Page 1 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter one

Ascension Day

T he girl was not impressed to be woken so abruptly that morning.

Not even to the unusual sound of laughter, and cajoling, and bright rays of sunshine that seared her eyes through lids far too reluctant to open.

She grumbled her displeasure, curling herself back under warm, feathered covers that kept the morning chill far away and trying to lose herself in her dreams again.

Always, the same dreams.

Dreams she never dared share with anyone else. Not even Celeste or Nyx, who barely tried coaxing her out of bed before Nyx lost patience and ripped the covers away. Celeste clapped, then cupped one elegant, tawny hand over her lips, hollering in a way that the girl had seldom heard.

“Up! Get up! It’s Ascension Day!”

“Hush!” Nyx threw her elbow into Celeste’s side. “The Mother will hear you.”

“And we’ll all hear the Mother, if somebody doesn’t get out of bed. We should have been at prayer an hour ago—”

The girl shot out of bed before her next breath, and the others laughed quietly, their amusement somehow lightening the room until the girl felt a smile creep across her own face. The threads of her dreams vanished beneath the here and now.

Because today was, indeed, Ascension Day.

After today, she would finally— finally —be permitted to join the others at Hala’s temple. She would first say her vows in front of her sisters, her family, and then she would climb the thousand winding steps to reach the pinnacle of Asteria and complete the ceremony at the Sanctum.

Alone, at first, before her sisters joined her for those final, sacred, secret rites.

She would emerge in the light of the full moon as a blooded faeyte. A scion of Hala, blessed and—if Hala deemed her worthy— gifted .

Today, she became just like everyone else. No longer a child, tolerated and occasionally amusing in her whimsy, but truly a faeyte . Closer to Hala. Respected, reverent, obedient, and—

“Where in gods-damned Caelum is my robe? It was hanging right here!”

Nyx gasped at her cursing, but Celeste’s smile deepened. There was a sadness in that smile, a heaviness that seemed to disappear as the girl looked at it. Perhaps it had never been there at all. “I took it last night and pressed it. Here.”

The girl breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the moon-touched silk, translucent and gifted to her the week before in preparation for her Ascension.

Silver thread glinted as she snatched it up and darted from her bedroom down toward the bathing chamber, trying to keep her steps at least a little steady and trying not to burst into her usual sprint.

At every turn, she was stopped. Other sisters, each as familiar as the phases of Hala’s moon, smiled and murmured blessings in quiet but genuine pleasure.

It was like a cloak, that pleasure, a warm cloak that wrapped around her as Nyx and Celeste chased her from her room an hour later. Nyx had jammed pins in her hair to braid it back in an intricate but pretty white crown that immediately made her head ache.

The girl ran down the hall, her bare feet slapping against the smooth warm stone. She picked up her skirts to run faster, ignoring Nyx’s hissed protest to be careful.

After today, she would slow down, she promised silently. She would walk with the gentle, patient steps of those who came before her, Hala’s grace inherent in every movement.

Although, she would never smile at another the way her sisters smiled at her today. There would never be another girl sliding on bare, wet feet through the halls, clumsy and loud and apologetic.

Never would she get to act as a guardian to a younger faeyte, the way that Nyx and Celeste had done for her.

She was the last.

The girl shoved those thoughts away, pushed them down and buried them where they could not mar the joy bubbling in her belly at what was to come.

Today was for celebration. Even the atmosphere felt different. The way her sisters looked at her felt different, too.

After today, everything would change.

She had always loved to run down these halls—to skid around corners, testing how far she could swing before falling—and so today, on her last day of youth, she intended to make the most of it.

A small whoop escaped her as she gripped the corner of a wall, swinging around it—

The hands that caught her were pure steel beneath a gentle grip. “Child.”

Oh, Caelum —

“Mother.” Her face flooded with heat as she inclined her head and sunk as low as she could manage. “I’m so very sorry.”

The Mother was not unkind. Nor was she kind, exactly. She was fair, and just, and quiet with a pain that nobody ever spoke about but somehow accounted for as though it were a physical presence, always following at the Mother’s heels.

Perhaps it was simply the weight of bearing so much responsibility. The girl dropped her eyes, and said a silent prayer that she would never have so much on her own shoulders.

Then she said another, for the guilt at her ingratitude. She would be grateful for whatever path Hala chose to place her on. For whatever fate she was to be blessed with today.

But the Mother did not scold or remonstrate with her.

The girl swallowed as gentle fingers lifted her chin. To look at the Mother—or the Maiden, or the Crone—was to challenge Hala. It was almost a physical discomfort. Like the feeling when she missed a step or sat up abruptly in bed, heart thudding as though she had tumbled from a cliff edge.

But the words hummed with a softness that had her tension leeching away. “Look at me, child. It is alright.”

The girl looked. She looked into eyes that bled pure black with the faintest shimmer of light, eyes of starlight and night sky that in that single moment felt unending, as though she was staring into Ellas.

The Mother’s face was surprisingly youthful.

Much closer to Maiden than Crone, with only faint lines etched into her forehead to show the passing of time.

But there was so much sadness, so much grief, in those eyes that she gasped, something pushing her to step away, move away, run —

But a soft hand cupped her cheek. “I am so sorry.”

She blinked, her eyes dropping. Low in her stomach, butterflies swooped and twirled. “It was my fault, Mother. Today —of course, you already know—today is my Ascension. I got carried away…”

She felt those eyes staring at her, examining her, and she wondered what they saw. Her voice trailed off.

“I am sorry.” The repeated words were barely a whisper, but the girl still felt that caress on her cheek as the Mother moved past her.

Her silver cloak, hooded and deep, hid her from view as she stepped away from the girl and slowly walked down the corridor, before lingering in front of a nervous-looking Nyx and an unsmiling Celeste.

The three of them paused, looked at each other. The girl had never seen that look on her sisters’ faces before. Not in all the years they had spent together, sharing a room and a bed and a life.

But then the Mother was gone, and the girl shook away the strange cold that swept over her as her sisters advanced. She eyed Celeste, spying a liquid glimmer on the edges of her eyelids as her sister brushed a hand over her face.

They were not supposed to show such displays. Faeytes were to be peaceful, graceful, serene. A reflection of the goddess who blessed them, who watched over them in quiet pride from her place in the sky alongside her counterpart, Caelum.

The moon goddess did not shout, or scream, or cry. She did not hold her belly to stop the laughter from taking over or shove a dozen sweets into her mouth to see how many she could hold to amuse the children in the town.

Oddities that her sisters had tolerated in her childhood would be treated with more harshness after today. More would be expected of her, as was right. She would not disappoint them.

The girl straightened her back and looked at her sisters. At the tears that they blinked back, and did not allow to fall. At the sadness that rippled over their faces once more, before fading into their usual neutral movement.

For a moment, she wished her Ascension were tomorrow instead.

That she could delay just one more day — one day before she needed to face this next step that suddenly felt so overwhelming that her knees threatened to buckle.

That she could throw her arms around Nyx and Celeste and voice the words that lingered on her lips, words of thanks and gratitude and—

And love.

But that was silly, because faeytes did not love. Hala had stripped the ability from them, had taken it for their own protection after losing her inritus lover, Endymion, to the anger of her sky counterpart, Caelum, when she dared to choose a human over a god.

It was said that her grief had shaken the very foundations of their world. In her fury, she had torn the heart out of her faeytes, who had once loved so fierce and true that others had traveled from every territory to try and capture their attention.

Overnight, everything had changed.

Just as today would change her. But it was the way of things. It was how Hala protected them, kept her family safe, and Caelum be damned, she should be more grateful .

For the hour to come, she would embrace her childish, fanciful emotions. And then she would kiss them farewell and gently set them free.

But she did not enjoy seeing her sisters cry.

“Today is not a day for tears,” she declared, spinning on her heel. “Today is for celebration.”

Her sisters said nothing, only followed as the girl continued her journey. But her steps were not quite as hurried as they had been.

When they reached the main hall, the girl beamed at the garlands that hung between the huge arches, misgivings forgotten beneath the green boughs with white flowers that matched those Nyx had woven into her hair.

She forced her feet to slow, swallowed back the grin that threatened to split her cheeks, and carefully moved into the crowd that stood beneath them.