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“Why? She’schoosingthis.” Celeste turned my way, pointing at me from across the table. “You are leaving us by choice to join those soulless murderers. You can’t possibly think that they’ll let you live, yet you’re willingly walking into their path. And for what? To fit in with them?”
“To save your lives!” I screamed, standing so quickly my chair toppled. I smacked the wooden table, dishware rattling. Celeste’s eyes went wide, tension leaving her face. “All I have ever wanted was to keep you all alive. This is my chance. I could find a way without haya. Don’t you see that?”
Her eyes fell, hands catching her head as it tipped down. Tears streamed down my face in time with hers, though my body was still while hers was convulsing with her gasping breaths and heaving sobs. Sighing, I walked around Dad, kissing the top of his head before wrapping Celeste in a tight embrace. Mama and Dad watched, their faces grim, as I attempted to console her.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to understand. But I promise that everything is going to be okay. I’m going to work hard and find a way to protect you three. We’re going to be fine.” I ran my hand through her curls, letting my head rest on the crown of hers. She held me back, the two of us embracing for longer than we had in what felt like forever.
“No, we won’t,” she whispered.
Chapter Seven
Nova
“Haya isn’t working anymore. Dad is so, so sick. I know it’s selfish, but I don’t think I can let them go. There has to be another way.”
-From the journal of Nova Tershetta, 9266 AS
Another night came and went in my lab, the hours spent relentlessly identifying each property within the haya dose or readingShadows That Breatheas Death circled around my feet and played with empty vials. When I would find a moment to slow down, I’d lean over and jot down potential ideas for extracting my own magic.
So far, my best plan was through my blood. Perhaps I could hone my will and intention enough to separate the two. But that wasn’t fool proof. After all, we weren’t born with magic, so there was no guarantee that the magic invaded our blood that way. I’d need to find some sort of medical journal that discussed studies done. Surely someone tried to learn about it.
Stars knew when I fell asleep, but I had been smart enough to charm a paper bird I folded so it would wake me at dawn. Which was what it did then as it relentlessly shoved its beak into my arm and screamed into my ear.
“All right, all right, I’m up you demonic bird!” I shouted, swatting the air near my ear. Suddenly the chirping ceased, and I opened my right eye just in time to see Death shredding it with her tiny, razor sharp teeth. Yellow eyes flicked up, meeting mine, and I couldn’t help but smile. My evil little creature.
“Well, Death, my pretty girl, I have to go for a bit. I’ll make sure Celeste feeds you. Don’t forget that I am your almighty master and your only mother.” With that, I kissed my kitten I had only a week to love on and stood.
I had a shadow ritual to attend.
Receiving shadow magic was far more complicated than the magic one asked for on their twenty-fifth birthday. Whereas the latter involved simply offering one’s blood into the well of essence within the Ether Cathedral and praying for the gift, the former was much more intense—and secretive. Very few knew of what the process entailed. Even fewer survived it.
Every quarter century the elite forces held the shadow ritual, which occurred on the first day of the new year. Today.
Any shaytan above the age of fifty was allowed to attend, but few did. Many saw the shadows as unnecessary, especially with their life on the line. So many didn’t even bother to learn what they could about it. As if it didn’t matter at all. I, on the other hand, felt the exact opposite. Maybe that was the history lover in me though. The part of me that consumed knowledge like a starved beast.
Which was how I knew that we conquered every world in our solar system long before the formal rituals began. In fact, it was said that shaytan had decimated all nineteen planets in the Leonis Galaxy by that time.
Really, the core families had conquered. The twenty elite warriors that had been so wicked—so exciting—that the stars gifted them the magic of the shadows in the night. Those twenty individuals would go on to form the core families. At the centerof them were the Altairs. Not only were they the most wealthy and influential family on Dajahim, but they were also the only bloodline to have ever been gifted the stars’ essence.
Known for his bloodlust, Dorian Altair was the leader of the original twenty elite. One day, after they demolished yet another world, Dorian was gifted with something far more extraordinary than they had ever seen. His eyes went from grey to black—flecks of silver twinkling in his irises like the night sky. And when he summoned the magic of the stars, Dorian Altair was able to siphon magic fromentire planets.
A smirk tilted up the left corner of my mouth, my fingers instinctively organizing my mess of a lab as I thought of Iblis Altair, the current General of the shaytan forces and the last holder of the stars. The first to be so disappointing—so terribly dull—that he had the essence of the stars stripped from him. They took back what was theirs, and, for the first time in millennia, an Altair stood at the head of the shaytan military without silver in his eyes.
Everything became tumultuous after that. We lived in a perpetual state of unease. Eadi began protesting. King Amori became reclusive and rarely showed his face. Shaytan became more violent.
More than that, the stars had become fair game. And I wanted them.
My mind swirled with it all, the drive to prove that they underestimated me forcing me to cease my nervous cleaning and encouraging me to fly up the stairs so fast I nearly left Death behind.
Darting up the steps, she let hisses slip between her teeth as I willed the door back into existence. She offered me a smack to my ankle, nearly slicing my sock, before practically prancing through the doorway.
I quickly waved my hand behind me as I stepped through. Then I was off to our room, snatching my black training uniform and sliding it on without much care of anything other than not waking Celeste.
In my mind, I tried to go over everything I had learned about the ritual. Of the trial that saw so many die and the echo of the stars’ voices in one’s mind. Then, I pictured the unsettling black mask that each elite was given upon completion of the ritual—of how my curls might look framing it.
Now fully dressed, I considered what to pack. Books, certainly, but which ones? I would need to bring my more important texts. My eyes traced over my small bed and my broken dresser. Nothing really worth taking.
Still, I willed clothes into my pack, my miswak and my powdered eucalyptus for my teeth appearing from the air above and dropping into the black bag as well. Hair ties floated in next, followed by my book of family portraits Celeste had given me for Stars’ Day last year.
