Page 28 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter twenty-one

Selene

B eside me, Esme wraps her hands around the wooden railing. “You should hold on.”

Callan’s dark hair dances as the breeze grows stronger. Wind whistles around my head, tugging tendrils of hair free and whipping them across my cheek as I copy her movements, gripping the cool wood tightly. “He’s going to lift us? Across that void?”

Gods. I can barely breathe at the thought of it, especially after seeing the strain on his face earlier from removing the copper. My eyes travel across the ship, taking in the hundreds of boxes. Each one packed with goods. Even the weight of the ship alone—

“How?” I whisper to Esme. Everyone else is silent, watching Callan as he stands, his head cocked slightly to the side as if he’s listening to music none of us can hear. “How is this possible?”

The maegis it would take to do this—not just once, but to carry us however far the void stretches, until we reach Asteria— I cannot fathom it. Have never heard of such a thing. “I’ve never known maegis to be that strong.”

“Let us hope it’s strong enough.” Esme glances around us. On her other side, Rio shifts closer, his own hand choosing a spot to grip between her arm and body, until they’re almost entwined. “This is the heaviest load he’s ever carried.”

“He’s strong enough,” Rio mutters. But his eyes stay on Callan too, his face tightening. “But he’s been casting since we left Terrosa.”

My mouth dries. “What do you mean?”

“The Guild was hunting you.” Sol’s hissed words a few feet away have my head swiveling. The familiar glare is back, crossed with worry. “They thought we knew something about their murderer. We couldn’t afford to wait, so Callan used maegis to get us out of the harbor faster.”

I don’t understand. Esme reads my confusion, my furrowed brow.

“He’s been delaying the pretium , Selene.

Once Callan stops casting, Caelum’s punishment will hit him and hit hard.

He may not have been able to recover before he needed his maegis again to cross the Sea of Stars, and so he has not dared to stop.

He’s already exhausted. He hasn’t slept since we set sail, pushing the ship to move faster.

He is racing against a clock and has no idea how long before it will stop. ”

A set of boots and a pair of leather pants cost her a memory. And Callan has been casting for days . Will lift an entire ship, with all of us on it.

My breathing staggers, turns choppy as I stare at him. Reassessing what I thought I had learned about Callan Edgeborn. “I thought he was lazy. Lounging in his hammock and watching the rest of us work.”

Esme snorts softly. “He hates every moment of it, I assure you. But he was trying to save his strength, to rest as best he could. The rest of us do what we can to lighten the load.”

And yet he still used his maegis to unbind my wings from the copper that held them, and never mentioned any of it. “What is the pretium for a gerent? What price will he pay? His memories?”

No. Merrick told me. He had said—

Pain.

My gaze pulls to Callan’s back and stays there.

“Worse.” Esme’s whisper is bleak. “For him, it is worse. Every time, he risks it being the last. We won’t know until we get back.”

“He will hold it,” Sol says, his voice tight. “For as long as he can. And if he can make it back, Matthias will fix him up.”

Rio smiles at me across Esme’s head. But it doesn’t reach his eyes. “He’s going to be fine. Stop being dramatic, all of you.”

I look across to where Merrick shifts. He’s seated himself on the floor, Leo between his legs and a thick arm wrapped around the small boy’s body. Leo’s hands grip the leg of his pants tightly, Merrick’s other arm wound around a railing, tethering them.

If we fall, then holding the railing will not help us.

Nothing will help us if Callan’s maegis runs dry.

“This part can be rough.” Esme sighs. “Once we’re in the air, it’ll smooth out.”

My mind drifts as we wait. To that first night, when I assumed the worst of him and boxes had broken and snapped, spilling grains across the floor. Callan’s low, hissed curse.

I wonder if his maegis is influenced by his emotional state. I open my mouth to ask Esme, but the ship tilts beneath my feet. My arm bangs painfully against the railing as it shifts, tipping to the side.

Down on the deck, wooden crates rattle and bang together where they’ve been leashed to the desk with thick rope. And the wind picks up, whistling and stealing away the words that Sol shouts at us.

“ What ?” My own voice raises in a shout, but I can’t hear anything. Volatus jolts again as we’re all thrown back. My wings bang back into the wood, pulling a pained hiss from my lips.

Callan does not move. He shifts with the movement below him, perfectly balanced as though he’s part of the structure around us. And my eyes widen as he lifts his arms.

His maegis—I can feel it. A crackle that snaps in the air, raising the hairs on my arms, on the back of my neck. A swirling storm of almost visible power that sweeps from him in a wave.

The wave crashes over me, over all of us, pinning us back against the railings we’re clutching. The maegis whirls around my body, as if testing, assessing. A heavy, weighted sensation as it searches for somewhere to settle.

I find myself holding my breath.

And then it’s gone, moving on.

The ship groans, creaking, refusing the call. And Callan’s anger only feeds the surging storm of maegis that continues to sweep from him as he roars his frustration.

“We’re too close,” Esme almost screams it, her words fighting with the wail of the wind as we pick up speed, Volatus flying through the ocean toward that void. “Too close to the edge!”

My lips move silently, forming prayers I have not said in a long time. Prayers for hope, and safety. Prayers for safe passage, prayers I didn’t even know I remembered from my childhood.

All the while, Callan does not move. Strong, steady, as he stares out toward the endless night sky that rushes up upon us. I focus on his hands, on the way they do not tremble, and it softens the harsh gasps from my own lungs.

His shouted words filter back to us. “ Steady! ”

I inhale as the void stretches out. From bright, shining sun to endless darkness, a perfect line drawn across the sky.

The world ends here. We’re going to tumble off that edge and fall into never-ending night.

I press my back against the railing, ignoring the burn in my wings, as if I might be able to escape.

But there is no escaping this. And the void grows bigger, swallowing up the bright blue of the afternoon sky. The ship hurtles forward, gaining speed as if something is dragging us forward—

“Three.” Callan’s roar fills the air.

Hala, help us.

“Two.”

Caelum, help him.

Beside me, Esme buries her face in Rio’s chest. Across from us, Leo’s face is pale, his earlier excitement long gone. Sol has his eyes closed, murmuring.

“ One .” Callan almost screams it. “ Brace! ”

Twisting, I stare over the railing. Watching the space where foam and spray and water meets the night sky in an exact line, even as it grows closer with every pounding beat of my heart.

Callan does not slow, or hesitate.

We fly , straight over that line between night and day. Volatus arrows into the Sea of Stars, a sole, small entrant into nothing but a vast sky of starlight.

For a moment, we’re suspended in time. The howling wind dies into stillness, leaving silence behind. The light of the sun vanishes, day turning to night in the space between heartbeats, replaced by the soft glow of moonlight.

And it is… beautiful .

Something cracks inside my chest at the sight.

For there, above my head, are Hala’s moons.

Seven of them, nestled together in a line. Every phase; from waxing crescent to waning, the full, luminous sphere in the center casting gentle light over my face.

Warmth creeps into the broken parts of my heart. For this is familiar to me, in a way nothing has been familiar for so long, not in any of the ten years I spent beneath the blazing single sun of Terrosa.

This, at least—at last—I recognize.

Tears prick at my eyes, the back of my throat beginning to ache.

This world, this Never Sea, this Sea of Stars, whatever they choose to call it… it feels like home.

And it hits me then, in a crash of realization that weakens my knees as I press back against the railings and stare up at the seven phases of Hala’s moons. The phases I once lived my life by, every meal and activity and ceremony planned according to the shifting will of our goddess.

This is not some sort of fever dream. I am no longer trapped behind the walls of the Murenger, numb and broken and chained.

I got out.

And no matter what awaits me on the other side, I am going home.

My breathing shutters, my heart squeezing and turning in my chest. Shifting away from the railing, my iron grip loosening and leaving splinters buried in my palms, I take a step. Another. Behind me, Esme says my name, a question on her lips.

My tears fall without stopping, but I can’t stop looking.

“Selene?”

My eyes lower, still glistening. Callan’s face blurs, wavers and then clears in my line of sight as I blink, moisture spilling down my cheeks.

His eyes—those damned bronze eyes—they blaze . Alight with maegis, with the maegis that will somehow hurt him when we stop. Even his skin seems to glow as he comes to a stop in front of me, as if an inner light is shining through.

He could be Caelum himself. The thought is almost an absent one.

A memory, of the stained-glass pictures that filled the windows of our home.

Of the old stories I listened to from the dark edges of the Asterian town hearth whenever I could.

Stories of the sky god, aglow with power as he travelled across the night sky, chasing the goddess he loved.

Callan could be one of the old stories, one day. If the Travelers survive. If any of us survive to tell the tale of the bronze-eyed Caelumnai who steered a ship into a sky of stars.