Page 23 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter sixteen

Selene

“ T he Shift.” The words sound like ice, even as they burn my throat like the flames Merrick controls so effortlessly. “That’s what you call it, I believe.”

Another flame appears, blocking my view of Leo and Callan. But there is no maegis in this. This flame weaves and flickers like any other. Merrick’s hands tremble as he sets the flint down. “Yes.”

My wrist is bleeding, my nails bloodied from the scratching. Clamping my hand over it, I get to my feet. “You’re a talented storyteller, Merrick.”

This could have been another hearth.

A life I left behind ten years ago, lingering on the edges of a familiar crowd and listening to stories of lands I would never visit.

I can see Jonas and his family. I can see Leesa, his daughter, in the corner of my eye.

She had been shy, and sweet, one sticky hand gripping my skirt and the other holding a honeyed cake that I had snuck out from the kitchens to give to her.

I can see his son, Emryn, in the childish curves of Leo’s face.

In his wide, excited eyes, in his breathless anticipation for another tale as he pleads for more.

As he pleaded for the Caelumnai to spare his father’s life, for his mother to wake up, even as I ran past like a coward and my feet slid in Ria’s blood.

I can see them all. Like ghosts, lingering in the air around us. As if they’re listening too.

And it hurts. It hurts so much that I need to leave before I allow any of them to see it.

Merrick inclines his head. “Asteria taught me well.”

I should leave. Should —

“My home was not cold.”

The words tear from my throat like tossed knives. Merrick flinches. “Forgive me. I did not intend to suggest such.”

I know he did not. But the fire he lit with his words, deep in my belly, refuses to extinguish. And the ghosts draw closer, until I feel the brush of fingers against mine. “My sisters were not cold .”

“I know.” The words are steady. Merrick looks me in the eyes. “I know that, Selene. They did not deserve what happened to them.”

Erena taught him. She was not cold. She was kind, and soft, and gracious. Forgiving of mistakes and slow to scold.

And that thought hurts too. My next words are closer to a whisper. “We still felt.”

A low sound at my side, and I glance down. Riordan is staring up at me, his face stricken. Esme stares at the ground, not meeting my gaze. My fists curl. “When you invaded my home and cut my sisters down, I assure you that I felt it.”

“All the way from Terrosa?”

The clipped, almost snide words have me whirling. Callan gets to his feet, his words a sharp whip. “Apologize, Solomon. Now .”

Sol lifts his chin. His eyes sweep over me, judging, burning in their assessment as he finds me lacking. “We have all lost people, faeyte .”

I feel that fire. Burning my chest. My throat. The back of my eyes. “If you have lost, then I am sorry for you. But if this is a competition, Solomon, then I lost everyone . Everybody died, and I was left behind.”

Callan’s attention sharpens on me. “You weren’t there.”

I blink. There is wetness on my cheeks, and I press trembling fingers to them. Callan’s eyes sharpen on my wrist. “Yes, I was.”

His face turns ashen. “That’s impossible. None survived.”

Oh, Gods, it hurts. And the pain is so unbearably cold, yet searing. Too much and yet curiously numb. “Perhaps one day, I will tell you a story.”

But not today. Not now, when it feels as though any movement might rip me into pieces, unable to find myself again.

“Tell me now,” Callan says intently. He crosses around the heart to stand before me. “We will listen, Selene.”

I can’t breathe. Not with him staring at me. With all of them staring, with their prejudice, and judgment, and pity. “I do not want your gods-damned pity . Get away from me.”

“There is a difference between pity and empathy.” Esme is standing too. She holds up her hands, eyeing me as if I’m a cornered animal. “Let us help, Selene, if we can.”

Perhaps I am. Cornered, and rabid, and injured. My eyes burn and blur and fill. “I want to go back to the cabin.”

Callan doesn’t move. But beneath me, the ship shifts, caught in a current or a wave. My feet tip. When I stagger, Callan reaches out to steady me. And his fingers wrap around my injured wrist.

The cry rips free of my throat. Callan twists my wrist as though it burns with the fire I can still feel, his gaze dropping even as his touch gentles. “You’re bleeding. Rio, get the kit Matthias packed.”

Esme is asking me questions. Leo ducks between us as Merrick calls for him to give us space. They’re all so much.

Too much. They are too much.

I yank my hand free of Callan’s hold, my words a snarl. “Get your hands off me. I need no help from you.”

“Selene—”

Pushing between them, I take off, passing Riordan on my way back to the cabin. He calls after me, but I don’t turn around.

The anger grows, choking me. Cutting off my air as I stagger down the corridor into Callan’s cabin and push the door closed. Twisting, I sink down to the floor, gasping to try and fill my lungs. My palms ache as if the skin has peeled away, and I glance down at them.

They’re glowing. Dim at first, before growing brighter. The copper against my skin burns. My ankle. My spine.

Too much—

The low flame of the lantern hanging on the wall vanishes.

My head slams back into the door as shadows explode from my palms. They smother my cry, pressing down on me and filling the room with thick, twining ribbons of black, winding and crossing until I can’t see anything but glimpses of the room beyond.

“Stop,” I choke out. “Stop, please —”

They stop. Everything stops. The ribbons stop moving, hovering in front of me as I blink. My eyes slowly travel down.

I know what they are. Or, what they are supposed to be. Hala’s first Gift. The ability to see the fate of those we choose to read, to see their destiny laid out in the shadows.

But there is nobody here, and the scene in front of me makes no sense.

This should not be happening. I glance down, but the copper is still in place.

And yet—

My head spins, spikes of pain driving into the back of my skull as I squeeze my eyes closed and force my body to breathe. In, and out. Again.

And then I open them.

The shadows are still there. I stare at them, trying to see a pattern. A story, like the swirling amber flames Merrick pulled and twisted with his maegis.

But there is nothing that tells a story in front of me. Nothing that suggests a fate has been read. That I’m seeing a future, laid out in front of me with Hala’s blessing.

They’re just ribbons. Ribbons of pitch-black shadow. The only light in the room comes from my illuminated palms, any glow from the lamp buried by the darkness.

Racking my brains, I think back to the lessons Erena tried to instill in me. To Nyx, and Celeste, the familiar dagger sliding into my chest. But there’s nothing.

They never mentioned this. Never told me that the shadows could work like this.

They tell a story , Nyx had told me once. Her nails had scrubbed roughly at my scalp as I clung to the edges of the tub and blinked tears from my eyes. You will know how to wield them when the time comes. Hala will guide you.

But I am alone.

Slowly, I reach my hand to my forehead. It’s been a long time. But my fingers still remember the shape of the crescent moon as I sketch it clumsily.

“Help me,” I whisper into the darkness. “Hala, help me. What does this mean?”

As the last word leaves my lips, the burning in my chest grows to a searing pain that makes me fold over, slamming my hands to my chest.

And when I straighten, gasping, an empty room greets me. My fingers reach out, and I turn my hand over. The light has vanished, only my scratched palms from scrubbing the deck visible.

The banging at the door sends me scrambling away. “Selene. Open the door.”

Air pulses from my lips in short, trembling gasps. “Leave me alone .”

My voice cracks. And the door pushes open. I stare down at the floor, until his boots appear in front of me. My words are tired. “Do you have an issue with your hearing, Edgeborn?”

He kneels. “I have many issues. One of which is that your wrist is raw. What happened?”

My head still pounds. I don’t fight when he reaches for my arm. Callan is surprisingly gentle as he lifts it. “It’s nothing. It will heal.”

His fingers brush over the skin, avoiding the worst parts. “Some of these are older marks, Selene.”

I press my lips together, only unpeeling them when he waits for a response, seconds stretching out in the silence. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Then how do I earn one?” He doesn’t look at my face, his gaze focused on my arm. Keeping my wrist in one large hand, he reaches for the pack at his side, digging through it. “This will help with the sting.”

He balances the small clay pot, unscrewing it and dipping his fingers inside. The pale gray paste cools my stinging skin. “What is that?”

“Some concoction from Matthias. I don’t know, truthfully, but they always seem to work.”

“Matthias?”

“Sol’s partner.” His lips twitch as he glances up, seeing my expression. “I know. Shockingly, there is someone out there who enjoys his company.”

I turn my face away. I don’t want to be amused by him. “I thought he was your friend.”

His fingers tighten, just barely. “He is. My closest, in fact. Solomon is a good male. But he struggles, being away from Matthias. He’s worried about what your arrival in Asteria might mean, when he has someone he loves waiting on the dock for him to return.”

My breathing stutters. “Why did Matthias not come with you?”

Callan’s lips twist. But it’s not a smile. “He was not permitted to leave.”

My brows furrow. I stay silent as he takes a strip of linen and winds it around my wrist with surprising skill, tucking the end carefully into place to create a neat-looking bandage.

His fingers trace the scarring that sits just above. “You were really there that day?”

Salt, and blood, and broken glass. Screaming. The bell. “Yes.”

His throat flexes, shimmering gold in the light. Bronze eyes fix on my face. “Then I am glad you survived. That somebody did.”

When he shifts back, I flip my wrist, grabbing hold of his arm. “There were no others? Not one is left? Nobody will be there?”

Nyx. Celeste. Erena. Mother. Deva. Maiden. Crone. Aylina.

So many faeytes. So many bright lights.

The swirling bronze darkens. “No. I’m sorry, Selene. Truly.”

The familiar rage surges, leaps in the bottom of my stomach. “You killed them all. Were you there that day, Edgeborn? Did you see them?”

He does not look away from my anger. “Yes. I was there.”

I fight for breath. “And the others? Esmeray? Riordan?”

“We were all there, aside from Leo. He has eight winters behind him.” Callan takes a breath of his own, surprisingly unsteady.

“None of us spilled blood that day, Selene. I can promise you that. But all of us were there. Every soul remaining in Asteria was there on the day of the Shift. None but us have left since.”

They came with weapons and rage. Killed my sisters, and left none alive. And now—

“The temple?” I say, so softly that I can’t be sure I spoke at all. “The town? The Sanctum?”

“Still there.” His words rasp. “But it is not the Asteria you knew.”

A home filled with strangers. When I look down, I’m still gripping his arm. My nails are buried deep in his skin, crimson beads welling up, but he makes no complaint. “Then I am truly alone.”

And if there is nobody left, the decision is made. It settles in my chest; a heavy, aching rock.

My feet will step onto the shore of Asteria, one last time. A handful of precious, final moments to feel the familiar warmth beneath my toes once more.

And then I will go to Ellas. I will join my sisters in the sky.

But not before I take every single soul that stole my home and killed my sisters with me.

Hala may have abandoned us that day. Abandoned them .

But I will not.

And these people will not sway me. I am the last, and I will do what needs to be done. I pull my nails back, climbing to my feet. “I need to sleep.”

He follows me. Always, he follows me. I turn my back on him as he reaches out, leaving his hand in mid-air. “We should talk. There are things—the Shift, and Asteria—things that you need to know.”

Information . I’m not foolish enough to refuse it. But my head pulses and aches from the blow it took against the door, although not nearly as much as my heart.

And I cannot look at him. Not when a soft breeze could shatter me into pieces. I understand how Caelum felt when he created Hala. For I, too, am so incredibly tired of being alone. “Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then.” He lingers. I can tell when his eyes are on me, I realize. Can always tell. There is a warmth that vanishes when he turns away. “Can I get you anything?”

“No,” I whisper. I move toward the bed, pulling back the covers.

“Then I’ll be back later.”

To make sure I am not a danger to his people.

My heart squeezes again. “Fine.”

I wait for the air in the room to shift. For the soft sound of the door opening. But instead, that warmth falls across my back again. As if Callan Edgeborn knows that I will be the end of everything he holds dear, even if I don’t want the task.

Do it. End it now. It would be easier—

My lips part on a gasp as warm hands land on my bound wings. The touch is gentle, but my body locks up at the sound of steel sliding free.

I don’t move. Don’t fight. At that moment, I want nothing more than for Callan to take the decision from me. To make it so that I do not have to avenge them. So that I can join them.

Please—

The snick of the thin rope fibers separating fills my ears.

And my wings fall into place, aching and sore, but unbound .

The sigh of sheer relief slips out without my permission.

Callan’s touch lingers a moment longer before he pulls back.

A moment later, I feel a soft brush against my ankle, and a clink as the copper cuff tumbles to the floor.

Energy rushes into the veins, as though a well has been released, a dam inside me broken.

Although the shadows made their way out anyway, and I do not understand why.

I stare at the wall. “Why did you do that?”

He cut me free. If it wasn’t for the copper thread stitched into my wings, I could fly away.

Callan doesn’t answer. And from the cold sweep against my back, I know what I’ll find, but I still turn to look.

He’s gone.