Page 3

But now she grieved never having such a devotion that drove her to disobey direct orders. To stop the very world on its axis and demand the gods listen, to defy the good of a people for desires of the heart.

At last, Elarian exhaled through her nose.

“Once.”

The word was so quiet, Elarian could barely tell she spoke it aloud.

“Once, I will spare your son.” She stepped close enough that the mother recoiled beneath her cold presence. “But hear me clearly: if your son’s spared life costs another family theirs, yours is forfeit in his stead. You best pray to Melistra that your love is strong enough to save such a gentle soul.”

“I trust Melistra in her infinite wisdom to guide my heart true,” Aleidna replied in a hushed tone, head tilted toward the moon overhead. “I wish the same for you, Knight-General.”

Elarian sniffed, but did not reply. She waved her hands at her errant Knights, then turned away sharply.

“When next I ask for obedience, you will give it.”

Her fingers tightened around Lucan’s silver portrait until the edges bit into her palm.

“Go home,” Elarian said, voice suddenly weary with the centuries of her life. “And hold your son while he is still yours.”

two

Starshine

Dawn neared by the time Elarian managed to drag herself out of her memories. She sat atop the decaying Moontower she called her home, chin tilted toward the moon now fading on the western horizon. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms as the first gentle rays of morning crept into the Darkening. A heavy sigh escaped her lips, pale eyes the color of pink amaranth blooms misting over with tears.

She hadn’t thought of her mother in over a century.

The next time Reshva recalled her to the Saint’s Blessed Home, she wasn’t sure she would come; not if her ghosts kept waiting in this shadowed land.

When she was a scrawny, underfed orphan wandering from bed to bed, she shuttered every tender emotion away—told herself it was better that way. Questioning who she was, where she came from, or why Melistra stole every moment of happiness only led to a place darker than death; so instead, she became a weapon. It was easy to forge her heartbreak into murderous rage at the world that stole her life before it even began.

But she never stopped missing her parents.

She would never truly forget the way a warm, soft body held her close. How strong hands steadied her toddling body and a man’s voice whispered in her ear, you can do anything, mi’saen.

Gods, why did she still remember this and nothing else?

“Fuck you,” she grumbled at no one in particular.

Wiping her tears away with a brusque jerk of her hand, she rose from the cool tile roof and became the Ashen once more.

Moving as if in a dream, she pricked the tip of her finger with the silver dagger she always kept sheathed along her thigh. The metal bit through her flesh, the thrill of pain sending a wave of shivers down her spine. Her starin flared in reply, skin shimmering like stardust as a dull warmth eased the pain. Glistening in the soft, dewy light, her silvery-black blood slowly coursed down her wrist.

The sight always mesmerized her.

Sometimes, she wept as sorrow overcame her. She would see a reflection of the stars in her blood, as if her body still remembered where it had come from. Other times, she wished to bleed until every wretched memory of her long, accursed life numbed into bliss.

A single drop struck the weathered stones, then another.

Elarian watched the silvery-black liquid gather in shallow grooves carved centuries ago. The faint shimmer of moonlight still resided in the white tiles; for a moment, she thought it looked like liquid starlight.

When she was young and bleeding in the silvery arms of their beloved Tree-Mother, Estarin, the Knight-Saint called her the Blood of the Maiden.

Favored by Melistra.

Proof, she said, that even an orphaned child could be forged into the weapon needed to end the bloodshed.

Elarian never truly believed the blessed Saint’s words as a young woman. She had spent over three hundred years wondering why divine favor felt so much like endless agony. When the blood fevers first started on her fifteenth nameday, she tore at her skin until it bled, screaming for someone—anyone—to ease the pain. Molten lava coursed through her veins, her head aflame until she saw only white.