Okay the last part hadn’t been much of a whisperat all—it may have been a bit of an aggressive yell directed toward the stars.
Suddenly and without warning, a flash burst in front of my eyes. A wave of light soared through the night sky, casting shades of bright blue and green across it and causing each star it passed to shimmer. My breath caught at the beauty of it as the stars themselves began to vibrate and shake, as if they were building up to an explosion, appearing to expand in size—as if they were growing closer to me.
That wasn’t possible though, right? Surely they couldn’t be falling already! I was supposed to have had time?—
Before I could work myself into a true panic, a beam of blue light shot down from the sky. It surrounded me, encompassing me in a perfect circle of warmth as I stared up in shock. My wings broke out on instinct, propelling me to my feet as I prepared myself to move quickly to face whatever threat was approaching.
I didn’t have a chance to prepare, let alone scream or call for help before my body was liftedinto the air on its own accord. It was like gravity suddenly didn’t apply to me. Traveling what felt like hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds, I barely caught sight of the house far below me as I was forcefully tugged higher within the cocoon of light. The pull was so intense, so powerful, that my body and brain were having trouble processing what was happening, let alone catching up to it. Dizziness and panic began to flow through me.
My stomach churned and my breath caught in my throat as I let out a pathetic wheeze. I was stuck staring upwards, my head angled awkwardly as pain throbbed through my neck. I tried towrap my arms around my chest protectively, nearly crying out as my feathers were torn violently from my wings because of the speed I was moving at. My eyes watered from the air rushing past them and my body trembled in reaction to the pure velocity it was experiencing. I may have been able to fly, but even I knew I wasn’t supposed to go against gravity like this.
Everything I passed was a blur of colors, but I could tell I was traveling faster than I ever had before—faster than we traveled in the portal we’d taken to get down here to begin with.
Panic struck me at that thought. There was no way this was a return portal to Alfemir…right?My chest squeezed.No. That was impossible. It would be one thing if my father had appeared by those means, conjuring my location by thinking of me when going through the portal, but I didn’t think anyone had the capability tokidnapme through a weird portal of light.
Suddenly, I came to a stop—fast, hard, andviolently.
All of the speed and velocity I’d experienced was gone in an instant, and I cried out in pain as my body smacked into an invisible, hard barrier that felta lotlike the wall I kept trying to break past in my meditative state. My body bounced back against it and I hung suspended in the air for a long moment, my entire frame reeling from the change as I tried to desperately reach for something to stabilize myself. My gaze darted around in hopes of finding something familiar.
Unfortunately, that was not in the cards for me. A strangled sound left my throat at the realization I was inliteralspace.Holy shit.
My body floated in the boundless space that surrounded me, my breath coming out in panicked gasps, as I wondered how I was even breathing up here. I couldn’t figure out how to move or angle myself without gravity, a part of me wanting to ground myself by locating Earth and Alfemir, which were out of my sight.
But the longer I stared at the infinite expanse of the unknown stretching out in all directions around me, the more my attention was pulled by the stars surrounding me. They were beautiful—each galaxy and nebula decorating the space in a starburst of colors. They were so incredibly unique, and while currently out of my reach, I found myself wanting to float toward them—to connect in a fundamental, physical way. My brain was telling me how wrong this was, but I couldn’t deny that the longer I floated there, absorbing the sight of the cosmos around me, the more my body felt at peace with the shift in reality.
Finally managing to find my voice, and feeling slightly silly doing so, I decided to try to speak to them—to figure out how this had happened. “Did you call me up here? Did I do something with my powers? I don’t understand how this happened.”
The last thing I expected was for someone to respond back to me.
“We did call you.”
I yelped in surprise as hundreds of ghostly figures appeared around me in one simultaneous moment, the words echoing around me in a unified, layered effect that was objectively eerie. Faceless and indistinguishable, white spirit-like bodies all faced me—surrounded me.The vision put fear at the forefront of my brain as I stared in shock, my mouth hanging open.
“Who…whocalled me?” I managed to finally get out, the silence causing me to feel uneasy. My throat felt tight and adrenaline coursed through me, any peace I’d felt before swiftly removed at the appearance of these unknown individuals.
“All of us.” This time the voice was different, more distinguished and gentle. One of the figures stepped forward, transforming into a woman that, while still spirit-like, had a distinct individualistic appearance, as a human would. Twomore followed her, holding my attention, but the rest stayed where they were.
The woman in front of me had long, ankle-length hair that was a deep raven shade. She had bright, silvery blue eyes, and her complexion was smooth—almost perfectly so. Yet, I got the distinct impression that she was older, her energy speaking to a compassion and wisdom that came with life experience.
In comparison, the other two ghostly figures appeared to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. There was a teenager who stood to her left, the lanky, blond-haired boy offering me a smile that was tinged with excitement, and an older man who stood to her right, his gaze bored but his smile pleasant.
“Who are ’all of us,’ and where did you come from?” I demanded, bolstering myself and pushing away the surprise still radiating through me. I didn’t know if these individuals were a threat to me, and while it didn’t feel that way, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. Not yet.
“Weare the previous Star Keepers,” the teenager explained. “We could feel you searching for us—searching for our help these past few days. You called out to us.”
Had I? Sure, I had continuously reached out to the stars during training, but I never would have expected this—to meet, or even see, previous Star Keepers.
“I don’t understand how this is possible,” I admitted, my brows dipping further. “I mean, aren’t all of you…”
“Dead?” The older man chuckled dryly when I hesitated to say it. “Yes, we are. But we can explain more on that later—that isn’t why we called you here.”
“Whydidyou call me here?”
“We tried to get your attention for a bit,” the woman explained. “We pushed even harder tonight, because for once, you seemed more at ease and open to us. It takes a massive amount of our concentration and waning energy to manage it.We wanted an opportunity to answer any questions you have and possibly lend our guidance.”
So I hadn’t been able to sleep because of them.
“Questions?” I whispered, my brows going up.
