Page 69 of Blood of the Stars

Sylmar hummed from beside Aeliana, reminding her of their audience. “Kendalyhn, sift through Aeliana’s soul.”

“What?” Aeliana tried dropping Kendalyhn’s arms, but the other woman’s grip tightened, her lips curling into a smile as she closed her eyes.

Cyrus frowned, tugging on Sylmar’s sleeve. “Isn’t there another?—?”

“There’s a darkness,” Kendalyhn murmured. “She carries it with her, holding on to it like a child’s favorite toy.”

Aeliana tried again to pull away, but Kendalyhn held tight. And as Kendalyhn sifted through Aeliana’s soul, it was like it was being laid bare before Aeliana in her mind as well. The darkness Kendalyhn spoke of spread through Aeliana’s soul, painting it as black as the congealed blood her guardians had collected and used at their whim. Tiny winged creatures fed on the edges of her painful past, the image a shockingly perfect portrayal of the depths of pain Aeliana shoved down on a daily basis.

“Block her magic,” Sylmar said, nodding at Aeliana, distracting her and dispelling the awful images still floating in her mind’s eye. “Do you sense the invasion of her energy? If you don’t want to use magic, perhaps subconsciously you’ll at least be willing to use your magic to stop someone else’s.”

The idea rang with truth in Aeliana’s mind, but it didn’t help her know how to make it happen.

“Her past is full of lies, mostly fed to her, believed by her. Her self-loathing is almost…sad.” Kendalyhn’s eyes remained closed. “There’s a sense that her existence is a mistake, something the Stars must regret.” Her voice hitched, and she frowned with uncertainty as she spilled the secrets of Aeliana’s soul. Maybe even she realized it was too much to reveal.

Aeliana closed her eyes, mortified as Sylmar and Cyrus listened in. She forced herself to become aware of the tiny bits of energy surging through her body, how they pumped with her blood and gathered in her heart. How her starlock rested over the well of energy.

Kendalyhn spoke again, but Aeliana didn’t hear her words. She fixated on the starlock as a conduit, as the release of the dam holding in her blood’s power. Heat stirred in her chest, and the starlock burned, but Aeliana kept her eyes shut, concentrating with an intensity brought on by the fear of losing focus before she could gain relief.

As the heat spread, she focused on Kendalyhn’s arms, every place her fingers and hands touched Aeliana’s skin. The touchpoints became targets for the energy. Hope rose in Aeliana with the realization that she could channel her energy, that she could control it, but it was quickly doused by the truth that she wasn’t controlling it. She was simply letting it go.

Too late, she realized the energy she released was too much for the task at hand, too much to simply block magic. Her eyes flew open, and she tried jerking her arms back, but Kendalyhn gripped tighter, her sneer deepening for a breath.

Aeliana’s energy left her body with a palpable rush, searing Kendalyhn’s skin. The other woman’s lips split open in a terrified scream as the force pushed the smaller woman across the clearing, where she barely missed the cookfire before slamming into a nest of broken bamboo shoots.

Kendalyhn slumped to the side, and her body went still.

Shouts erupted throughout the camp and weapons were drawn, everyone’s gazes darting around for the unknown enemy in their midst. Cyrus gasped, leaning back from Aeliana as if more bursts of energy might escape her. She gaped at her uninjured hands, horrified at what they’d done.

Lukai and Velden rushed to Kendalyhn, leaning over to examine her.

Aeliana’s mouth went dry, then flooded with saliva. She turned to retch, stretching across the bedrolls to hit moss instead of blankets, but the moss she’d expected was covered in a thick bed of daisies, which were now covered in her bile. Her hearing dulled and her vision faded, making the chaos that ensued a blur of panicked bodies and muffled shouts.

She’d killed Kendalyhn. She’d known it could happen, and she’d done it anyway.

“Aeliana?” Hands shook her arms, turning her. A cloth wiped her face, and her gaze finally took in Iris, her lips moving, the words like a foreign language.

“What have I done?” Aeliana asked.

“It’s all right, love. You’re fine. Everything will be all right.” She punctuated each word as if that might be the one to finally get through Aeliana’s head.

Aeliana looked beyond Iris, where Lukai lifted Kendalyhn and brought her to the bedrolls. Aeliana scrambled back, watching from a distance as Velden wrapped seaweed around the burns at Kendalyhn’s wrists. Her heart rate slowed. Velden wouldn’t heal wounds on a dead woman.

“She’s alive?” she whispered.

“Of course.” Sylmar’s gravelly voice met her ears.

“Thank the Stars.” Aeliana’s weariness returned.

The flurry of activity around her calmed as quickly as it had begun, people returning to their tasks while glancing back at Kendalyhn, worry in their eyes. Kendalyhn woke with a brief moan, then quieted down as Lukai placed his hands over her arms. Still, her face remained pale, a grimace straining her features.

Jasperus and Holm glanced Aeliana’s way, fear replacing their worry, but Iris continued fawning over her, tying back her hair and putting fresh cool cloths against her burning skin as if she were the one who’d been injured.

“I could have killed her.”

“But you didn’t,” Sylmar said.

Aeliana turned to face him. For the first time, he looked tired instead of irritated.

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