Page 54 of This Shattered Star

“Not where I’m concerned.”

It’s not her fault,I reminded myself, forcing my glare away from her as we resumed our steady pace.

Theia didn’t know any better. She hadn’t grown up being hated just for existing. She had friends. A family that loved her. The gods hadn’t spat on her the moment she was born.

We reached the edge of the first street, sweeping behind a flock of determined vendors ushering nearby shoppers closer to their overflowing wares, ever susceptible to colorful and shiny things. Coins clinked and pockets emptied.

A small orchestra trilled close by. I let its merry tune carry my anger away until I could barely feel it anymore. Now wasn’t the time to feel. I’d been given a once-in-a-lifetime reprieve from the Starlight Trials. And I wasn’t going to ruin it.

Theia followed in my every footstep as we crept in and out of alleyways, shadows enveloping us in cloaks woven by the night sky itself. I’d almost missed them.

They shielded us while we skirted past the thickest parts of the markets, narrowly avoiding too many intoxicated couples seeking privacy in the otherwise most un-private parts of the kingdom to exist.

But that was the essence of the markets. Enthralling. Captivating. Seductive. It rendered the dancing colors above our heads into an almost hypnotizing thing. So much that many lanterns in the streets were colored similarly—like the night sky could be brought down to those who wanted to dance with it.

It made perfect sense that just beyond the markets waited a pocketed neighborhood of abandoned, decrepit buildings no one bothered to repair and make their home. How fortunate, indeed,when people could occupy them for as long as they wished,dowhatever they wished without any watchful eyes of the law.

But it was just as dangerous as it was fortunate. A double-edged sword.

I brushed my disappointment away as we passed the area where I’d last seen the woman and her flowers. Another stood in her place, aweing a group of children with birds made purely of water. She lifted them high above her head, enough that each bird became one with colors and sparkling stars in the sky behind them.

If she’d been there, I might’ve risked everything to see her perform one last time.

Our path wound behind the library Diana hated so vehemently. The one I enjoyed so fiercely. I’d walked down these cobblestones so frequently it was a wonder my footprints weren’t etched into them.

“Not long now,” I whispered over my shoulder to Theia, who smartly hadn’t uttered a word since the clearing. She lagged a few feet behind, but I couldn’t blame her. The markets were far too easy to lose oneself in. Nothing was ever the same, the wares and music and food everchanging. It was why I enjoyed coming so frequently.

Her gaze was latched onto a jeweler’s stall that glistened almost as brightly as the stars, with various gems displayed meticulously before its vendor. Each one of the woman’s fingers were decorated from knuckle to knuckle with rings of ruby and sapphire, along with a peridot that must have weighted at least several pounds.

Gem-making was extremely difficult. Only a handful of people with earth as their main element could master the craft of conjuring raw gems with magic. It was why five hulking guards stood at attention beside the woman’s stall, weapons at the ready.

Rustling from ahead had me stopping immediately, throwing an arm out as signal for Theia to do the same.

A woman turned to peer at us skeptically from where she’d been heaving a bag almost as tall as herself into a wide bin. Ruined books, by the stray papers that floated to her feet. I knew there were drained teabags in there, too. The stars knew how many cups I’d drained in the building we stood behind.

“Kassandre,” I said carefully. The library’s headmistress. I’d forgotten she usually took the spoils out at this hour.Fool. Empty-headed fool.I’d only watched her do so almost every stars-damned night.

“Eloise,” she countered, her tone as clipped and curt as ever. Albeit a very direct, no-nonsense woman, she was never unkind. Well-respected despite her young age. She had to be, if she was to run the largest library in Aedreath. She studied me—my competitor’s clothing. Then Theia’s. Her dark curls were slicked into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, reading glasses perched atop her head like a crown. Dust prints smeared along her moss-hued skirts.

There were thousands upon thousands of books under her care, in a library almost half the size of the castle. It was only natural that some of them rested on long-abandoned shelves, where light itself could not reach. And people only ventured so far into the dark before veering back with their tail between their legs.

She must have been clearing out those ridden by mothballs. A task I did not envy, but crumbling pages sounded far more appealing than another trial.

“I can take care of her,” Theia whispered to me, but I shook my head firmly.

Kassandre and I were not friends. Nor did we even like each other. But she provided me a safe haven from Diana—from the kingdom. She hadn’t been afraid oftarnishingher libraryby allowing me to spend my time there. She permitted my occupying of a small corner, sometimes it being just the two of us in the late hours of the night, with my quiet tea-drinking and her shuffling of endless documents.

I couldn’t recall a time where we’d shared more than a handful of words. But I did remember the way Darion begged for what plagued his mind to stop. I couldn’t stomach the idea of Kassandre begging the same way.

“Please,” I requested in a hushed tone, “let this remain between us.” She knew just as well as most how competitors were forbidden from leaving the castle during the Starlight Trials. And how it was punishable by death.

Seconds dragged on, feeling more like hours than a handful of moments. The hustle of the night markets was muted by impenetrable stone. With only a few steps, she could run inside, and warn anyone in her path of who she’d seen.

Kassandre glanced at my leg. Myhealedleg. “You acted bravely during Strength.”

“I did what I had to.”

A wistful smile twisted her lips. Perhaps the first one she’d sported in my presence since meeting her, years ago. “Indeed.”