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“Not something, but someone,” Althea replied, sombre as the atmosphere. “In fact, both of you. Guide him back to us. If you want to fight for him, then do it. Remind Robin what he is going to leave behind if he gives up.”

Fight for who? I was hearing them but couldn’t make sense as to what they spoke about. How could they possibly fight for me? I was dead – gone. If only I could tell them that I was okay, and they could move on. If only I could voice the words aloud, but alas, I couldn’t. Because I was dead. The poison made sure of that.

“Little bird,” Erix pleaded, my nickname echoing in the dark.

“Darling,” came the other voice – Duncan. The lilt of his tone sinking into my bones and etching itself upon them. “Fight the shadows. You are so much stronger than they are, so fucking strong. Come back to us. I’m begging you –we’rebegging you. We need you, and so do the realms.”

I felt a strange shuffling beside me, as if I was physical in matter but just couldn’t see it. What else was the dark hiding?

“Do you hear Duncan?” Erix whispered, and I could almost feel the soft brush of lips against my ear. I imagined his hand running down my head, brushing strands of hair away from damp skin. “Don’t youdareleave us. You will not do that to us, would you Robin?” He took a deep trembling breath in before continuing. “Come on. I know you can hear me. Follow my voice. Come back. Come back… little bird, do you hear me? Come… back…”

Your family needs you.

Bright blue-white light carved apart the dark, brandishing away the grasp of death. It wasn’t that I’d opened my eyes exactly, but the hot, white light seared through me, snatching me out of nothingness, back to a sense of awareness.

“More, Duncan! More.”

“I’ll kill him – this isn’t working.”

“He will die anyway if you don’t try. Do it again, don’t stop until his heart is stronger.”

More hot light speared through me, burning away flesh and blood, vein and sinew. I felt my body arch against it, spine bending as the bolt of life was passed into me, gathering in my bones, sparking dead limbs to life.

When the pause came, I relished in it. The dark returned, creeping in at the corners of the cosmos of stars around me. Every time death believed it would swallow me whole, there was more light – more boiling heat. It filled me. I glowed from the inside out, like a star against the obsidian sky. And yet I knew death was winning. That was why stars glowed, wasn’t it? It is a strange fact to think of, but I could almost hear my dad telling it to me as we lay on our backs in the middle of a cornfield, staring up at the sky.

He pointed to one star amongst many. I found it with ease, because it blazed so bright it was impossible not to see it.

“When a star reaches the end of its life, it burns, in signal to its brothers and sisters.”

“Why?”I heard my young self ask.

“To say goodbye, perhaps. Or maybe the star wishes to use its last moments to light the way for those who will come after him.”

“That’s so sad, father.”

I could almost hear him sigh as another bolt of hot light shot through me, fighting back shadows – banishing death, keeping it at bay.

“We all grieve death, but like that star, do you see how beautiful its final moments are? Even in our final moments, we have a purpose. When we die, our life might end, but for those we leave behind, we gift them a purpose.”

“What’s will be my purpose in life?”

“That is yet to be determined, son. I hope it is a long time until you have to find out.”

I opened my eyes, slowly peeking through one at a time. What greeted me was a dark room, the sounds around me muffled and strange. All I could think about is how terribly my body hurt. Every muscle burned, every bone throbbed and vein stung as though they’d been plucked by something sharp. The pain was close to unbearable, and yet it was fading.

My first instinct was to figure out where I was. The room was small and shadowed by midnight, the walls leaning inwards, the ceiling stout and low. There was something overtly familiar about the smell of the place, but my tired mind could not place it.

But one thing I understood for a fact was I was alive. For a brief moment I had the feeling of relief and amazement.

It was a fleeting feeling, one I didn’t deserve.

It was the terrible taste in my mouth that reminded me of what had happened, the moments that led up to this. It was similar to the taste of rotten meat. The skin inside my cheeks was tender as I ran my tongue over it, aware of the jagged marks left from broken glass.

All this feeling, all this awareness… and not an ounce of kindness to it.

Reality slammed into me, almost knocking out the little wind from my lungs. I felt everything. Not only the ache in my body, and the residual pain housed within my skull – but the bed sheets against my damp skin, the brush of cool wind from the open window in the distance, the press of the mattress beneath me.

Most of all, I caught the gentle snores of two other bodies beside me. I didn’t notice them at first, but as my sensations became mine again, I used the little energy I had and turned to look.