Page 24 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter seventeen

Selene

T he heavy footsteps sound intentional, and a shadow blocks the bright, hot noonday sun overhead.

I don’t look up from the basket of knotted ropes, dropped in front of me an hour earlier by a dismissive Solomon with a clipped order to untangle them.

My nails dig into the knot I’ve been attempting to undo for the last few minutes.

Quiet words offer something I can’t determine. “May I sit with you for a moment?”

Slowly, I nod. Merrick eases himself down to the deck floor beside me. I glance over at his small groan, and he offers me a rueful smile. “These knees are not what they used to be, I’m afraid.”

I turn my attention back to the knot, my shoulders tense. A sun-tanned arm tinged with silver hairs reaches for a rope. “There is a knack to these. Here.”

He twists it, showing me. “You slide your nail in here and press down. Pull gently on the other side. Most of the time, it will ease the way, unless it is particularly stubborn. Those need a little more care. But the harder you pull, the tighter the knot will become.”

I attempt it, surprised when the knot unravels in my hands. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” We work in silence for a few minutes. The number of ropes in the wicker basket begin to dwindle. “I wished to apologize to you. For last night.”

I toss aside a rope, adding it to the growing pile on my other side before reaching for another tangled layer.

The sun threatens to burn the back of my neck, and I rub at it before dropping the rope and reaching for my flagon, sucking down a bare mouthful of blissfully cool water. “There is no need.”

“My words hurt you,” Merrick says quietly.

“It was not my intention. And it grieves me, to think that you might believe me uncaring of your loss. Many of your sisters were my friends in years past. And although I was gone from Asteria for many years before the Shift, I held their friendship in the highest regard, Selene. I still do.”

The knot held in my fingers blurs. I blink the liquid from my eyes. “You were not completely inaccurate in your description. It was true that we grew colder. Displays of emotion were frowned upon.”

“But that does not mean they were not felt at all,” Merrick says softly. “Romantic love is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. The rest remained.”

My head bobs in a nod. “Yes.”

He sighs. “My apology remains. I am not the Traveler I used to be. The maegis… it becomes harder to wield the flames, as the years grow longer.”

Curiosity stirs. “Traveler maegis is part of the vis, isn’t it? Elemental. Technically, you wield fire.”

Although they can do nothing else. With the exception of the stories they share, Travelers are closer to inritus than any other Caelumnai.

“That is how it has always been classed for ease. Although I do not have the scarlet eyes, and I do not have to experience the pretium, as the others do. Perhaps Caelum values the stories we Travelers share too much to punish us for them. We’ve discussed many theories over the years.

But who among us can understand the whims of the gods?

Certainly not I.” Merrick tosses down a rope.

I study him. “Is it the same for all who receive the punishment?”

He shakes his head. “Only the peristi, like Esme—those with the violet eyes and the shaping maegis—lose their memories. For the vis like Solomon and Rio, it is something a little easier. They lose their ability to speak. A small amount may cost them a few minutes. Something significant… longer. A week. A month.”

His mouth turns down. “Or forever. I know more than one who pushed too far and paid the price. Many wear copper by choice now, to protect them from overextending themselves. The maegis is instinctive. Easy to cast without thought and pay the consequences later.”

“And the gerent?” The rarest maegis class. “What price do they pay?”

A welcome breeze dusts over my heated skin as he shifts, shading his face from the unyielding sun. “There are very few gerent left. For them, it is harder than any other. It is painful.”

He looks as though he might stand, so I shift my questions. “May I ask about the marks? You don’t wear one. Neither does Callan, or Leo. But Esme, Sol and Rio all have them.”

I glance to where Esme and Rio work side by side. He murmurs something that has her cheeks stretching in a grin, an elbow shoving into his stomach. “What is their purpose? I don’t remember any Caelumnai having them when I was a child.”

He clicks his tongue, his expression considering.

“Petyr introduced it several years ago. A way to manage the military intake. All Caelumnai were required to complete military service once, but our circumstances changed after the Shift. A new approach was needed, and so he developed one. Military service is now completed in tiers, with the lower levels recruited first.”

His words have a dozen questions battling for space in my mouth. “Who is Petyr? Is he the… King?”

I stumble over the word. It feels sacrilegious for one individual to claim so much authority when the Caelumnai once looked to Caelum for their guidance.

Asteria has no monarchy. We worshiped Hala, and looked to the Mother for guidance. To the Maiden, and the Crone.

And yet this Petyr sits on a throne in my home.

“Not at first.” Merrick’s mouth twists. “He inherited the crown on the day of the Shift.”

Slowly, I turn to him. “I don’t understand.”

Merrick eyes me. “How much do you know about the Shift, Selene?”

My brows draw together. “I was there at the beginning, when it started. And I got away that day. I did not see what happened after that.”

He nods. “And you did not hear anything from Terrosa, I suppose.”

I shake my head. Memories tighten my throat. “I was not in a position where I could easily learn news.”

I had always thought it strange, that nobody knew. I had pressed, occasionally, when I was certain that Boralas would not find out and punish my curiosity. But all had said the same thing.

There is no news from Asteria.

Asteria is silent.

Clients shook their heads when I asked, touching the copper talismans they often wore to ward off what they called island witchcraft and refusing to speak of it.

Ten years of silence, until a ship arrived in the harbor made from the wood of Asterian trees and even I heard the whispers that those with the maegis had arrived.

I look over at Merrick’s silence. He’s not moving, his eyes on the floor. His words surprise me. “Was it a good position? Were you safe? Cared for?”

The silence stretches on a moment too long.

“I was fed,” I say at last. “I was warm. There were worse positions to be in.”

He says nothing for at least a minute. “I see.”

His tone suggests that he does see. Merrick swallows.

His ruddy cheeks look a little ashen, but he starts talking again.

“On the day of the Shift, we evacuated Boreas. There was nothing left. Our crops had died, our animals starved and what was left of them eaten. Our home was dying. Had already died, and we had to leave or die with it.”

I sit still. Listening. “We heard rumors, but I had not known Boreas was so uninhabitable.”

He nods. “Every man, woman and child packed up what little they could and left. Thankfully, we had ships. We were ordered to sail at full speed for Asteria, to plead for sanctuary. The military ships left first, to lead the way, and the others followed behind us.”

Sanctuary . A strange word for an invasion, for the spilling of blood, the slaughter of children. “A strange sort of sanctuary.”

Merrick looks grim. “Once we were at sea, we were told that our orders had changed. That Asteria had refused to help, and so we would need to invade, or our families would starve.”

Outrage burns my veins, steals the air from my lungs. “We would never —”

“I know ,” he says abruptly. A warm hand reaches for mine, squeezes.

“I know, Selene. Many of us knew. There were arguments. Heated discussion. Many of us pushed to change course, to make way for Terrosa instead. But many of the soldiers had families behind us, and they only knew what they had been told. That they were fighting for their lives. And our superiors—they were well aware of the plan from the beginning. They whipped up desperate, half-starved men into a frenzy. By the time we landed on the shore, they had named the faeytes as villains. Been told that Hala’s maegis would end us, if we did not act first and harshly.

Those of us who knew better begged and pleaded, but there were so few who had ever traveled to Asteria that our voices were drowned out. ”

Warmth falls across my back, heating the ice that covers me. A different voice echoes, low and deep. “And so the slaughter began.”

The quiet, sorrowful words have me twisting. Callan meets my eyes. “May I join you?”

When I nod, he steps around me, settling opposite Merrick. Ropes abandoned, I push them aside and pull up my knees. “They killed children.”

At my words, Merrick bows his head. “It was a bloodlust. I do not know how else to describe it. Men I had known all my lives, men with children the same age, raised their weapons without thought and cut down anything in their path.”

“And you?” I feel Callan’s gaze on my face, but I don’t look at him. My voice turns sharp and jagged. “What did you do? Did you stand by and watch?”

Merrick’s eyes close. “We did what we could. We warned who we could, tried to get ahead of the wave. I tried —”

His voice cracks, cuts out.

“We went to the temple,” Callan says quietly. “Merrick had friends there. We tried to beat the rest, but we were on the third ship into the harbor. If we had been the first, perhaps we might have had a chance.”

“Too late,” Merrick chokes out. His eyes are wet. “We were too late to save them. Any of them.”

Callan shifts. “We tried to get inside. The gates were… men were already there, and we could see there was no hope. So we went through the gardens.”

I freeze. “The gardens? To the kitchens?”

Merrick’s voice trembles. “There was a door there. We saw—we saw a single faeyte, and she ran. But the door was locked, and we could not get through.”

But it’s not Merrick I’m looking at.

Bronze eyes capture mine. Bright, swirling. Familiar. As if he knows. “How did you escape that day, Selene?”

There is desperation there. Need.

Merrick is lost in memories I remember all too well.

“All those lights,” he whispers. “We couldn’t save a single one.”

I wet my lips. “But you did.”

My hands are shaking. I squeeze my legs tightly as Merrick turns to me. My words, almost silent, somehow sound impossibly loud. “You did.”

I swallow. “There was a girl. In the garden.”

They had looked like creatures, the oddly shaped metal plates covering them entirely. Only their eyes were visible.

Merrick pales further. “You—,”

“It was you,” Callan says. Steady, and quiet, as if he had somehow already known. And those eyes—familiar eyes, they stare at me. Eyes that I saw only once, glinting beneath a metal face.

“Impossible.” Merrick is shaking his head, eyes wide in stunned disbelief. “That’s impossible, Selene. The carnage, the chaos—you could not have escaped that. Impossible—”

“You put your hand on Callan’s arm,” I breathe the words out, barely able to speak at all. “And you said something. And Callan, you told me to go.”

They had stood aside, as I ran past. Had not raised their swords.

I tear my eyes away from him. “You bought me time to run.”

And I ran. Through grief and fear and pain, I ran.

I force out a breath. Both of them stare at me, eyes wide. “What… what happened after that?”

Callan’s throat works, searching for the words and dismissing them. He looks as if he’s not breathing, his eyes still scanning my face as if he’s looking for something. “The Shift.”

I frown. “I thought that was the name for the invasion?”

The air changes, then. Turns darker. As if clouds gather above us, and I glance up to confirm the sun is still shining down.

“You truly don’t know.” Callan sounds stunned. “How could you not know, if you were there?”

“Tell me.” I don’t look away this time. “Tell me all of it.”

“I—”

Neither of us look away at the first shout. Nor the second. When the third comes, Callan twists, a hissed curse escaping him as he curves his hand over his eyes and looks up. “It’s Leo. We’re in sight.”

Merrick scrubs a hand over his face. “Already— Callan . It’s too soon.”

“We needed to move fast,” he says tightly. Looking at me, he nods. “I will explain it all. But you should see this. It is part of the story you seek.”

I listen as Leo shouts again, his words too shrill for me to make out. “What’s he saying?”

“The Never,” Callan says in a grim voice. He holds out his hand. “He’s saying that he can see the Never.”

I’ve never heard of it. “What is the Never?”

I study his hand for a moment before taking it. He pulls me upright, but he doesn’t let go. His fingers tighten on mine.

“A punishment,” he says heavily. “For the lives we took. Turn around, and you will see it for yourself.”

I study his face, my eyes narrowing.

And then I turn.