I’ve never seen a fragment of the Wishing Star before. It gleams with an opal light, similar to Orthriel’s aura, only several times more brilliant, the depths of the heavens contained within its facets. But darkness flickers at its core, a residual Shadow Mark from where the starstone was rent by the Elemagi’s Blood Bond, cleaving into two Sister-Stones. This one, and the one set atop the Starlight Staff. Even with this flaw, it’s mesmerising, magnetic – almost animate. A strange rhythm, a crystalline heartbeat, vibrates through the stone as I cradle it in my palm. It’s oddly comforting, even as an icy worm of dread gnaws my chest the longer I stare at it.
I leap to my feet as understanding dawns about what I hold in my hand, whom I can save, if I can only reunite it with its twin.
I tear my eyes from the chain to look at my Guardian. ‘How could you keep this from me?’
‘Noelani was clear. I was not to give you the bequest until you came of age. I swore her an oath that—’
‘But my mother might have died, she still might, and this… this gives me a chance to save her. What about your loyalty to me? You know it’s my fault she’s sick. You know I pray every night, wishing I could undo that morning she crossed the wall to go to the Asteum.’
The world tilts, blurs round the edges. I can’t catch my breath.
‘Breathe. Just breathe.’ Orthriel repeats the mantra over and over.
I force myself to listen, to slow my breaths, count them till the world rights itself and the pounding quiets in my ears.
‘Are you well?’ Orthriel asks once my pulse is steady and even.
I glare at them.
‘It’s not been easy to keep the existence of this letter – and what I suspected it might mean when Noelani also bequeathed her chain to me – from you. But she made me swear the oath of secrecy on my heartcrystal. The penalty for breaking it was banishment from Nimbi. I’ve wanted to tell you so many times, but until now, my suspicions were only that. I knew nothing for certain. And without the island, without the means to replenish my heartcrystal…’
Orthriel doesn’t need to finish that sentence. It’s obvious what would happen to them without the island’s ready reserves of Star-Aether. Like all of Arcelia’s Guardian races, cielsylphs are immortal only so long as a connection to their Aether core endures.
‘So, you decided to gamble, not with your own life, but with my mother’s instead, is that it?’
Orthriel straightens and glowers back at me, their aura flaring. ‘That’s enough. You forget who – what – you’re speaking to.’ They can shift from beautiful to terrible in an instant. ‘I’ve given it to you, haven’t I? And now you can use Noelani’s letter to interrupt the binding ceremony, delay proceedings so the moment of full moonslight passes. They’ll be forced to postpone to the next Flowering Moons, or risk the union being star-slighted. Foolish child, I’ve bought you the space of a sunring.’
‘And what if I don’t have a sunring?’ I screech. The whispers. The warnings. It all makes sense now. I scan the letter again. ‘See, Noelani explains here the Elemagi’s wards can’t hold forever. They were only ever intended to last until I came of age.’ I stab my finger at the relevant passage. ‘What if Arden’s curse destroys everything before I can find the Starlight Staff? What if my mother doesn’t last long enough for me to discover it?’ I narrow my eyes. ‘I’ll never forgive you. Never!’
Hurt flickers across my Guardian’s face, along with the shadow of some other emotion I can’t place.
‘Finish the letter, Leilani,’ they sigh. ‘Save your spleen. There is more yet to learn.’
I don’t like the weight of that sigh. Orthriel must have read ahead. I turn my attention back to the pages crushed in my hand. What more can there possibly be? My world’s been tipped upside down already.
You are the key, Leilani, but you cannot unlock the curse alone. By the time you read this, I fear Arcelia will have once more been torn asunder, our efforts to restore and unite the realms brought to naught. Your first hurdle will be bridging these divides, for the Starlight Staff can only be retrieved if a Quaternity– a member drawn from each of Arcelia’s realms – re-enacts our Blood Bond. A safeguard against Arden seizing it for her own and using it to wreak more horror. But more than this, the magic within Arcelia, the magic within my sceptre, flows freely and fully only when the four Aethers are in balance, when the four quarters of Arcelia areunited.
Self-interest will not serve the greater good, nor heal our broken world.
Stronger together. This was to have been our great lesson. Our legacy.
I am sorry to force you to invoke Shadow Lore, but it is the only way I can ensure the sceptre will answer to you. Our talismans were forged in Shadow; they respond to its call, to the power of blood. My blood that you share.
So long as you are careful, I do not believe the darkness will overwhelm you, as it did Arden. The rest of us never fell under its spell, not in the same way. And I am not asking you to perform an incantation of such dread power as our Blood Bond– a pale imitation only. You need not wait for the Triclipse, and while we drained our forfeits from our brands, a single drop of blood from each of the four members of your Quaternity will suffice, whether they are Brandedor no, so long as the offerings are freely given– for I foresee a dearth of our kind in your Arcelia.
I know I am asking you to take a leap of faith, to place yourself in danger, but you have more within you, Leilani, than you realise.
Be brave. Shine bright,
Noelani.
The pages slip through my fingers, settling like cinders in my lap. Apt, for those self-same pages have just incinerated everything I thought I knew about history and my place in it.
How can Noelani ask this of me?
I remember the stories of the Scouring, my childish dream of finding the lost relics, then shake myself. Not like this. Never like this.
‘I won’t do it.’ I look up at Orthriel. ‘Not if it means embracing the poison inside me, wading into Shadow, and seducing our sworn enemies. No good can come from that.’ I shake my head.
