Return of the Starchild (The Divine Inheritance Series Book 1)

by Catriona Murphy

Zelda was whacked on the back of her head by a blunt object. She cried out and instinctively rolled away from the edge of the cage.

  Outside, the man Zelda had stabbed grinned from atop his stallion, spinning a club instrument in one hand. Zelda hissed at him.

  ‘You thought you got me, and ye did, but it didn’t kill me you little bitch. Just wait until we make camp again, and I’ll make Candell look like the sweet shop man.’

  His red hair was flecked with snowflakes, and a stubble on his face made him look to be in his thirties. His dark blue eyes glinted cruelly, and they settled on Iliana.

  ‘Alri’ pretty girl.’ He gave her a lascivious look that made her want to sink into the ground. ‘Once I’m finished gettin’ even with your friend ‘ere, we can make some time to get to know each other a little betta’. Maybe do some exploring of the woods, wouldn’t you like tha’?

  Iliana swallowed.

  ‘Yeah, I bet you would. You don’t look like you’re up for it now but all you girls are begging for it deep down, deep down you all like being fucked. I’ll give you a good seein’ to.’

  ‘Piss off,’ growled Zelda. ‘Or I’ll cut it off.’

  ‘Laters.’ His eyes sparkled dangerously as he trotted off further up the train.

  Iliana watched him go, her combative visualizations from earlier cranked up triple fold.

  ‘We’ll need to run before he comes for us.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Iliana replied, feeling a dread sink comfortably into the pit of her stomach. The Xinger had threatened her life, but this was an entirely new one that seemed worse than death to her. ‘Soon.’

  When the two moons were high overhead, the caravans parked for the night beside a frozen lake. The surface of it glittered like a thousand diamonds, cut fresh. Twigs and other debris lay rotting on it as though for an age, and it glowed under the moon’s light like a giant mirror. Clutching at the edges of the lake were gnarled, dead trees, making it look all the more haunting.

  Iliana cast a look across its slippery expanse and felt eerie, like something was looking back at her.

  She and Zelda were tied once again to a sturdy tree while camp was set up. The man who hit Zelda looked up as he roasted three ducks over a spit, and grinned menacingly. The caravans had been arranged in their usual half circle and soon the smell of spices wafted teasingly in the air.

  A lonely howl sounded.

  ‘Cooking this much food is likely to attract unwanted guests. I’m thinking they’re not normally used to being this far north. Slave pickings must be dwindling in the south,’ Zelda said.

  ‘There are wolves?’

  Zelda’s head turned slowly towards her, her expression cautious. ‘There are always wolves.’

  ‘What’s the deal with the lake? There’s something…off about it.’

  Zelda ignored her question and gazed over at Bolbous, who elegantly presented himself for the evening’s dinner, with the disposition of a snobby guest attending a dining event that was beneath him. He sat himself deftly down on a high lichen rock, to keep his robes from brushing the snow mudded ground. He refrained from conversation with any of the other slavers, staring down into the flames through a wide set nose and down turned mouth.

  ‘He can’t be too popular here, he treats everyone like they’re dumb commoners,’ she said in a low voice, looking at the other men going about their tasks. ‘I bet they even hate him, perhaps envious maybe of his powers?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Iliana asked impatiently.

  ‘Pay attention, Iliana. It’s good practice to observe and analyse the social mood and relationships people have with one another. Can help you swing from one branch to the next, and knowledge, they say, is power.’

  Iliana looked thoughtful. ‘So, what you really mean to say is to study social politics?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  Zachery brought them their meal which was a cold, sour soup. Iliana tried to bite back her heaving stomach as she downed it. Zelda, she noticed irritably, scoffed it easily.

  ‘Y’know, Bolbous wouldn’t shut up earlier on, I don’t know why he told me this but he said you and all the men here were expendable blunt tools,’ Zelda said casually, ‘he said he was more powerful, and the only reason you get slaves.’

  Zachery’s coal eyes glared down at Zelda. His dark-skinned jaw twitched. ‘Said you couldn’t best Mr. Redhead over there in a fight either.’

  Zachery looked over at the man from earlier, who was sitting around the fire with the other men, laughing hysterically over a plate of braised duck. He looked back at Zelda.

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know why. Maybe he doesn’t have much company here and cause I can do magick, maybe he decided to pick a conversation with me. It sure seems to me he can do what he likes.’

  His eyes were now a blazing black that sucked in the firelight.

  ‘Having all that power, a man could go anywhere I suppose, do anything.’

  Zachery thumped his chest like a cave man. ‘I can do that too!’

  Zelda’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, of course you can. It’s just; I suppose people born with great powers can probably become just a little too opinionated. Thinking they’re better than everyone else.’

  The man strode to the fire whilst pulling his shirt off and throwing it aside.

  Pandemonium erupted with the redhead getting a punch to the face first. The men shot up and for a few seconds it was shouts and exclamations, with the odd fist connecting to a face or stomach. Bolbous tried to back away discreetly but was grabbed by two men. His lips moved silently and they both fell to the ground, screaming.

  ‘Wha’ the heck is going on ou’ ‘ere?’ roared Candell, emerging from the trees and clumsily adjusting himself.

  ‘Now!’ Zelda hissed under her breath.

  Iliana rubbed her rope as hard as she could against the tree bark, the chafing burned into her wrists but it could leave scars for all she cared.

  ‘Wha’ is all this abou’? Eh? Bolbous! Wha’ did you do to my men?’ Candell exclaimed.

  Zelda, very cautiously, rose and went to finish Iliana’s bonds.

  ‘What if they see us?’ Iliana asked hastily, throwing glances over.

  ‘I’ve thrown up a quick glamour, only the wizard will see through it.’ Zelda pulled off the remaining bonds. ‘Now, we run.’ Iliana managed to grab her backpack before they dashed.

  Just as they were about to flee into the woods, Bolbous declared in his musical voice, ‘The giiiirls are freeee!’

  ‘Shit, that fuckin’ wizard,’ cursed Zelda.

  All eyes were now on them, bickering forgotten.

  ‘Going somewhere ladies?’ Candell asked fluidly.

  Zelda spat into the snow and lashed out a fireball that was consumed by the wizard’s hand, who caught it like a baseball. Zelda grabbed Iliana’s arm and they bolted towards the lake, kicking up snow as they went.

  ‘Where we going?’ Iliana asked, casting a panicked glance back.

  ‘We can’t outrun them now that we’re caught, but they wouldn’t dare pursue us out on the lake.’

  ‘Why?’ Iliana asked breathlessly, she looked back to see the wizard making extravagant hand gestures. Alarmed, she ran faster.

  ‘The lake has issues.’

  ‘Should we be going out onto it then?’ The wind felt like shards of ice cutting into her and stung her face.

  ‘It’s either that or become a slave, take your pick.’

  Cries and shouts went up from behind, and Iliana knew it wouldn’t take long for them to be caught.

  Hand in hand, they both slid forward as lightly as they could onto the ice rink. Iliana kept her eyes down, taking in the different hues of Baltic blues that lay in frozen swirls within the thick ice. She tried to avoid areas that looked as though it had several scratches on the surface, and her boots knifed through piles of frost that could have been sitting there for centuries.

  She could hear Bolbous’s melodious voice
chanting from the shore. Iliana faltered.

  They stopped at about one third out from the shore.

  ‘Look, my plan isn’t great; I think we’ll need to stay out here until I can somehow take out the wizard.’

  ‘Won’t they follow us?’ Iliana glanced back at the shore. The slaver’s eyes shone with an animalistic yearning in the moonlight. She suddenly hoped that they wouldn’t catch them.

  ‘Candell doesn’t pay them enough to risk it.’ Zelda sat down cross-legged and closed her eyes, as if she weren’t in the middle of a frozen lake but on a hill somewhere blooming with flowers.

  Iliana looked helplessly between her and the men. Bolbous’s voice became louder and more musical; he looked to be performing a ritualistic dance, carving symbols into the snow with his staff. She noticed that the trees around him began to lean away with conscious effort, their branches straining and groaning in the opposite direction, as if he gave off a bad smell. His tempo heightened and steam rose from the lake, licking the surface and curling upwards in coiled drifts.

  Iliana looked down and saw bubbles fizzling under the ice. Zelda’s eyes shot open. ‘Shit! He woke her, he actually bloody woke her! Why would he do that?’ She stood, her sapphire eyes watching the ice anxiously.

  ‘Dammit, I tried to stop him.’

  ‘Who did he wake?’

  From the corner of her eye, she saw orbs of light shoot out and move with impossible speed under the ice. They whizzed around the lake randomly, like number balls being jumbled at a game of bingo. The girls stood and watched as they spun around some more before finally zipping underneath them.

  ‘Zelda...’

  ‘It’s—’

  A terrible cracking sound, a fracture, popped. It vibrated under Iliana’s feet and then snapped. She instantly went down on her back, the wind knocked out of her. An audible splash made her look over to see Zelda had disappeared, a jagged hole in the ice where she had stood. Dark, arctic water pooled out.

  ‘Zelda!’ she screamed.

  Bolbous’s melodious voice still sang from shore, becoming more persistent.

  Iliana scurried over to the hole, trying to be careful not to break any more ice. She stared down into the depths with no sign of her friend.

  ‘Time to give up now, Iliana,’ called Candell from shore, ‘your friend is gone. Time to say ‘bye, bye’ to Zelda.’

  A fist exploded out of the hole, and grabbed onto the edge. Zelda’s head appeared above the water, teeth chattering, face deathly pale. Her fevered eyes were framed by her dark hair stuck to her face.

  ‘Ili-Iliana, g-get out of here, n-now. She’s go-going to k-kill everyone.’

  Iliana instantly grabbed onto her, trying to pull her out of the water. Zelda kept slipping out of her grip. ‘You mean we have to get out of here,’ she exasperated. ‘Get out of the water - use your magick!’ Iliana’s eyes prickled with tears.

  ‘I c-c-can’t s-stop her. ‘Y-you’ll die.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she wailed. She pulled hard, as though everything depended on it, because for Iliana, it did.

  Tears were spilling freely down her face. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen!’

  ‘Iliana, please -’ Zelda was yanked under by an invisible force, sucked down into the glacial depths.

  ‘Zeldaaa!’ Iliana shrieked.

  She stared into the dark water, scouring for a glimpse of her friend. Only the murky darkness answered her questioning, hopeful gaze. Darkness and death.

  A cold numbness creeped through her like poison ivy. Sobbing, she stood, feeling as if a rift had ripped its way through her world like a cyclone, leaving a burn of devastation. The havoc and pain of leaving home was nothing to the agony that raked through her body, aching so badly she thought it would kill her. Something else burned as well, but she wouldn’t realise till later that it was revenge.

  ‘Zeldaaaaa!’ she shrieked into the ice again. She dropped down on all fours and crawled across the slippery surface in desperation, trying to get a glimpse of Zelda’s pale face.

  ‘You ready now, love? We ‘aven’t go’ all night.’

  Iliana dazedly looked at the fat man on the shore. Bolbous stood next to him, his arms folded in his robes. She couldn’t move, her arms and legs felt as useless as a doll’s.

  ‘Something wrong with your mobility love? Do you wan’ to die like your little friend there? I sacrificed good wares there, and I ain losing you as well.’

  Absent-mindedly, she got up and started to walk backwards, away from the terrible hole, away from the filthy men.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Rage stirred in her chest; a rumbling that began as a shadow deep within her to become something terrible. Her hands lit up like glow worms.

  ‘Do you want the Lady of the Lake to take you too, girl?’ called, watching her hands warily.

  ‘Why would she take me, when she has you lot?’ she replied, her voice shook.

  The lights moved beneath her once more and steam hissed up as the ice thinned.

  Iliana shot her hands out, and felt the blast of pure energy rush out from her body, knocking her back a few steps.

  Bolbous shrieked in horror as his body disintegrated before everyone’s eyes.

  ‘Why take me, when there’s so much more of you?’ Iliana hissed, in a hateful voice that didn’t belong to her. ‘Maybe in time, I’ll come back and kill her myself.’

  The men stared at her in horror.

  Before she could strike again, the ice splintered, a cracking sound of deadly promise.

  Iliana whirled and ran, with no time to finish off the slavers. When she reached the shore, she looked back to see a trail of split ice and lights buzzing frantically. Her heart stopped when she saw a pale face beneath the distorted ice. For a breath seizing moment, she thought it was Zelda’s.

  The face however was feminine and cruel, the visage of a cold, judgemental Queen with high thin eyebrows. It glared at her.

  A scrimmage behind her made her look up. Three men slushed through the snow amongst the trees, sending rivulets of it rolling down to her. She dashed along the shore and began to ascend laboriously into the woods.

  One man lunged for her. She retaliated with a palm strike to the nose and blood gushed down his face. Without stopping, she dashed into the covering of the forest. Tears streamed down her face and she whimpered amongst the stillness of the trees; they stood like solid statues indifferent to her grief.

  ‘Don’t lose your glass slipper! Haha!’

  A burly laughter resounded through the trees, it sounded to Iliana like a whooping clown. ‘Perhaps you could wish upon a star, isn’t that what Cinderella did? Though, I don’t know what good it’ll do you,’ he called out.

  Iliana tried to shut the voice out as she climbed up a slope, clawing at trees roots to propel herself. When she stumbled to the top and then bolted, she was whipped repeatedly in the face by low hanging branches. Her heavy breathing and shuffling sounded too loud in the winter night air.

  ‘The stars do not care for us or answer our wishes. If they did, perhaps my mother wouldn’t have been left to rear us in the cold, selling her body on the streets of Castle Razielle for a bi’ o’ grub. It’s the only guarantee of profit you’ll ge’ in life, selling a person. Everyone wants something off someone, that’s a ‘ard lesson I ‘ad to learn.’

  Iliana threw a fretful glance back. She could see nothing yet knew not to depend on her vision; these men worked well in the dark.

  ‘Oh, I prayed to the stars,’ he went on, ‘prayed so ‘ard. Bu’ all I go’ was a lousy father who hit us just for lookin’ at ‘im, a whore of a mother, and a sister who can’t stand to be around me for five minutes. Like the business of selling people were my faul’, the trade has been around for centuries! Doesn’t she know tha’?’

  Iliana realised that Candell was demented. Maniacal, almost.

  Twigs snapped too sharply under her feet as she scramble
d on, each one a betraying beacon, signalling her location. She was crashing through the forest like a frightened buck and she knew it. Iliana glimpsed a break in the trees ahead. She gunned for it.

  Behind her, she could hear Candell shouting, ‘Marco! Marco! Now, you’re no fun at this game, Iliana. You’re supposed to say ‘Polo!’’

  She blasted out into a clearing, sending a few sleeping birds scattering.

  The moon illuminated the area like a tranquil island in a forest of nightmares. Iliana turned this way and that, sweat beating on her brow and breathing hard. She could feel the sting of several cuts and her hair stuck out wildly about her face. A branch nearby snapped and she sprint off again, plunging through the trees in a random direction.

  The forest gradually thinned out enough for her to continue with more ease. The trees grew thinner and taller, without their twisted, deadly nightshade features. The forest floor was smoother and more level, making it easier to traverse.

  Iliana stopped to catch her breath.

  The moons shone down between the crooked, bare branches above, like two eyes watching her. She leaned against a tree, heaving. When two icicles dropped off and crashed to the ground, she flinched, not having enough energy to jump.

  Could she have lost them already? She decided not to wait around to find out.

  She pulled up her Eskimo hood and trudged towards the sound of a gushing river. The forest was alive with the noises of crooning birds, and animal cries could be heard in the far-off distance. She wasn’t twenty paces away from the stream when the air in front of her pulsed, a ripple vibrating like water.

  Iliana backed off, alarmed. But it was too late. She was instantly lifted off her feet, and spun upside down like a hangman. Panic shot through her and she struggled, arms swinging for the ground. It was short-lived, as she felt something like a cold injection make her body slump, and her eyes rolled back. The darkness that followed echoed of shouts and a leering, cold-blooded face.

  Part Two

  ‘“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”

  Dante Alighieri, Inferno