Starbright (The Starbright Series) (30 page)

             
I knew the Darkness was more tha
n evil though.
The threat to
E
arth was more than an ominous force that ate at the light and goodness of everything innocent. It was also alluring and mystical and it drew people inside of it so that by the time they could tell the difference between light and dark
again
they no longer cared about the light but craved the Darkness like the worst kind of drug.

             
Seth’s mystery made sense now, the shadows of lesser light I had been keenly aware of and strangely attracted to ever since I saw him. He had experienced the Darkness, experienced pure evil and maybe even been tempted to follow his sister. As a nine year old boy, orphaned before his eyes, before Jupiter showed up to save him, what hope had he held of walking away?

             
I shuddered at the thought of losing him even before I knew him. How clever of the Darkness to turn
H
eaven’s plan against them,
to turn their Warrior into a vessel of evil. B
ut they had failed. And they would continue to fail as long as Seth and I stood together.

             
My mom put an arm around my shoulder, shaking me from my thoughts and I realized Jupiter and Seth had been gone for a while
and still my parents stood with me outside
.

             
“Sorry,” I mumbled, forcing my mind to face reality.

             
“Is everything alright, Stella?”
my mom
asked, her
W
arrior eyes scrutinizing me.

             
“No,” I answered honestly, because I wasn’t capable of answering any other way. “Seth…. Seth told me what happened to his parents tonight, how they died.”

             
“Let’s go inside,”
she
suggested, ushering me
through the kitchen door
.
She kept her arms around me the entire time, as if she felt the loss as
intensely
as I did, or Seth did, as if she was afraid of losing me, like I was now afraid of losing her.

             
“We wanted Seth to be the one to tell you,” my father explained once we were all seated at the kitchen table. “You were so young when it happened; we thought it was best he shared it with you when you finally met.”

             
“I’m glad you let him tell me,” I assured them. It was better that it came from Seth, that he felt like he could trust me enough to share with me and that I didn’t start our relationship with unnecessary stigmas of him.

             
“What happened with
Ethan and Sitara was horrifying,” my mother began and my father instinctively reached out a hand to comfort her as if they had been in danger of the same fate.

             
“Seth was young, but old enough to remember everything, am I right?” my father asked and I nodded my head. I realized then how carefully planned out Aliah’s betrayal must have been. Without Jupiter to protect Seth he would have been the perfect age to abduct, old enough to make a conscience decision like his sister did, but young enough not to know better. In humanity there is an age of innocence that absolves the very young of sin after death, I realized for the first time in my life that the age of innocence applied to us as well.

             
“Yes, he remembers everything….” I answered in a barely audible voice. “And his sister?”

             
“Seven is still among them,” my mother answered, her eyes filling with tears. “We don’t know what happened really…. Seth was too young
to
offer
much information, and Seven chose the Darkness. Aliah is believed to be the traitor, but whether Seven had a hand in it or not, we might never know. And maybe it’s better that way.”

             
“But how could she? How could she betray her parents…. her little brother?” I demanded, hot tears threatening to spill once again.

             
“We don’t know,” my father answered. “Except that the Darkness is very alluring, she could have been manipulated into thinking a million different things. Or…. some of us are more bent toward evil than others. Just like you’ve seen in humanity, sometimes there isn’t much of a push
needed
at all for a person to choose darkness over light. We are all different, all created for different purposes. Seven believed the lie that her fate was held by the Darkness.”

             
“Has anyone seen her since?” I gasped, wiping at a lone tear that had slipped out of the corner of my eye.

             
“Jupiter,” even my father’s voice shook with the pain of those circumstances. “A few years after the incident, he found her outside their apartment
one night
, watching Seth. He approached her, thinking she might have changed her mind and needed a place to stay, but she fought him instead. The
y
both walked away, it wasn’t much of a skirmish
;
she was trying to
get away from him
more than anything. Jupiter thinks she just wanted t
o check on Seth though. If she had come to take him or hurt him, she would have brought others. She was
alone
and never returned after that.”

             
I shivered violently, thinking about the depraved fallen
S
tar, watching her unsuspecting brother. How creepy….
like something out of a horror movie.

             
“Seth has been through a lot, Stella,” my father continued, and the truth of his words rang clearly in
the otherwise quiet house
. “He trusts you though, he let you in. I think that says a lot about his character and what he’s willing to risk for this future you two have together.”

             
“But she’s still out there?” I asked, swallowing the lump rising in my throat. “I mean…. somewhere, on this planet, his sister is out there?”

             
“Yes,” my mother replied solemnly.

             
“And this…. Aliah guy…. what do you know about him?” I sucked in my bottom lip, chewing distractedly until I tasted blood.

             
“He was a good Warrior,” my mother continued. “I fought with him before I met your father, years ago. There were no signs of Darkness, nothing in his behavior or conduct that would have given the High Council any reason to suspect him. He fought with the best.
He and Ethan
were very good together in the field, and when Ethan was stationed on planet, Aliah requested a closer position so that they could still work together. When or how Aliah defected is unclear, as
are
his intentions with S
i
t
a
ra and Ethan. We don’t know if he always planned to kill them or because there was a struggle he saw no other option.”

             
“Do you think Aliah thought Seth’s parents would turn too? Or do you think he was after Seth the entire time?” I pressed, needing answers that I knew they couldn’t give me.

             
“Your guess is as good as ours, honey,” my mother pulled me
closer,
into her
so that my head rested on her shoulder
.

             
“I just can’t imagine what he went through….” I sighed, relishing in the closeness of both of my parents.

             
“Thank God for that,” my father muttered, a hard line appearing in his forehead.

             
I stood up slowly, suddenly feeling utterly exhausted. I said goodnight to my parents and made my way up to bed. But even with heavy eyelids and a tired soul
,
sleep didn’t find me for a long time.

             
When it finally did come,
I was back at Lincoln’s farm, fighting my first battle with the Shadows. They surrounded me in the dream world, thicker than smoke and more deadly than ever. I fought hard, wielding my two katanas and keeping
my enemies
expertly at bay
.

             
Seth wasn’t there though, he wasn’t fighting with me or lighting up the field with his inner sun. I looked for him desperately, needing help, but more worried about him than anything.

             
A gurgled moan drew my attention to the tree line where a dim light lay awkwardly across the frozen field. I fought to get to it, to find out what it was and when I finally drew close I saw the broken form of Seth l
a
ying lifelessly in a pool of his own blood, his light extinguishing with every passing second.

             
She cackled then, her evil, taunting laugh ringing clearly in the night sky. My head snapped up to find a beautiful young woman, with flowing, golden brown hair that curled in soft waves all around her. Her clear, luminous skin lit up the dark sky around her as if she had never turned h
er back on the light and almond-
shaped, honey colored eyes stared at me with a mixture of pure, unadulterated hate and sinister evil.

She moved lithely across the snow, her face still a haunting image of dark amusement until she stood over her brother, her pointed heel at his throat. She looked down at him with pity for only a second before sweeping
down to him, pressing
her mouth close to his ear. She whispered something I couldn’t understand, even in the realm of my own dream world and then lifted a dagger the size of her palm
, its silver blade glinting in the moonlight
.

I stood paralyzed watching, frozen by the horror of the moment. Before a scream could even rise in my throat she had sliced the dagger across Seth’s perfect neck, the crimson blood pouring savagely from his body.

I fell to my knees in agony, knowing our greatest
W
arrior had fallen at the hands of his sister, his own flesh and blood. And when I reached out to touch his body he turned to black, sulfuric smoke, rising up from the blood-stained snow and drifting back to the army of Shadows waiting for me.

I looked up at Seven, her
amber
colored eyes mirror images of her brother.
A
menacing smile twisted her lips and she raised her dagger slowly. I reached for the katana I had dropped next to me, but in its place was a Shadow instead.
It sliced at my hand, ripping open my palm and sending dangerously cold shooting pain through every one of my veins.

Suddenly the
Shadows
were
descending
on me from every direction
, obscuring my vision and
tearing
open my flesh.
In
the seconds it took for me to register
the
loss
of my weapon
, she had already walked through the wall of evil
with the cool, calm, collectedness of a woman completely at ease with
h
er surroundings. She was older than me by several years, but something in her mannerisms, in her giddy excitement with the depravity surrounding us made her seem young…. made her seem deranged. She cocked her head to one side, looking me over with a waning boredom before lifting the same dagger that killed Seth high above her head and plunging it straight into
my heart.
Before I felt the pain of her knife blade, I registered the sheer joy she took from destroying something. And then the agonizing pain of death swept over me, pulling me into a blackness so deep I knew there was no recovery.

I awoke, panting and shaking, gripping at the covers around me. My long hair was plastered to my face in a sheen of sweat and I swallowed against the images that felt like awful
, traumatizing
reality.

It was a dream.

Only a dream.

But two things were clear to me. Seven was after her brother’s life. And without Seth, I would fall.

Chapter Twelve

             
“Are you ready for this?” Seth shouted over the rush of air pounding past my ears.

             
I looked down at the obscure
E
arth
flashing
miles beneath my feet and then looked back at him. I nodded once, confidently; then I reached for the two katana swords strapped to my back and
whipped
them out as we slowed down midair, still hidden by cloud cover.

             
I could hear the sounds of battle and the movement of
Serena
and Nate illuminated by the soft glow of their inner lights
even through the hazy fog of clouds
. The strong smell of sulfur, like death and rotten eggs, drifted upward and filled my nostrils even this far above the carnage below.