Page 33 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

But that makes no sense, not for Asteria.

It’s been only a few years. Lines appear in her forehead, as if deep in thought.

She pulls the silk free, reaching for the oil once more and using a small amount to scrunch her curls.

She nods at the wide comb on the bed, and I begin untangling my own knots.

“We thought the same. But the day after the Shift, a sentry found a patch of lichen behind a home in the town, when we were starting to clear up. A blackened patch, where the grass had shriveled and died, leaving only the dark plant behind. And then it started to spread.”

She sucks in a breath, and it sounds wet. “It was the same lichen that swallowed Boreas, that we had tried to run from. It consumes… everything, Selene. Every tree, flower, bush, seed in its path is devoured. It leaves nothing behind.”

The implications of that. Of the Never—

“They’re starving,” I murmur. Finally understanding. The pieces slot into place. “Everyone is trapped on Asteria, and the land is dying. They’re starving.”

And a bronze-eyed captain loads a ship with as much as he can carry, if not more. “Callan is the only person who can get supplies through?”

Esme dashes a hand across her eyes. “Yes. We’ve managed as best we could, until now. The lichen takes everything, but at least it was slow. But there is so little left, Selene. And if we lose Callan…,”

I can’t think on her final words, pushing them away. “What of water?”

My unsteady heart settles when her head shakes.

“The Falls are still there, at least for now. We ration on the ship to keep more space for supplies. There is water, and plenty of it, but there is no food to be had from the land, and the animals are barely surviving without it. Asteria is truly a land of the gods now, Selene. And they are taking it back .”

I can barely breathe. I spent ten years waiting for an opportunity to return home. To see it one more time. And it seems as though the window is closing. “Hala is avenging her faeytes.”

A nod. “That’s what is generally thought.”

Hala heard us. Saw us, that day, when I thought she had abandoned us.

And her punishment was both swift and painfully slow.

They murdered in cold blood, and so their loved ones paid the price.

They stole the land, and so the land they stole is dying around them.

They snuffed out our maegis, Hala’s maegis, and so pay the price for using their own.

And in the end, once all hope is gone, the Caelumnai will die too.

The thoughts swirl inside my head, almost dizzying me with their number as I try to pick them out. One thought pulls free, but I push it down, where I do not have to consider it.

Still, it nudges at my thoughts.

Justice.

Except it does not feel like justice. For some, perhaps. But not for all. Not for the female in front of me who wears her pain so carefully yet still offers empathy for actions not her own.

Swallowing, I shift away, unable to meet Esme’s gaze. “We should go up. The others may wish to use the water.”

A small furrow appears between Esme’s bright eyes. They seem darker now. Shadowed with the knowledge she shared with me. “Sure.”

I shift away from her when we reach the deck.

The rest are spread out, Rio and Sol beside Callan as Rio sets cards down on an upturned barrel.

Leo is spread out on his back beside them, arms out wide as he stares up at the stormy sea that crashes above our heads.

I can hear the roar even from this distance.

A dark body of anger and fury. Callan half-rises, but I turn away.

I do not want to face those eyes right now. Nor test his ability to discern truth from lie, not with the thoughts I wish to keep to myself still lingering. Instead, I approach the hearth, a few feet away from the rest, and the male bent over it.

“May I help you?”

Merrick twists, a look of surprise in his blue eyes before he smiles. He gestures to the bubbling pot placed carefully over the hearth flames, contained within an iron square. “I’m just adding some herbs. But help is always welcome.”

He hands me a bunch. “Best to make use of them while they’re still fresh. Strip the leaves. The stew will need around a half dozen sprigs, and the rest can go into that container.” He points to a ceramic pot.

Lifting the laurus leaves to my nose, I breathe in the pungent, slightly bitter scent. We work in silence for a few minutes, my pounding heart soothed by the repetitive motion of stripping the fragrant leaves from the stems.

“How are you handling all of this?” Merrick pinches herbs between his fingers, sprinkling it into the strew. Stirring it, he glances at me. “Shadow maegis. Quite the sight.”

His gentle tone is an invitation, not a push. I push my tongue into the side of my cheek. “I didn’t know it could be used like that. Like yours.”

Something flickers across his face. “Nor did I. It hasn’t happened before?”

I hesitate again. But I have nobody else to talk to.

And Merrick knew my sisters, or some of them. He knew Erena. It’s close enough, when there is nobody else.

The words spill out. Merrick’s head tilts, the stew left to simmer as he settles back on his stool. My voice shifts to something bitter. “I am useless . I cannot use my own maegis. I am a bystander.”

He studies me before nodding at my hands, still clutching the empty stems. “Why don’t you give it a try? I’m not a faeyte, of course, but I am still a Traveler. Perhaps I can help.”

My heart leaps inside my chest. “Right now?”

Merrick’s smile is half-amused, half-soft. He would make a good teacher, I think. “The first part of learning something new is learning not to be afraid of it. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

His steady words are surprisingly reassuring.

I put the stems down, brushing off my palms before I flex my hands, opening and closing them into fists before holding them out, palm-up.

I jolt when Merrick’s hands cup mine from underneath.

“Breathe,” he says. I look up into his blue eyes. The lines on his face squeeze and flex, and I wonder how old he is. Only fifty winters, perhaps. Maybe a few more. “And concentrate. Empty your mind of other thoughts, Selene. You would have been taught this much, I think.”

I was never very good at it. But I do as he says and close my eyes, as I was taught.

Merrick waits, patient as he holds my wrists steady, letting my hands rest on his. It takes me a few minutes to find the quiet. For my breathing to slip into the old rhythm, my chest rising and falling slower than any natural movement.

“Good. Search for it.” The words are slow, and soft. Not interrupting, but nudging the edges of my mind. “Find your maegis, Selene. Call it to you. It will listen.”

I have been too scared to even try to look since Callan removed the cuff. As if there might be nothing there. As if it might have abandoned me, like everyone else.

But I can’t hide forever.

Taking another, fortifying breath, I search for that elusive place inside my mind, hoping it opens to me. Second sight , my sisters had always called it, the few times that I had persuaded them into answering my incessant questions.

The ability to look within, to see something other than the physical world around us.

But they had never told me exactly what I would see when I found it.

My lips part on a gasp, the images in my mind wavering before they steady once more. “It’s everywhere .”

My maegis… it glows . “I didn’t expect there to be so much of it.”

“How does it look?”

I reach for some, attempting to touch it with phantom hands. My words sound as though they come from far away. “Like ribbons of light. They glow like silver, almost, but illuminated. They’re very bright.”

A pale blue cavern of beautiful, endless light is what I see.

Hundreds of ribbons of maegis stand in my mind’s eye.

They remind me of the rose-colored quartz stalactites and stalagmites that had jutted from the floor and ceiling of the caverns behind the Falls each winter, glittering and ethereal and lethal in their beauty.

This, too, is beautiful. But fear has me stilling, my breathing coming in smaller pants.

Because it feels as though I’m being watched. Judged. Sweat prickles on the back of my neck as I gingerly reach out once more. The silvery, jagged piece I attempt to touch breaks apart like smoke, reforming only when I pull my hand back.

I sense their disapproval. As though I do not belong here, inside my own mind.

Annoyed now, I reach out once more. Merrick told me to call for them. To call, and that they would answer. Erena, many years ago, had told me the same.

Mine. You’re mine.

This time, the maegis does not dissolve. It feels fragile, soft beneath my hands, but it allows me to gather it up, to feel the sensation between my fingers. Wary, but it settles in my hands as if I’m holding a cloud.

I study it. Searching for the right words.

I’m sorry I took so long to find you.

I feel a shift, then. Interest, perhaps. Or curiosity. The maegis in my hands flows away, reshaping further away than its initial position. And no matter how much I try, it will not come to me again.

But it watches. I settle where I am, staring back into the cavern.

Please. I don’t know what to do.

No response.

And yet… both times my maegis has taken physical form, it was pitch-black shadow that poured from my palms. Perhaps my maegis is two sides of the same coin. Metaphysical, and physical. Light and dark.

“You can actually see it?” Something shifts in Merrick’s voice as it reaches me. “That’s interesting. It did not work that way for the others I have met.”

My eyes open at that, the maegis vanishing and replaced by a pair of blue eyes. “It didn’t?”

Merrick’s smile is familiar. It’s the smile of every tutor I have ever had. Of Erena, indulging my endless curiosity. “That does not make it wrong, Selene. Try again.”