Page 10 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

“These are our companions, Sarielle and Owyn,” Zara says, making introductions.

Harken introduces us to the others in his party. They tell us how they were attacked from the sky while tracking the missing people. As they share their tale, and I put the pieces together in my mind, it all suddenly makes sense to me. I feel sick to my stomach as the realization hits, but I keep my mouth closed, not wanting to alarm these strangers any more than they already are.

“I don’t know what to do,” Harken says, sorrow laced into his features. “We need to take the fallen back to our village, but that leaves only a couple of us able to track those monsters and find those who have been taken.”

“We’ll find your missing villagers,” I say. “Take care of your people. Tend to the wounded and honor your dead. I’m so sorry this happened.”

Harken sags in visible relief. “We’re grateful for your help.”

Owyn and Zara help heal the wounded with their magic and then we say our farewells, leaving the small group to tend to their fallen comrades. We mount back up and head north once again, the same way the nightmares had flown.

Few words are exchanged between us, a silent understanding hanging in the air, resting in the space between the horses’ hoofbeats, and the sparkling dust in our wake. We now know what has been taking the villagers. And no doubt what took Lilette and the others. We ride hard, pushing the horses to their limit the rest of the day, not stopping for food or rest until nightfall.

When we finally make camp for the night, I stare into the crackling fire that Owyn conjured with his magic.

“Those things were from your realm, weren’t they?” Zara asks, sitting down across from me. “Nightmares, like the big one by the rift.”

I nod. “Yes. But they clearly didn’t come to Eldare the same way.”

“So, then how?” Asher asks in a low growl. He’s standing behind Zara, the flames from the fire casting harsh shadows on his pale skin.

Owyn and I exchange a glance. “Avonia—this must be her doing,” I answer.

“As we told you, she used the darkest of magic to break the spell that Sarielle and Zyren renewed when they wed, a spell that had been in place for two thousand years. She created the rift we came through. There must be other rifts we didn’t know about.”

Zara’s countenance is darker than the shadows around her. “So, there could be monsters flooding into Eldare from multiple holes between worlds?”

I nod. “What’s even more frightening is whether Avonia is aware of these other rifts or not.”

Silence falls for several somber moments, the pop of the wood in the fire the only sound.

“If there’s a rift she can travel through, she won’t need your magic to merge the realms,” Owyn says. “She can simply invade this one.”

In the chaos of everything that’d been going on, and all the challenges stacked before me, I’d been avoiding thinking about Avonia’s ultimate plan—to use me and my magic to merge Valaron with the rest of Aureon once more, so she could invade not just her realm, but all of them. A shiver of dread moves over me.

“We can’t let that happen.” A pulse of power moves off Asher, shivering the flames of the fire.

“I will do everything I can to prevent it,” I say.

“But how do we find the rifts?” Zara asks. “And is it possible there are some beyond Eldare? In other realms of Aureon?”

My gaze passes around the fire. “Once we catch up to the ones from earlier, we can not only free those who were taken, but I can force one of the nightmares to show me where it came into Eldare. They may not want a ruler, but they must obey me.”

As the words come out of my mouth, I suppress a shiver of doubt. Astherius had bonded with me because of my magic. But without my magic, how can I earn the obedience of the others?

“I’m not sure I can track the nightmares,” Asher says with a frown. “Since they’re flying, it’s near impossible to pick up a scent.”

“I can find them. I can sense them when we get close, and tonight in my dreams, I’ll try again to find Lilette.”

“It sounds like we have a plan, then,” Zara says. “At least, as good a one as we can hope for right now.”

We eat a meager meal from the bread and cheese Uitan packed for us, and we hobble the horses and spread out their saddle pads as makeshift beds. Zara and Asher sleep on one side of the fire, and Owyn and I sleep on the other. I’m exhausted, which bodes well for me falling into dreams quickly.

But before I can fall asleep, Owyn nudges me. “What is it?” I sit up and turn to him, meeting his eyes in the moonlight.

Owyn stares at me for several long moments. “It’s possible the nightmares didn’t leave any survivors. Are you prepared for that?”

“No,” I say. “And I’m not going to be. With everything else falling apart around me, the one thing I can hope for is that my best friend is still alive. I have to have something to hope for, Owyn. Otherwise, what’s the point of any of this?”

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