Warrior (43 page)

Koren pressed on. She had no choice. Somewhere in the castle lay the fallen star, Exodus, and Taushin, the new king of the dragons, had compelled her to locate it—without detection. He waited outside, leaving her to pass through the empty foyer and explore the castle like a burglar.

Her mind’s eye drifted beyond Taushin, across the Northlands’ snow-covered landscape, southward to the lush, fertile valley where she had left Jason Masters, her new friend from the world of humans, a young man her own age who had tried to rescue her. So much had happened since she had allowed herself to be captured to save him from the sorceress Zena’s pack of wolves. Where was he now? Dead? Captured? Had he returned to his own planet and forgotten all about her?

Koren heaved a deep sigh. No, Jason would never desert his quest. She had to push away these dark thoughts. Jason was a warrior. Somehow he would have found a way to survive, to go on, even if he had to retreat to the south. One way or the other, he didn’t appear to be anywhere in the Northlands vicinity.

As light from the world outside faded behind her, Koren slowed her pace. The never-ending streams of light illuminated the area just enough to allow a view of the dangers—a deep plunge into nothingness on each side and crumbling narrow steps ahead, seemingly more fragile in the dimness. The slightest misstep could send her tumbling into a bone-breaking crash or hurtling over the precipice.

The stairs went on and on. Doubt stirred. How could a star have burrowed into a castle’s deep cellar? Yet some instinct drove her on. The whispering streams had to come from somewhere, making the chasm a likely place to search, even if it was not the safest.

The whispers continued, quieter now but still audible in spite of her hood.

“The Starlighter is alone and forsaken. She wants to die.”

“Fear not the loss of life. Fear the loss of the eternal. For life can be restored. Once lost, the eternal can never be found again.”

Koren kept her stare on the steps in front of her, marching to the beat of an inner rhythm. The fleeting statements seemed to beg to be put together, like puzzle pieces or perhaps threads in a mysterious mosaic. If she concentrated, maybe she could weave them into a coherent story, but so far the big picture eluded her.

As her legs began to shake from exertion, a solid foundation came into view, an expanse that looked like the floor of a cave. A few paces in front of the final stair, a solid wall blocked forward progress. The chamber appeared to be wide open to the left, but it was too dark in that direction to see what might lie in wait. To the right, the whispering streams flowed from a cave opening in another wall.

Taking a deep breath, Koren strode to the right, her gaze fixed on the cave. The pulsing lights funneled through the entrance, thick and frenzied, like radiant bats fleeing their daytime abode. She lowered her head and pushed through the barrage, trying to ignore the flurry of chaotic whispers.

Light appeared ahead, growing brighter and brighter until she reached a massive chamber where, just out of reach, a glowing sphere hovered a foot or so above the floor. As she crossed the threshold into the room, the whispers stopped. All was quiet. Ahead, about twice the span of outstretched dragon wings, the nearly transparent ball of light trembled, as if shaking in fear.

A flow of radiance erupted from a point on the surface and shaped into new whispering streams before swimming into the tunnel behind her. At the sphere’s lower extremity, liquid dripped to the floor, sizzling on contact. Vapor rose briefly before being sucked into narrow crevices zigzagging across the stone surface.

Koren eyed the vapor-producing liquid seeping into the ground. Pheterone. The miners back home found it in veins that likely originated from this spot.

She peered through the star’s curved wall. Inside, a smaller ball of light, about half the size of the entrance to Arxad’s cave, floated at eye level. Images flashed on the surface, changing every second—a red dragon, a cattle child, a stone worker with a cart. Each image acted as a layer on the sphere that peeled off in a pulse of light before shooting out as one of the vapors.

Koren touched the edge of the streams’ exit point, a jagged hole nearly as big as her hand. As a new stream poured out, the flow warmed her skin. The light filtered through the gaps in her fingers and gathered behind her into yet another tadpole-like projectile.

Mentally, she ran over what little she knew about this star that wasn’t a star. Taushin had called it “a celestial angel,” referring to the sphere as a guide given to this planet by the Creator. Unbidden, his words rose in her mind.
The citizens of the planet labeled it a star, even though they knew that the twinkling dots in the heavens were very different. Although it was somewhat hot centuries ago, Exodus sustained a wound in its outer membrane, and it lost its heat.

As another trickle of warmth leaked from the wound, Koren uncurled the fingers of her other hand, revealing the stardrop she had carried so far. The size of a large knuckle, the sphere glowed with white light.

Her mission was to enter the sphere through the hole and tell Starlight’s stories from within. The light energy should cause Exodus to inflate and rise again. It would then release pheterone, infusing the atmosphere with the gas the dragons required to survive and eliminating the need for human slaves. Her people could finally shake off their chains and return to their home world, Jason’s world.

She stared at the pulsing sphere in her hand. One problem spoiled this scenario. If the hole remained in the sphere, Exodus would eventually sink as it did before, and what they had gained would eventually be lost. Only one alternative seemed to be foolproof. She could enter the star and use the stardrop to seal the hole from the inside. She would become the guiding angel of Starlight—her destiny as a Starlighter, according to Taushin.

Again his words returned to her mind:
You may take your place as a star in the sky, a watchful angel who forever tells the Creator’s stories to every soul in the world, dragon and human alike … if they will listen.

If. And if they did not, her sacrifice would be for nothing. For there would be no way out … ever.

As if waging war in her mind, Taushin’s counterargument reverberated.

Why sacrifice? Why risk harm to yourself when it is possible to gain what you long for without it? With your power, I am sure you can keep the star aloft long enough for me to get the slaves out. To be eternally trapped while your liberated friends celebrate their freedom without you would be the greatest of tortures. Yes, you would feel some joy … temporarily. But what about after a hundred years? A thousand years? Ten thousand? After every rejoicing slave is dead, you will be hovering over a thankless land, forever and ever. Your sorrow will never end.

Koren shook her head, trying to sling the competing thoughts away. No matter what she decided to do later, she could do nothing from outside the star. Maybe when she entered the sphere a new secret would be revealed that would make her decision an easier one.

She pushed the edge of the hole to one side. It stretched easily. As if in response, a low moan sounded from the inner sphere. She pulled again, stretching the gap and pushing her head and torso inside. Another wail of pain, longer and louder, echoed throughout the sphere’s inner cavity.

She slid all the way inside and allowed the pliable skin to ease back into place, leaving a slightly larger hole than before. This time a gentle sigh drifted from wall to wall.

Koren stood on the curved floor, angling her body to keep her balance. “Is someone in here?” she called.

Her own words bounced back at her, repeating her question several times before fading.

A voice emanated from the small inner sphere. “Who are you?”

Koren let her boots slide down to the bottom of the floor. As she approached the source of the voice, she spoke in a soothing tone. “My name is Koren.”

“Koren?” The images on the sphere’s surface stopped, freezing at a portrait of Koren pulling a cart filled with honeycombs. “Koren the Starlighter who works for Arxad?”

“Yes.” She reached a hand toward the sphere, feeling the energy flowing from the speaking ball. “What is your name?”

The flow diminished. Then, as if deflating, the sphere contracted, growing taller in proportion to its width. It formed into the shape of a girl, and the colors in the portrait spread across her body—red into her flowing hair, green into her eyes, and blue into a cloak that matched Koren’s. Only her dress remained white. Finally, every detail crystallized. She seemed as human as any young woman on Starlight. It was like looking at a mirror … with one exception.

Koren looked down at her own clothes. Although she wore the Starlighter’s cloak, the black dress Zena had forced upon her covered her body from neck to knees, and the equally black boots adorned her feet, tied at the back to mid calf.

The girl stared, her expression curious, yet sad. With her hood raised, she tilted her head to the side and spoke softly. “Why are you here, Koren?”

“Uh …” Koren glanced back at the hole. The question felt like a challenge, a rebuke. It would be easy to retreat and slide out, run away from this responsibility … too easy. “I’m here to try to resurrect Exodus.”

“It is impossible,” the girl said with an ache in her voice.

Dragons of Starlight series:

Starlighter

Echoes from the Edge series

1 |
Beyond the Reflection’s Edge

2 |
Eternity’s Edge

3 |
Nightmare’s Edge

Dragons in Our Midst series

1 |
Raising Dragons

2 |
The Candlestone

3 |
Circles of Seven

4 |
Tears of a Dragon

Oracles of Fire series

1 |
Eye of the Oracle

2 |
Enoch’s Ghost

3 |
Last of the Nephilim

4 |
The Bones of Makaidos