Starburner

by Claire Luana

  “I’m sorry,” she managed.

  Vikal was saying things to someone else now, words she didn’t understand, directing and pointing. “Don’t be sorry.” He turned back to her, crouching over her. His thumb stroked along her cheek. “You will not die. You have a destiny, goddess of bright light. We need you.”

  RIKA WAS AS PALE as a lotus flower and as still as a shadow. Her shallow, rasping breath was the only sign that she still lived. Vikal sat back on his haunches, running a bloodied hand through his hair while the other held the hem of her tunic pressed against the wound. His mind rebelled against him, unwilling to form a cohesive thought—beyond one. She was dying. Rika was dying.

  Cayono had shaken off the fog of compulsion and fell to one knee beside him. “How…?” he rubbed his forehead. “Vikal. How are you here? Free? Last I saw you were boarding a rowboat bound for a leech ship. It was so strange. Yesterday, the soul-eater’s control of me just…fell away. But another, this one, it saw it and took me again. What is going on?”

  Cayono’s questions darted about Vikal like gnats. There was only one that was important. “Her,” Vikal managed. “She is why you are free. Why I am free. Why I am here. All of it. It is her.”

  “She killed it,” another man said, the one who had called Vikal down the slope. “I saw it. She summoned something—and it blew the leech sky high.”

  “She can kill them?” Cayono’s dark eyes blazed with excitement. “Vikal! Bak! Do you know what this means?”

  Vikal shook his head miserably. “She is dying.”

  “Save her!” Cayono cried.

  “How?” Vikal’s voice was weak, twisted. “Maybe Sarnak could heal this, but not me. I do not know healing magic.” Not again. He was failing again. First Sarya, now Rika… Was he doomed in this incarnation to be nothing but a wretched failure?

  Cayono paused. “The forest. Surely, there is some leaf or flower that could sustain her. Stop the bleeding. Until we find help.”

  Cayono’s suggestion lanced through the haze that clouded his thoughts. The forest. Of course. He wasn’t thinking. “Cayono, you are a genius. Hold this. Keep the pressure on,” Vikal said, and Cayono leaned forward, placing his hand over the slick wad of fabric.

  Vikal dashed up the burnt slope towards the green of the ridgeline above, throwing his third eye open. Healing, he thought as he ran his mind along the thousands of green threads that tethered him to the forest. The spiderweb of green filaments revealed by his third eye had once overwhelmed him to the point of vertigo, but over time it had grown familiar, welcome. He searched them desperately now for a miracle that could save Rika. Something to stop the bleeding. Something for strength. Something to ward off infection… He ran his mind along the threads of power like strings of a lute, commanding them to sing for him. Two trilled in response, and Vikal redoubled his sprint, charging like the soul-eater queen herself was on his heels. At the top of the ridge he skidded to a stop, falling onto his knees to gather fistfuls of moss that had grown up at his insistence. To stop the bleeding—it called to him, revealing its essence. A vine snaked down from a nearby tree and presented a curling end laden with tangerine flowers. He pulled them off, saying a silent thank you. To give her strength. He closed his hand gently over his treasures and began his wild descent back down the mountain.

  Vikal skidded to a stop beside Cayono and the other two men, who were standing over Rika, watching her with trepidation.

  “Her breathing slows,” Cayono said. “Tell me you found something.”

  Vikal opened his hands and took the moss, leaning down over Rika’s wound. Blood soaked the ground beneath her—pulsing out weakly as Cayono lifted his hand. Vikal took the moss and packed it into the wound as delicately as he could before holding out a hand without looking up. “Give me something to wrap it with.” Was the blood already slowing? Or was it just his desperate imagination?

  One of the men quickly unwrapped a black sash from about his hips and handed it to Vikal.

  Carefully, Vikal tied the sash tightly around Rika’s narrow waist and fastened it securely. Then he took the flowers and crushed them between the heels of his hands, staining his palms orange. He took Rika’s head and opened her mouth gently, packing the flowers into the corner of her cheek. How he knew what to do, he couldn’t say.

  Rika lay limp and quiet. The blood had slowed, but she was so pale. Like the veil of death had already fallen over her. Vikal let out a hiss of frustration. What more could he do? He looked at Cayono and the despair on his friend’s face mirrored his own. “You held back…” Cayono said. “Fighting me. You should have killed me. Stayed by her side. If I had died, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I threw the knife,” one of the former thralls said, his hand hovering over his mouth in horror. My Gusti, forgive me.” Vikal grew cold at that word. He was not this man’s king anymore. He was no one’s king. Cayono was right, though he didn’t blame Vikal. Vikal should have given any life to protect Rika’s. But his attachment to Cayono, his determination to spare his friend, had cost her dearly. And had cost his people their one chance of salvation.

  “It is my fault,” Vikal said woodenly. “Mine and no one else’s.”

  Then Rika let out a ragged gasp and sat straight up. Her eyes fluttered open before rolling back in her head as she fell towards the earth. With a cry, Vikal caught her, cradling her in his arms, laying her down gently. He looked at her in amazement. Her color had returned, and he felt the strong beat of her heart hammering through her ribcage.

  “A miracle,” Cayono said.

  “If we get her to Sarnak, she could live,” Vikal realized, hope unfurling in his chest like a spring bloom.

  “Do you know where he hides?” Cayono asked.

  “Goa Awan.” Vikal slid his hands under Rika’s limp body, pushing to his feet. “We’ll find him at Goa Awan.”

  The legend of Goa Awan was an old one, a bedtime tale told to children. Vikal and Bahti had searched for it as boys, as the threads of their power started manifesting. Mostly an excuse to sneak out under the light of the full moon, their search had yielded much adventure, but no concrete results. The island had withheld its secrets from the two boys until they’d started growing up, more concerned with girls than full moon quests. As far as Vikal knew, Sarnak, the God of Endings, was the only one whom the island had deemed worthy of its inner sanctum.

  Now, he understood why. The horror of the soul-eaters’ compulsion was magnified by the fact that their power opened up your mind to them—laid it bare. The soul-eaters had had full access to Vikal’s furtive prayers, his deepening despair, his self-loathing. Emotions, thoughts, identity—the monsters claimed sovereignty over it all. Thank the gods he hadn’t known the location of Goa Awan. He would have betrayed his people yet again.

  The forest’s previous coyness regarding the location of the sacred caves had vanished. The vegetation parted for him, revealing the path, propelling them forward. Faster, faster, it seemed to say. He ran as best he could without disturbing the precious cargo in his arms. Rika’s eyes flickered back and forth behind her long, dark lashes, her breathing uneven. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, her neck as limp as a flower petal. The plant medicine he had given her seemed to be keeping her alive. No more blood flowed from the wound. But for how long?

  “I am dying to hear your story, my friend.” Cayono puffed behind them as they traversed up a hillside along a tumbling stream. “Where did this girl come from? How did you find her?”

  “Another world,” Vikal said. “And dumb luck. I will tell you all if we make it to Goa Awan.”

  “When we make it,” Cayono said pointedly.

  “Right.”

  The terrain was growing steeper, the river fuller. “I know this place,” one of the former thralls called from where he jogged behind Cayono. “There’s a waterfall up ahead.” Vikal felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t gotten the men’s names. He was normally better about making the time to get to know those around him
, to give his subjects their due attention. But right now, there was only one thing that mattered. Rika. The thought of losing her terrified him, and that fact alone left him uneasy and confused. Surely, it was just what Rika meant that made her so precious to him—she was his only hope of freeing his people and defeating the soul-eaters.

  Over the crest of an emerald hill a waterfall came into view—a hazy deluge thundering into the jungle below. The path ended abruptly at a wall of dark volcanic rock, slicked by the waterfall’s rainbow mist. Vikal knelt and gently laid Rika on the soft springy undergrowth, stretching his aching arms with a groan.

  “Where has the forest led us, Vikal?” Cayono asked, placing his palm on the rock and looking up the soaring expanse. “A dead end? Why would it do this?”

  Vikal had been thinking the exact same thing but held his tongue. Perhaps he was still not worthy of the secrets of Goa Awan. Perhaps the island had weighed him—his failures, his crimes against its people—and had found him wanting. Or perhaps—a small frightened voice suggested—he would be retaken by the soul-eaters. A cold wave of panic swept over him at the thought, threatening to pull him under. He couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t. He’d rather die first. Better die a coward than live a thrall.

  “Vikal?” Cayono’s voice was gentle.

  With a shaking breath, Vikal clawed free of the fears. Perhaps the island wouldn’t show him Goa Awan. But Rika needed help. And it had brought them here for a reason. With a worried glance at Rika, Vikal stepped up beside Cayono, examining the cliff face. There was nowhere to go. A torrent of water to their right, a crumbling slope a few yards to the left. From here, the whole of the soul-eaters’ devastation was visible, a cruel black scar through Nua’s picturesque landscape. “I don’t know,” Vikal admitted. “The path seemed so clear.”

  “Gusti,” one of the other two men said—the taller one. “A few vines up there are acting strange.”

  Vikal looked up with his third eye open. Sure enough, the man was right. The vegetation was pulsing with movement and life. The path led—up.

  “How in the world…?” Vikal said, looking back at Rika.

  “We go up?” Cayono asked.

  Vikal nodded.

  “I have an idea.”

  And so they found themselves climbing, Rika strapped to Cayono’s back with an overabundance of vines. Her head lolled against his burly shoulder, her arms and legs hanging down limply, waving with Cayono’s every movement. Vikal climbed below Cayono and hardly noticed the precariousness of his own ascent, so fixed was he on watching Rika’s form. “How is she doing?” he called.

  “How is she doing? How am I doing!” Cayono grunted. “She is sleeping like a baby! I am the one stuck on the side of a mountain! Man is not meant for these heights. The gods would have made us monkeys.”

  Vikal knew Cayono’s words were meant to lift his spirits, to make him laugh. But his ragged nerves left no room for humor. If the harness slipped…there was nothing they could do to stop Rika from plummeting to the ground far below. He tugged at the threads of the vines holding Rika, infusing them with his own will—ordering, pleading with them to be strong. To hold firm to this most precious of cargo.

  “A ledge!” Cayono called. “I think…we might be there!”

  Vikal prayed it was true, and with a burst of strength, made his way to where Cayono now stood. Vikal pulled himself up onto a ragged outcropping of rock that ran perpendicular to the waterfall, disappearing behind its spray.

  “Is this it?” Cayono asked, massaging his hands.

  Vikal scooted over to give the other two men room on the ledge. Without thinking, he smoothed Rika’s hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She was so still now, her lovely features pale once again. The adrenaline and energy of the plant medicine was waning.

  “Let us hope so,” Vikal said. “Rika has little time left.”

  Cayono inched forward on the ledge, hugging the cliff face as the path disappeared into the roaring darkness behind the waterfall. The tiny jutting of rock opened into a wide tunnel, completely hidden from the outside world. Vikal peered into the dim light but saw nothing. Cayono unwrapped the vines from his torso and Vikal was there ready to catch Rika as she slipped off Cayono’s back. “Thank you for carrying her, bak.”

  “It is my honor.” Cayono clapped him on the shoulder. “Into the dark?”

  “No way but forward.”

  They crept forward until all light from the entrance had dimmed. There was nothing but rock and breathing, the heavy weight of the unknown.

  Vikal didn’t know how long they had been moving when a light bloomed in the distance. A strange light. A dim lavender glow.

  “I see something,” he hissed.

  “What is it—woah!” Cayono said, coming up short, his hands raised.

  Four men had materialized from the darkness. And four spear points were leveled at them.

  “EASY,” VIKAL SAID. “It is Vikal and Cayono. We are here to help.” And for help.

  “Out of the way,” a gruff voice said, shoving aside one of the men who was now lowering his spear. “You are late,” Sarnak said, his black eyes gleaming in the darkness. The man looked the same—orange robes, bald head, lines in his face as deep as the furrows on a fresh field.

  Vikal grinned in relief, overcome with gratitude at the sight of his old mentor. “Better late than never.”

  Sarnak waved a gnarled hand for them to follow before turning and disappearing into the depths of the tunnel, the light of his floating orb bobbing before him. The orb was the most mysterious of the totems of the gods, giving Sarnak the ability to gaze into the past or the future. Or just show off by making it defy gravity.

  Vikal and Cayono exchanged a glance before hurrying to follow. They came to a junction in the tunnels and took the left, diving deeper into the blackness. Sarnak stooped low while he shuffled along, though the tunnel was tall enough for even Cayono to pass without ducking his head. The tunnel deposited them into a large room. Vikal looked around, letting his eyes adjust to the purple light that glowed from recesses on the wall, illuminating half a dozen beds of leaves and cloth. A sick ward.

  “Come, come,” Sarnak said, walking to the bed on the end and motioning for them to deposit Rika. Her breathing was faint, her skin sallow. It was like she was already gone.

  “Can you save her?” Vikal didn’t think he could bear returning to his people only to fail them once again.

  “It is not time for her ending. She will live.”

  Vikal heaved a huge sigh of relief, stepping back. Weariness swept over him as the adrenaline of their frantic flight drained away.

  Cayono clapped a hand on Vikal’s back. “Well done, bak.”

  “It was your fast thinking that saw us here,” Vikal said.

  “Yes, yes, a parade for each of you. Now, there must be silence if I am to do my job,” Sarnak snapped, pulling Rika’s shirt up slowly to reveal her wound. The stiff shirt fought him, the blood crusting the fabric to her skin.

  Vikal suppressed the urge to hug Sarnak. Over his years of training, he had learned to love Sarnak’s straightforward gruffness. It was refreshing to hear such truth spoken, especially for a king.

  Cayono just shook his head. “I would like to find my sister,” he whispered, motioning to the tunnel entrance.

  Vikal nodded.

  Sarnak, without looking up from examining Rika, shook his hand at one of the little recesses filled with light. “Take a lantern. Dark out there.”

  Cayono squeezed Vikal’s shoulder before grabbing a light and vanishing into the darkness.

  “This is unusual, unusual indeed.” Sarnak was looking past him, staring over Vikal’s shoulder. Vikal turned to look at what he was staring at, but there was nothing. “What?”

  “You come bearing ghosts,” Sarnak said. Sarnak pointed behind Vikal again, and again he saw nothing. Nothing except a Nuan, hurrying over with hot water and clean cloth. “My Gusti.” She inclined her head, setting the supplie
s down. “You have returned.”

  “I have. With a very important ally. We must save this woman,” Vikal said. “She can kill soul-eaters.”

  Sarnak’s head shot up at that.

  Vikal suppressed a smirk of satisfaction. It wasn’t often he surprised Sarnak.

  “Goddess of bright light,” Sarnak said, surveying Rika with a keen eye. “Yes, I see it is so. But a stranger to our land.”

  “I did not know such a thing was possible,” Vikal said.

  “We will speak of this once she is well. For now, stay out of our way.” Sarnak and the Nuan woman leaned over Rika and began to go to work.

  Vikal was pacing at the end of the bed when a scream ripped from Rika’s throat. She tried to sit up, but he was at her side in a flash, pushing aside the nurse, pressing her back down gently.

  “Shhhh,” he said, taking her face in his hands, trying to find her within the wildness of those gray eyes. “Rika, stay still. They’re sewing up your wound.”

  She seemed to register his presence and relaxed against the bed. He stroked the velvet skin of her temple with his thumb, speaking to her in Nuan. He didn’t know what he was saying—words of comfort his mother used to whisper when he was a very young and sick or scared.

  “Where…?” she croaked.

  “Some water?” Vikal said to the Nuan nurse, who reached for a bowl and cloth. The woman leaned over Vikal to dribble water across Rika’s lips. She gulped it up greedily.

  “That’s enough for now,” he said, gesturing to the nurse with a sharp motion of his head.

  Rika glared at him before hissing in pain as Sarnak made another stitch with the needle.

  Vikal chuckled. “You can have more in a moment. You seem to have gotten your spirit back. That’s a good sign.”

  A half-smile broke across her face. Her eyelids fluttered. She was slipping back into unconsciousness.

  “Sleep,” Vikal said. “Heal.” He stroked the side of her face until her breathing evened, mesmerized by the sight of her. He brushed her hair back from her forehead, marveling at its softness.