Darken the Stars Read online

  I arrive at a dust-covered junction where buildings meet to form a triangle. Abandoned vehicles line the streets. Weathered by time, they resemble the skeletons of decaying beasts. No one stirs to disturb the quiet of the rusting boneyard.

  I lurch sideways, being tugged to marble steps in front of a gothic, gray stone structure. I move like a ghost through the tangle of vine and vegetation that clings to the twisted stone railings. I don’t use the entryway ahead, but instead surge through the solid wall as lightning into a metal rod. Dust-covered marble floors inlaid with gold greet me on the other side. Above me, cathedral ceilings with fresco paintings of elaborate detail spreads out as if they were tattoos on an aging sailor. Their fading colors still portray the beauty of a bygone era.

  Movement draws my attention. Around me, soldiers like matchstick men with fiery eyes and thin, well-honed bodies keep watch at strategic points. They’re ready to take fire and give it. Clad in feather-light high-polymer vests, they’re heavily armed with sophisticated weaponry. Their sharp eyes look right through me, invisible as I am, not being of their time but, rather, days behind them.

  This building is a gateway, I think. They’re defending something.

  I don’t remain with them, but lurch through grand cathedral-like chambers until I pass through the outer wall onto a raised stone terrace. Outside once more, my whole perspective changes in an instant. It’s an oasis in a wasteland of decay. Gone are the dilapidated shell buildings; they’re replaced by a small, sparsely lit city. It’s concealed under an iridescent dome, which rises into the night sky.

  I’m drawn down the stone steps with a swift yank. Lamps hover on either side of the walkways near grassy thoroughfares. I ghost-move by the floating lights that resemble elaborate Aries’ heads. Its wrought-iron horns coil around its ears. Passing beneath one, I see that light shines out from the bleating ram’s mouth.

  My attention shifts to the buildings. They’ve been patched up with repurposed items. One of the majestic gothic-style edifices has an awning made from the blade of huge turbine windmills that used to generate power for the ancient city. Sturdy, herringbone-etched columns, bearded by leafy vines, holds it up. Another building clearly had a domed capital at one time, but now it has a flat metal roof with wicked-looking aircraft crouching on its brow.

  A pair of hovercycles power up and take off. Quiet and stealthy, the cycles draw closer. I note the riders are the same type of matchstick men whom I saw when I first entered this city. They drive slowly, patrolling the empty thoroughfare with just the low hum of their vehicles to mark their progression.

  I hurry forward and pass through an archway. It’s guarded on either side by gigantic statues of sword-wielding strongmen. I spare only a brief glance at the statues’ maniacal expressions, their laurel crowns of blue-green patina, and their general nakedness—only enough time to make sure the statues remain inanimate.

  I pass over a thick concrete slab bridge that was added over a dry moat. A courtyard greets me on the other side. This must’ve been the residence of the mayor or some other figurehead of the city. It’s a headquarters now, inhabited by more matchstick men built for war, if the dull fire in their eyes is any indication.

  The cavernous old building houses a flurry of activity. Sophisticated control rooms make up most of the ground floor. Monitoring stations wrap around central holograms amid the backdrop of the ornate, gothic chambers. The holograms map out and scrutinize sections of Amster, but others monitor a variety of places on Ethar. I recognize the Isle of Sky—or what’s left of it. In the war-torn streets of Rafe’s city, just outside the courthouse where I was made Manus’s ward, the wounded and dead lie in piles in the streets while Alameeda Strikers, wearing eerie, snake-coiled gas masks with owlish eyeholes, point flamethrowers at them and turn them into billowing-embered bonfires.

  The Amster soldier nearest me watches the carnage playing out on the holographic screen. His expression changes from stoic to fearful. It unnerves me as much as the scene in the holographic image. I don’t want to see more. I keep moving, skirting another hologram—this one of a pristine city where fireworks of every color burst and shatter the skyline with brilliant-colored letters spelling out the Etharian word for V I C T O R Y in the darkness. The scene draws a crowd of soldiers. Their passionate eyes are made shiny by the colorful light before them, painting their faces burning red, gold, and umber.

  Time won’t wait for me to figure out what’s going on. The invisible chain I’m dangling on tugs me toward the wide stairs in the corner of the room. The black uniformed Amster soldiers on the staircase don’t know I’m there. I pass through them uncontested and rise up the uneven flagstone. It winds around inside the walls like a spiraling seashell. I reach a landing. A commissary encompasses this floor. I don’t stop, but continue to climb, following the urgent tug.

  Behind me there’s a loud clatter. Giffen stands in front of an overturned chair amid a roomful of soldiers who continue to move and talk around him. His handsome features bear the expression of someone who has had all the hairs on the back of his neck stick straight up. His long, sandy-colored dreadlocks fall behind his shoulders and away from his face as he turns his head. His eyes, as they dart in my direction, are unexpectedly intimate. For a moment I think he sees me. He flexes his hands in an animalistic way as he straightens his broad shoulders, but his green eyes leave me and scan the area, searching for the source of the change of energy in the air. I’m glad he can’t see me. I’m not here to talk to him. I hope he thinks I’m a demon rising from the dead.

  Without pause, I’m dragged to the top of the building. I pass through a large carved-stone threshold into a high-ceilinged room with dormers that lead to the rooftop outside. Unoccupied, hovering cots line the walls in rows. The lighting is so dim that anyone could hide in the crevices of the room undetected. A low hum of a distant machine captures my attention. In the last hoverbed in the corner I find Trey. My nonexistent stone heart squeezes tight like a phantom limb.

  Unconscious on a hovering cot, Trey is surrounded by odds and ends of wires and tubes. They appear to be some sort of monitoring system, checking his vital signs. A thick metal band clamps his brow and wraps around the circumference of his head. The band has readouts made of flashing lights.

  I eliminate the space between us, if not the time, by crawling in bed beside him, cuddling my phantom form up to his real one. “I’m here,” I say the words, but I don’t know if he can hear me. Maybe they’re just thoughts.

  From around the corner comes the thump of running feet. Astrid skitters into the room with a startled expression on her face. She reaches out and grasps the back of a chair to steady her tall frame. She bends a bit at the waist, trying to catch her breath. She clearly ran up the stairs outside to get here. Tossing her long black hair back over her shoulder, she straightens and glances behind her as Raspin tumbles into view. His large form fills the doorway. He sweeps the bangs of his copper-colored hair away from his face as he watches Astrid.

  Giffen taps Raspin on the shoulder, getting his attention so that he can squeeze by his friend and enter the room. Giffen looks around in confusion and says, “I thought I felt—”

  “Shh!” Astrid shushes him. She looks away from her two companions. “Kricket,” she whispers breathlessly, and as she says my name, it’s as if the sound emanates from within me even as she speaks. Her blue eyes—so like our mother’s—scan the room. Giffen watches her. He isn’t breathing heavily at all, even though I know he must’ve run up a ton of stairs to be here.

  Astrid takes tentative steps to the middle of the room. “Kricket,” she says again as she turns in a circle. It’s a vibration in my mind—a thought. Her special talent of communicating nonverbally works even without my body being present.

  Raspin extends his hand to Astrid protectively. “Astrid—”

  “Hush!” she admonishes him with her finger to her lips. “She’s here! I know it.”

  “How do you know?” Raspin asks while mo
ving closer to Astrid. He peers warily into the dark corners of the room.

  Astrid raises her hand and turns around again slowly, holding it out in front of her. She stops turning when she faces me again. She takes a step in my direction. “I feel her.”

  From behind her, Giffen says, “I feel her too.”

  I ignore them. “Trey,” I try to speak to him. I see him breathing, but his normally vibrant skin is pale and drawn.

  Astrid’s head snaps in our direction. “It is you! I knew I felt you!” She turns to Raspin and says, “It’s her! She’s here!” Raspin’s tall Frankenstein-like frame inches closer to Astrid. He hovers indecisively, as if I pose a threat to her in my astral state. He clearly can’t hear me. Scratching his long, copper-colored head, he adopts a vacant stare, trying to puzzle out why he can’t see or hear me.

  Astrid nears Trey and me. “He’s responding well,” she says gently. “He woke for a few moments earlier. He asked for you.”

  “He did?” I hate the way that sounds—weak.

  “Yes,” Astrid says, nodding.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I demand.

  “His brain swelled. We were able to decrease the inflammation, though.”

  Fear infects me. “Will he be okay?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Does he know I’m . . . gone?”

  “That you’ve been handed over to the Alameeda?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was never supposed to happen!” The words tumble out of her in a rush. “When I figured out what they did—”

  “Does he know?”

  She raises her hand in a helpless gesture toward Trey. “No. We haven’t told him yet. There hasn’t been time. He only just woke up and it was brief—I’m so sorry, Kricket! I didn’t—”

  “Don’t! Don’t talk to me! Just go away. Leave us alone!” I warn.

  Astrid flinches. She wrings her hands and glances at Giffen. His jaw ticks. Giffen growls. “Where is she?” he asks Astrid.

  Astrid gestures lamely to where Trey is lying with me curled up to his side. “Over there by him.”

  Giffen frowns. “How long has she been here?”

  Astrid shrugs, the frown lines on her face deepen. “I don’t know. How long have you been here, Kricket?” Astrid asks. I ignore her question, mulishly trying everything I can to keep her out of my mind. “She won’t talk to me!” The forlorn twist of her lips causes Giffen to scowl.

  Giffen raises his hands in my direction. He uses his power of telekinesis to connect to me in the most intimate of ways, infiltrating my spirit. Energy as thick as muddy water swirls within me. Giffen’s power spreads through me like a fever. It’s as if I’ve swallowed the light of the sun. His essence mingles with mine, and the sensation is nothing less than euphoric. I hate him for it. I shimmer and become a golden silhouette of billowing stardust and light—apparently visible to them, if Astrid’s gasp is any indication.

  Giffen walks forward until he stands just next to me. Crouching down by my side, he murmurs, “Kricket, you can’t stay here. You have to go back.” He can definitely see me.

  I’m not leaving! I think. I don’t need the ability to speak with him. He’s a part of me now. He’s interfering with my time with Trey. I have so little left.

  “If you stay much longer, your body that you left behind will die.”

  I know he’s right. The pull to leave is so strong.

  “Your body needs whatever this is—” he waves his hand in my direction “—to survive.”

  “Why do you care?” I snarl.

  “You’re my—” he hesitates “—you’re frightening your sister.” His response is as lame as he is.

  Even without a body, my response sounds like a snort. “I don’t care.”

  “You’re no good to us dead! We need information, and you’re the only one in a position to provide it. You’re the only one who can get close to them. Stop being a selfish child!”

  I want to lash out at him—hurt him. I want his heart to ache like mine does. “I’m not helping you.”

  “Then help yourself! You should learn when to go! Your gift will kill you!”

  “Good!” I retort.

  “Your life is failing.” He pushes more of his own life force into me, strengthening the silhouette of me that is beginning to fade. “You have to go back! Now!”

  “I’m never going back,” I reply. I look away from him. The shiny, gold stardust of my hair runs in shimmering waves over Trey’s chest as I rest my cheek against him.

  “Then you’ll die!” Giffen roars as he swipes his hand across the side table, knocking vials of liquid and scattering them across the floor with a loud racket.

  “You’re going to have to find another way in with the Alameeda. I’m done.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? What’s going on there?”

  “You know,” I accuse him.

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

  “Please go back, Kricket,” Astrid pleads.

  I stab her with my golden stardust stare. “He’s going to make me sleep with him.”

  She looks as if I punched her in the stomach. “Who’s going to make you?”

  “Kyon—your Alameeda friend who traded you for me. He owns me now. They gave me to him.”

  Her face loses most of its color. “He’s not my friend.”

  “He’s not mine, either,” I reply.

  She looks at Raspin, whose face contorts in shame. She points her finger at him. “I’m never speaking to you again!” Her venom turns on Giffen next. “You have to get her out of there!”

  Giffen shakes his head. “There’s no way right now, but even if there were, I wouldn’t do it. You think she’d be safe here?” He gestures to me while he snarls at Astrid. “She’s in the only place where she won’t be under the constant threat of death every single rotation. Ruthless or not, Kyon will protect her. He can’t help himself. I saw the look on his face when he saw her—when I ransomed her. It was relief. He’d never have negotiated with us for you if she weren’t the trade. He would’ve brought his army and crushed us instead. He needs her, and we need her there. She’s going back! The Alameeda Strikers are annihilating Rafe. It’s only a matter of time before they turn their attention to us. We have to find a way to take them out now, and your sister is the only one we have on the inside.”

  “So I’m expendable,” I say to Giffen. “I think that’s the theme of my life with you guys.”

  “You’re an asset! Start acting like one!” Giffen refuses to be cowed. He paces in front of me with a withering look upon his face. “I used to think you were so strong.”

  “When did you think that?” I ask.

  “Never mind. Where has he taken you?”

  “I can’t go back. You don’t know Kyon! He’s all bite. There’s no bark. He just strikes and keeps on striking!”

  “You’re smarter than him. Make him yours,” Giffen retorts.

  “There’s no making him mine! Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. I told you. I’d rather die than go back.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Giffen replies.

  “You have no choice.”

  “I haven’t watched you all this time to let you kill yourself now! You’ll return to him and find a way to take down the Alameeda, or so help me I’ll kill you myself!”

  “You’ve watched me? When did you watch me?”

  Giffen doesn’t answer as he stands in front of me breathing heavily in an attempt to rein in his anger.

  Astrid answers instead. “You were given to him to protect. He’s been your keeper.”

  “My keeper?”

  “He’s a member of the Order of the Tempest—it’s the society of mostly male Alameeda offspring who survived with the EVS819 gene.”

  “Is that what you call our freak gene—EVS819?” When she nods, I say, “And your band of lost boys are the Tempest?”

  Astrid gestures to Giffen and then to Raspin. “They’re the ones who swore an oath to prot
ect the priestesses of the prophecy—that’s us.” She indicates herself and me with a gesture of her hand.

  “I think you mean protect you because, so far, I’ve been on my own.”

  Astrid steps toward me. “That’s not true! Giffen has been there for you when—”

  “Quiet, Astrid!” Giffen yells as he points at Astrid, who clamps her lips shut, startled by the tone he’s taken with her.

  “When what, Astrid?” I demand.

  Astrid turns pleading eyes to Giffen. He shakes his head. Turning to me with a determined look, he states, “Where have they taken you?”

  “Screw you!” I retort, barely holding on now. I can’t argue further. I want to, but I’m a flickering light—no longer made of star fire but merely gypsy dust in the pale moonlight.

  Giffen hovers above me, a new moon whose silhouette is the only thing I can see. “I’ll find you. Watch for me. I’m sending you back before you kill yourself!” He raises his hands to me again, and the force of energy he sends into me knocks me back into the current of time—into a celestial flood. I spin backward, following the path that had led me to Trey.

  I land to a cacophony of sounds in my head. I feel an anvil on my chest. Someone is trying to squeeze my heart out and shove it up into my throat by administering chest compressions. I hear myself gasp in soughs that rattle around in agony in my chest. I cough in choking breaths. The anvil ceases to fall. Steady pressure over my heart replaces it. Reaching my hands up, my fingers entangle in Kyon’s hair as he presses his ear to me. He listens to my heart. Waves lap against my toes. The water feels hot—so much warmer than me.

  Kyon lifts his head from my chest and gets up on his knees. His strong hand grips my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. I blink a few times, wondering at the shadows of fear that I see in his stare. The panic in his features abates as he takes deep breaths with me. He gathers my limp form to him, nearly crushing me. My wet nightgown sticks to us both. The coldness of my wintry skin against his causes goose bumps to break out on his flesh. “Kricket”—his hushed voice is urgent—“I have to get you warm.”