Page 2 of Bonds of Starfall

Even to one as numb to death as he, Atlas still felt a brief flash of sorrow at the sight.

Not for her dead parents—a Soul Searcher would be in the area soon and collect them to take them back to the Stars… But forher, and the heartbreak this would surely cause.

Could the one he searched for not catch a break? If Atlas had been able to find her sooner, maybe this could have been prevented. Maybe she could have been loved. Safe.

Howls and ear-splitting screeches filled the night air as his boots lightly crunched over broken wood and shattered glass on the floor. At the very end of the hall, a closed door. It was painted purple, the paint chipping around the handle. He huffed, thick emotion tightening his throat as his hand closed around the handle.

Atlas pushed open the door.

His black eyes scoured the room, searching for her.

Quiet.

He held his breath.

There.

The tiniest sound of labored breathing.

He made his steps silent as he rounded the side of her bed, finding a girl splayed on the ground. Death clung to her.

Brown hair pooled on the floor, streaks of blood on the carpet under her. Her frilly white top clung to her in tatters, soaked in scarlet from the red claw marks on her stomach.

Faint lines of blue were threaded under her skin from the Nova in the area.

"No," Atlas breathed.

He knelt beside her, uncaring of the blood that quickly soaked his black pants and the edges of his coat. His hand hovered over her chest, not touching, just feeling. Her pulse was weak. Growing weaker by the second.

She couldn’t die. Not in this life.

Not while they, too, lived.

He growled in frustration, even while her pulse grew lighter.

Faint.

One beat. A pause. Another.

The pauses grew longer.

"No." Atlas felt traitorous tears burn behind his lids. He had not cried in almost a century—the last time had been because of her.

He knew what he would have to do.

"Do not die, Vesperin Vox," Atlas whispered. His palms spanned out, hovering over her chest as he pushed Nova into her heart, forcing the beats to strengthen.

Her heart immediately took to the pure, Celestial-touched Nova—not the corrupted, twisted type that radiated from the Rogues—he was forcing into her. Soft lights of it sparked around them. His lip curled. It had better not attract the attention of the Rogues. He would be safe from them, but not her—not yet.

As he continued to push the pure Nova into her, something strange happened.

The locks of brown hairchanged. From the roots to the tips of the strands, the color shifted from a light brown to a stark white. The blue under her skin pulsed with threads of white, almost the same shade as the small sparks of his Nova permeating the room.

He pushed more Nova into her, sweat beading on his brow.

"Come on," he chanted, "come on."

Then, the corrupted Nova flowing through her veins disappeared, the glow within her leaving her with skin paler than death and hair leached of all color.