Beneath the Guarding Stars

by Everly Frost

  A fiery red maple tree in the back corner was alight with fireflies. The creatures sparkled against its red leaves, exposing leafy skeletons like veins. Even its trunk was the color of deep blood, and it glowed like it was lit from the inside. The maple tree sat atop a knoll, some of its branches sweeping as low as the ground and others reaching into the dark ceiling, its trunk made up of many branches twisting in all directions like a finely designed puzzle.

  “I don’t see any berries.” I scrambled up the knoll, searching for them. “Do you?”

  Arachne stayed behind me, hovering at the edge of the knoll. “I don’t know, Ava. I didn’t expect it to be this one.” Her expression was genuinely perplexed. “Maybe it’s in the leaves.”

  “Okay, well, how do I get the information out of it?”

  “Normally, like with berries, you eat them. The information forms inside your vision. Kind of like an internal computer screen that only you can see.”

  I snorted. “Seriously? You first.”

  She gave a shake of her head. “I can’t help you with this one. I never bothered with the trees before.”

  I returned my attention to the knotted trunk. It was hard not to admire the gorgeous glow around it and the way its branches seemed to dance even while they stood still. I knelt at its base, peering at the bark. There were patches of green moss in the crevices between branches and parts of the bark that had lifted. It reminded me of dragon scales, as though the tree aspired to be a different kind of creature. Careful not to disturb anything, I touched the bark with a single finger, examining it up close.

  Just like the wall outside, there were fine black threads through it, almost as though someone had drawn on it with a fine-tipped pen, except this was no ink I’d ever seen. Patches of the bark were soft, slightly spongy, and shifted under my hand. I held my breath as I leveraged a finger under the edge of one, lifting it up. To my surprise, it came completely free.

  Under it, new sap glistened on the bared trunk, a small pool of it, quickly hardening now that it was exposed.

  Without thinking, I dipped my finger into it and touched it to my tongue.

  It tasted sweet—and both metallic and organic.

  I swiveled. “Do you think the information could be in the sap?” As soon as I moved, a light blipped at the corner of my eye. I blinked, trying to dislodge it, thinking I’d stared at the fireflies too long.

  Arachne was out of focus. Her face blurred as I squinted. The light flashed again.

  I couldn’t make out her expression but her tone was wry. “Definitely.”

  Dark shapes and shadows slid across the room. I threw up my hands as they zoomed toward me, until I realized they were inside my eyes.

  The shapes slowed and came into focus.

  Words.

  Suddenly there were hundreds of them, zipping through my vision like a document scrolling at a thousand miles an hour.

  I swayed, couldn’t balance, clutched my stomach and thought I was going to throw up.

  “You have to control the information, Ava. You need to find what you want.”

  I closed my eyes but the words sped by against my eyelids. I dropped to my knees, trying to find solid ground.

  Mum and Dad. Where are my parents?

  In an instant, the information slowed, and not a moment too soon, because my stomach heaved and I gasped deep breaths, struggling to stay vertical.

  A portion of the text came into focus while the rest blurred.

  It said:

  Matthew and Amelia Holland are in the long room.

  They were in a room? Not a tower? I wondered why it would point me to a room. Maybe it was a particular room in one of the towers. Unless they were living underground for their protection.

  Where is the long room?

  It said: Walk.

  I frowned at the word. Another little light, this one red, blipped at the right side of my vision. As I turned my head toward it, it moved further to the right, until I found myself facing in the direction of the back wall.

  I was supposed to follow it.

  I waved to Arachne, who had remained at the edge of the knoll. “C’mon. It says they’re in a room. I think it’s going to take me there.” I hurried down the pathway to the back wall. As soon as I neared it, a door opened to reveal a long corridor, so long that at first I wondered if this was the long room. But there was nothing in it, so I supposed this corridor would lead to yet another elevator and up to the surface and to whichever tower my parents were living in.

  The word flickered but stayed the same: Walk.

  This time I did wait for Arachne, since I didn’t want the door closing behind me and shutting her off, and I might need her help.

  She paced silently beside me, not asking any questions, and I suddenly remembered her saying that I might not like what I’d find. I shook it off and kept walking down the corridor for at least five minutes, expecting to see an elevator at any moment.

  At the end of the corridor was another blank wall.

  Another door opened.

  And then I didn’t know what I was looking at.

  Words scrolled across my vision before they disappeared:

  This is the room of long sleep.

  It was a room about the size of Ruth’s living room. Inside were two rows of five glass cases, each case the size of a narrow bed. They were the kind of glass cases that made me think of sleeping princesses in fairytales—glittering and transparent, like crystal ornaments.

  Arachne gasped and froze behind me. “Oh, no—”

  I stumbled inside, covering the ten feet between the door and the nearest case. Even from the door I could see it contained something blue, so familiar it made my heart drop.

  Still wrapped in her favorite blue cardigan, my mother didn’t move.

  Part Two – Shroud

  Chapter Fourteen

  I PLANTED my hands on the top of my mother’s glass coffin, not caring if I set off an alarm.

  Mom looked so calm. Her eyes were closed and her hair fanned. She appeared younger than I remembered her, almost girlish, as though nothing worried her anymore.

  Dad, in the case next to her, reminded me of Michael—all the creases in his forehead gone, his body relaxed, except for the back of one hand pressed against the inside of the glass.

  Mom’s was too, pressing in Dad’s direction, as though they wanted to hold hands across the three feet between them.

  “Are they alive?” I asked Arachne without turning, unable to take my eyes away from them. “What did Starsgard do to them?”

  Arachne didn’t answer. She was suddenly frantic, running from coffin to coffin, checking the faces of those inside.

  “What are you doing?” I snatched her arm as she passed, forcing her to stop.

  Her eyes were wild, violet pools. “I’m looking for Josh. The news said they never released his body. What if they sent him here?”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  I let her go and she raced by me. When she reached the end of the row, she stopped, gripping the end of the last glass coffin until her knuckles turned white. My heart dropped as I realized that maybe I was wrong—maybe Josh was here. It wasn’t impossible. They hadn’t released his body—and the Hazard Police had refused to say what they’d done with him.

  I took a step toward her. Her expression was bleak. “It’s empty. Maybe he was supposed to be here but he never made it. Oh, if only…” She dropped her head all the way to the empty case, as though she could conjure Josh’s body inside it.

  “Made it here to what? To lie dead in an underground room?”

  Her eyes widened. “They’re not dead. They’re asleep … all of them. Some of them for a really long time.”

  Leaving my parents’ coffins, I paced along the rest of the row. Many of the bodies wore strange clothing, from medieval garb complete with a scroll to clothing that was like a picture out of a book about ancient Seversand. Each contained a plaque that named its occupant. I read one of the names
with disbelief: Caesar? It had to be a joke.

  Whoever these people really were, there were nine of them, all of them asleep.

  But there were ten coffins. Was the last one meant for Josh?

  Or … was it intended for me?

  I returned to my parents’ coffins, wishing I could push their cases closer together and answer the wish their hands were expressing.

  Arachne turned away from the empty coffin, running her hands over her face, rubbing her temples. “Living death.” She ventured close by my side, peering at my parents. “They must have loved each other.”

  All I could think about was how they’d got there. Josh had said that Ruth had promised to keep them safe, but that didn’t mean they’d come along willingly. “Did they choose this or were they forced?”

  Arachne shook her head, started to speak, but there was movement at the side of the room. The seamless door slid open and there was no time to move before Ruth appeared.

  She filled the doorway, two other people behind her, but only took a couple of steps inside before she stopped, as though she knew I didn’t want her near me right then.

  “Ava.”

  I drew myself up, one hand going to my mother’s coffin. “How long have they been here?”

  “Since they left you.” She waved the gray-clad staff back and stepped into the room.

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  “No.” Her eyes burned with the questions I knew she really wanted to ask me: How did I find out? How did I get in here? “Nobody but the Council was ever going to know.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her about Josh’s message, not only because it was private and she would want to see it, but because of what he’d told me about finding nectar. Ruth had seemed so afraid of it the first time I mentioned it to her. And the suggestion that there was a source here in Starsgard…

  Unless she knew about the source, and that was why she didn’t want me talking about it. She’d asked me if I’d hurt people with it, so she knew what might happen if I took it. Any rational person would be afraid.

  No, any rational mortal person would be afraid.

  I wondered what she thought I could do with nectar that would hurt normal people.

  “So you took them from my home in Evereach.”

  She put up a placating hand, as though she could stop my angry thoughts.

  “When Josh contacted us about his situation, and arranged for Arachne to cross the border, he convinced us that if his mortal status ever became public, it was in our interests to help your parents disappear.”

  “So when it happened, you swooped in, took them away, but you left me there. Why? Why not take me too?”

  “That would have been an act of war, Ava.”

  Her declaration left me cold. She was right. Kidnapping me would’ve been like stealing a weapon. Treble had taken my blood and turned it into a weapon that could kill.

  “There’s not a country on the planet that wouldn’t have reacted. Taking you would have been a war cry to the whole world.”

  “Taking my parents wasn’t?”

  “The world thinks they left you, Ava. We packed everything, emptied your house, and leaked false information that they’d started a new life elsewhere.” She took a step toward me. “It broke their hearts to leave you, but they understood why they had to do it.”

  I remembered Mum’s tears the night before they left, begging to take me with them. Josh had said our parents could be used, just like he’d been used. I didn’t want it to be true but I knew it was. They’d come to Starsgard for the same reason I had—to find safety and to stop others using them.

  “And what about now that I’m here? Isn’t that an act of war, too?”

  “You came to us. We didn’t snatch you. As far as most people in Evereach are concerned, as far as the public is concerned, you’re still there. You’ve seen the news. They think the government’s hiding you. As far as we know, Seversand believes the same. We have zero migration, so nobody leaves Starsgard to tell anyone any different.

  “Your parents chose this, Ava. They didn’t want to spend their lives running. And they’d lost both their children. Your brother was dead, and there was nothing they could do to protect you. Your mother … it was like someone had reached inside her and cracked her heart. She asked to sleep, Ava. The both did. They also asked to be tested.”

  “Tested? What for?”

  “To find out why they had you and Josh. Two mortal children born very close together. As you know, most people only have one or two children, but many struggle to have children at all. Your parents wanted to know how this happened.”

  “Did you find the answer?”

  “Not precisely, but we did locate an anomaly in both your parents’ genes that stems from Seversand. Both your parents had a pure-blooded Seversandian grandparent—great-grandparent to be exact. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head. My parents never talked about their families and I’d never met my grandparents, let alone any of my great-grandparents. It wasn’t unusual for families to live apart. Ancestors would sometimes turn up after a hundred years to meet each other. There was always time. Or, at least, most people had time.

  That my distant grandparents were pure-blooded Seversandians was unusual but not impossible. Before the war, there was free movement between Evereach and Seversand, whole communities of Seversandians located in Evereach’s cities. During the war, they were imprisoned in camps, and after the war they were forced to separate. Many were sent back to Seversand, but mixed-race children were allowed to stay.

  “Without being able to test your ancestors, we suspect that they may have carried a mutated gene, passed down to your parents that, when combined between them, led to your mortality.”

  She took a step toward me. “I know this is a lot to take in, but your parents had hope too.”

  “Hope? What hope is there here?”

  “This isn’t forever. I promised them that if things got better, if you were truly safe, we would wake them up. That they could live again.”

  I stared at her, remembering what it was like to come downstairs to my empty house, to find my parents gone, to fear what might have happened to them.

  “You let me believe they abandoned me.”

  “To convince the world, we had to convince you, too.”

  She was suddenly beside me, and I gripped my mother’s coffin harder, wanting Ruth away from me.

  “Look around you, Ava. All of these people are here for a reason. Some good, some bad. Caesar was the first. He sought the help of the ancient Starsgardians after his people turned on him. He no longer wished to live in this world and sought peace in sleep. I’m sure he never imagined it would prolong his existence for two thousand years, but he’s not got long now.”

  Behind me, in the other row, the tall man swathed in a graying robe lay at peace, but his skin appeared thin and his hair had grown around him like vines.

  “He asked never to awake. Sometimes I wonder if he would choose to live in this time instead of his own, but it’s not a decision we can make for him.”

  “So you let him be.”

  Sadness clouded her face. “Your parent’s wishes are recorded too. But I fear … I fear you will not see them alive again in your lifetime.”

  “Then you don’t believe I’m safe even now.” I searched her eyes. “Even here in Starsgard.”

  Before she could answer, one of the staff strode to her, bending to whisper in her ear.

  “What? When?” The sudden tension in Ruth’s posture was palpable. She glanced at me and then at Arachne. “I could tell you to take Ava to the surface, but I think you both need to be present for this. Come with me.”

  With a swirl of purple robes, she strode from the room, and when the staff positioned themselves behind me, I knew I had no choice but to follow. I tried not to look back at my parents, their hands reaching for each other in living death.

  Outside the long room, I had to hurry to keep up with Ruth
down the corridor, but instead of passing through the data storage area, she suddenly turned right and a passage opened at her touch. The wind was swift as I hurried through behind her, making me brace for a second. A quick clomp of boots told me Arachne was close behind. Several more maze-like corridors later, Ruth paused outside an office with a small round table surrounded by four chairs and a metal object in the middle.

  “Put him through to here,” she said to one of the staff—the one who’d whispered to her before. He nodded and strode away, speaking into his fist.

  “Sit.”

  Arachne obeyed and I shot her a curious glance, wondering why she was being so compliant all of a sudden. Her expression was stony, her posture giving nothing away.

  Ruth touched her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said, “He has other things to worry about right now. I doubt he’ll even notice you.”

  Arachne grimaced, and whomever it was that Ruth was talking about, I didn’t think Arachne believed her.

  I stayed standing. “What are we doing here?”

  Ruth held up her hand as if to say “wait.”

  The object in the middle of the tabletop gave a click and a series of soft beeps. Ruth sank into a seat, pressed a button on the object, and an air screen sprang to life—the first I’d seen since leaving Evereach.

  The man on the screen was unmistakable. I’d seen his image often enough to know I was looking at the president of Evereach. No wonder Arachne was concerned—she was wanted for cybercrime. President Scott’s hair appeared grayer and more disheveled than the last time I’d seen him.

  I sank into the seat next to Ruth, not sure if he could see me, until I located the smaller image in the bottom corner of the air screen showing only Ruth for now.

  “Ruth,” he said, with a formal nod of his head.

  “William.” She leaned in close, as though she was studying the creases lining his face.

  “It’s not good news,” he said. “We’re looking at civil war. I’m sending you some pictures. The images speak for themselves.”

  Around the sides of the air screen, moving shots were projected, about nine of them, all showing variations of the same thing: burning buildings, wasps firing into crowds, Hazard Police barricading headquarters, troops massing in numbers, protestors massing in greater numbers.