Stargazers

by Bella Forrest

  Navan and I exchanged an amused look. Leaving him in bed, I pulled on my t-shirt and pants and stepped over to the door, opening the hatch to two surprised faces. They were still in mid-argument, their eyes wide in shock.

  “We’re already awake,” I said, smiling. “You’re not interrupting anything.”

  “Phew, and here was Bashrik worrying he was going to walk in on some Playboy centerfold.” Angie wiped a hand across her brow, before giving me a nudge on the arm.

  “I was not!” Bashrik complained. “Stop putting ideas in their heads.”

  Angie laughed, keeping her gaze fixed on me. “No, but really, I’m glad to see you looking so happy. And you, Navan, though you should probably stay where you are. Bashrik is terrified of you running around naked, the way you did when you were a kid.”

  “Will you stop, Ange!” Bashrik shook his head in exasperation.

  Navan laughed. “Yeah, thanks for spreading that story around, Bash. I’m sure that’s a mental image everyone needs in their heads.”

  Angie and I shared a conspiratorial glance, the two of us descending into hysterics.

  “Look what you did, Navan,” Bashrik muttered. “You know what they’re like once they get all giggly, and we’ve got important business to attend to. That’s why we’re here! We don’t have time for all this girly nonsense.”

  “Oh, come on, lighten up, Bash. There is always time for girly nonsense,” I countered.

  “What’s the important business?” Navan gathered the covers to his chest, looking oddly vulnerable in the middle of the bed. Our bubble had well and truly burst now; there was no going back to the happy hedonism of the previous few hours.

  “We’re nearing the dying star,” Angie explained. “Pirate boy is feeling all kinds of things in his waters. I think he’s being bombarded with images that were left behind by the Stargazers the last time he was on Aeon. Honestly, he’s acting even weirder than normal.”

  Navan frowned. “Who’s steering the ship? The gravitational fields are going to go haywire once we get close to the star. They’ll play havoc with the ship’s systems. We’re going to need our best at the helm.”

  “Ronad’s in the pilot’s seat,” Bashrik replied. “He’s got it under control.”

  “Good… that’s one less thing to worry about.” He didn’t sound overly convinced. “And this mind map thing of Stone’s is reliable?”

  Angie shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out when we get sucked through some giant, invisible, astral gateway to another dimension. All pretty straightforward, right?” A nervous grin tugged at the corners of her lips.

  “Right, well, give us a couple of minutes to get changed, and we’ll meet you in the cockpit,” Navan said, shuffling to the end of the bed with the covers hiding his naked body.

  “Will do.” Bashrik led the way, with Angie following him down the hall, though she cast me a wink over her shoulder as she disappeared into the hallway beyond. We’d known our private world of bliss couldn’t last, but to be torn out of it so abruptly felt almost cruel. At least, if everything went awry, we’d had one last moment of pure passion and love together. Not everyone got to have that.

  The thought reminded me of my vow to speak to Ronad. I’d gotten so caught up in us nearing the gateway to Aeon, and reconnecting with my husband, that I’d completely forgotten to seek him out and speak to him, to check that he was doing okay. Silently, I renewed the vow, promising myself that I would take him to one side once we were on the alien planet, to make sure he was coping properly, and to get our friendship back on track. I owed him that much, after everything he had done for me. I would never have survived my time at the Idrax house without him, not without losing my mind, anyway.

  “You okay?” Navan asked suddenly, walking over to where I stood, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You looked like you were miles away.”

  I smiled, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’m fine, just thinking about Aeon.”

  “Sorry we couldn’t stay here forever.”

  “We had to come back to reality sometime, right?”

  He nodded reluctantly. “Right.”

  Changing into fresh clothes, we headed out into the corridor, my fingers interlaced with Navan’s as we made our way to the cockpit. The others were already waiting, gathered together around the dashboard where Ronad sat, his hands dancing across the controls at rapid speed. Ahead, through the windshield, a beautiful light show was playing out around the remaining mass of the dying star. It was in the process of burning up to become a white dwarf, a planetary nebula of rippling blues, greens, purples, and oranges undulating outward like a huge, glowing mist of vibrant luminescence. The hot wind created by the expelled, gaseous outer layers of the dying star made the vessel judder violently, and Ronad was forced to fly blind through the worst of the gravitational anomalies, while keeping us far enough away to stop us from overheating.

  The dying star was one of the most incredible things I’d ever seen. Glowing strands of pink and cyan coiled around one another like warring snakes, while oceanic blue and glimmering golden ripples spread outward, moving with the odd shimmer of a mirage. I had no idea death could be so beautiful.

  Stone was standing closer to the windshield, staring out, mesmerized by the nebula. A faraway look had descended across his face, his attention focused solely on the swirling vortex surrounding the dying star. Lauren stood close by, her expression concerned. Xiphio, meanwhile, had retreated to the opposite side of the room, where he was holding Nova, tipping delicate drops of sweetblood into her mouth.

  Stone turned to us, removing the bandana to reveal his third eye. “Me mind don’t feel like it belongs to me no more, pals,” he said, his voice oddly distant. “I know where we need to go. The gateway is in me head.”

  The iris of his third eye had turned strangely galactic, a mass of colors and glinting stars swirling around one another, reflecting the nebula beyond the windshield. It was as though he were seeing something far beyond the physical realm, and far beyond anything we could understand.

  Our ship shuddered more violently, everything shaking as though the whole thing might break apart. A barrier was protecting the vessel, but if we edged too close to the dying star itself, I had a feeling nothing would be able to protect us from the gravitational pull… if the heat and radiation didn’t get to us first.

  “What’s going on, Stone?” Lauren asked in an encouraging tone, but he’d turned back toward the window.

  “The map is in me mind.”

  “Can you give me the coordinates?” Ronad asked frantically, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. Evidently, keeping the ship from crashing into the dying star was harder than it looked.

  “That gift ain’t yours to receive,” Stone replied. “The gift is mine.”

  “Yeah, that’s all well and good, but we need the coordinates to this gateway; otherwise, we’re going to end up dead!”

  “The gift ain’t yours.”

  “What the—?” Ronad lifted his hands from the dashboard, the control panel going dark. “Stone, did you do that?”

  “I’ll lead ye.”

  “Stone, what are you doing?” Navan barked, running to the co-pilot’s chair to try to reboot the controls.

  “The gift is mine,” Stone repeated, over and over.

  “Snap out of it!” Bashrik yelled, sprinting for the ambaka. Lauren was the only one who stood in his way, lifting her arm to block Bashrik.

  “You can’t stop him. If you do, you put us all at risk,” she warned.

  “He is the one putting us at risk!”

  “He told me to stop you if you tried to prevent him from doing what he has to do. I didn’t understand when he asked me, but I understand now. We need to trust him.”

  “Trust him?” Bashrik gasped. “In a few seconds, we’re going to lose every single system on this ship—life support included. My trust can only go so far, if it means putting the rest of us in danger! Stargazers might be able to cope without oxy
gen, but we sure as Rask can’t.”

  Lauren stood in his way again. “Step back, Bashrik.”

  The ship lurched forward, sculling through space, moving closer to the treacherous pull of the dying star.

  Bashrik whirled around. “Have we got the controls back online? Are you doing that? Tell me you’re doing that.”

  Ronad and Navan shook their heads. “All systems are offline,” Navan replied. “We’re not steering anymore.”

  “Then who is?”

  The ship was moving in a very definite line, the engines roaring with the strain of fighting against the gravitational fields, but it wasn’t the star that was pulling us along. Stone’s eyes were closed, all except his third one. I realized, with a shiver of terror, that he was steering us with his mind.

  “Stone… Stone is controlling the ship,” I gasped, my chest constricting.

  A second later, sirens blared and flashing lights strobed as all the systems started to fail. The air had gone out of the room, the vessel losing oxygen fast.

  Clawing for any breath that I could, I scrambled across the cockpit to Xiphio, who was using his secondary respiratory system to feed oxygen into Nova’s nose and mouth, recycling the carbon dioxide in the air and passing it to her as oxygen. Knowing the merevin would soon pass out from his own lack of oxygen, I tore away the cabinet door where the emergency oxygen tanks were stored, and hooked one up to a mask, pulling it across Nova’s face and tying it off. Her eyes peered up at me in curiosity as Xiphio and I held her between us. Black spots appeared in my field of vision, my lungs screaming for air. I tried to hook a mask to my face, but my hands refused to cooperate—everything was made of lead.

  Without warning, a flash of something pierced my skull… a vision, penetrating my thoughts. It wasn’t a scene I recognized. I wasn’t back in the shadowed cavern with the fiery man who wore an icicle crown, nor was I watching the universe burn around the central figures of Ezra and my daughter. Instead, my gaze fixed on a swarm of flying coldbloods, the sky so inundated by them that they almost blotted out the sun. On the terrain of a planet I didn’t recognize, where the buildings were curved and covered in plants and flowers, blending in with the verdant landscape around them, people were running and screaming. A thick mist rolled in, burning my lungs as I inhaled it. No, these people weren’t ordinary people… they were ambaka.

  “Me folks… me people… me loved ones…” Stone wept, standing by the windshield. “I’m seein’ it happen, seein’ ‘em die all over again, all ‘cause I weren’t there to save ‘em the last time. I weren’t there… I weren’t there to watch ‘em die.”

  The image shifted to an endless plateau of destruction, an entire planet reduced to rubble and ashes. A sea of dead bodies scattered the globe, the image zooming in on Stone’s slumped figure on the ground, his arms cradling a little girl.

  “I couldn’t save me sister. She were only four… I couldn’t save ‘er. I couldn’t save me first love… I couldn’t save me parents… I couldn’t save any of ‘em. I can’t watch this again. I can’t do it.” He rasped a breath into his lungs. “It hurts… Me heart’s on fire. We’re so close to makin’ it through… but I can’t… I can’t watch this again.”

  I turned to look at Stone, the images still playing in my mind. I tried to shout encouragement, but I didn’t have the breath left. We were all going to die, and there was nothing any of us could do about it. The systems would fail, and we’d be dragged into the heart of the star, crushed to death.

  “You can,” Lauren whispered, visibly hauling herself to her feet with every ounce of strength she had left. She collapsed into Stone’s arms, looping her arms about his neck, holding on to him for dear life. He stared at her, as though only half seeing her. “You can, my love… you can do this,” she promised.

  Then she kissed him hard on the mouth.

  An explosion of bright light filled the room, air rushing back into my lungs, bringing me back from the edge of death. The light dimmed, and my blinded eyes opened. Nova was still cradled between the grasp of me and Xiphio. Only, she wasn’t wearing the oxygen mask anymore. In fact, the entire ship had vanished.

  Glancing around in disbelief, I found that I was kneeling on the shimmering surface of a different world, surrounded by black lakes and crystal oceans.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “What the… Where did the ship go?” Ronad muttered, his head whipping from side to side in confusion. The others were clustered on the shimmering ground, which glittered like crumbled diamonds. The strange terrain sloped toward the crystal ocean nearby, while the ominous glint of the black lakes dotted the horizon. The sky rippled with shifting colors of aquamarine, lilac, and liquid bronze, reminiscent of the nebula we’d passed through.

  “Are you okay?” Navan rushed over to where Xiphio and I sat, dumbfounded, on the ground.

  I nodded uncertainly. “I think so.”

  “Can she breathe? Is she okay?”

  I gazed down at my precious baby, her scarlet wings stretching out as she yawned. “She seems to be fine. I got an oxygen mask on her in time, and Xiphio was feeding air to her before I reached her.”

  “Thank you, Xiphio.”

  The merevin dipped his head. “I swore never to allow harm to come to your daughter. It was the very least I could do, to keep her safe from danger.”

  Across the strange beach of twinkling diamonds, Lauren and Stone were kneeling opposite each other, her arms still looped around his neck, though they weren’t kissing anymore. Xiphio’s gaze was fixed on them, a sorrowful expression passing across his features. It didn’t matter how heroic he’d been with Nova—Lauren only had eyes for Stone.

  Just then, the crystal waters parted, and a curious figure emerged from the liquid, though the water didn’t seem to touch them. Not a single drop clung to their strange, purple skin, which glowed somehow, as though tiny lights were trapped beneath the top layer of their almost translucent epidermis.

  All of us watched the being in stunned silence, transfixed by the black, starry eyes that peered down at us. Every movement the creature made was as elegant as a ballet dancer’s, its body appearing both fluid and solid. It was hard to know whether the being was male, female, or neither. Their androgynous face was ethereal in its striking beauty, with a bald head decorated by shimmering jewels and coiled white markings, full violet lips, and a bone structure that could rival that of any model—impossibly chiseled cheekbones and a strong jaw, with a feminine brow and a physique that seemed both muscular and slender at once. The ghostly impression of a skeleton could be seen beneath the surface of their skin, under the glow of the odd lights and purple coloring, shifting with each step the Stargazer took.

  The being paused in front of Stone, placing their hands together and bowing gracefully. “Stone, it is the rarest of pleasures to have you back on our fair planet,” they said, their musical voice somehow echoing all around us. Their mouth didn’t move, but I could hear them speak, as clear as day. “I know why you have come and look forward to further discussion on the matter. However, for the time being, might I suggest you rest? You must all be weary from your travels. Transporting between astral planes can wreak havoc upon constitutions that are not familiar with the journey.”

  “Orfaio! Ach, it’s good to see ye again,” Stone replied, looking deeply relieved. “Pals, this is me mate, Orfaio—the one I were tellin’ ye about.”

  A rumble of introduction passed around the group, with all of us nodding politely and offering a quiet, “Hello.” I could see that a million questions were teetering on everyone’s lips, but the Stargazer spoke before we could say a word.

  “You have nothing to fear from us, friends of Stone, but I would ask that you retain your impulse to question until our next encounter,” Orfaio said. “We see your pain, we know your purpose, and we seek to offer you rest and recuperation. I sense your impatience, but you must not permit yourselves to worry over trifling matters such as time. It is a construct, not a truth. You shall fi
nd that, here, time is never a concern.”

  “That may be true,” Navan replied, “but we really do have some pressing matters to get on with.”

  “All in due course, Navan Idrax. All in due course.”

  “How do you—?”

  The Stargazer cut him off. “We know much, ensconced here in our haven. I am already familiar with your plight, and the reasoning behind your desire to reach us. The fibers that forge us are connected to the fibers of the universe, and every being within it. We are creatures of stardust, and we feel the stardust within you all. Your queries shall be addressed before long.”

  “Could we address some of them now? We don’t need to rest,” I assured them, trying to send urgent vibes toward the curious creature.

  Their starry eyes seemed to stare into my soul, unnerving me. “As you wish, Riley.”

  With a snap of their long, glowing fingers, the crystal ocean and black lakes disappeared in the blink of an eye. When the world rushed back to meet us, we were standing inside a massive library, its walls so infinitely far away that there didn’t seem to be any at all. The open sky arched above us—presumably, out here, there was never a threat of rain. The stacks stretched away as far as the eye could see, filled with books upon books upon books, some forged from traditional materials, others shimmering with a magical, holographic translucence, similar to the skin of the Stargazers.

  “I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Lauren gasped. “I actually have—I’ve actually died and gone to heaven.”

  “This is more like my idea of hell,” Angie murmured, though she was clearly impressed by the place. “Nobody can read this many books in a lifetime.”

  “Incorrect, Angela. It simply depends upon the span of your lifetime. As a human, yours is far shorter than my own. I shall explain it in a way you may appreciate: I could endure a single day here upon the surface of Aeon, and a hundred years may have passed upon your planet. Here, time is far more flexible, though we would never deign to use such flexibility for our own purposes—we cannot return to a past moment and fix the trauma within, for example, but we may look upon several outcomes for the futures that have yet to pass. On occasion, we may find that futures are fixed already, unable to be altered, but that is rarely the case.”