BROKEN THREADS
LEILANI
Opaline River, Meissa, Northern Realm of Estelia
Ruined Age: 800 Sunrings, 131 Moonsrisings Post-Sickening
MEISSA,MYOLDlife: it’s all behind me now.
The ship carries us upriver, but the rush of joy I expected as we drift towards Lulana’s rolling hills doesn’t come. My stomach heaves along with the current, and I can’t stop worrying about falling over the side, wishing I’d been taught to swim. The sinister whispers are muted, for now, but the nagging unease remains, a worm forever gnawing my gut, along with the memory of that phantom face behind the glass. I fear my mind is starting to crack.
After last night, the atmosphere onboard is strained. But for our quest to have any hope of succeeding, we have to find a way of tolerating one another, of repairing our ragged alliance.
But first: avoid retching over the side of this star-damned boat.
‘Are you sure I can’t fetch you anything, Lili?’ Astrophel thrusts his waterskin at me.
‘Don’t call me that.’ Only my mother uses that name for me, and Astrophel well knows it. That’s four attempts at ingratiating himself since we left the palace. His crawling is even more nauseating than the reel of the ship. ‘I thought you’d drop the penitential act once my father was out of eyeshot,’ I say.
Blayze snorts from the bench in front of us. He’s sitting beside Maris, whittling a piece of wood with his pocket blade.
‘And you can keep your opinions to yourself,’ I hiss.
The words bubbled up before I could swallow them. Sister’s sake! I’m supposed to be mending broken threads, not picking at them.
Blayze’s hands still. ‘Temper, temper, Sparkles.’ He arches his scarred brow and grins. I wish I could slap that stupid smirk right off his smug face.
Maris laughs and tightens her grip on the ship’s lines, damp ropes groaning as they stretch beneath her webbed fingers. ‘Watch out, or she’ll blast you too.’
I swallow, look away. But not before I see his lips wilt at the mention of my magic.
Blayze sidles closer to Maris, their heads bent together, russet curls mingling with loose cerulean braids. She angles the sail, which soars in graceful wing-like arcs either side of the mast, bloated by the chill breeze.
Maris is a different person on the water. Something changed the moment she took the helm: inspecting the rigging, hoisting sail, weighing anchor with a kind of reverence, as if performing a beloved litany. Her expressions are less guarded, her eyes sparkle like the sun-kissed surface of the river, and the set of her shoulders is more relaxed. She’s more vital, more captivating than ever. No wonder Blayze can’t stop making moon-eyes at her.
‘What’s that?’ Blayze points towards three stone spires crowning a hill in the far distance.
‘The Asteum,’ I breathe.
I’ve built it up in my imagination for so long, the reality is much smaller, almost commonplace. Still, something tugs at my chest. Some part of me longs to order Maris to guide us back to the riverbank, to walk the frosted hills till I reach its hallowed halls, in case they do hold answers. Some scrap of information about the lost Book of Mysteries. But it’s in the opposite direction from where we need to travel, and my mother is wasting more with each moonsrising.
My dreams of a normal life will have to wait. I’ll have to make peace with my magic till we find the Starlight Staff. Pray the strange new powers I displayed in the ballroom don’t resurface, that Shadow doesn’t consume me.
‘Asteum?’ Blayze asks.
‘Our centre of learning. Of no interest to you,’ Astrophel spits back.
This is hopeless. They’ll kill each other before we get anywhere near the Astral Mountain, if I don’t strangle them both first.
‘Why isn’t the river frozen over?’ Maris calls over her shoulder.
It makes sense she’d take an interest – she’s an Islander after all – but this is the first time she’s struck up a natural conversation with me. Surely, that counts as progress?
‘The river has its source inside the Astral Mountain.’ I nod towards the distant glimmering point, which towers behind the spine of the seven Desolate Peaks. ‘When the Dawn Sister plucked the Wishing Star from the heavens as a vessel for her Star-Aether, and buried it in the heart of the mountain, the force turned rock to starcrystal – the same crystal my ancestors later mined to build Meissa. Some of what remains in the mountain eroded over time, turning to silt. Prismwort grows from the silt; it’s bioluminescent, varicoloured. That’s what tints the river and causes it to glow. The starglow’s energy keeps the water above freezing point. The silt is also harvested for the starfruit plantations. The traces of Star-Aether in the soil are the reason the fruit helps us acclimate to conditions here.’
Tansy, seated behind me, leans over the side of the boat as we navigate a bend in the river, staring into its glistening rainbow depths. ‘And the water’s still drinkable?’
I nod.
