Page 240 of Starside

A heavy silence falls between us, and I remember those eyes. How those eyes gleamed across the desert. How they did not at all belong to the merciless warrior, to the fearless and fearsome head of the king’s guard.

“None of them were burns, Aris.”

There it is. An answer he deserves, but I’m not willing to give him. I don’t meet his eyes. I stare very intently at the glowing pool in front of me, full of that starlight; then I feel long fingers curling around my jaw, forcing me to look at him.

My chin quivers with defiance. “What do you want me to say?” is what comes out.

“How you walked through fucking flames would be a start,” he says through his teeth, voice shaking with barely leashed fury like he’s working very hard to remain calm.

I try to move, but his grip is like iron.

“Now isn’t the time for secrets. Have we not been through enough?” His voice. It’s changed. He sounds … almost hurt.

My gaze locks on his. I look at him. Really look at him. He has saved me. I have saved him.

I’ve seen his face. He’s seen my markings. My scars. He’s seen me retch, and sob, and scream.

If moments can leave marks, claws on our minds and souls, then we have matching battle scars. No matter what happens after this journey, after these weeks together, if somehow I survive this, if one day, we are strangers, walking through a sea of people, we could share a look and know, know truths of this world that no one else could ever understand.

We have been through endless trials together. If ever I was to tell this secret to anyone, to speak the unspeakable … I would want it to be to someone who has seen me fight harder than I ever have in my life. Someone who has seen me broken and battered and still standing.

Someone who has seen me walk through flames.

“Ever since the day the sky touched me, I have been immune to heat. I could touch warm things. I was drawn to the hearth. I didn’t test it. The markings worried my parents, so I hid them. I didn’t tell anyone about the ability I discovered. I thought … I thought if I ignored it, it would go away, and I could be normal again, and maybe my parents would stop worrying. Then one night, my sister woke me up.” I swallow.

My eyes close. My nightmare. The one I’ve had for years. I’ve never told anyone. Even Stellan. Not this part.

The worst moment of my life. A moment that has swallowed my entire existence. In a way, my soul remained there, in that night. In those flames. My body might be here, but my heart and mind and soul are still there in that pile of ashes.

Warmth against the endless chill. I open my eyes to see Raker’s hand curled around mine. I look up to see his eyes fierce and steady. I’m here, his gaze seems to say. You can tell me unspeakable things. You can tell me things that no one else will understand.

He squeezes, firmly, almost painfully so, and that one movement has a thousand memories trapped within it, of all my toughest moments, as if to remind me of my strength.

My words are not steady, but they are out. “She said there was a fire. She could smell it. We tried to leave our room, but our doors were locked. Our parents were on the other side, trying to get in.” I take a shaking breath and keep going. “They tried everything. We heard … we heard their screams, as the fire swallowed them. They could have lived, if they had left us. But … but they never left. They never stopped trying. It was the last thing they ever did.

“Then—” I choke on a sob. Raker is there, holding my hand, his other steady against my back. I see you too, he said. He sees me now. “The fire overtook the room. We knew it was done. So we held each other. She began to scream. Her hair caught fire first. Then her clothes. Her skin. Her eyes, they got so big. She was burning, burning away right in my arms, but I—”

Tears fall, endless tears, choking tears, forever tears, a bleeding vein that will never stop. An infernal agony.

His voice is rough with understanding. “You did not burn.”

I did not burn. I wish I had. I wish it had been me instead of her, instead of anyone who had become ash.

I shake my head.

The world was fire around me, but I saw her. Through the flames, I saw her. A goddess, with silver-red, sparkling eyes, who then turned her back to us. She set the fire—I knew it like a truth buried in my soul.

Then she was gone.

I held my sister until she was just ash and bone, until there was nothing left to hold, and then I screamed until my voice gave out.

The next day, Stellan found me in the ashes of everything I once loved.

“I died that day, with my family. The only thing that has kept me going is the belief that I will see that goddess again.” My eyes lock into his, and my sobbing calms. My voice does not waver now. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill them all. I’m going to paint the sky with their blood. I’m going to unleash a wrath so great, even the stars will flinch.”

I say it like a promise.

A muscle in Raker’s jaw works. “You’re going to die.”