Page 127 of Born of Starlight
CHAPTER 37:
Awave of relief washed over me after everything grew dark—the pain was gone, it was over.
Yet when I came to, I was somewhere else. It was cold, so very cold. Only the sound of my sloshing footsteps against black puddles surrounded me.
Taking a few more steps forward, I spun on my heels, looking around at the abyss.Nowhere. I was in a giant nowhere. Darkness spanned as far as I could see.
A single blue light formed in the void. It seemed to erratically flit, flicker and wind toward me from an immeasurable distance away. Maybe it would take minutes to reach me, maybe hours.What was time really in death?I existed then in a million moments of never and always.
When the light grew closer, it became a silhouette—almost human but longer and without a consistent form. Instead, it ebbed, seeming to break at the seams. I stood completely still as a caress of energy touched my cheek like a mother might console a crying child.
Golden eyes. So much sorrow in them.
An ache grew at the memory of them.Who had that been? Why were they so sad?Everything blurred together in that dark depth of space and nothingness.
“You have done well, young starling.”
That voice.
That voice guided me before. It guided me here from out there.
Where was out there?
None of it mattered in that depthless space. With grace, the silhouette grew closer, its amorphous head tilted as though assessing me from all angles.
A warlock. A Queen at war. A bargain.It was returning to me in fragments, snapping at my essence.
“Did the bargain work? Are you Death?” My voice sounded unrecognizable, otherly, and beautiful.
“Worry not.”
That didn’t answer my question. Hope beat within me that I’d accomplished what I aimed to do.
What had I been doing?
The warlock. He needed to save them. Who was he saving?
“Hold on, Fenris,” I whispered into the void.
Fenris—why did that name sound so familiar.
“Where are we?”
The blue-ebbing silhouette seemed to stretch its limbs across the vast space around us. It wiped away the inky ground. With every swipe of its limbs, dark clouds cleared the way for a bright midnight sky and stars began to shine all around us.
We were suspended there within it—nothing below, nothing above—just the glow of starlight.
“You are among your own, child. You are here with me.”
Whatever it was, it was very good at providing nonanswers. Another question grew on my tongue.
When I reached out toward its shoulder, I expected to see my arm, but in its place was sparkling blue light. My shock stubbed the question out—my body was not my own.I spun to get a better look at my glowing limbs. The stars rippled around me as though responding to my movement.
“What—” My breath caught with the beauty of it. “What is this? What am I?”
“The Source Origins once walked among mortals, young starling. I will not walk again, but you can.”
Kneeling, I tried to capture stars in my hands. They only rippled away from my touch, but the sensation and the shimmering power in my veins felt like a homecoming. “Are you saying that I am a Source Origin?”
