“Keep it,”the young man said.“Try your hand at a sketch, Little Sister. It’s kept me busy during my recovery.”
“If I could spare you from the pain, lost soul,” the Child of Starlight whispered,her lips warm and glowing against Karr’s ear, “I certainly would. But pain is what grows us and shows us who we truly are.”
A cool wind crept through the cave, kissing Karr’s ankles as he peered out at the scene. The hair on his arms began to stand on end. Beyond the mouth of the cave, the starship closed in on the beach.
“The darkness,” the Child of Starlight sang beside him. “See how it blots out the stars in the sky?”
She’d just uttered the words when the ship slowed, finally noticed by the two figures, who’d taken a seat on the sand. They looked skyward, their eyes wide with terror.
Karr saw, unmistakably, the insignia stamped on the ship’s belly in boldest red.
The phoenix. It was theStarfall.
“Run.”The girl’s voice trembled, the echo of her word fluttering like it had wings as she grabbed the young man’s hand, abandoning the journal in the sand.“Run!”
She turned, leaping to her feet.
“Slow down!”The young man’s outline blurred as he tried to stand, too.
Her hand slipped from his. For where she was fast and lithe, he stumbled, his gait unsteady as he winced and tried to keep up.“Wait, Sonara! WAIT!”
She was ten steps ahead. Then twenty, as she raced towards the mouth of the cave.
With a loud cry, the young man fell and crashed hard into the sand, his leg twisting beneath him.
The girl looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide as she realized,in her fear, she’d left him behind. She turned and had only made it a few paces out of the shadows, her hand reaching for him, when a beam of blue light erupted from the belly of the ship. Old tech, outlawed years ago; a transporter. The beam surrounded the young man, lifting him from the ground.
He screamed and thrashed, trying to escape, but he was powerless against the beam’s hold. His arms stretched, a black amulet on a chain of gold dangling from his tunic, shining in the beam as the ship’s belly yawned wide and pulled him inside before slamming back shut.
“See how the darkness steals,” the Child of Starlight suddenly whispered. Karr had nearly forgotten she was there. “See how it leaves behind nothing but pain.” Her warm glow flickered as she turned, pointing back towards the girl now hiding in the mouth of the cave.
Karr could not hear her scream above the roar of theStarfall’sengines as they powered up and readied to soar away. But hesawit, the agony in her eyes as her lips formed a name.
Soahm.
She reached out, her hand trembling as the ship rose to the sky and carried her brother away. A blast of hot wind soared into the cave. It pushed the curls from the girl’s face, dried the tears as they fell from her eyes.
“Sonara,” Karr breathed.
Her story was true. His parents’ ship had come to Dohrsar. And if it was that long ago, then it explained why Karr thought he’d seen his father’s face, peering down from the hatch in the ship’s belly, where the transporter worked to swallow its Dohrsaran prize.
“They stole him,” Karr whispered.
The scene faded. The ship and the girl’s outline soared away like smoke on the wind, until the cave was empty again.
They hadstolenSoahm, just as Sonara said. Abducted him in the dark of night.
“The darkness has returned again,” the Child of Starlight said. “I’ve given you all the memories I could hold. But now you must wake, lost soul. You must try to remember who you are. For this time… the darkness will destroy all.”
He knew what came next.
It didn’t make the pain any less as she drove her starlight finger into his chest, and sent him screaming away from the half-place, back into the blazing morning light of Dohrsar.
Chapter 34
Cade
“String her up inside the brig,” Cade ordered, and wiped beads of sweat from his brow.
