It traveled, that scream. Louder, brighter, more vivid than anything she had felt before. A cry ofrage, that they would dare come to this place, to her home, with clothes of metal and blades of dripping scarlet, that they would hurt those who had never given them anything but an outstretched hand. That they would cut those small lives down, that they would dare to steal what Hala and Caelum had gifted them.
When the scream stopped, the world was silent.
Even the birds did not make a sound. There was no screaming. No shouts.
There was only silence.
And she stopped running.
Just in time – just – she caught herself on the very edge of the harbor, her toes dancing with open air. Here, Asteria ended. In front of her, an endless ocean of blue stretched further than her gaze could see.
Smoke stung the girl’s eyes as heat blazed across her face. They had few ships since the faeytes rarely left Asteria, but the ones they had were burning.
Asteria was burning.
Gasping, her head twisted.
People – there were so manypeoplehere. And ships surrounded the island – ships of a size she had never seen, with hundreds of people swarming from them, stepping along wooden planks to set their feet on Asterian soil. People who pointed at her, and shouted, though no sound passed their lips that she could hear above the screaming inside her own mind.
Behind them, the sea was full of sails. So many more ships, masts pointing toward the midday sun. Like monsters, they crept closer.
She had dreamed this.
And there were more men in metal. They broke free from the scores that descended from those ships, moving toward her in squiggly silver lines as she backed up to the very edge. Her heel nearly slipped on the moss that grew along the stone walls.
They spoke to each other, and to her. Angry, demanding words that climbed over each other with their excitement; sleek, gleaming swords lifted as they surrounded her with eyes of vivid, jeweled color that marked them as Caelumnai.
As if she were some sort of threat, with her bare, bloodied feet and flowers in her tangled hair, and a dress made of gauze andmoonlight that her sister had pressed so carefully but now hung in tatters—ripped, and ruined, and brushed with something wet that clung to her legs.
The metal men noticed. Their eyes lowered inside those metal cages, and some of them began to laugh. That laughter—taunting, and loud, and threatening—filled her up. It flooded the empty space inside her chest, and it grew until she felt as if she was drowning in their derision.
It felt like an ember, at first. A small glow, that turned to sparks, and to flames, until she felt as if her skin was crawling with the heat of what she felt as they looked at her.
She pulled her head back, and shespat.
It hit the ground in front of the closest leering soldier, and he stopped.
She had never done anything like it before. Her throat was raw, and she had no breath left.
His face twisted, and he lifted his sword.
Her sisters had been wrong, and her heart ached at what they had given up. There was nowhere to go. There were only the faces in front of her, and the water at her back. She could hear it. The waves crashed against the stone wall, as if it too could sense the rage inside her.
She was alone. There was nobody left.
But they would not haveher. She would meet her sisters at the gates of Ellas. She would see them again in the next life.
The girl threw out her arms.
And she stepped back.
They lunged, but she was already falling. Her hair rippled around her face, moonlight dress flowing upright, as she fell.
Her back hit the water with a shock that stole any remaining air from her lungs, and she was dragged down. The waves closed over her head like an embrace, the water that should have been icy was instead warm against her skin in a welcoming caress.
She did not fight it. She breathed, deep and true, and the water that rushed into her lungs burned, but only for a moment.
And then, it was peaceful.
