At least, no one we can see.
For that crawling sensation of being watched, the weight of that invisible presence at my shoulder, hasn’t left me. If anything, it’s stronger here. I try to brush those inklings aside; there’s no one here, just a mournful atmosphere making me jump at my own shadow.
We inspect the tumbledown buildings as we walk, searching for one whole enough to shelter inside, but nature has reclaimed the city with a dreadful thoroughness. Lichen infects walls, vines garotte slumped roofs, branches quest through cracked chimneystacks and burst through broken casements like skeletal arms. Shrubbery smothers the wide streets, turning them into frosted wilderness.
It’s a city subdued. A dead place. And the longer I walk its silenced streets, the more hopeless I become.
Peering through cracked windows, I see many things have been left in place, as if their owners planned to step away for only a few minutes. Their belongings lie shrouded under decades of grime, but it’s clear they hoped to return. That they didn’t appreciate the finality of their exile.
But there’s evidence of panicked exodus too. Detritus everywhere. A spinning top lies half-buried in the snow in front of us. Tansy bends to stroke its rotted surface. Her eyes sparkle with tears. Is she thinking of her own children? Other toys lie discarded on doorsteps, reminders of children forced to flee their homes. A skipping rope eaten through by rats and frost; a doll, its face long since bludgeoned by hail and storm. It’s impossible to ignore the human cost of the Sickening. A whole city displaced, forced to leave the place where their families had lived for generations, where children took first steps, and ancestors’ bones were buried. The memory of the garden of neverborns rises like an ill breeze, along with the rows of tiny jars in the Reliquary.
My vision ripples. I dash my sleeve across my face, but the blurring doesn’t clear – like shimmering gauze has been drawn across my eyes, heightening the colours of the rainbow. Similar to the sensations I receive with my visions, but also not. I reach for Orthriel, for the answers only they can give about what’s happening to me, but the door connecting our minds remains shut. I slam against the barrier, the rebuff a physical pain in my gut.
I can’t ask them whether this is a natural development of my Starborn abilities, or something dangerous. Something best avoided and guarded against, like starshine.
We turn a corner into a market square. As we cross it, searching for a place to shelter, the world tilts. The ruined buildings encircling us melt away, replaced by others. And I’m walking through Talini as it must have been in its prime, or might be again, with the Sickening revoked, and the city rebuilt.
Lusty calls of market traders; peals of bright laughter; the sweet yeast of freshly-baked bread and warm spice of mulled honeywine; streets and buildings whole again, their silver facades star-bright, pristine; nature tamed into submission, topiary trees ornamenting the architecture, not consuming it.
The gauze in front of my eyes thins. The vision fades, and I’m back in the ruins, my head swimming, my heart thumping, my breaths frayed as that mouldering skipping rope.
Am I hallucinating? Perhaps I did sustain a head injury during the avalanche, after all?
I steady myself against a moss-crusted wall, suck slow gulps of tainted air deep into my lungs.
Blayze strides over, Serafine at his shoulder. ‘Something wrong?’ He’s staring at me again, concern etched on his gaunt features.
I shake my head, stare down at my snow-damp boots. ‘It’s nothing.’
I don’t want to discuss what’s happened, especially not with him. I don’t need him thinking me an even bigger freak than he does already… or worse, deciding I’ve lost my mind entirely.
Blayze is silent for a long moment, but his eyes are on me, restless and searching. ‘You don’t seem yourself, Sparkles.’
I snap my head up and meet his probing gaze. ‘Worry about finding us somewhere dry to sleep tonight.’
‘Us?’ His eyebrows shoot up in mock surprise.
Insufferable. ‘Oh, just go and help them look.’
I follow a short distance behind the others as we continue our search. The cragstalkers slink behind me, protecting our back. I don’t hear, or see, anything out of the ordinary again, though the feeling of being watched persists. As does the giddiness and that strange smoke-spiced scent.
The domed turrets of the Silver Palace stand only a short distance ahead of us now. The snow-dusted castle looks like it’s been cut from freshly starched lace, all delicate fretwork and scrolling cornices. Most of its windows are broken, dead-vine devours the tarnished façade, but some of the inner apartments might be intact.
In front of the palace, the crumbling lines of a marble fountain depict the Wishing Star, anthropomorphised into a beautiful young woman, flailing through the air with a dancer’s grace, trailing stardust in her wake. To the left of this monument, the Starshrine’s central spire rises – one of seven that make up the Seer Star, the mark branded on my own wrist, in which image the Starshrine was created when it was remodelled in the Lustrous Age after Noelani’s Blood Bond refortified the realm.
It’s hidden behind tall walls and even taller brambles. I can’t see the star-path or the rest of the shrine from this distance, but even the sight of that lone spire sends shivers up my spine. Something pulls in my chest, and I want to run to it, to discover its secrets, but my head is swimming, my limbs heavy.
My pilgrimage will have to wait till after I’ve slept.
The gates to the Silver Palace stand open. We walk through, passing flowerbeds run to seed, and approach an arched wooden door. Astrophel pushes against it. The timber is warped and split. It groans beneath his weight, but holds firm. He rattles the handle.
‘I’ll try and force the lock. Does anyone have—’
Blayze kicks the door before Astrophel can finish his sentence. The hinges moan in protest as it caves in.
‘Stay here. I’ll make sure it’s safe.’ Blayze strides into the palace, leaving the rest of us to survey the scattered shards of wood in silence.
That spiced scent once again fills my nose. What’s going on?
