Starborn

by Lucy Hounsom

  Brégenne shone like the winter moon. Her arms were thrown forward, and though they shook, the determination in her face did not. She bared her teeth at the creature, as it threw itself against the lattice. The shield held, but Kyndra saw the effort it cost Brégenne. She could not hold it back forever, not with morning drawing ever closer.

  Helira stared at Brégenne, mouth twisted as if the Wielder’s interference was a mere irritation. ‘Restrain her,’ she snapped.

  Loricus clicked his fingers and several Lunar Wielders broke from the phalanx, but before they reached Brégenne, chaos erupted. The Nerian obviously considered the stalemate at an end and bolts of power flew across the hall, smashing into the front rank of Loricus’ Wielders. Kyndra watched Caendred spring from behind Kait to hurl a cascade of Lunar fire.

  Helira ignored the surrounding conflict. She extended both hands in front of her and clenched them, and the creature gnashed more viciously against Brégenne’s silver bars. Kyndra heard a gasp and saw the blind Wielder down on one knee, teeth gritted. Her chest heaved and the creature’s tongues latched on to the silver bars and began to prise them apart. If it reached her, Kyndra knew she was dead.

  It was all-out battle. The Wielders had recovered enough to counter the Nerian’s attack and there were screams as Lunar bolts struck flesh, burning through cloth and skin. Here and there, golden shields erupted and Kyndra guessed that some of Loricus’ Wielders must be using akans, too, while they waited for the sun to rise.

  And then she saw the novices. A group of them had pressed themselves back against the wall, but now they came forward to aid the Wielders. With a shock, Kyndra saw Irilin, ablaze with light, her tiny arms held protectively in front of Shika and Gareth, who was busy pulling something from behind his belt. Shika made to stop him, but Gareth shook his friend off and stuffed his hand into a dull, black metal gauntlet that looked unerringly like the one Kyndra had longed to put on in the archives. She watched his face tighten briefly in pain, but then it cleared and Gareth clenched his fist inside the gauntlet.

  A weakness in the Wielders’ line broke under the Nerian’s onslaught and a man blasted his way through the gap. He smiled when he saw Irilin. But Gareth pushed Irilin aside, lifted his gauntleted fist and swept it through the air – and the man from the Nerian was thrown screaming to smash into the atrium wall. He did not get up again. Gareth looked wonderingly at his own hand then gave a yell and leapt unreservedly into the fray, slashing the gauntlet to left and right, but Kyndra noticed that each strike was less powerful than the one before.

  Kait spun into her peripheral vision and then Anohin, whose white robes flew in the wind of his passage. ‘For Kierik!’ he cried. ‘Nerian, this is your moment! Take back what was yours!’ And the Nerian’s attacks became ferocious. The cold marble beneath their feet began to warm, the air shimmered and more Wielders fell.

  Kyndra watched it all through her thinning silver bars. The faces of the Nerian were twisted in rage and triumph. After so many years spent in the Deep, they fought with the strength of slaves promised freedom. Naris’s remaining Lunar Wielders – already exhausted from a night of trying to control the Breaking – were no match for them.

  Loricus’ expression was terrible to behold. When the Nerian’s concerted efforts broke his phalanx apart, he drew out two glowing rods – weapons that must also have come from the archives. In his hands, they lengthened into whips and the councilman began laying about him, his rage easily matching that of the Nerian’s. A black-banded woman shot a fistful of darts at him, but Loricus flicked the whip, swept them aside and then he brought back his arm and lashed the woman. She caught the blow full in the face and screamed, blood pouring from her ruined eyes. Sickened, Kyndra looked away.

  The tongues of Helira’s beast were now tearing apart the lattice faster than Brégenne could knit it together. Her skin was ashen, both knees hard on the stone. And then one tongue smashed aside a silver bar and wrapped itself around Kyndra’s wrist. She shrieked. It was pain beyond anything she’d ever known, beyond even the test. Needles pierced her skin like fangs, pumping agony into her arm. She thrashed in the creature’s hold, but the tongue just latched tighter, drawing another shriek from her lungs.

  Blackness gathered at the corners of her eyes and pinpricks of light glimmered at her across a distance. Kyndra knew them for what they were now – the as-yet nameless stars. If their power was really hers, why wouldn’t they aid her now? Because of Kierik. Kierik is still their master.

  But the madman is weak. She wasn’t sure whether that last thought was hers or not. It didn’t matter – Kierik was weak. The pain of the executis receded as she probed the familiar black wall in her mind. Again it stopped her as effectively as solid stone, holding her back. But what if it wasn’t really a wall at all, but a person? What if she was sensing Kierik himself?

  Mentally, Kyndra tapped at the black wall … and a fragment came away. It wasn’t the stars, but it was something she could use. She watched dispassionately as black ice crackled down her arms and she chipped further at the wall. She thought she heard an agonized cry from somewhere beyond her, but she ignored it. The ice sank into her chest, burying her fear and her pain, even her anger.

  It shattered what remained of Brégenne’s shield and – when it touched the creature – the thing burst into powdery light. Helira staggered and her eyes were huge as she looked on Kyndra. Obeying some dark instinct, Kyndra extended her hand, her lips curving into a mirthless smile. The dark ice dripped from her fingers and flowed across the marble floor. It covered Helira’s feet, climbed up her legs and caressed her arms like a lover. Then it entered her body through her open, shrieking mouth. Kyndra watched emotionlessly as the old woman’s screams ceased. For a moment, Helira stood still, rooted to the floor by the dark tendril. Then blood began to seep from her eyes, her nose and ears. It ran in rivulets down her face, soaking into her silver robes.

  Wonderingly, Kyndra turned her palm up – the black substance coated her fingers and somewhere, far below her, that voice was still crying out its agony. Then Helira crumpled like an empty sack and Kyndra switched her gaze to Loricus.

  ‘Stop.’ The command was Anohin’s. Kyndra looked at the Yadin and Anohin took a step back, despite the resolve in his face. ‘You have gone too far, Kyndra. This should not have been possible. You will kill Kierik!’

  She said nothing, filled with the brutal awe of power.

  ‘And you could destroy everyone here,’ Anohin said desperately. ‘What you call the Madness is caused by the shock of your mind colliding with Kierik’s, and that’s been happening every time you’ve inherited one of his memories. Starborn cannot coexist. If you stop hurting him, I can explain it all to you – I promise.’

  ‘Why should I stop?’ Kyndra asked. The ice was in her throat too, so that it sounded as if she spoke with multiple voices. ‘He is in my way. Once he is dead, all this will end.’ The gaze she fixed on Anohin was utterly chill. ‘And he deserves to die for what he’s done.’

  The Yadin’s expression darkened. ‘He is damaged, Kyndra. Defenceless. You’ll kill a defenceless man?’

  ‘Isn’t that what he did to your people?’ Kyndra said, but Anohin’s words had caused a crack to spider through the black layer that encased her. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, she thought. So many are dead already because of me. But the cold power fought to keep her – as long as she held on to it, no pain could reach her.

  ‘Kyndra.’ Brégenne knelt on the floor, weakened by her struggle with Helira’s creature. ‘Hurting those that hurt you won’t bring comfort.’ The blind woman’s eyes glowed brightly, as they looked into Kyndra’s own. ‘And vengeance is a prison. Don’t make my mistake.’

  The crack widened and Kyndra stared through it at Brégenne’s face beyond. No, she thought and forced the cracks wider, causing black to slough from her body like dried clay.

  This is not me! With a scream of effort, Kyndra tore herself away from the chill, dark wall and, as she’d fea
red it would, agonizing pain seized her. She retched and the room spun and Kyndra fell to her knees, thinking she would vomit. Heat rushed into her, boiling her insides, and her chest tightened so that she couldn’t breathe.

  Then Anohin was there. He placed a cool hand that glowed silver against Kyndra’s forehead and the pain in her body lessened.

  ‘Anohin!’ Kait cried then. ‘Sef’s talking to me across the bond. She said something’s happened to Kierik – he’s not in his room.’ Her face clouded. ‘And Evan is dead.’

  ‘No!’ Anohin clenched his fists and his feverish gaze roamed the hall. Bodies lay here and there, some belonging to the Nerian, but a great deal more to the Wielders of Naris – a large contingent had already yielded, comprising mostly novices and a few gold-robed masters. Only one pocket was still fighting.

  ‘Come.’ The Yadin hauled Kyndra roughly to her feet. ‘This is your doing and you will put it right.’ His fierce eyes roved over the scene of battle. ‘Nerian!’ he called. ‘Hold the atrium. I go to our master!’

  ‘Brégenne!’ Kyndra cried and stumbled as Anohin pulled her towards a narrow corridor at the back of the hall. A shout went up from those Wielders still fighting and they dashed after the small group fleeing for the corridor. The Nerian flanked them on every side, but a black-banded man went down and a gap opened in the Nerian’s defence. Then Caendred was there, darting forward to fill the man’s place and buying time for Anohin and the others to escape. Cords flew from his fingers like silver spider webs to tangle around the nearest Wielders, who cursed and spat at the sticky strings. Caendred grinned and cast a handful of lances, but they bounced harmlessly off a Lunar wall that had appeared out of nowhere. Then other walls sprang up around Caendred until he was enclosed in a shimmering box.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Alandred said, stepping out of the crowd, a tiny replica of the silver box glowing between his hands.

  Kait shouted and made to rush forward, but Nediah grabbed her arms, tugging her away from the brothers.

  The box shattered and Caendred reappeared, fists aglow with flickering energy. At that moment, the brothers were so alike that Kyndra couldn’t tell the difference between them. Then a bend in the corridor hid them from view.

  ‘What about the others?’ she gasped at Anohin.

  ‘They can look out for themselves,’ the Yadin said harshly. ‘The atrium is taken.’

  Not if Loricus has any say, Kyndra thought. She felt weak from her use of whatever dark power she’d channelled and Anohin had her wrist in an iron grip. She was forced to run with him down the passage, Nediah and Kait hard on her heels.

  ‘Anohin, the councilman will follow us,’ Kait panted, as if she had read Kyndra’s mind. ‘The drop behind the kitchens is too risky.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Anohin growled back. ‘We’ll take the quickest way.’

  He led them through the citadel at an exhausting pace. Initially, Kyndra thought the Wielders were right on their heels, but the Nerian had done their work well. Everything was planned, she thought. All they needed was me.

  Anohin stopped at an unremarkable piece of wall, which melted at his touch. He crouched and crawled into the hole beyond. Thankfully, the space quickly opened out into a steep tunnel and Kyndra placed one hand on the wall for guidance, straining to see by the small flame that hovered over Anohin’s head.

  ‘You used me,’ she said to the Yadin’s back. ‘You knew that if I came face to face with Kierik, the shock of our meeting would strike down dozens of Wielders.’

  The tunnel widened further and Anohin yanked her roughly up to run beside him. The conjured flame cast flickering shadows across his face. ‘Yes,’ he said stonily. ‘The Nerian owe you a debt of gratitude.’

  ‘But those people were innocent!’ Kyndra said, hiding her terrible guilt beneath her anger. The plan might have been Anohin’s, but he wasn’t the one who’d destroyed those Wielders’ minds.

  ‘How conveniently you forget the agonies that they and their Council put you through.’ Anohin looked at her. ‘But justice is never without cost.’

  ‘You’ve known all along what I am.’ Kyndra forced herself to say it. ‘That’s why you made me take your vow – so that if I came into my power, I couldn’t hurt Kierik. Well, it didn’t work, did it?’ she said harshly, donning her anger like armour. ‘It turned out that I could hurt him and I did hurt him, Anohin. I could hear him screaming.’

  The Yadin’s grip tightened to the point where it forced a yelp of pain from her lips. ‘You knew,’ she continued relentlessly. ‘So why didn’t you tell me when you had the chance?’

  ‘Why would I tell you?’ Anohin snarled at her. ‘I needed you quiet, compliant. You have no idea of the danger you pose. Telling you would hardly make you less of a threat. And you had the facts in front of you – you asked me all the right questions. I couldn’t believe you hadn’t worked it out.’

  Kyndra realized that she hadn’t wanted to work it out. Anohin was right – she’d already guessed that a link existed between herself and the Madness. She’d finally grasped that the visions were memories, and that someone had tried to kill her covertly with the akan. And then there was Loricus with his offer of an alliance. As a Starborn, she was a major threat to his coup and he’d want to make an ally of her – after he’d failed to get rid of her quietly, of course.

  She only had herself to blame for her blindness.

  ‘It shouldn’t be possible for Starborn to coexist,’ Anohin said, still hauling her bodily along. ‘Your situation is utterly unique.’ He increased his pace and Kyndra struggled to keep up. ‘About a month before you came here, Kierik started to decline – he grew weaker and was more confused than usual. It took me a while to work out exactly what was happening to him. When a Starborn comes of age – as you have done – they begin to inherit the memories of their immediate predecessor, along with the names of the stars. Kierik once said it forms an unbroken link back to the very first Starborn that ever lived. But you and he are different.’

  He spared Kyndra a penetrating glance. ‘I don’t know how you came to be. Perhaps the laws of the cosmos no longer consider Kierik a Starborn. Every time you inherited a memory from him, or some threat gave you cause to reach out unknowingly to the stars, the impact of your mind colliding with Kierik’s caused a shockwave strong enough to harm those nearby. Not knowing any better, the Wielders called it the Madness after the mental deterioration it produced.’ The Yadin paused. ‘Eventually, I realized I could use the situation to my advantage.’

  Kyndra suddenly remembered Helira’s face and the old woman’s raspy screams echoed once more in her ears. I killed her. Revulsion curdled her stomach, almost too awful to bear, except that underneath it, something dark ground its teeth in satisfaction. Kyndra recoiled from it. ‘You have what you wanted, then,’ she said aloud, hearing the bitterness in her voice. Anohin was no better than Loricus – both would use her to further their own ends. ‘Why do you need me?’

  ‘To help Kierik,’ Anohin said, his eyes hard. ‘We will search for a way to heal him. You might be a travesty of a Starborn, but you can still be of use.’ He ignored Kyndra’s attempt to speak. ‘And then, when Kierik and I are together again and he is restored to his rightful place, we will hunt down Medavle and bring him, likewise, to justice.’

  30

  The moment she neared the Nerian’s complex, Kyndra sensed something amiss.

  Anohin’s anxiety was palpable and Kyndra felt her own heart beat faster in response. They had taken a quicker path to the Deep than the one Kait had led her down earlier and now, barely an hour since leaving the atrium, their passage fractured into a series of shafts. Anohin went straight to a black fissure in the floor, crouched and dropped inside. Kyndra peered cautiously over the edge and the light showed her a smooth-sided chute, which seemed to level out about two metres down.

  ‘Sit with your legs over the hole and let go,’ Kait said shortly. Her face was strained and smudged with dirt – she obviously
shared Anohin’s worry. Kyndra did as she said and, after a brief but exhilarating slide, found herself in a wide passage. Anohin was waiting for her and again he seized her wrist and dragged her off down the tunnel. Thumps sounded from behind, as Kait and then Nediah landed too.

  The air began to smell more lived in and Anohin broke into a run. ‘Sef! Bryn!’ he shouted. He turned right down the corridor that led to Kierik’s room and stopped sharply. A body lay face down on the floor. Beyond it, the door stood open. ‘No,’ Anohin panted. He let go of Kyndra and dashed up to the room, almost tripping over the body in his haste.

  The madman’s room was an empty wreck. Split pillows spilled their feathers like snow over the broken furniture and the desk was battered and upended. The chair had lost one of its legs. Anohin gazed at the chaos, grey eyes wild.

  Kait elbowed her way past Kyndra. ‘Anohin.’ Tentatively she laid a hand on the Yadin’s shoulder. ‘It might not be what it looks like.’

  Faster than seemed possible, Anohin spun, grabbed Kait by the neck and slammed her against the wall. Kait struggled for air and her legs kicked uselessly, as the Yadin gripped her by the throat. ‘You are wrong,’ he spat. ‘This is his doing!’

  ‘Let her go!’ Nediah yelled, springing forward. Anohin bared his teeth at the Wielder, but removed his hand and Kait slid down the wall. Nediah knelt beside her, as she coughed and gasped for air. Her neck was livid with the marks of the Yadin’s fingers.

  Anohin ignored them both and his eyes were terrible: burning, sunken pits that Kyndra couldn’t meet. Deliberately, it seemed, the Yadin stepped on the body outside the door. ‘Evan,’ Kait rasped. She brushed Nediah’s hand aside, shuffled over to the body and began to turn it.

  Anohin didn’t look at her. ‘Leave him,’ he said coldly. ‘He failed in his duty.’ He turned to Kyndra. ‘You. Stay with me.’

  The Yadin reminded her forcefully of Medavle, as he glared at her. ‘Do you know where Kierik is?’ she asked cautiously, afraid of provoking him further.