Starburner

by Claire Luana

  The sun was setting behind her, staining the hazy sky the color of blood. She stopped for a moment to look, catching her breath and uselessly adjusting the straps of her sandals that were rubbing her raw. She turned back towards Yoshai, panic rising in her. She wasn’t going to make it. By the time it took her to walk to Yoshai, let alone get through the hordes, her mother and brother would probably be dead. But what could she do?

  She took the blade out of her belt, her totem, and hefted it in her hand. Turn it into a koumori and fly? She growled in frustration, marching forward again, her totem in her hand. She had to be the worst goddess of bright light ever. Bedraggled, dirty, weak with hunger, blisters on her feet, no transportation, and no plan. “Your savior has arrived!” she said mockingly to no one. She felt nothing like the queen in Sarnak’s book, fierce and terrifying—three eyes burning with starlight, hair flowing in the wind, borne by a star, totem in her upraised hand.

  Wait. Borne by a star…an idea surged within her, so all-consuming that she tripped over a rock, nearly tumbling to the ground. She cursed and stopped.

  “Cygna!” she called, opening her third eye. She hadn’t seen him since she had sent him warn her mother. To tell her she was coming. But she thought of the sentiment that had been shared by Liliam, Sarnak, Cygna, Kemala. Though the words had been different, she thought she was beginning to understand. All she needed was within her. The threads here were fainter than the powerful set of strings in Nua, but she could still see them clearly. Where was the sparrow’s thread? There! The familiar tether vibrated, stretching low in the sky. She gave it a tug while examining the other personalities in Kitina’s night sky. The blue dragon of the east, the great tortoise, the southern phoenix, the white tiger of the north. These constellations were powerful protectors of their land—told in the stories to watch over the four corners of the world. They would be her first summoning. Next would be the clever fox with his bushy tail. Because she had always wanted to meet it.

  The erratic vibration of Cygna’s thread brought her focus back. She closed her third eye, and a bolt of white light came into view. It was Cygna. She sighed in relief, happy to see a familiar face, even if it was a tiny bird.

  “Did you find her? My mother? Does she live?”

  “She lives.”

  Relief surged through Rika in a powerful tide. “How are they doing?”

  “Badly,” Cygna said. “The soul-eater army is pushing through the palace gates.”

  Rika’s spirits plummeted. “I won’t get there in time. Not like this. Cygna, the goddesses before me, did they ride constellations?”

  “Yes. They can be made corporeal. It takes much concentration, but can be done.”

  “Let’s do it,” Rika said. “I need a ride. Something with wings.”

  Cygna hopped on her shoulder, fluttering its wings. “Your past selves have ridden me. It can be so again.”

  Rika let out a startled laugh before clapping her hand over her mouth. Cygna was cocking its little head to the side in an expression that could only be annoyance.

  “But…you’re so small,” said Rika. “No offense.”

  “Size is relative. In the sky, my wings stretch across cities.”

  “So get bigger. Please.” Rika motioned uselessly with her hands.

  “The goddess of bright light controls this change.”

  “Me? How the heck am I supposed to do that?”

  “All you need—”

  “Is within me,” Rika finished, rolling her eyes. “Okay. Give me a minute. Maybe…stand back. In case this works.” It had to work. Rika closed her eyes, acting purely on instinct. Spirits of the former goddesses of bright light, she prayed, feeling silly. I know my soul remembers, though my mind does not. Help me to remember how to make Cygna grow large and strong so we can soar together.

  Then she waited, listening, wondering what she was supposed to feel or hear. Three words floated to the surface of her mind, so soft she wasn’t sure she didn’t imagine them. Knowledge and will. They were the words Liliam had spoken to her when she’d been teaching her how to summon the stars. But she didn’t have the knowledge, that was the problem!

  But even as she protested, a little voice inside her trilled. She didn’t have to know how to do it; she had to know the stars. The constellations. And she did. She knew Cygna—she had for generations. The night sparrow was loyal and stealthy and brave and patient. Together, they had swirled through stars, soared through galaxies, along star-paths to distant worlds, including this one. Rika gasped. She remembered. Remembered her spirit traveling with Cygna along the paths to this world. To deposit itself into a tiny growing babe inside Queen Kailani Shigetsu. She had come here for a reason. For a purpose.

  Though she was stunned by the revelation and wanted nothing more than to contemplate it and all it meant, time was running out. Rika opened her three eyes and with practiced hands began tugging at Cygna’s threads, lengthening and firming the constellation’s essence. When she was done, Cygna stood as large as a house, its wings stretching and shadowing the ground. It was magnificent—a glittering mass of stars and blackness, as if a piece of the night sky itself stood before her. A grin split across Rika’s face.

  She clambered up Cygna’s wing, grasping its silken feathers, wincing when she slipped and pulled a bit too hard. It felt real beneath her, but the glow emanating from the sparrow made it impossible to forget that she was not walking upon just any wing.

  “To the palace,” Rika said, settling into a little valley atop Cygna’s neck. She buried her hands in its feathers, silently apologizing. If this was anything like riding a koumori, she would wish she had a saddle. Better hold on tight.

  “It will be done,” Cygna said, and it launched into the air. Even with her tight grip, Rika was nearly unseated by the power of Cygna’s wingbeats as they rose through the air. As they reached altitude, she let out an incredulous laugh. Well, this would make more of an impression than walking in on blistered feet.

  They swooped towards the palace, and Rika’s hair streamed behind her, the wind pulling tears from the corners of her eyes.

  It only took a few moments to close the distance to Yoshai. The scene below her wiped the grin off her face. Hordes of black-clad soldiers moved throughout the city like a plague. The soul-eater forces were concentrated around the palace, completely surrounding it on all sides. At the gate was a mass of men with a battering ram, crashing against the wooden gate with fearsome blows. As she soared overhead, thousands of green eyes looked up to follow her progress—soul-eaters and thralls alike.

  Rika couldn’t help it. She opened her third eye and pulled at a thread of a star, sending it down towards the men and soul-eaters attacking the gate. It hit with a satisfying explosion of light, tendrils of starlight searching, penetrating the soul-eaters, burrowing into their armor. Rika’s head swam from the effort, and she held tight to Cygna’s feathers as her world spun around her. Or was it just Cygna banking towards the courtyard at the very top of the palace?

  The night sparrow landed in the courtyard with a thunderous crash, sending moonburners and sunburners scrambling. It let its wing down and Rika launched herself from her perch, half-tumbling, half-running down its side. She didn’t care about appearances. She was home. “Mom!” she screamed, scanning the faces. “Koji?”

  The blue uniforms parted as someone pushed their way forward through the crowd. “Rika?” It was her mother. Her silver hair was wild, her uniform dirty and torn. But she was alive. Real and solid and alive.

  Rika ran for her, and they crashed together in an embrace as forceful as Cygna’s landing.

  “My daughter,” Kai said, her thin body wracking with sobs. “You’re finally home.”

  VIKAL TORE THROUGH the trees, pumping his arms and legs as fast as they could carry him. Blackened limbs blurred by, bleeding into strange specters silently observing his passage. His thoughts were before him—on Goa Awan. Had the others reached the caverns? Had the soul-eaters? Were they too late?
His heart, though…his heart was behind him. Sailing on a ship plunging through a hole in space. He should have kissed Rika. He had longed to…lingered far too long while he’d debated and doubted…and then it had been too late. It would only have made things worse. They were never going to see each other again. Either they would defeat the soul-eaters, and he would never be able to journey to Kitina, or he would die here, defending his land. So what good would a kiss have done? He groaned. He still should have kissed her.

  Vikal’s steps slowed as he began to lope up the mountain, his sandals straining against the soft earth. From the corner of his eye, he swore he caught a glimpse of Sarya floating beside him, a silver wraith against the green of the jungle. Once she had been a comfort, a constant reminder of how real their life, their love, had been. Now, part of him wished her gone, and that part was growing. It shamed him—the guilt festered in his gut. What kind of man loved two women? He had promised he would love Sarya forever, forsaking all others. But he had been so quickly undone by the bright-eyed, fiery foreigner who had saved him from compulsion—who had looked upon the face of the horrors he had perpetrated without flinching. Who now sailed across the sea alone to defeat an army. What tremendous courage. Rika was a remarkable goddess. A remarkable woman. She deserved better than his ruined heart.

  A root tripped him, and he pitched forward onto his hands and knees. The forest had always worked with him before, not rejected him. “What do you want from me?” He hissed at it, scrambling to his feet and resuming his climb. “I’m here to save your people. I can’t save Rika’s too.” The jungle seemed to thicken around him, and he screamed with frustration, snapping his third eye open and using the threads of power to force the forest to make him a path. “I know she’s your goddess too,” he said, panting, the words scraping his throat. “And I’m worried about her as well. But it has to be this way. She’s on her own. She chose that.” No, his inner voice seemed to say. You chose that for her. You promised you would help her and you abandoned her.

  The waterfall came into view and Vikal redoubled his efforts, ignoring his ragged breath. There were no soul-eaters or thralls in sight, but the shuddering threads of the jungle revealed that they had passed this way. They must already be inside. What was going on? Were they already pulling Nuans into their sick embrace, turning them to ash?

  Vikal clambered up the slick hillside parallel the waterfall, his muscles quivering and spent from the climb. His foot slipped, leaving him hanging in space, his feet kicking, his fingers straining against the wet rock. A vine took pity on him and snaked beneath him, hardening into a foothold. “Thanks,” he panted, climbing the rest of the way up and hauling himself over the ledge. He flashed back to the memory of clamoring up this face while watching an unconscious Rika strapped to Cayono’s back. He’d had the strength of ten men when it had come to saving her.

  Vikal slipped behind the rushing waterfall into the dark of the tunnels. He moved through them by feel, his heart hammering in his throat. Where were the others?

  The tunnel began to brighten before him with the light of a hundred stars. He must have been close. He heard Bahti’s voice booming from the cavern beyond. What was going on? Why were they talking, not fighting? He lowered his head and sprinted to the end of the tunnel into the illuminated light of the huge cavern. What he saw…was nothing like he’d expected.

  A tall soul-eater stood in the middle of the Gathering Hall, surrounded by thralls and soul-eaters. Vikal quickly counted ten of the leeches. Less than they had feared. Still far too many. But it wasn’t that fact that stunned him. Or even the fact that the creature held Sarnak by the throat, the god’s toes barely brushing the ground. It was that everyone was gone. Where were all the Nuans? Where were his people? Had they already been killed? Devoured?

  Bahti apparently had the same question. “Where is my daughter?” he cried, pointing his hammer at the soul-eater like a promise.

  Vikal slipped behind Kemala, pulling his swords from their sheaths in a whisper of steel. “Where are they? Are they alive?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “They’ve…vanished. But this place doesn’t have the residue of fear or death that I would expect if we had arrived…too late.”

  “They’re safe,” Sarnak groaned. “But you better get to killing these things.” With ferocious strength, the soul-eater tossed the old man across the cavern. Sarnak tumbled to a stop against the far wall, his disheveled robes a riot of orange. As he hit the wall, the cavern flickered somehow, as if reality itself had tripped and stumbled. Suddenly, the cavern was full to the brim with Nuans, wide-eyed with fear, hands clutched together in prayer.

  Kemala gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “Tamar!”

  Bahti roared, running for his daughter. And then they were gone. Tamar was gone.

  “Sarnak…” Vikal said to himself, realization dawning on him. The god’s power controlled the cycles—did that include the cycles of time? Somehow, he had shifted their people…out of time. Out of this ending. He didn’t understand it, but his eyes didn’t lie. He focused on the god, who was still clutching his head, lying prone on the cavern floor. The soul-eater who had been holding him locked its evil gaze on Vikal, and then swiveled slowly to look at Sarnak.

  “No!” Vikal screamed, launching forward to do something—anything—to stop the soul-eater from reaching Sarnak. The distance was too far—the creature moved with impossible speed. Vikal had hardly made it two steps when the creature lifted Sarnak’s body and tossed him across the cavern with a sickening crunch.

  Instantly, the cave shifted, the fabric of reality snapping back into place. Once again the Gathering Hall was full to the brim with Nuans. Vikal bowled into a group of women, knocking them onto the floor, tangling in their skirts. “Attack them!” Vikal said, scrambling to his knees and pointing at the stunned soul-eaters. It was the only time he had seen the creatures surprised.

  Kemala took up his cry. “Constellations! In the name of your goddess, attack!”

  The constellations surged to life, swooping and pouncing at the nearest soul-eaters. The Nuans screamed and ducked, scattering every which way.

  Vikal plunged towards the nearest thrall, knowing the humans were the only ones he could fight. The other gods were fighting some of the soldiers, even some of the Nuan men were joining ranks. The constellations attacked the soul-eaters, pouncing upon them with glowing rage, snarling teeth and raking claws. The centaur’s arrows were vicious—in short order the constellation had peppered a soul-eater with shafts, its arrows piercing the soul-eater’s armor like knives through warm butter.

  The soul-eater who had attacked Sarnak was clearly the leader of this unit. It moved with lightning speed, tossing people before it like leaves in the wind, seizing others and making them thralls, desperately trying to turn the tide in its own favor. It was ruthlessly efficient and thus far, none of the constellations had been able to touch it. The scorpion lashed out at it with fearsome claws and tail, but the soul-eater rolled and ducked, wrecking more havoc in its wake. Vikal headed towards it, wading through the fray. Until he froze, realizing who stood next in its line of sight. Tamar.

  The frightened girl had lost her caretaker and was standing amongst the chaos and screams, her tear-streaked eyes wide with fear.

  “Tamar!” Vikal screamed, launching into a run. “Come here!”

  She turned to him, recognition written in relief on her face. She didn’t see the soul-eater coming for her. But it saw her. And it saw Vikal.

  She was too far. The soul-eater was going to get to her first—crush her small body with one of its armored fists. “Rika, help me,” he breathed, saying a prayer to the goddess of bright light.

  It was as if she heard him. An arrow of starlight streaked from across the cavern and thunked—quivering—into the soul-eater’s body. It was enough to slow its progress and Vikal altered his path, barreling into the leech with all the force he could muster. Pain exploded through his shoulder as he hit the creature, bea
ring it to the ground. He reared back and punched it right in the face, feeling that there was flesh in the dark recesses of the helmet. He punched it again and again, pouring his anger and rage into his attack. The month of being under its mind control. The destruction of his island. Sarya’s death. Displacement of his people. Bringing Rika into his life and then ripping her away again. These creatures were pure destruction. Evil and chaos and cruelty. He longed to smother it with his bare hands—to feel its life slipping away, as these things had taken his.

  “I think you got it,” Bahti said from behind him. Vikal looked around. The bodies of the other soul-eaters were strewn about the cavern. Dead. The men who had been enthralled were beginning to wake from the nightmare, shaking their heads and looking around with clear eyes for the first time.

  Vikal slumped back on his heels, his breath hissing through his teeth. His fist was bloody, the clean red of his own blood mixed with sickly green of the leech’s.

  “Vikal,” Cayono called from across the Gathering Hall. “Sarnak’s in bad shape.”

  Vikal hauled himself to his feet, hurrying to where Cayono knelt over the crumpled body of his friend and mentor. Flecks of blood speckled Sarnak’s lips, and when Vikal delicately probed at the back of Sarnak’s head, his fingers came away wet. He exchanged a look with Cayono. Sarnak’s injuries were grave.