SAPPHIRE
I spin in a slow circle,awestruck by the impossible beauty surrounding me.
I don’t know what I expected. Learning that I needed to project myself to a star happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to think about it. But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the sprawling city stretched out before me, its every detail perfect and surreal.
Arranged in circles both big and small, the buildings are crystalline sculptures that rise in elegant, twisting spires, glowing with hues of lavender, gold, and pale blue. And the sparkling pathways connecting the buildings aren’t on the ground. They’re suspended above a starry abyss, shimmering bridges of light that weave gracefully through the city.
At the very heart of it all is the palace.
It’s impossibly grand, rising above everything else, gleaming with a brilliance that defies words. Its spires stretch high into the sky, and its walls radiate silver-white, threaded with veins of liquid gold that pulse softly, as if the entire structure is alive and powered by starlight.
The only thing that outshines the city is what’s above it. Because an entiregalaxyis hovering so low that it takes over the sky, its bright core and surrounding stars casting the city in a soft, otherworldly glow.
I feel so small standing here, on a high balcony of one of the buildings, gazing out at the overwhelming magnificence spread out before me.
“You made it,” someone says from behind me, and when I spin around, I seeherwalking through the doorway.
In my dreams, she was always hazy. I could see an outline of her, but never the details.
Now, I see a woman who embodies the cosmos itself.
Her silvery hair cascades down her back like liquid starlight, tiny gems woven through it like captured fragments of constellations. And she moves with a grace that’s both otherworldly and soothingly commanding, watching me with eyes like distant galaxies, deep and endless, as though they hold the secrets of the universe inside them.
But the most startling part? I’ve seen her before. In the woods, when she placed her hand on my forehead and put me through the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“You’rethe ancient woman?” I ask, and a soft, melodic laugh escapes her lips.
“I prefer to go by my given name—Celeste,” she says with a smile that holds lifetimes of wisdom, pain, and hope. “The star goddess. And I chose you, Sapphire Hayes, to be one of the star touched.”
“One of the what?” I ask, internally chiding myself a second later for sounding so ineloquent in front of agoddess.
“I came to you when you were lost in the woods,” she continues, and I nod, since I’ve already pieced that together. “Or, rather, I astrally projected myself to you. When I touched your forehead, I gifted you with a piece of my magic. And, by doingso, I also freed your air and water magic. Because you will play a pivotal role in defending the mortal and mystical realms from the coming darkness, and you’ll need to draw on as much of your magic as you can to do so.”
Her words settle over me like a storm, too heavy to process all at once.
“The coming darkness?” I finally repeat, even though it’s only one of the many questions I have right now. “What does that mean?”
Celeste’s expression softens. “There are ancient forces at work that seek to upset the balance of the world,” she says. “It all started when a mortal named Ambrogio was cursed by the gods. He was in love with a goddess—my mother, Selene—and she loved him, too. But she also feared him for what the curse made him become. So, she had him banished to one of the deepest layers of the Underworld, where he remained trapped for centuries.”
Wow.
Lesson learned: never fall in love with a god.
“Ambrogio was the first vampire,” I say, recalling what the night fae, Zythara, shared in the cave.
“You know your history.” Celeste smiles proudly.
“Not much of it,” I admit. “Just that Ambrogio’s son turned the queen of the night fae into a vampire, and that the Night Court wants to join his Blood Coven so they can be turned into something called Revenants.”
She nods, her expression grim. “The Revenants will be like nothing the world has ever faced before,” she says. “They won’t only be vampires stronger than all others of their kind—they’ll also retain the powers they held in life. They’ll then be capable of overturning the existing order, to destroy those who have hunted and oppressed vampires for centuries. If they succeed,they’ll shatter the balance of power between the realms, leaving everyone at their mercy and no one to stand against them.”
Well, when you put it like that…
“You expect me to stop Ambrogio from being raised from the Underworld?” I ask, since it sounds like a tall order for someone who only got their magic a few weeks ago.
“Unfortunately, the Blood Coven has already succeeded in raising Ambrogio,” she says. “He was weakened in the process—the resurrection didn’t go as planned—but if the Blood Coven restores him to his full power, he’ll be able to turn them into Revenants.”
“And you expectmeto stop them,” I say flatly.
