Page 11 of Above (Darkness Reigns #1)

Nova

“Haya isn’t working anymore. Dad is so, so sick. I know it’s selfish, but I don’t think I can let them go. There has to be another way.”

A nother night came and went in my lab, the hours spent relentlessly identifying each property within the haya dose or reading Shadows That Breathe as Death circled around my feet and played with empty vials.

When I would find a moment to slow down, I’d lean over and jot down potential ideas for extracting my own magic.

So far, my best plan was through my blood.

Perhaps I could hone my will and intention enough to separate the two.

But that wasn’t fool proof. After all, we weren’t born with magic, so there was no guarantee that the magic invaded our blood that way.

I’d need to find some sort of medical journal that discussed studies done. Surely someone tried to learn about it.

Stars knew when I fell asleep, but I had been smart enough to charm a paper bird I folded so it would wake me at dawn. Which was what it did then as it relentlessly shoved its beak into my arm and screamed into my ear.

“All right, all right, I’m up you demonic bird!

” I shouted, swatting the air near my ear.

Suddenly the chirping ceased, and I opened my right eye just in time to see Death shredding it with her tiny, razor sharp teeth.

Yellow eyes flicked up, meeting mine, and I couldn’t help but smile. My evil little creature.

“Well, Death, my pretty girl, I have to go for a bit. I’ll make sure Celeste feeds you. Don’t forget that I am your almighty master and your only mother.” With that, I kissed my kitten I had only a week to love on and stood.

I had a shadow ritual to attend.

Receiving shadow magic was far more complicated than the magic one asked for on their twenty-fifth birthday.

Whereas the latter involved simply offering one’s blood into the well of essence within the Ether Cathedral and praying for the gift, the former was much more intense—and secretive.

Very few knew of what the process entailed. Even fewer survived it.

Every quarter century the elite forces held the shadow ritual, which occurred on the first day of the new year. Today.

Any shaytan above the age of fifty was allowed to attend, but few did.

Many saw the shadows as unnecessary, especially with their life on the line.

So many didn’t even bother to learn what they could about it.

As if it didn’t matter at all. I, on the other hand, felt the exact opposite.

Maybe that was the history lover in me though.

The part of me that consumed knowledge like a starved beast.

Which was how I knew that we conquered every world in our solar system long before the formal rituals began. In fact, it was said that shaytan had decimated all nineteen planets in the Leonis Galaxy by that time.

Really, the core families had conquered.

The twenty elite warriors that had been so wicked—so exciting—that the stars gifted them the magic of the shadows in the night.

Those twenty individuals would go on to form the core families.

At the center of them were the Altairs. Not only were they the most wealthy and influential family on Dajahim, but they were also the only bloodline to have ever been gifted the stars’ essence.

Known for his bloodlust, Dorian Altair was the leader of the original twenty elite.

One day, after they demolished yet another world, Dorian was gifted with something far more extraordinary than they had ever seen.

His eyes went from grey to black—flecks of silver twinkling in his irises like the night sky.

And when he summoned the magic of the stars, Dorian Altair was able to siphon magic from entire planets.

A smirk tilted up the left corner of my mouth, my fingers instinctively organizing my mess of a lab as I thought of Iblis Altair, the current General of the shaytan forces and the last holder of the stars.

The first to be so disappointing—so terribly dull—that he had the essence of the stars stripped from him.

They took back what was theirs, and, for the first time in millennia, an Altair stood at the head of the shaytan military without silver in his eyes.

Everything became tumultuous after that. We lived in a perpetual state of unease. Eadi began protesting. King Amori became reclusive and rarely showed his face. Shaytan became more violent.

More than that, the stars had become fair game. And I wanted them.

My mind swirled with it all, the drive to prove that they underestimated me forcing me to cease my nervous cleaning and encouraging me to fly up the stairs so fast I nearly left Death behind.

Darting up the steps, she let hisses slip between her teeth as I willed the door back into existence. She offered me a smack to my ankle, nearly slicing my sock, before practically prancing through the doorway.

I quickly waved my hand behind me as I stepped through. Then I was off to our room, snatching my black training uniform and sliding it on without much care of anything other than not waking Celeste.

In my mind, I tried to go over everything I had learned about the ritual. Of the trial that saw so many die and the echo of the stars’ voices in one’s mind. Then, I pictured the unsettling black mask that each elite was given upon completion of the ritual—of how my curls might look framing it.

Now fully dressed, I considered what to pack. Books, certainly, but which ones? I would need to bring my more important texts. My eyes traced over my small bed and my broken dresser. Nothing really worth taking.

Still, I willed clothes into my pack, my miswak and my powdered eucalyptus for my teeth appearing from the air above and dropping into the black bag as well. Hair ties floated in next, followed by my book of family portraits Celeste had given me for Stars’ Day last year.

What else?

Death’s purrs rumbled against my ankle as she rotated her tiny body around my foot, and that was when I remembered my necklace.

Scrunching my eyes and bringing my fingers up to my collarbones, I focused on the small silver star.

Come to me. Appear upon my neck. Latch and fall against my skin. Come to me.

One of the first things a shaytan learned upon becoming a grunt was that will, intention, and focus were everything when it came to magic.

We didn’t have special phrases or conduits or anything other than our minds, which added to the difficulty of it all.

It meant a stray thought could cause the outcome to change.

It was why we went to the range to practice defensive and offensive magic.

There was far less of a chance we would hurt others in those barren fields.

Below my fingers, I felt cool metal materialize. Peeking down, I saw that the necklace was secured, safe and sound. Perfect. Next I called upon specific books, watching with a smug smile as they all fell into my pack, the charm I had placed on it allowing for them to fit with ease.

“Nova.” Yelping, I whipped around to face the open doorway.

Celeste stood there in one of my old shirts she had made me after I first got gifted magic.

After so many years of washing, the now off-white, oversized shirt read congrat on be ng mag cal , the missing letters honestly summing up how little they thought of that magic these days.

“You scared me,” I rasped out. It was the look on her face though—the utter heartbreak—that had my heart truly racing. I watched as her blinking became more rapid. At her sides, her hands bunched and stretched, fingers fidgeting. “Celeste, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t go,” she blurted. I stared forward, so unsure of what to do, let alone say. For some reason, I hadn’t guessed she would do this. Beg. It was beneath someone as fiery as my sister. Plus, she had known this was coming and not once outright asked me not to do it. “Don’t leave.”

Stars, were those tears in her grey eyes? Perfect. Just what I needed. Disappointing her was not at all what I wanted to do. The biggest reason I was even doing the shadow ritual was because of them. To take care of them. To prevent their deaths.

Were there selfish reasons? Yes, of course. But they were the most important thing to me. Above all else, I just wanted to keep them safe.

“Please don’t do this right now.” It was all I could think to say.

Celeste stepped forward, her chest rising and falling quicker than before.

“Even if you live—which isn’t likely by the way—you will still never be the same.

” A gasp slipped from between my lips, and I knew then what this was really about.

The same as her comments yesterday. “Everything that makes you who you are will be gone. You won’t be the same.

They will poison you, Nova. And when they do, you won’t fit with us anymore. ”

At some point, my sister had stopped seeing me as a part of the family and had begun to look at me as a piece of the problem.

“Last I checked, you didn’t have to fit into a family.

All you needed was to be born into it. What ever happened to unconditional love and all that bullshit the four of us have always promised each other?

Now that I’m different, that means I’m no longer worthy of that love? Is that what you’re saying?”

Pivoting, I snatched my bag and threw it onto my shoulders, my anger simmering—my thoughts festering. What would they do after I left? Would they punish me for leaving? For daring to be even more other? If so, how would they do it? Not write? Skip my graduation? Or worse—not take their haya?

“Stop playing the victim all of the time! You have it better than any of us. You have power and safety, two things we don’t and never will possess!

All that this complex of yours does is prove that when push comes to shove, shaytan will choose themselves over anything and everything else.

The world will always revolve around you!

” The sound of a loud smack forced my head to whip around, my gaze catching on Celeste’s wide eyes as she seemed to plug her mouth with her palms. She couldn’t take back what she said though.

Especially when I knew in my heart that she meant every word. “Nova, I didn’t mean it—”

“You’ve already branded me other. There’s no use in arguing right now,” I whispered, not looking into her eyes.

If I did, I would break. “Just…please make sure you each take your haya. I did two jobs this week so I could stock your supply. There is enough to sustain you all for four months, but I’ll be back in three. Please, Heavens. Please.”

She gave me an imperceptible nod as she wrapped her arms around herself, seeming to shrink back from my words. Without so much as a hug goodbye, I walked around her and headed for the hallway. Dad and Mama would be better off not seeing me leave. No one needed to shed tears today.

Or maybe that was me selfishly not wanting to have to see their disappointed faces and hear their potential pleas.

Maybe if I hadn’t gotten magic then we would have all been happier. Maybe this was why the purists said that of eadi were mistakes. Either way, it didn’t matter anymore. This was our life, and I’d be damned if I gave up on saving them just because they wanted to make me their villain.

I stopped at the counter in the kitchen and tugged a pad of parchment and graphite out of the top left drawer. Sighing, I began jotting down a quick note that I knew Mama would find.

Thank you all for being the best family anyone could ask for. I hope you know that I plan to make you proud.

Love, Nova

P.S. Don’t forget to feed Death. If you don’t have any souls to sacrifice, then she will take tuna.

A sob crawled up my throat, tickling it and threatening to send me into a meltdown. Quickly, I tossed the pen down and made my way to the front door, not stopping to look back as I left behind the only home I had ever known.