Starburner

by Claire Luana

  “All right, good job,” Sarnak snapped. “Now didn’t I tell you to stay the hell out of our way? Over there. Sit.” He pointed across the room and Vikal stood, his face flushing at the chastisement.

  Vikal walked stiffly to a ledge of stone and collapsed onto it, leaning back. The cave wall was dewy with cold, leeching the warmth from his body, pulling the heat from his cheeks. It felt good. He closed his eyes, trying to forget what he had just found himself doing. What had come over him? He was just feeling grateful that Rika would live. Yes. The girl was a fighter. Strong and braver than he had given her credit for. Her face flashed before him—square jaw, smooth olive skin, that little gap that peeked from between her teeth when she smiled. Ebony hair that had felt so soft beneath his hand. Guilt spasmed in him as he thought of another whose silken strands he used to run his fingers through. Sarya. So different. Playful and full of laughter while Rika was fierce and strong, with iron in her bones. Dear gods, he had no right to compare them. To see Rika as anything but an ally. Perhaps a friend. Never mind what the lore might say.

  Vikal found himself wrapped in a dream of Sarya—of their past. It was the day of silence, one of the high holy days of the Nuan calendar. The day where the whole island fell silent, tiptoed about with bated breath so the sea demons couldn’t find them, couldn’t attack and kill and maim. He had been twelve, playing hide and seek with Bahti and Sarya in the jungle outside Meru Karkita, the most magnificent of Nua’s many temples. His sight gave him an unfair advantage, so Sarya and Bahti had made him promise that the jungle wouldn’t aid him. He hadn’t promised he wouldn’t use his abilities to get comfortable, though, so he had crafted an expert hiding place out of a hammock of vines up in the shade of the canopy. He was dozing when something pinched his big toe. He surged awake and squirmed to see what it was, nearly falling out of the hammock. It was Sarya, her hair braided over one shoulder, a delighted look on her face. “I found you!” she exclaimed—before clapping her hands over her mouth.

  Vikal dropped down from the hammock, looking all around for witnesses. You talked! he mouthed, his eyes wide. The importance of the tradition had been drilled into them year after year. If the day wasn’t observed with absolute silence, the sea demons would come ashore, and a sacrifice would be required to placate them—to keep them from devouring all they found in their path.

  Sarya pulled herself up straight and dropped her hands. “I’m not afraid,” she said, though her voice quavered. “I will be the sacrifice.”

  A rustling in the jungle to their left made them both jump, and Vikal was at Sarya’s side in a blink, his hand over her mouth. They stood as still as stones as the foliage moved. Fear squeezed his chest with a vise grip. Was it a demon? Part of him, the conscious part that knew that this was a memory, remembered Bahti emerging from the trees, squat and scowling, waving away a fly. But this dream twisted the past into something new. It was not Bahti that brushed aside the green leaves—not this time. Instead, a twisted nightmare emerged—a three-fingered hand wrapped in an iron gauntlet, followed by Seven—the soul-eater who now held his totem.

  Sarya screamed into his hand as the creature looked down upon them with baleful green eyes, reaching one of its four arms out for her. Vikal was frozen to the spot, small and trembling, too terrified to defend himself or Sarya. Just as he had been when the soul-eater had taken her in real life. “I will feast on the soul of this sacrifice,” it rasped, its fingers closing around her arm.

  Vikal jerked awake with a shout, cold sweat frosting his brow.

  “You were leaping about like a monkey in a lightning storm,” Sarnak said, pulling a sheet up over Rika’s torso.

  Vikal rubbed his hands over his face, trying to banish the image of the soul-eater reaching for young Sarya. “Bad dream,” he admitted.

  “You will have bad dreams for many moons to come,” Sarnak said. “As your mind purges itself of what you saw as a thrall.”

  Vikal ground his teeth. Those images would never leave him. Not now, not ever. “How’s Rika?”

  “She will be well in a day or two. She lost much blood.”

  “Thank you.” Vikal heaved a sigh.

  “Does she know what she is?”

  “Yes. I told her.”

  “Does she know what it means?” Sarnak asked with a pointed look.

  Vikal shook his head. He had been avoiding even thinking about sharing the deeper history of the gods of this island—what it meant for her. “I did not want to complicate things.”

  “Things are already complicated. She will learn, here in Goa Awan, among her people. You tell her or I will.”

  “She deserves a choice before she is yoked to me for eternity.”

  “This is ironic, coming from one who carries the ghost of his dead wife with him like a stone around his neck.”

  “That is exactly why Rika deserves better. Why the fates should let her be this incarnation. Let her go home to her land. I have nothing to give her, even if she wanted such things.”

  “You have yourself.”

  “I am nothing. Not anymore.”

  “When circumstances strip us down, what remains is our soul. Pure and unadorned. To think otherwise is pure ego.”

  Vikal exploded from his chair, his hands balled into fists. “Ego? You know not what you speak of. Have you lost the woman you loved? Watched her soul be sucked into ash before you, to know that there would be no solace in death for her, no new life waiting for her to be reincarnated into? Have you been enslaved to the creature who killed her, forced to stand at its side, kill for it, hear its twisted thoughts in your head, scraping against the walls of your mind? When you’ve done any of those things, perhaps you can have grounds to judge me. To judge what remains.”

  Sarnak hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked at Vikal’s outburst. His tone was gentle. “Sarya is free from the soul-eater who took her. She will walk this island again in another body—feel the pink sand between her toes. You are the one holding her now. Your unwillingness to let her go. To forgive yourself for your imagined part in her death.”

  Vikal paced back against the wall, his hand twitching for his staff. He longed to caress the engraved vines that adorned it, to feel the familiar patterns beneath his fingers. “I don’t know how.”

  “You must discover how. For Rika. She is in a foreign land. You must teach her our ways, make her feel at home for the time she is here.”

  Yes, he owed Rika that much. “How is it possible, Sarnak? That she was born a world away? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “All things are possible. One must only have the imagination to dream bigger. And the universe has endless imagination.”

  “I would not have believed it, but I see the threads that tie her to the stars. To Nua.”

  Sarnak nodded sagely. “I see them too. We must help her remember the goddess she is.”

  “I was hoping you would help her with that. Like you helped the rest of us remember our past lives.”

  “I will have a lesson with her. But you must help her fall in love with Nua. And with you.”

  “Nua, yes. But me? No. I’m a ruined man. I’ve already let one wife down. I won’t make that mistake again. She deserves better.”

  “The fates may not think so.”

  “The fates can go to hell.”

  THE INVADING ARMY was a dark swarm in the distance, a slow-moving plague swallowing the green quilt of farmland that stretched between Yoshai and the sea. All that stood between this malignant force and her people was a wall of stone and gates of wood. They seemed painfully insufficient.

  The wind ruffled Kai’s hair, bearing scents of iron and sulfur where it had once borne honeysuckle and grass. The day was warm, however, and the sun shone cheerfully. It felt like an insult to the ache in Kai’s heart. Her husband was gone—robbed from her—erased from the world without so much as a goodbye. There would be no body to mourn, no grave to visit.

  ”How long?” Kai asked, her eyes locked on the horizon. She stoo
d in the upper courtyard of the palace at Yoshai. In this courtyard, she had once met the creator. She had sent two demons back through a rip in the fabric of their world—trapping them in their own dark dimension. What she would give to fight those enemies again. For those allies. At least then she had a plan. An idea. Now, she had only heartache and despair.

  “A few hours at most.” Nanase stood at her side. Though her weather-worn skin was wrinkled from her years, Nanase still stood tall—her body supple and strong. She had been the headmistress of the moonburner Citadel in Kyuden when Kai had first trained. Kai had always been a little awed by fierce Nanase with her hawk’s tail of braids and her fierce reputation. That feeling had never truly gone. Kai was grateful to have her by her side.

  “We’ve evacuated everyone from the land they’ll be crossing?” Kai asked.

  “Everyone we could get to in time. A few thousand at least. They’re being housed in the palace, the temples, schools. Wherever we can fit them. The village of Antila was too close to the soul-eater forces for us to reach. But everyone else is within the city walls.”

  “How are the preparations going?”

  “We are ready to face whatever force they throw at us. Though from Koji’s description of what these creatures can do…who knows if it will be enough.”

  “My mind keeps fighting with itself. I think that no creature can have the powers he described. That there’s no way our burners could be so ineffective against them. But then…”

  “You believe him.”

  “You heard him at the council meeting. He’s absolutely terrified of these creatures. Even if things were not as he says…he believes they are to the depth of his soul.”

  “I don’t doubt Koji saw something terrible. Nothing short of a nightmare could have defeated the king. But some things we have to see for ourselves.”

  “We will have the chance soon enough.”

  “Your Majesty.” A cleared throat behind her interrupted their conversation.

  Kai turned to find General Daarco striding across the courtyard, clad in red leather armor traced with veins of gold.

  “General,” she nodded. “How are the fortifications coming?”

  “We’ve reinforced the gates and have set up some nasty surprises on the approach. We have soldiers and burners stationed at all stretches of the southern wall with longbows, rocks, and burning oil. We’re ready for whatever they throw at us.”

  “And messengers have been sent to Kistana and Kyuden to warn them to prepare their citizens to evacuate and shelter inside the cities?”

  “They’re standing by for instructions from you.”

  “How are the stores?”

  “We brought everything we could inside the walls from the surrounding farms and manors. If we had had more time—”

  “How long will we be able to withstand a siege?”

  “With the number of people we have in the city…two months?”

  Kai exchanged a glance with Nanase. “It’s not as bad as I feared,” Nanase said.

  “Agreed. Thank you, General,” Kai said. “We estimate they’ll be at the gates in less than three hours. Ready the troops.”

  Daarco nodded, his golden hair glinting in the sun. Then he spun and was gone, disappearing back down the stairs.

  Kai crossed the courtyard and picked up Quitsu from the chair where he sat, sinking into it. Quitsu didn’t normally like to be held like a housecat, but he seemed to sense her distress and curled into her lap. Nanase sat down beside her.

  “I keep thinking…” Her voice was soft. Had the army’s great shadow grown closer in the last few minutes? “What are we holding out for? Two months…two months until what? There are no reinforcements coming. If Koji’s right, we can’t defeat these creatures with burning. We don’t even know if they can be killed. Maybe it would be better to ride out to meet them. Go out in a blaze of glory and battle.”

  “That’s your grief talking. Giving up before we’ve even begun the fight.” Nanase said. “Everything can be killed. We just have to figure out how.”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea where to begin. We know nothing about these things. At least with the tengu…we had something to go on. Legends. Myths. History, however tangled it was. This…this feels like a foreign language.”

  “We have one clue,” Nanase said.

  Kai raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  “The prophecy. Rika. Koji said she did something. Fought one of the creatures. Killed it.”

  Kai’s heart twisted painfully. Rika. Where was her daughter? Was she dead? Was she being held captive by those monsters? Tortured and maimed…her body broken…Kai closed her eyes, shaking away the rush of worries that threatened to overwhelm her. “We don’t even know if Rika is alive.”

  “Do you think your daughter could pass from this world without you knowing it? That your soul wouldn’t feel it? Truly?”

  ”No. A mother knows,” she whispered. She met Nanase’s sharp gaze. “What if she’s their prisoner?”

  “Then it’s lucky they’re marching right to our door. We’ll get her back.”

  Kai let out a grunt of laughter. She took Nanase’s sinewy hand in hers. “I’m not sure what I did to deserve such wise counsel.”

  “You were a damn good queen. And friend.” They looked together over the dark stain of the approaching army, drawing strength from each other.

  Nanase nodded to herself. “I feel it in my soul. Rika is the key. We just have to find her.”

  RIKA SWAM IN and out of consciousness. Strange sights and unfamiliar faces passed above her. At times, she wasn’t sure if she dreaming. Or dead. But there was movement and pain—and didn’t both mean that you were still alive? Vikal’s tanned face flashed before her, his brow knotted with worry. “Stay with me,” he mouthed, but his words were distant, as if spoken underwater.

  There was darkness—an immense weight of earth and stone bearing down on her. A lavender light that surely must have been a dream. Twisting passageways. Shadowed faces peering through the gloom. Still, Vikal was with her, his arms beneath her, his touch against her temple. He was a tether holding her to this world.

  Rika woke to throbbing in her side and memories raging in her mind. She had almost been killed fighting that soul-eater. She had felt so small and foolish as she’d lain there, her lifeblood leaking out into foreign soil. Gods, she had been excited when the shadow of the soul-eaters’ army had appeared on the waters. Had thought it would mean the arrival of her powers. How naive she had been. How childish and selfish to wish for danger just to satisfy her own need to be special. To fit in. What kind of queen would she have been, to put her own needs before the lives of her people?

  Hot tears leaked down the side of her face. She wouldn’t be queen anymore. She would never see Kita or Miina again. There might not even be a queen, a land to rule. She’d never see her mother again—Kai would go to her grave thinking Rika had disobeyed her and been killed. She had had everything and appreciated none of it. And now it was all gone, vanished in a flash of black and glowing green.

  A light flickered to life, blooming behind her eyelids. She opened her eyes, glaring at the interloper, ready to tell them to leave her alone.

  It was a girl, perhaps twelve years old. She wore a cropped blouse and loose skirt that might have once been orange or pink but were now faded to a mute tan. She was lovely, with thick, black hair and wide dark eyes, but painfully thin—her collarbones protruding from her chest. The girl spoke—asking something in the strange melodic language the soldiers had used. She approached slowly, the lantern in her hand emitting a dim lavender glow. In the light, Rika could just make out her surroundings, cast in shadow. They were in some sort of cave.

  “I don’t understand,” Rika said.

  The girl crossed the chamber and set the lantern on a little cleft in the rock wall. She pointed questioningly to a bowl next to it that was filled with glistening water.

  Rika nodded eagerly.

  The girl lift
ed a ladle of water to Rika’s lips, and Rika inched her way onto her elbows to drink, groaning at the pain in her side.

  The girl spoke again as Rika slurped greedily.

  “I wonder how long I’ve been out?” Rika asked herself, slowly trying to maneuver herself into a seated position. The blanket that had been draped over her fell, and a fierce blush rose in her cheeks. She was naked beneath. She snatched the blanket back up, tucking it under her armpits. Who had undressed her?

  “Where’s Vikal?”

  The girl brightened, recognizing the name. She pointed out the door, motioning for Rika to come with her.

  Rika looked down at herself, clothed in only the colorful blanket. She gave the girl a questioning look, and the girl smiled, a dimple appearing on her cheek. She bolted towards the roughhewn opening to the cavern.

  “Wait!” Rika called after her. “What’s your name?” She frowned. How best to communicate? She pointed at herself. “Rika.”

  The girl understood immediately. She pointed at her own chest. “Tamar.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tamar.” Rika said as the girl slipped into the darkness beyond.

  Tamar returned quickly with a bundle of clothing and a bowl of some sort of orange mush topped with a red broth. Though the food was unlike any she had seen before, Rika’s mouth watered. The girl handed her the clothes and quickly turned her back. Rika sat up with a groan, her head swimming with the effort. She dropped her legs off the side of the bed and paused, fighting a wave of dizziness. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it as a stab of pain shot through her side. Okay. Take it slow. Rika pawed through the pile of clothing and found underclothes, a long-fitted skirt in a pattern of purple and gold, a white buttoned shirt, and a gold sash.

  After dressing, Rika sat back on the bed to eat the mush and broth—woozy after only a minute of standing. The orange stuff was sticky and sweet, the broth warming and spicy. The flavors were strange to her palate but surprisingly delicious. She ate slowly at first, not sure how her stomach would react, but quickly gained momentum. At least she wasn’t stuck somewhere with terrible food. When she had slurped the last bits of broth and washed it down with some water, Tamar clapped her hands, motioning for Rika to follow.