powerful had cast an illusion on me. He said my
mother's name."
"Nasrin," Roshan says softly. "She would have been a magi, too."
I slump back onto the seat and shake my head over and over, even though
I'd pondered the same a minute ago. It's too much. "No. She was normal
and wary of Grana crystals. Magicless like everyone else in the realm."
"It's a matrilineal trait, Suraya."
Was that why my parents had left Kaldari? My head is swimming. If my
mother had been a magi, wouldn't she have been able to heal herself when
she was sick? Wouldn't I have known? I desperately wish my father and
Amma were here, so I could ask them the questions racing through my
brain and demand they tell me the truth.
An icy shiver snatches me in its grasp. Javed also invoked Fero's name
when he'd spoken of the magic. The ancient god of death. I recall Lester's
ranting words in the inn. His warnings about the crown prince seem so long
ago. Had he been right all along? Is Aiden secretly an arcanist, worshipping
old gods?
"What happened to the original Starkeeper?" I ask finally.
Roshan lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "Some say the Royal Stars
reclaimed him. Others say that he still lives, watching over the fate of the
realm, waiting for when he"—he glances at me—"or she is needed again.
Other stories claim that he married a mortal and lived out his days in
peace." His eyes hold mine. "I've heard it told that descendants from that
union received his gifts, but they were never forced to awaken." Roshan
grasps both my palms without hesitation. His fingers interlace with mine,and I catch my breath at the significance—the innate trust—of the action.
Even if I haven't admitted to trusting him, he's showing that he trusts me.
"Until now. Until you, Suraya."
The crone's omen pounds a deathly staccato in my head: Not yet
awakened . . . The fates will wait until they are called.
Roshan's voice is a whisper. "Sometimes we have to believe the illogical.
Even if the stories aren't real or you don't believe in old magic, you have a
gift, Suraya, one that can be used to defend or to destroy. If the queen gets
her hands on it, you know what path she will take."
As much as it's hard to believe that I am something other, he's not wrong
about the queen. Now that her son is dead, she'll want revenge . . . and with
the entire imperial army at her command, there's nowhere my family and
loved ones can hide.
I have to protect them. So that means I'm going to have to figure out
what this magic can do. For my sake, for my family's sake . . . and for all
the innocent people in Oryndhr. The only way to fight against a powerful
force is to become a powerful force.
"Can I trust you, Roshan?" I ask, not hiding my fears that he, too, might
turn on me.
I'm not sure whether I imagine the infinitesimal beat of something—
hesitation or concern or something else—but he nods. "Yes."
"What do we do now?"
He stares at me, eyes shadowed, but stands to dust his hands on his
uniform. "We keep going and find the verhims. They're our best bet to stay
safe."
My shock is written all over me—that's the last thing I expected him to
say, not after they killed so many of his people. Not after two of them just
tried to kill us. "Why? They're the enemy."
Face solemn, Roshan tilts his head. "The enemy of my enemy is my
friend."
I suppose that might be true to a point. But I'm not sure it's logic I like.
"There's nothing out here," I say, scanning the red-earthed wasteland in
despair.
He observes the sky. "The men who took us were heading north. Let's
continue that way. It's better than going back."
Roshan grabs the reins, and I join him on the driver's bench. Thank the
heavens the horse is still attached by its bridle and hadn't bolted when we'dtumbled off the coach. "Rest if you can," he tells me. "Do the breathing and
relaxation exercises I showed you."
I comply, working my muscles starting with my toes, and eventually, I'm
lulled by the golden landscape and the sound of the carriage. It seems like
hours have passed, but in truth it's less than an hour before Roshan starts to
slow. Noises filter toward us. Blinking the grit from my eyes, I swallow a
gasp as we crest the next rise.
A dozen armed men on horseback surround a shimmering portal that's
five times the size of the one that brought me to Kaldari. My stomach
tightens at the flag bearing the image of a jagged lightning bolt on a red
sphere flying high. That's no ordinary flag—it's the symbol of the Dahaka
fortress, the Indraloka, named after the heaven of the gods.
I bite my lip hard, the calm I found on the drive evaporating under the
wild thrashing of my heart. My stomach starts to heave, the idea of
willingly going to the Dahaka making me nauseated. I think about the
bodies in the capital city and dry heave. They're fucking killers! What in
the flaming pits of Droon have we gotten ourselves into?
By the time the carriage rolls to a stop, my entire body is snapped tight
with nerves. They're going to see right through us! I have no doubt that
these Dahaka will be trained, ruthless soldiers, ready to slit our throats at
the slightest provocation.
"Roshan," I exhale shakily, and snatch his hand without thinking.
"Trust me," he whispers. "Take this." He hands me a circular medallion.
When he sees my expression, he shrugs. "Those two men had them. It's an
identification marker, I think."
I take it and drape it around my neck. Panic tastes like ash as we descend
from the coach. Who knows where this portal leads? I mean, it goes to the
Indraloka base, but where exactly is that? Jaxx? Eloni? Somewhere beyond
the known realm, like the place where Javed's captured azdaha is from?
We've all heard stories about the monsters that infest the distant lands over
the Barrin Mountains to the north . . . stories of mythical beasts that prey on
people.
What if I pass through this portal and can never return home? I wonder if
Papa, Amma, and Laleh have heard about the attack on the palace by now.
Will they believe I'm dead? The only place I want to go is home . . . not
wherever this goes.Every instinct in me is screaming at me to turn and flee, but I know the
minute I do that I'll be dead. These silver-armored guards mean business.
Roshan's fingers graze my elbow in silent reassurance. The men
acknowledge us with grim faces, eyes dropping to the medallions we both
wear. For a moment, I feel as though they can see right through us, but they
simply wave us forward without any fanfare. I can't believe our luck!
I start moving, but Roshan pauses to say something to a soldier with
several bands around his arm, presumably denoting his position. The man
gives a brief nod.
"Go, I'm right behind you," Roshan says in a low voice.
"What did you say to him?" I whisper back, curious.
"A convincing lie about who we are. Go, Suraya, before they change
their minds."
With a shallow breath, I close my eyes and step through the portal. As
before, a sticky feeling washes over my skin, and there's a slight swell of
pressure on my flesh before it's gone.
I open my eyes, and I've stepped into what looks like an enormous
bunker. It's full of armed men and women clad in the same armor I'm
currently wearing.
Roshan steps out of the portal beside me, and we share a quick glance.
We're in enemy territory now ...