ShatterStar

by Krista Rose

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Also by Krista S. Rose

  Dedication

  Verse

  Map of Western Valory & Northern Surak

  VITRIC

  PART ONE: Cedralysone

  A WORD FROM ALYXEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PART TWO: Temple of the Burned

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PART THREE: The Nest

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CAST

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  POTIONS, LOTIONS, POISONS, AND HERBS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Preview of Book Three

  The Nothing Light

  WHISPERS OF HEAVEN

  AWAKENING

  THE COMPENDIUM

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  SHATTERSTAR

  Copyright © 2017 by Krista S. Rose

  All rights reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Cover by Amygdala Design.

  Maps by Alon J. Rand, Dragonwing Graphics.

  ISBN: 978-0-9964189-1-1

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Also by Krista S. Rose

  SAGA OF THE ROSE SERIES

  Whispers of Heaven

  ShatterStar

  The Nothing Light (coming 2017)

  Whispers of Heaven: Illustrated Edition (coming 2017)

  Awakening (coming 2018)

  The Compendium: A Codex of Ca’erdylla

  THE KINGDOM SERIES

  Blood (coming 2018)

  Blade (coming 2018)

  For Groot and Rob

  the best muses a girl could ask for

  Look upon the Stars, my children.

  Each one is a soul created by Destiny at the beginning of Time.

  The brightest are the heroes, and the dimmest are the meek,

  But all hold a place in our sky.

  For, you see, our souls do not die,

  But await like our stars to be reborn.

  That is why you see them fall-

  It is a soul returning to us, to live and love once more.

  -The Truth of the Stars,

  Book of the Sun Children

  VITRIC

  14 Llares 577A.F.

  Village of Desperation, Valory

  I waited for Kryssa.

  It felt like I had spent most of my life waiting for her, so I didn’t mind, even though the sky above was threatening another early summer rain. Icy droplets from the previous night’s storm fell from the branches of the giant trees surrounding the clearing I stood in. A few managed to land on the back of my neck and slide beneath the collar of my tunic, cold and uncomfortable. The Siriun Forest was profoundly quiet; even the soft breeze was little more than a sigh, barely stirring the leaves and pine needles blanketing the ground.

  I tightened my cloak around me against the chill in the air, and distracted myself from the unpleasant weather by thinking of her.

  When exactly had I started to fall in love with the secretive, contrary girl with the tragic eyes? I had spent months trying to figure it out, but there didn’t seem to be any one moment, only a scattering of memories that had built into an ache.

  She had been thirteen when my mother had hired her to clean our house every Firesday, though her small size had made her look even younger. She had fascinated me from the start- mostly because it had frustrated my overbearing mother, who wanted her only son to marry a nice village girl of her choosing. Allis Stroud had very definite opinions about who I should and should not be friends with, and she voiced them often, and loudly.

  Kryssa seemed to agree with her, and avoided me like a winter cold. That, of course, only stirred my curiosity. I had taken to following her, pestering her with questions she rarely answered, enjoying the mirror looks of irritation she and my mother gave me when I talked to her. Firesday soon became the highlight of my week.

  Though Kryssa was little more than a child when she first came to work at our home, she never complained about the demands and chores piled on her shoulders by my difficult mother. In fact, she rarely spoke at all. As the middle child of four sisters, I found this intriguing; I knew how much girls like to talk. Her silence became something like a personal challenge.

  I filled up that space between us by talking to her. I told her stories, and poured out my inner thoughts and secrets to her, hoping she would finally come to trust me. Instead, she ignored me, or glared at me, clearly finding me to be a nuisance. I had never met someone that disliked me before, but, rather than deterring me, it spurred me on. I became determined to unravel the mystery of her.

  Years had passed, and she grew from girl to woman before my eyes. My attraction deepened toward something more personal than simply aggravating my mother, and my fingers began to itch every time she entered the room. I wanted to stroke her vibrant hair, or touch the softness of her skin. Even more confusing was that I found myself wanting her to like me, to see me as more than the son of Allis Stroud, the woman who paid her pennies to clean every Firesday.

  Kryssa, however, wanted nothing at all to do with me.

  I was patient, and persistent- and, when neither worked, I tried bribery. She continued to eye me as if I were something unpleasant she had scraped off the bottom of her shoe. I would have given up, had it not been for the hint of fear I thought I saw underneath her irritation. That fear gave me hope. If she felt nothing, then she had no reason to be afraid, right?

  Still, it was disheartening to watch her ignore my clumsy attempts at romance. I had spent months trying to get her to notice me, but it seemed I was doomed to be nothing more than an inconvenience to her. She didn’t even seem interested in being friends.

  And then, finally, it had happened: last summer, a miracle. Frustrated and filled with doubts, I had followed her into the woods, and I had kissed her. I half-expected her to push me away; if she had, I would have at last given up.

  Instead, she had wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me back. All my years of hard work were rewarded with that one moment with her in my arms.

  Since then, we had rarely stopped kissing, though I found myself longing for more. A lot more. But she wasn’t ready. When I tried to talk to her of marriage, of a
future, she didn’t listen. It wasn’t that she didn’t hear me; it was that she simply wasn’t ready to face the idea of it. Something frightened her when she thought of leaving her home. Though we had spoken all spring of our ideas of escaping the village, the familiar haunted look returned to her eyes when I pushed her for promises.

  There were still too many secrets she wouldn’t tell me, trapped behind those emerald eyes that filled my dreams. It was more than a little maddening. She’ll tell me eventually, I reminded myself with a grim smile. I’m just as stubborn as she is, and twice as sneaky.

  The sky rumbled in warning, and I glanced up, grimacing at the threads of lightning that trailed the underside of the clouds. I had been waiting for at least two hours. It never took her this long to clean Ellisa’s house. Worry wormed into my thoughts.

  What if something’s happened? What if that father of hers-

  No. I took a deep breath, forcing my mind away from that line of thinking, and the black rage that accompanied it. She's probably caught up. She often spent extra time helping the elderly widow tend her garden, since it was too difficult for Ellisa to do many things herself.

  So I’ll stop by and offer to help. I grinned at the thought. The widow was very generous with her baked goods, which were some of the best in the village. I would most likely leave with a full stomach- a bonus for waiting so long in the cold woods.

  I strode from the clearing, my long legs eating up the ground. My height still surprised me sometimes; I towered over most of the villagers, and was a full head-and-a-half taller than Kryssa.

  It did not take me long to reach the huddle of houses that made up our small, unnamed village. Kryssa called it Desperation, and I had always found the name rather fitting. I headed straight for the widow’s plain home near the outskirts. Several hands rose as I passed, and I waved back, though I didn’t slow.

  Ellisa was sitting on her porch when I arrived, a long pipe in her hands as she rocked in a worn chair. Her bright blue eyes were curious in her leathery face as she watched me approach. Thick smoke poured from the sides of her mouth and nostrils; she looked, I thought, like a very friendly dragon.

  “Haven’t seen her,” she announced before I could open my mouth to ask. “Not been here since last week. Thinking maybe she didn’t come because of the weather.”

  I bit back the words I wanted to say. Neither of us believed the weather would keep Kryssa from the village; her family depended too much upon the money she made. Panic twined with my worry, forming a sick knot of dread in the pit of my stomach.

  I said a hasty goodbye to Ellisa, and hurried away, heading for the worn, rutted road that would lead me to the farm where Kryssa lived. Logic waged war with my panic, reminding me that I had seen her just the day before. She had been cheerful, giddy even, clutching a box containing a small pink cake for her youngest brother’s birthday. Nothing could have happened to her in a day.

  But I couldn’t forget the bruises that covered her arms, or the way she flinched whenever I raised a hand to touch her face. I could not forget that she lived with a monster.

  Logic lost.

  My hurried stride lengthened to a flat run. The Forest was unnaturally silent, save for the labor of my breathing. My legs ate up the mile to the farm, the soft mud squelching beneath my boots with every step. The trees grew closer together, forming a gloomy hallway, broken only by huge, rough stones that sprouted from the ground.

  I smelled the smoke before I saw it, mixing with the heavy scent of rain. My footsteps slowed of their own accord, and the knot of dread rose into my throat to choke me. I swallowed, forcing myself to breathe, my mind blank as I neared the farm. The trees suddenly ended, cleared away from the small ten acres of land by generations of farmers. My eyes watered in the sudden light after so long spent in the shadows, and I squinted, forcing my gaze across the familiar ground.

  I had climbed one of the giant trees of the Forest once when I was little, and then fallen out of it when a rotten branch had snapped beneath my weight. I felt the same sensation now, of dropping endlessly as the ground fell away beneath me, as I stared at what remained of Kryssa’s home.

  Thick, blackened support beams thrust upward out of the rubble, accusatory fingers pointing to the cloudy skies. Burnt stones lay in careless heaps where they had tumbled from the walls. As I approached on wobbling legs, I could see embers glowing in what would have once been the great room, a malevolent heart in the midst of so much destruction. Nothing could have survived it. The house had become a grave.

  I sank to my knees in the garden beside the house, my numbed mind barely registering that the fragile roses had been left untouched by the flames. Smoke filled the air, burning my eyes, but I couldn’t weep. The pain was too deep for that.

  She’s dead.

  “Kryssa,” I whispered, and my voice was immediately whipped away by the rising wind. Thunder rumbled, and the rain at last began to fall.

  I bowed my head, and grieved.

  A WORD FROM ALYXEN

  One Year Later

  We thought that we had escaped the darkness, but it followed us, a macabre shadow wherever we ran. So much death, so much pain. Our eyes are haunted by it. Brannyn says we are living ghosts, trapped within our own skin. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps we are cursed to wander the earth, doomed by some petulant god to never rest in one place. Surely that can be the only reason why such suffering seems to trail in our wake.

  I had thought we were free when we left Desperation, that pitiful village in the wastes of the north where we were born. We escaped our father’s madness and the depraved intentions of the Crone, though Kryssa nearly gave her life for us to do so. We were saved- or thought we were- by the Darkling Prince. But he only pretended to offer us refuge in an attempt to claim Lanya out of some sick need, and so we fled once again, leaving his Camp in burning ashes behind us.

  We came at last to Fallor, the town our parents had left in the mad passion of their youth, and sought out the family they had abandoned there. For a time we thought we were safe, and we were happy. But evil stalked the streets when the moon was dark: twisted, soulless things called moret’ethla- Vampyres.

  Our cousin Felice became one, intent on destroying our family for the pain she had suffered due to their neglect. We tried to stop her, tried to find her, but she found us first. She attacked Reyce, poisoning him with her taint, and we were certain we would be forced to watch him die.

  Then Kylee brought an Elf named Vanderys to help us, and he took Reyce to Cedralysone, an Elven city hidden to the south, deep within the Rhyulian Mountains. We remained behind, our exhaustion too much yet for us to follow. All we can do is pray that he lives.

  I am afraid.

  -9 Davael 578A.F.

  TANNER

  9 Davael 578A.F.

  Fallor, Valory

  I threw a shoe at the angel.

  In my defense, the last thing that I had seen glowing had been a pair of white eyes, belonging to a monster determined to eat me. A monster with no soul, no emotion, no remorse. A monster that I, ever the idiot, was still in love with, even though she had tried to kill me. Twice.

  I was also exhausted from a night spent hovering over Brannyn, who slept like the dead in his grandfather’s bed, his face nearly as pale as the bandages wrapped around his head. I was sore from trying to rest in an uncomfortable chair at his side, and what little sleep I had managed had been filled with nightmares about those eyes, chasing me down blind alleys back into wakefulness.

  So when the woman appeared across the room from me in a flash of light, my reaction was only natural: I grabbed one of my boots and hurled it at her.

  She apparently wasn’t used to this reaction, because she made no attempt to block it. It smacked her on the nose, and she staggered back, tripping over a rug and disappearing on the far side of the bed in a mass of feathery wings. The noise she made sounded something like, “ACK!”

  I jumped from the chair and drew my sword, grimacing when my shoulders and
knees popped loudly. I’m getting too old for this, I thought as I circled the bed to where she had fallen. I didn’t know who- or what- this strange bird-woman was, but if I waited for her to attack first, I wasn’t sure my body would be able to handle it this morning.

  I reached the other side of the bed, and stared. The floor was strewn with white feathers- but the woman had vanished.

  “That wasn’t very nice.”

  I whirled, wincing when my left knee popped again. The woman had backed into a far corner, out of range of my blade. Her wings were curled around her defensively, and she was rubbing her nose. Her eyes were dark brown and filled with reproach.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, hoping my voice didn’t sound as panicked as it did to my own ears. “What are you? How did you get over there?”

  She raised her hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m Eriny.”

  I stared at her blankly.

  “Eriny?” she repeated, her voice filled with strained patience. “The Angel? Goddess of Light? Servant to the Younger Gods?”

  “The Younger Gods?” Those, at least, I had heard of. I lowered my sword. “I’ve never heard of you.”

  “Of course you haven’t.” She rolled her eyes in frustration. “What are they teaching in the temples nowadays?”

  I looked her over. Other than the wings and the fact that she was still glowing a bit, she looked rather ordinary. Her face was pretty, but not beautiful, and her dress was frayed and tearing at the hem. Her feet were bare and dirty, and her brown hair was choppy and uneven. “So… you said you’re a goddess?”

  “Goddess of Light, yes. Angel of Healing and Compassion.”

  “Right. And you’re here because…”

  “I was sent here to help.”

  “Help? Why would you want to help me?”

  “I’m not here for you.” She pointed toward the bed. “I’m here for him.”

  I glanced at Brannyn. He had slept through Eriny’s appearance, which didn’t surprise me. Garyl Moon, his grandfather, had said he had a concussion, which I guessed was the healer term for he hit his head really hard. “How are you going to help him?”