Starburner

by Claire Luana

  “Nua,” he said, standing as well. His voice was wistful. “My home.”

  She turned and examined him, leaning on the rail for support. Even in the low light of the starry sky, he was…changed. His spine straighter. His head held high. His skin—there was practically a glow coming off of him. A health and vitality that radiated from his very pores. As if the man needed help being more handsome. And his eyes…was it a trick of the light? His eyes were so vibrantly green, she could hardly believe they weren’t lantern light. And—she squinted, looking more closely. Yes! There was a faint glow coming from his forehead under the thick shock of black hair.

  “Are you going to dissect me?” he asked with an uncomfortable laugh.

  Rika hardly noticed. What was that? She stepped forward in a lithe motion, sweeping her hand across his forehead to push back his thick hair. Then with a yelp, she backed away. “What is that?” she squeaked, her hand to her hammering heart.

  “It’s a long story,” he said, a wry smile flickering across his face.

  “A long story? Who—what—Vikal, you have three eyes!”

  He pushed the hair off his forehead with a quizzical look. “I do not know what you speak of. All I have is this tattoo.”

  Rika’s mouth hung open as she looked at the smooth expanse of skin he revealed. She crept forward and peered at it, standing on her tiptoes. It was a tattoo. Dark green lines depicting a closed eye, decorated by triangles and dots and sweeping geometry. But she had sworn she had seen…she would bet her life… She shook her head in wonder. Had hopping from Kitina addled her mind?

  The tattoo popped open with a blink, revealing a glowing green eye fringed by long, dark lashes.

  Rika jumped back with a screech, practically careening over the side of the boat.

  Vikal started laughing, a deep guffaw that warmed her core.

  Rika’s jaw hung open with shock. “Are you—messing with me?” she asked incredulously. Without thinking, she stepped forward and punched him in his sizable bicep with all her might.

  “Ow.” He shied back, still laughing. “Is that how they do things in Kitina?”

  Rika whirled, his words smothering her rising mirth. She was horrified by her impertinence. Punching him—it was something she’d do to Koji. Not some strange man—if he even was a human man—who had helped murder her father. What was she doing? Standing here joking with him while the soul-eaters were marching on Yoshai? She needed to get back. Now.

  Rika stilled her face into a mask of calm before turning back to him. His laughter had died, and he was looking not at her, but at a spot towards the center of the ship. What was he looking at? There was nothing there. She cleared her throat. When she spoke, her words were cold, imperious. As queenly as she could make them. “I admit I’m curious, but we can talk about your third eye later. You made a good call hopping us away from that soul-eater ship. But now, please hop us back. Preferably, a few leagues down from where the soul-eaters made landfall. I need to go help my mother defeat them.”

  He leaned against the rail, looking at her. His mask had fallen back as well, and his features were hard, his jaw set. The laughing man of a moment before seemed like a figment of her imagination. The ship’s rigging creaked and clanked in a gust of wind. A feeling of trepidation washed over her. “Vikal. Take me back.”

  “I cannot,” he said finally. “I need you here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are the only person I have ever heard of who can kill a leech. Even in the memories of the hive, I never saw such a thing. The leeches have taken over most of Nua, but some of my people escaped into the mountains. I need your help to rescue them. And I have friends who were trapped under the leeches’ compulsion, like I was. If you kill the leeches that enslaved them…”

  “They’ll be free,” Rika finished, her voice cold. “And what about me. Am I no longer free?”

  “Of course you are free.”

  “Then take me back,” she said. She stormed across the deck, retrieving her father’s sword and buckling it onto her narrow hips.

  “If you go back, you die. The might of the soul-eaters armies are marching on your land. You have no hope of defeating them. You cannot help there. But you can help here. Only two dozen or so remained behind.”

  “So you would have me abandon my family, my people, my duty? Let them be sucked dry by these leeches while I gallivant around here freeing your friends?”

  “No.” He shook his head, sighing. “The only good thing about the soul-eater’s power is that they do not seem to hurry. They are methodical, moving forward inch by inch. It is unlike fighting a human enemy, where there are tactics and feints and double-crossing. The leeches are straightforward destruction. If your people can hold them off long enough…they might have a chance. You should take that time to master your powers.”

  Rika opened her mouth to object, but he continued. “I could help you learn. While you help me. Then when you return, you will be ready to fight them.”

  “My homeland will be a smoking wasteland by then. No. The answer is no. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to help you.” Rika stepped up to the astrolabe. “Take me back now. After I save my family, I’ll come back to help you here. I promise. I owe you something for helping me escape that place. I repay my debts.”

  “Go back now and you will not live long enough to help your family or my land. You were captured by only two leeches and a cowardly historian. You think you could defeat a swarm of these creatures? Hundreds? With thousands of men at their disposal? Are you so eager to die?”

  Rika narrowed her eyes, glaring at him. True, her first experience using her power had been a little…unpredictable. But she would learn as she went. There wasn’t time to waste trying to learn how to use her power. She had let down her father… She pushed the thought aside. It was too painful to confront right now. She wouldn’t fail her mother and brother too.

  “Just show me how to use the astrolabe. You don’t need to come with me. You can stay here and free your people.”

  “I cannot free my people without you,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “You… Your power…” He hesitated, spinning on his heel and turning from her.

  “What?” she asked suspiciously. “What about my power?”

  He shook his head, shoulders slumping. “You will never believe me. I do not even know if I believe it. All right. We will make a deal. Summon your power and show me you can control it. Then, I will take you back.”

  She crossed her arms, weighing his suggestion. “What do you mean, control it?”

  “Make it do what you want it to do.”

  “I don’t know what it can do, besides kill soul-eaters.”

  “If you want to go home, find out quickly. Until I am convinced you can care for yourself, I will not take you back. You are too valuable to this world to let you walk into a suicide mission.”

  “What do you think you are, my father?” Her voice broke and hot tears welled in her eyes. She spun away, not wanting him to see her cry. No, he wasn’t her father. She didn’t have a father anymore. And soon she might not have a mother.

  The deck creaked beneath Vikal’s feet and she knew he stood behind her. She didn’t turn, didn’t accept whatever false comfort he might try to offer. He had helped those creatures kill her father, under a compulsion or not. And now he wanted to hold her captive here while Yoshai was invaded. Rika balled her fists. Not if she could help it.

  She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She tried to remember how she had summoned her power, going deep within herself to find the firm handhold, the connection between her spirit and whatever had given her aid. She was there in a blink and let out a little gasp of surprise. The strange force had felt subdued before, a single rope tied like a lifeline. Now, the power pulsed before her, hundreds of threads of power ripe for the picking. It was overwhelming. She reached and took the smallest handhold of light, trying to coax it towards her. As soon as her intention fixed ar
ound it, the rope, the tether in her mental grip, began thrashing and bucking like a wild thing. And at the end of that thread of power was a presence. Another life force that flipped around her mind, her awareness. Straining against her. It was like lassoing a dragon with a spool of yarn. Who are you? she thought, her mental voice tiny and small.

  There was no answer, and she pushed down her fear and frustration, ignoring her hammering heart. She had to show Vikal that she could use her power. Just a display of light should do…she gingerly tugged the thread towards her. Please come here, she thought. No reason not to be polite. The presence, whatever it was, seemed to take note of her contact. It turned and barreled towards her like a lion-horse stung by a bee.

  Rika opened her eyes with a gasp. Vikal had taken a step back. His hands were up warily. “What have you done?”

  Rika spun around, looking at the deck, then the sky. “Something.” She shivered. “It’s like something’s coming. I thought…” She let out a breath. “I must have imagined it.”

  Vikal opened his mouth, no doubt to lecture her on her lack of control over her abilities, when his jaw dropped. His chiseled features flared into view, illuminated by a bright light. Rika whirled, backing into him as she saw in the sky what had lit up the night. A brilliant white comet streaked across the sky, leaving a trail of fiery debris in its wake. It was headed…straight for them.

  “Rika…” Vikal said, grabbing her hand. “Jump!”

  THE BOAT EXPLODED behind them as the bright object careened into the middle of the deck, sending up a shower of debris and seawater. Rika plunged into the dark water, the ocean churning around her. Water poured into her mouth, her nose—burning her nostrils and making her lungs ache for air as she fumbled for the surface. In the dark tumult, she couldn’t tell up from down, and panic pulled at her like an anchor. A bright light whooshed by her in the water, illuminating the turbulence around her. She kicked towards it, following the light, gasping in sweet air as her head breached the surface.

  The wreckage was lit like a beacon, and Rika blinked away saltwater, trying to make out the source of the illumination.

  “Rika!” Vikal cried, and she spun towards his voice, treading water as he swam towards her. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, coughing out the last of the water. “What was that?” she asked, watching in dismay as the ship’s mast and sails collapsed into the sea, disappearing below the surface.

  Vikal’s eyes were wide, watching something behind her. She turned, spluttering as a wave slapped across her face.

  “I was hoping you would know,” Vikal said.

  A crystalline light hovered over the remains of the ship, bobbing in the air. Rika frowned. It didn’t make sense. A comet or a shooting star would have sunk to the bottom. But this—it came back up. As it drew closer, Rika found herself swimming away from it, bumping into a piece of the ship’s railing. She heaved her elbows over it. At least the ocean was as warm as bathwater. They wouldn’t die of cold.

  Vikal had found a piece of flotsam to keep him afloat as well. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It almost looks like…a star.” It was blindingly bright. And drawing closer. Had she done this? Was this the presence she had felt when trying to draw on her power? A possessed star?

  The light came to rest on the end of the wooden railing Rika clung to, dimming from painful to merely bright. It was close enough to reach out and touch, but she stilled herself. It looked…like a bird. “A sparrow?” she asked, awe filling her. “You’re a sparrow.”

  “Is this some quirk of your power?” Vikal asked. “Why did you summon this thing?”

  “I am not a thing,” the thing said. “I am the night sparrow.” Its words came out as clipped chirps, each syllable evenly spaced.

  Rika let out a delighted laugh. “You talk?”

  “Of course.”

  An idea struck Rika and her heart leaped in excitement. “Are you my seishen?”

  “Your what?” Vikal and the night sparrow asked at the same time.

  “My seishen. On our land, some burners have animal companions who are part-spirit, part-flesh. They’re connected to the burner’s soul.”

  “Is that what that great lion was?” Vikal asked.

  Rika’s elation dimmed at the mention of Ryu. “Yes. And my brother’s unicorn.”

  “I do not believe I am a seishen,” the bird said. “I am a constellation.”

  “A constellation?”

  “A cluster of stars.”

  “I know what a constellation is,” Rika said crossly. “But what I don’t understand is why you fell from the sky and destroyed our boat.”

  “You summoned me.”

  “I…” Rika’s mouth opened and closed as the creature’s words sank in. She looked at Vikal for assistance, but he was no longer looking at her. He stared towards the island, an odd look on his face—something like shock.

  Rika didn’t know what to make of this strange bird and its pronouncement, but she knew she wouldn’t solve this riddle floating in the middle of the ocean. “Can you help us get to land?” she asked. “Do you have any useful skills?”

  “No skills,” the bird said, alighting in the air. She watched it flap upward, squinting again as the constellation brightened with the movement of its wings. “I do see a rowboat,” the constellation called. “Perhaps useful?”

  “A rowboat?” That shook Vikal from his daze. “There was a rowboat on the bow of each of the leeches’ ships. Did this one break free?”

  The night sparrow banked towards the distant island. “This way!”

  Vikal and Rika made their way slowly through the debris floating on the slick surface of the sea. And like the bird had promised, a rowboat bobbed in the waves. “Thank the gods.” Rika breathed a sigh of relief. Her father’s sword was pulling her down once again.

  Vikal looked into the boat while the star-bird alighted on the bow like a little lantern. “Oars would have been too much to hope for.”

  Rika looked back and saw a few splintered boards that were about the right size. “We’ll have to make do.”

  In no time, Rika had corralled the boards and shoved them into the rowboat. Her arms burned from swimming and treading water, but she summoned enough strength to flop into the little vessel while Vikal held the other side to keep it from capsizing. She leaned the other way while Vikal hauled himself over as well.

  She handed him one of the boards and without a word, they began to paddle. Rika looked over her shoulder at the wreckage of the ship, and a single thought burned through the fog of her numb and tired mind. “The astrolabe,” she breathed, the reality of her situation sinking in. There was no way she would return home now. No way to help her mother or brother, Yoshai or Kitina. She was stuck here, in this strange place overrun with soul-eaters, with only a brooding soldier and a constellation for company. What had she done?

  They reached the shore as the sun’s first rays broke over the eastern horizon. The little bird launched into the air, soaring over Rika’s head. “I return to the stars,” it said. “Until another night.”

  “Wait!” Rika called after it. “Do you have a name?”

  “Cygna,” it said before banking to the west, away from the rising sun.

  “Try not to crash-land next time,” Vikal called after it grumpily, hopping out of the boat into the surf. He heaved the boat up onto the beach, aided by the rhythmic pounding of the waves. The rays of the sun gilded his tousled dark hair, illuminating him like a halo. When at last the boat was out of the surf, he grunted, wiping his hands on his pants.

  Rika jumped out of the boat into the soft sand. She wrangled her tangled salty locks into a knot and looked up to take in her first real glimpse of Nua.

  The island was in a word—breathtaking. Lovelier than a dream. There was much she found beautiful about her own homeland, but this—she admitted begrudgingly to herself—it was a sparkling jewel. The island rose from the sea in soft folds of green jungle before
jutting into the sky to meet in a craggy peak. Even this early in the morning, the air was warm and humid, lush with smells of green palm fronds and fragrant flowers. Rika could only imagine what amazing plants and creatures sheltered below the shadow of the rich canopy. “This is your home?” she asked.

  Vikal nodded. He had fallen to his knees in the sand and was looking at it with tears shining in his eyes. He buried his hands in the sand, pulling out a handful and letting it sift through his fingers.

  “It’s pink,” Rika said with surprise, bending down and picking up a handful of sand herself. It was soft as flour and squeaked between her fingers.

  “I thought I would never see it again.” His gaze was fixed on the jungle, and Rika was surprised to notice that the vibrant green of his eyes was reflected in the colors of the thick foliage. “I have you to thank for this. For bringing me home. And we are not too late. They have not burned everything.”

  Rika swallowed a lump in her throat, his words sparking within her. She looked back at the sky, at the blanket of stars that were yielding their dominion to dawn’s light. Somewhere out there was her home. And she would likely never see it again. Never see her mother or brother. Never ride Michi through the grass, never play hide-and-seek with Quitsu, never spar with Emi. And no matter what happened, she would never see her father again. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out the memory of his scream of agony, of him turning to ash before her, of her hands scrambling through the remains of his body. Of Ryu, trying to protect them, vanishing into the night. There was no closing out those memories, no erasing them. A vision of Yoshai burning swam to the surface, unbidden—of soul-eaters breaking down the sea gate, burning the palace, sucking the life from her mother. No. It wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be real.