When from deep in its inky depths, as she and Karr peered into the heart…
A child made of starlight stared up at them.
Chapter 37
Sonara
One moment she was leaning over the heart.
The next, she and Karr were tumbling into darkness, into an expanse that had no end.
They came to a stop on the bow of a boat, sailing across an endless black sea. There were no stars in the sky; only darkness that spanned left and right, as far as the eye could see.
“I have waited for an eternity.”
Sonara looked to the right, and there stood the girl.
A Child of Starlight,Karr had said before.
And now here the child stood, her body woven out of planets and space and time and stars. Endless stars that sparkled as she turned, crossing her arms and raising a celestial brow at Sonara and Karr. “Perhaps… longer than an eternity,” she said.
Sonara had the faintest feeling that she was being reprimanded.
“It’s you again,” Karr said.
The child nodded.
Then she snapped her fingertips, and the scene changed.
The boat sped forward, racing across the sea, and as it sailed, the girl changed, too.
It was like her life fast-forwarded before Sonara’s eyes, the years adding to her age as she stretched taller so that the stars in her hair died, exploding and forming into new ones as her limbs stretched out. The planets upon the girl’s collarbone and arms spun, lengthening and then multiplying so that more formed into existence. Upon her forehead, an image of a ringed planet appeared.Dohrsar.Her nebula eyes grew, flaring brighter as the girl’s face shaped into something more mature.
She was a young woman now. A beautiful young woman made of the universe itself.
“It took you long enough,” she said.
Sonara glanced over her shoulder, towards the others.
But they’d disappeared. Only the endless darkness remained, the black sky and the starless sea.
“Where are we?” Sonara asked.
Karr said, “My dreams. She only comes to me in my dreams.”
The woman gave a gentle laugh. “You’re not dreaming. You’ve come to my domain, lost soul. As I had hoped you would.” Stars cascaded down her neck, falling with glittering trails of firelight behind them as she looked at Sonara next. “And you… don’t you recognize the voice in your head, the whisper in your soul? I’ve spent years speaking to you, Sonara of Soreia, and you never trulylisten.I’m surprised you made it here, and just before the end of my time. My spirit is growing weak.”
“You,” Sonara said, voice trembling. That voice, gentle, ancient and knowing all at once. A whisper that had asked her to choose, when she first became a Shadowblood. The voice of her curse.“When I died, and fell into that place of darkness and light, ten years ago. It wasyouwho asked me to choose, and…”
“You refused,” the woman said.
Sonara had. For she couldn’t find a stronger pull towards either side, both equally as appealing.
“As all the worthy souls have done before you,” continued the woman, “and will do so after your time. Unless of course, the darkness wins, and Dohrsar ceases to exist.”
“You… are the planet?” Sonara asked.
The woman tilted her head, stars tumbling from her hair to fade over the boat’s edge, into the black sea. “No. I am her messenger. The spirit of the first Shadowblood she created.” She bowed, holding out an arm before herself. A constellation created a bangle upon her wrist. “I am Eona.”
