My palms itch again, and this time I don’t fight against it. The risks are grave, but there’s no choice. We can’t fail.
I flex my free hand, keeping careful hold of Serafine’s feather, and allow the starshine to pool there. Counting to three, I visualise spinning round and launching myself open-palmed at the birds standing sentinel. I’ll have to move fast. I have no idea how long the light will hold them off – or even if it will hold them off at all. One… two… th—
Wings skim over my head again, ruffling the musty air.
A deeper yell. I can’t help but look.
One of the night-birds has launched itself at Blayze. His eyes are screwed shut, but his mouth twists in a grimace, gapes in a wail. Talons tear his face, slicing open his left cheek.
I scream with him, my arms hanging useless at my sides. Starlight ebbs from my fingers. I can’t unleash it to defend him without risking striking him with it again. I should lower my eyes, shut them to protect myself, but I can’t look away. He bats at the bird, driving it back. His hands move to his face, as if he can knit the flayed skin back together with his fingers. His knees meet the floor of the cave with a heavy crack. I start to reach for him, but the night-bird circles back, talons splayed.
It isn’t done with Blayze yet.
Before it can attack again, Blayze cries out. Only this time it isn’t a howl of pain; it’s a hollow moan of despair.
I don’t understand, not at first, but then a ball of flame flashes past me, like that ill-starred comet streaking the heavens. The sepulchral air of the cave warms in its wake. It barrels straight at the bird assailing Blayze, and my chest caves.
Serafine.
I grip her feather with shaking fingers as she drives the bird from Blayze, back towards the rest of the flock. All nine are now huddled around the starburst formation.
She’s ignited.
It’s a death sentence. A last resort, only invoked when every other defence has failed. She’s sacrificing herself to save Blayze.
Serafine turns on the night-birds, screeching, burning. She herds them away to the other side of the cave, her piercing cries skewering through me. The flock shrinks from the noise, the glare, the heat, but she presses forwards, savaging them with her tearing beak and talons, slashing at their eyes, blinding them in turn. Agonised squawks echo around the cave, and the scent of old coin taints the air.
At last, Serafine sinks to the ground, charred and bleeding.
Blayze limps to her side, horror and despair warring in his torn, bloodied face. Maris rushes after him. The feather I’m still clutching in my fist crumbles to ash, spiralling to the ground like ghoulish confetti.
I stand there, rooted to the spot. My heart drags towards Serafine, but my mind pulls towards the Starlight Staff. Serafine is still breathing, but barely. She won’t survive her injuries.
Serafine is gone, but I still have a chance to save my mother.
The night-birds are no longer a mortal threat. Now’s my chance to seize the sceptre. Before Arden does. And with that thought, my heart joins my head.
I rush towards the outcrop and claw its base. The shards of crystal shred my skin and rag my nails. There’s pain, but it’s strangely distant, my focus so trained on loosening the stone. At last, it gives beneath my hands. I prise the crystals loose and rifle the damp earth beneath until my fingertips graze something cool and solid.
I’ve found it.
Warmth bubbles up through my chest, but then I remember Arden. I hold my breath and glance behind me. Long seconds pass. No sign of her. I let out the breath and brush the earth aside. At last, the Starlight Staff glimmers up at me.
It’s made from silver. Moonstone cabochons of different sizes, carved to resemble stars, stud its length, along with smatterings of opals and amethysts. A starstone crowns the sceptre, almost three times the size of the fragment in the Celestial Chain, and more brilliant still. I dimly remember my fears about Noelani’s sceptre, my worries about it being a cursed artefact. But standing here, those fears dissolve. My fingers itch to hold it – to claim it – and the Celestial Chain urges me forwards too, drawn into orbit again, as with the Wishing Star.
It wants its sister.
But I can’t lift it from the ground. I tug, tug again, fingers slipping and sliding against the glossy metal. But it won’t budge.
‘The ritual,’ I murmur.
The others are gathered around Serafine on the far side of the cave, their heads bowed. I don’t want to ask them to do this – not now they’re grieving – but every second might be the difference between life and death for my mother.
‘The sceptre,’ I croak. ‘We need to perform the rite.’
Astrophel and Tansy turn immediately, Maris and Delphine a heartbeat later. But Blayze stays on the ground with Serafine.
I stand. Take a few steps towards him. ‘Blayze, please…’
